TEACHERS’ IMAGES OF THE IDEAL STUDENT AS A MARKER FOR SCHOOL CULTURE AND ITS ROLE IN SCHOOL ALIENATION DURING THE TRANSITION FROM PRIMARY TO SECONDARY EDUCATION IN LUXEMBOURG

Particularly in highly stratified educational systems, the transition from primary to secondary school involves a substantial alteration of school culture as students leave their familiar environment of primary school and encounter a fundamentally different, initially strange school context. The transition to a new secondary school culture is presumably one cause of students’ increasing school alienation as the students face specific expectations from their secondary teachers. The main aim of this paper is to shed light on the association between the change in school culture represented by the teachers’ image of the ideal student and school alienation in the educational context of Luxembourg. The methodolog y follows a qualitative approach: in-depth interviews and group discussions with teachers from primary and secondary schools were analysed applying a qualitative reconstructive approach. The results confirmed the importance of the transition for students’ educational trajectories and indicated its challenges concerning the changes in demands and values students are expected to meet. Various risk and protective factors concerning the development of school alienation over the course of the transition were identified according to the specific demands of a single school’s cultures.


Introduction
Recent research has revealed a fundamental change in students' attitudes towards school during their educational trajectories, expressed as a decrease in their commitment to and bonding with school. Whereas primary school students are highly attached to school and engaged in learning (Hascher, Hagenauer, & Schaffer, 2011), the transition to secondary school has been identified as crucial as research indicates that students lose their enjoyment of and interest in learning at secondary school (Archambault, Janosz, Fallu, & Pagani, 2009;Çağlar, 2013;Gottfried, Fleming, & Gottfried, 2001;OECD, 2004;Wigfield, Byrnes, & Eccles, 2006). Consequently, gaining further knowledge about how the transition to secondary school affects students is of particular relevance.
This decrease in positive emotions and motivation can be understood as an indicator of school alienation in terms of increasing negative attitudes towards the social and academic domains of schooling (Hascher & Hadjar, 2018). School alienation may cause serious educational problems as alienated students neither feel the need for education nor understand the purpose of learning (Newmann, Wehlage, & Lamborn, 1992), leading to negative consequences such as a lack of participation in the classroom, school deviance, and school failure (Frey, Ruchkin, Martin, & Schwab-Stone, 2009;Hascher & Hadjar, 2018). That is why it appears to be particularly meaningful to study the development of alienation and to prevent children's and adolescents' detachment from school.
The starting point of our research is the assumptions that educational and social demands are crucial aspects of school culture and that these aspects are negotiated in the classroom setting between teachers and students (Helsper, 2008). During the transition into secondary school in stratified educational systems such as the one in Luxembourg, students leave their familiar educational environment and encounter a fundamentally different, initially unfamiliar school context (Pratt & George, 2005). This substantial change requires students to adapt as they have to deal with new demands concerning orientations, competences, and behavior stipulated by the new school culture.

Theoretical concepts
The transition from primary to secondary education Over their educational trajectories, students have to master several transitions. This is specifically true for highly stratified school systems such as those in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Luxembourg. According to the social psychology perspective of Welzer (1993), the transition from primary to secondary education can be defined as a social process and as a densified and accelerated phase during the students' educational career and life course. Transition processes involve changes to the self within existing social relations because students move from a school type where nearly all students are integrated into a selective school that allocates students on the basis of their former academic achievement. During the transition process from primary to secondary education, students more often face diffuse sets of expectations from their schools, teachers, and classmates rather than structured patterns that could help them adapt to new situations. This may be a major cause of the increasing negative attitudes towards school in terms of school alienation. The transition from primary school to a secondary school track is not an isolated process because it happens in parallel with other transition processes, such as the transition from childhood to adolescence. Our idea that the transition from primary to secondary school can be defined as a transition from a primary school culture to a distinct school culture at a secondary school is based on the findings that stratified school systems expect students to adapt to the different schools and tracks (academic versus lowaspiration) they have been selected for (Helsper, 2008;Kramer, Helsper, Thiersch, & Ziems, 2013).
The theory of school culture: Understanding the interconnection between educational demands and everyday practices in the classroom Educational research has identified the transition to secondary school as a crucial point in students' educational trajectories. Helsper's theory of school culture provides a useful account of what happens when students enter secondary education and how this might affect them: when students move into a new school culture comprising new values and demands, the constellations of cultural fit are challenged.
According to the theory of school culture, the culture of a single school emerges from the interplay between the attitudes and needs of the pedagogical staff and students and is interconnected with educational guidelines and aims (Helsper, 2008, pp. 66-67). Equally, a school culture is reproduced through this interplay and negotiation of teachers' and students' individual attitudes and needs within the universal framing of schooling. In terms of symbolic order, a school culture involves organizational, pedagogical, and learningrelated aspects which interact with one another (Helsper, 2008, p. 65). This paper focuses on learning-related aspects as it is interested in individual schools' specific conceptions concerning the ideal student, revealing expectations of desirable attitudes, competences, and behaviour at school (Helsper, Hummrich, & Kramer, 2014, p. 315).
School culture affects the classroom setting by producing legitimate, marginalized, and taboo cultural expressions, practices, and habitual attitudes. Teachers as central agents mediate the demands of school by articulating social and academic demands in the classroom. Nevertheless, their practices are not completely directed by the norms and values of school but rather maintain an individual scope of action (Helsper, 2018).
A specific school culture offers different opportunities for recognition (e.g., informal and formal praise, school grades), depending on the fit between students' attitudes and behaviour solidified in the students' habitus and the culture of the specific school. The composition of individual students' habitus enables acceptance or rejection of the demands and values of a school culture (Kramer, Thiersch, & Ziems, 2015, p. 213). These constellations of successful and antagonistic fit affect students' attitudes towards school. According to the theory of school culture, an antagonistic fit can lead to school alienation, which is accompanied by resignation or oppositional behaviour at school (Kramer & Helsper, 2011, pp. 119-120), eventually endangering students' educational success. Furthermore, school cultures contribute to the reproduction of educational inequalities as they are geared to the educational needs of the middle and upper class (Kramer et al., 2015, p. 212). There is evidence that closeness to or distance from a school's demands and values is interconnected with a student's social origin (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1971, pp. 39-40).
The role of teachers in the classroom As described above, in the theory of school culture the teachers' role in the process of adapting to secondary school is understood as an integral part of school culture itself (Helsper, 2018). Teachers are central agents in a specific school culture as their practices and demands frame the classroom setting and therefore the students' experiences at school. The interactions between children and their teachers have been found to contribute significantly to students' academic, social, and emotional development (Tseng & Seidman, 2007). As regards classroom interactions between teachers and students, three key aspects can be distinguished: emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support (Luckner & Pianta, 2011). This highlights teachers' comprehensive role in the classroom. As mentors and instructors, teachers influence children's behaviour through feedback and support and facilitate peer experiences in the classroom. Furthermore, teachers act as significant others by caring about their students (Brophy, 1981) and serving as providers of social support. Therefore, it can be assumed that teachers and their expectations regarding their students play a crucial role in the process of students adapting to the transition from primary to secondary education and might also affect students' school alienation.

The concept of school alienation
Recently, Hascher and Hadjar (2018) developed a multi-domain concept of school alienation that is useful for the theorization of students' attitudes in the present study. School alienation is defined as a specific set of negative attitudes towards the social and academic domains of schooling-learning, teachers, and classmates-including cognitive and affective elements. School alienation comprises relationships with (a) teachers and (b) classmates as the social dimension and attitudes towards (c) learning processes and learning outcomes as the academic dimension. Individuals can be alienated in regard to one, two, or all three domains (Brown, Higgings, & Paulsen, 2003;Hascher & Hadjar, 2018;Mau, 1992). Alienation functions as a frame of action (Wikström & Sampson, 2003), and so negative behaviours, such as disruptive behaviour, school failure, and school opposition, are considered to be consequences of alienation.
The process character of school alienation is of great importance as negative attitudes develop over time in terms of a state and can manifest into a disposition. Students' attitudes towards school and learning can be affected by their individual development, e.g., during adolescence. Equally, school transitions can contribute to the development of school alienation if the new educational environment triggers a student's negative attitudes towards school.
Since various research has highlighted the importance of the school setting for students' relationships with school (Beljan, 2017;Mann, 2005;Sidorkin, 2004), it will be useful to shed light on combining the concepts of school culture and school alienation. We argue that school alienation develops or intensifies through a misfit between the demands of school cultures and students' preconditions. This misfit can arise if students do not have the ability or willingness to adopt and acknowledge school structures and requirements. If schools fail to recognize students' individual dispositions and reject what students have to offer (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1971), a misfit is also likely to emerge.

State of research
In the following, previous empirical findings regarding the issues under consideration are summarized.
Pressure on the individual to adjust after the transition from primary to secondary education and school alienation. A number of studies on school culture have examined the ways in which the transition challenges the cultural fit between students and school. These studies show that students' experiences during the transition are strongly affected by the interplay between their individual dispositions and the demands of the school culture at secondary school (Helsper, Kramer, Thiersch, & Ziems, 2010, p. 146;Köhler & Thiersch, 2013;Kramer, 2013). These constellations determine the extent to which students' individual dispositions are challenged by new demands and values and how students experience pressure to transform. The best chance of continued cultural fit during the transition exists when the experiences at the new school allow for continuity in the students' habitus that has previously developed. However, pressure to transform arises if students experience a huge gap between their dispositions and the school demands. If this adaptation is unsuccessful, alienation is likely to occur.
How school culture comes into play regarding school alienation. Helsper et al. (2010, p. 146) focused on the chances and risks of students' transition experiences in their concept of constellations of cultural fit because pressure to transform can lead to productive development as well as severe crisis (Helsper et al., 2010, p. 148). They found varying challenges for cultural fit and different modes of coping, depending on different student orientations. While students with strong educational excellence orientations in particular experience problems of cultural fit in terms of recognition at exclusive schools different to their habitus, students with moderate educational orientations experience conflicts in balancing school demands and peer orientation, resulting, in some cases, in tension between conformity to school rules and demands and oppositional peer group orientations. For students already to some extent alienated from education and school, peer relations are the central aspect of bonding with school, which means that the learning-related aspects of the school context are marginalized (Helsper et al. 2010, pp. 132-144). Kramer (2013) has shown that transformation processes for an individual's habitus are necessary if there is a significant difference between a student's habitus and the school's demands. The transformation of a student's habitus can be located on a continuum ranging from continuity to strong change (Kramer, 2013, pp. 26-29). The extent to which transformation occurs depends on the student's strategies for coping with this crisis of cultural fit (Kramer, 2013, pp. 20-21). While continuity of cultural fit requires dynamic reproduction in order to cope with tensions between the student's dispositions and the school's demands, change depends on the perceived scope of action. A longitudinal study by Köhler and Thiersch (2013) identified four types of student orientations towards school at secondary school over time. In addition to types enabling the stability of students' orientations or improving their connection with school (Köhler & Thiersch, 2013, pp. 39-40), there was also one type that specifies the change in orientation towards distance from school characterized by negative peer influence. This study also indicated that the transition to secondary school is a long process, going beyond the arrival in the new school, and thus affects and challenges students over a long time (Köhler & Thiersch, 2013, pp. 41-42). Over time, continuity in students' orientations prevails and only small changes occur. While orientations of educational excellence and distance from education show strong continuity over time, the strongest transformations pertain to students with moderate orientations toward school and performance (Köhler & Thiersch, 2013, pp. 37-43).
To sum up, school culture research indicates that students experience the transition to secondary school according to the newly arranged constellations of cultural fit between their individual orientations and the school's demands and values. Against this background, constellations of cultural fit offer different opportunities to connect along with different opportunities for continuation of or change in orientations.
The important role of teachers in the classroom setting and school alienation. Current research shows that strong and supportive interpersonal relationships between teachers and students are fundamental to the development of all students at schools (Hamre & Pianta, 2001). Mahmoudi, Brown, Saribagloo, and Dadashzadeh (2018) also found interpersonal relationships to be relevant to the prevention of school alienation. Findings indicate that interpersonal relations at school based on reciprocal acceptance, respect, support, and trust counteract school alienation. The quality of the teacher−student relationship serves as the most crucial factor in explaining school alienation (Mahmoudi et al., 2018, pp. 129-130).
Furthermore, the organization of school structures and learning processes is identified as a predictor of student attitudes concerning school and learning. Dillon and Grout (1976) found that restricting or granting autonomy to students in the school environment determines how students perceive school. If student autonomy is restricted by teachers and the way to reach a learning goal is extensively predetermined, students often experience powerlessness, meaninglessness, and isolation (Dillon & Grout, 1976, p. 486). Moreover, the exclusion of students from shaping rules and processes at school can lead to alienation as they experience school life as being directed by others. A lack of opportunities for students to participate and a restricted scope of action also result in passivity and dependency in students who are not accustomed to working in a self-directed way and follow their own interests and goals (Deci & Ryan, 2008;Dillon & Grout, 1976). In this development, alienation from learning increases because learning at school becomes meaningless to the students. Additionally, bonding with the school for poor learners and low achievers is challenged when these students cannot fulfil the school's closely defined demands (Dillon & Grout, 1976, p. 484). In contrast, if the school culture offers students scope for autonomous learning, intrinsic motivation to complete tasks and attain learning goals increases and alienation from learning declines (Mahmoudi et al., 2018, p. 129).
To sum up, the results indicate the importance of school cultures and a teacher-student relationship that offers participation and opportunities for autonomous learning. All in all, teachers' roles in the classroom can be understood on the one hand as educators, instructors, socialization agents, and relevant others, and on the other as mediators of superordinated educational requirements. Teachers represent the school culture at the classroom level and call for adjusted behaviour.
The research to date has only weakly addressed organizational, interpersonal, and individual aspects of school cultures contributing to school alienation. More research is needed to enable a better understanding of the role of school culture represented by a school's image of the ideal student with regard to desirable attitudes, values, competences, and behaviour.

Research question
Based on the school culture perspective of Helsper (2008), this paper aims to analyse the role of schools' expectations regarding students in the development of school alienation by raising the following research question: How are teachers' expectations of student attitudes towards school and behaviour at school-as expressions of specific aspects of the school culture-related to the development of school alienation in the context of the transition from primary to secondary education? More specifically, the aims are twofold: First, we seek to gain knowledge about the challenges during the transition from primary to secondary education. As this transition comes along with a change in school culture, including new demands and values, it is of interest how different school cultures understand and foster adaptation. Second, we aim to identify the characteristics of the picture of an ideal student at primary schools and in low-and highachieving secondary school tracks. Images of the schools' ideal student reveal expectations concerning student attitudes towards school and behaviour at school. These expectations are expressions of the specific school culture's demands regarding how students should respond to school. Through this identification, the risk of developing school alienation is assessed by identifying constellations of successful and unsuccessful (antagonistic) fits. This is based on the assumption that the real constellations of cultural fit between student and school culture are variations on the image of the ideal student.
Schools' expectations of student attitudes towards school and behaviour at school are examined from the teachers' perspective in the example of the Luxembourgish educational system. The paper considers the perspectives of primary school teachers and teachers from high-and low-achieving educational tracks with a view to grasping the challenges of the transition from primary to secondary school.

The educational system of Luxembourg
Luxembourg provides a promising context for the study of transitions and school cultures as the education system is highly stratified, with a transition at the age of 12 from (comprehensive) primary schooling to one of several secondary school tracks (including a low-level educational track, vocational tracks, and an academic track leading to a university-entrance certificate). The highly stratified secondary school system is prone to several forms of educational inequalities related to socio-economic status, ethnic origin, and gender (Hadjar, Fischbach, Martin, & Backes, 2015;Hadjar & Uusitalo, 2016). This manifests in an unequal distribution of students with different social origins, ethnic backgrounds, and genders among the secondary school tracks. Therefore, the Luxembourgish educational system is often criticized for not sufficiently considering the needs of its students (Ministère de l'Éducation nationale, de l'Enfance et de la Jeunesse, Universität Luxemburg, 2017). Furthermore, the Luxembourgish context is already facing the future challenges to other European societies with regard to shifts in population, with a large number of immigrants in the society and its education system (Weth, 2015, pp. 22-23).
At the core of the transition to secondary education are the students' secondary-school track placements, which are based on the decision of a committee vis-à-vis performance on final examinations at primary school, known as Épreuves standardisées. While one-third of a cohort attends the academic track (enseignement secondaire; ES) that prepares them for higher education, two-thirds are placed in one of the more vocationally oriented tracks (enseignement secondaire technique; EST). Within the EST, there are tracks with very different aspiration levels. One of these is the low-achieving track called modulaire, which is supposed to enable especially weak students to get back to regular classes (Klapproth, Schaltz, & Glock, 2014). In fact, the modulaire track is ascribed to low or no educational achievement and lowers future occupational chances. The modulaire track is dominated by students from socio-economically disadvantaged families and students with immigrant backgrounds (MENJE & Universität Luxemburg, 2015) and boys are also overrepresented (Hadjar et al., 2015). In the 2013/2014 school year, 12.6% of the cohort were placed in the modulaire track, which has been interpreted as an increasing trend (MENJE & Universität Luxemburg, 2015, p. 23).
A specific feature of Luxembourg is its multilingual society, as expressed in its three official languages (Luxembourgish, French, and German). This is also mirrored in the educational system, with Luxembourgish being the preschool language, German the language of instruction during primary school, and French the language of instruction in some school subjects in certain secondary school tracks. Multilingualism in Luxembourg appears to be the norm rather than an exception.

Research design
Data were collected within the international research project "SASAL -School Alienation in Switzerland and Luxembourg" (2015−2018), which was conducted by the University of Bern and the University of Luxembourg and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Luxembourg National Research Fund. The project had a mixed-methods parallel design and aimed to investigate the development and consequences of school alienation in different educational settings. The present paper is based exclusively on the qualitative data from Luxembourgish teachers' group discussions and interviews, which were analysed with a focus on school demands and images of the ideal student.
Following a strategy of maximum structural variation (Kruse, 2014, p. 246), the sample includes teachers of year-6 students from primary school (before the students' transition) as well as teachers of year-7 students from an academic high-achieving track and a vocational low-achieving track of secondary education (after the transition). The two selected secondary school tracks represent two extreme points in the Luxembourgish secondary school system in regard to student composition and the aspiration levels of teachers, parents, and students. The selection of schools and teachers for the qualitative inquiry was based on rationales concerning the entire aforementioned SASAL project. The project aimed to follow students' educational trajectories in order to investigate potential alterations in their educational orientations during the transition to secondary school. Considerations concerning the qualitative sample initially focused on choosing primary school classrooms with high-and low-achieving students in year 6. The majority of these students were followed into their new secondary school classroom environments. The selection criterion for teachers was linkage to the students, i.e., the teachers were class teachers or supporting teachers. All of the teachers of these students at primary and secondary school were invited to participate in the inquiry. The primary and the secondary schools selected for this study are located in the south of Luxembourg -one of the most important industrial areas of the country, characterized by low social status, a relatively high proportion of immigrants, and a rather small percentage of placements at ES. Teachers from the ES track and the modulaire track work at the same secondary school, which offers different educational tracks. There is one administration for the different tracks at this school, while the low-level modulaire track is spatially separated.
In detail, to analyse the teachers' expectations of student attitudes and behaviour, two teachers from a primary school (spring 2017), two teachers and a social worker from the lowest modulaire secondary track (autumn 2017), and two teachers from the highest ES academic secondary track (autumn 2017) participated in the study. While the primary school teachers and the modulaire teachers at the secondary school were studied in separate group discussions, the teachers in the ES track were studied in individual interviews due to time constraints. As the same guidelines were used for the group discussions and the interviews, comparability of the data was ensured. The individual interview data were triangulated in order to link individual teachers' perspectives of the school culture in the ES track.
Group discussions were employed since we assumed that the teachers at a school constitute a group that to some extent shares experiences and pedagogical orientations such as the characteristics of the school culture. These collective interpretative models were expected to contain hints concerning the school culture of the specific school and so the school's demands. As this research design goes beyond the individual teachers' perspectives, the group discussions provided opportunities to investigate agreement and disagreement among the teachers at a school. This in turn provides evidence regarding the overlying school culture exceeding the individual teaching style. With this approach, this research aimed to reconstruct collective patterns of orientation and latent social structures through the comparative analysis of three cases (Kruse, 2014, p. 244).
Group discussions and interviews with teachers were employed in a semistructured way based on an interview guideline. Questions addressed key points and problematic situations in everyday schooling as well as adaptation processes during the transition, constellations of cultural fit for different student groups, and the characteristics and handling of school alienation. The guideline was developed through a rule-based process (Helfferich, 2011;Kruse, 2014) and a pretest was conducted before the group discussions with the chosen sample. On average, the group discussions and interviews lasted about one hour and were transcribed, anonymized, and smoothed immediately afterwards (Mayring & Fenzl, 2014).
As outlined before, the multilingual context had to be considered. During the inquiry, the main language was German but explanations in other languages were also welcome. In order to preserve the original meaning of the data, the mix of languages was maintained for analysis as long as possible. For interpretative analysis, native speakers were consulted when needed (Kruse, 2014, p. 323).
A qualitative approach-sequential habitus reconstruction (Kramer, 2018)-was applied, providing insights into the logic of specific school cultures. As the focus of this research was the schools' demands and images of the ideal student, which are part of these latent knowledge structures, sequential habitus reconstruction provides opportunities to bring latent knowledge structures to the surface in a rule-based procedure. Those passages of the document that contained information relating to the teachers' image of the ideal student were selected for analysis. These passages were analysed in a chronological way, dividing each into various sequences reflecting the line of argument. As the analysis progressed, sequences and passages were added that supported the interpretations or, in some cases, led to their rejection. These steps were necessary to reconstruct teachers' images of the ideal student in a comprehensible way and to provide evidence for the interpretations. After analysing each case in itself, the cases were compared and contrasted in order to identify typical aspects of the specific school cultures.
The analysis revealed differing demands in the school cultures for the three cases (primary school, the ES academic secondary track, and the modulaire vocational secondary track). The results are presented along the themes that shape the schools' demands of students. These themes include the central aspects of the specific school culture, framing constellations of cultural fit between schools' demands and the students, understood as variations on the image of the ideal student.

Results
The results concern the question of how schools' expectations regarding student attitudes and behaviour at school are related to the development of school alienation at the point of the transition from primary to secondary education. After summarizing the results for each case separately, a comparison across cases is carried out.
Case 1: Primary school Perceptions of the transition to secondary school. The narratives revealed the final exams (Épreuves standardiseés) to be the vital finish line that primary teachers and students were striving for. The relevance of these exams is mirrored in the curriculum of years 5 and 6 as the long preparation phase is characterized by a dense work schedule and intense learning pressure. After the exams, learning becomes almost meaningless as the overall teaching aim has been reached. The teachers criticized the learning practices during the exam preparation as being strongly based on external pressure.
Generally, the primary school teachers perceived the transition to secondary school as a critical juncture after year 6 as it takes place alongside a significant change in school culture. While primary school seemed to be a familiar and clearly arranged setting, secondary school was associated with larger classrooms and much larger schools with the potential to confuse or overstress new year-7 students. As students were expected to acquire new behaviour patterns in order to master adaptation to the secondary school culture, the primary school teachers saw preparing the students academically and socially for this transition as their main task as they perceived the transition as a radical change and severe challenge for the students.
The placement process itself was understood as a negotiation among pedagogical staff, parents, and students regarding the track and school choice. Students were perceived as old enough to express their wishes and it was the parents' task to involve them in the decision.
Ideal student characteristics. Teachers expected students in year 6 to be mature enough to take learning seriously. As regards placement at secondary school in terms of a school track recommendation, students had to recognize the relevance of learning. They should have internalized the need for learning and done it voluntarily. Furthermore, students were expected to be able to cope with academic pressure, which reaches its peak during the Épreuves standardisées, which comprise numerous exams. Students should be able to maintain a balance between their investment in learning and their need for recreation. In class, students ideally focus their attention on the teaching content and avoid detention. Moreover, they should be able to call for help and accept help from their teachers regarding academic understanding. Students were not expected to understand the learning content at the first time of asking as answering questions was seen as an integral element of teaching.
As outlined by the teachers, in everyday school life students need to possess basic social competences enabling them to integrate into a class. This comprises communication skills such as talking and listening to classmates as well as social behaviour in general, expressed in the ability to cooperate and contribute to collective work. In addition, the ability and will to handle conflicts by exercising self-control and communicating problems was also included. The teachers' pedagogical aim was to manage conflicts through communication, requiring students to control their temper, as high levels of anger were seen as subverting conflict management. Furthermore, students ideally trust their teachers and consult them for support in conflicts because they were not expected to be able to be completely self-reliant in resolving their conflicts.
Case 2: Modulaire (the low-achieving track) Perceptions of the transition to secondary school. The transition to the modulaire track comes with challenges and teachers appreciated the students' efforts during the adaptation processes. As primary and secondary school differ clearly regarding their structural arrangements and demands, students have to cope with new everyday practices, including finding their way to school, the more spacious school buildings, the larger number of students, new classmates, and the specific teaching and learning concept of the modulaire track, which requires more self-organization. Moreover, the increased number of teachers and the subject-specific class composition-based on abilityconstitute an unstable learning environment. The transition to secondary school was associated with leaving the caring primary school context and encountering the world of adults as year-7 students start as the youngest students in a school with a large age range.
The placement decision is put to the test in everyday practice in the first weeks of secondary school. Students performing above the modulaire level are redirected to the EST track. Mistaken placements result from the placement procedure not enabling all students to demonstrate their full potential. The teaching practices in the modulaire differ from those in other school tracks as students are particularly well accepted and supported according to their needs, offering them an environment to reveal their potential to a fuller extent after the transition. Additionally, this includes the potential to strengthen their bond with school and learning and to reduce alienation.
Ideal student characteristics. Generally, academic demands in the modulaire track were remarkably low as student competence levels are quite low and there are many social and academic problems. Against this background, teachers accepted the students with their various problems by reducing their academic aspirations to a minimum. The basic expectation was physical presence. In spite of these low aspirations, willingness to learn was a desirable attitude.
Hence, there were numerous student problems concerning the academic and social domains of school alienation. On the behavioural level, problems manifested in disruptive behaviour and low academic achievement. Teachers perceived disturbing behaviour to be a normal part of everyday school life and did not call for it to be completely eradicated as they could handle much of it in the classroom. Nevertheless, disruptive behaviour became a problem when students refused to follow the rules and cooperate.
According to the teachers' narratives brought forward in the group discussion, students should develop social values such as respect and solidarity, advanced communication skills, and the ability to manage conf lict. Furthermore, students have to manage everyday life at school autonomously as they have to get to school on time, which requires self-organization. Openness, flexibility, and adaptability were seen as constitutive elements of life and school. Students were expected to develop self-reflection and the willingness to face their weaknesses and accept help. If students did so, teachers could support them.
Not being used to succeeding, students in the modulaire track struggled to accept praise. Teachers wanted them to learn to deal with positive feedback to overcome their generalized negative behaviour patterns.

Case 3: Enseignement secondaire (high-achieving track)
Perceptions of the transition to secondary school. The teachers in the ES track were convinced that a traditional placement system based on final examinations is the appropriate way to identify which students are eligible for the ES track as it is based on the assessment of academic performance. A clear decision based on the placement procedure is necessary to ensure clarity and finality; this is assessed as being an advantage for all involved parties.
In the course of the transition to the ES track, the French language gains importance as more subjects are taught in this language. This change in instruction language was mentioned as a special challenge and specific characteristic of the Luxembourgish educational system. Although this change is challenging for all students, Luxembourgish students seemed to be particularly negatively affected. This can be attributed to their mother tongue belonging to the West Germanic languages, which are very different from Romance languages such as French, which works as a disadvantage in this case.
Furthermore, the transition to the ES track comprises an alteration of working practices as students were expected to work predominantly in a selfregulated way. As the logic at primary school and in the ES track differs strongly on this point, self-regulated learning was a huge challenge for newly arrived students.
Ideal student characteristics. During year 7 of the academic track, students have to learn to work autonomously. Whereas students at primary school were used to being instructed in detail, in the ES track they have to structure their learning processes in order to succeed. In contrast to attitudes of frustration tolerance and perseverance, which were perceived as prerequisites at the start of year 7 in the ES track, self-regulation can be acquired later after the transition from primary education.
Perseverance and frustration tolerance were necessary attitudes in the ES track, meaning students should be able to stick to tasks, even though things may not work as expected or planned, until they succeed. This came with the expectation that students be aware of their responsibility for their own actions and achievements, calling for dedication and the avoidance of passivity. Nevertheless, students were not expected to manage everyday school life with ease; more importance was placed on their attitudes and strategies for coping with academic and social problems. Dealing constructively with failure and mistakes requires the ability to reflect on learning and working behaviour in order to overcome failure.
Furthermore, the teachers perceived resilience-demonstrated by the ability to cope with problems and unexpected situations-as a competence that students would need in all future life stages. Another important aspect was the ability to cope with stress as it inevitably arises during exams. The ES track was perceived as a highly competitive and performance-focused learning environment as exams and academic pressure are constitutive elements of school life. As every subject has its own specific terminology and logic, students were expected to adopt this knowledge during year 7.
During lessons, attention expressed by focusing on teachers' presentations and active participation were expected. Active dedication and reliability were seen as crucial aspects of self-organization in the classroom preceding smooth procedures and comprehensible papers. Furthermore, comprehensive, self-regulated engagement concerning learning at school and preparation at home was presupposed. As a large part of learning takes place outside school, students have to complete extensive homework assignments and memorize learning content. Learning by heart is a core learning activity: exams test in particular whether a student can reproduce technical terms.
Beyond these demands, students ideally maintain enjoyment in their learning, which is expressed as voluntary engagement in academic tasks and represents intrinsic motivation and closeness to academic activities. However, the teachers were aware of the potential negative impact of intense academic pressure, which can lead to low learning enjoyment and a reduced willingness to engage in such activities. This also reveals the risk of alienation from learning evoked by intense academic pressure.

Comparison of the cases
Perceptions of the transition to secondary school. The narrated perspectives on the transition and adaptation process comprise similarities and substantial differences among primary and secondary school cultures and school tracks. It became obvious that all participating teachers framed the transition process as a challenge for students. They emphasized similar differences between primary and secondary school concerning the spatial size of the school, the number of students and teachers, teacher-student relationships, and the increasing need to manage everyday school life. These differences require adaptation subsequent to the transition. With regard to the ES and modulaire tracks, track-specific demands and logics became apparent. While the ES track clearly focused on academic performance and competition for grades and expected students to adapt to high academic demands, in the modulaire track student needs and well-being were the main issues. This means that adaptation to the ES track strongly involved the development and internalization of academic competences as well as comprehensive self-regulated working and learning strategies. A special topic that was exclusively discussed by the ES teachers relates to the change of instruction language from German to French, starting in year 7, which was perceived as a different challenge for specific student groups according to their language background.
Furthermore, the teachers evaluated the placement procedures very differently. Primary school teachers and teachers in the ES secondary track perceived the competitive structure of school focusing on final exams as adequate for selecting the appropriate track. Modulaire teachers pointed to the misplacement of students into inadequate secondary school tracks and improper selection decisions related to the problem that low-achieving students in particular were not able to fulfil their potential in this setting.
As entering secondary education implies new classroom compositions, all students initially may have to cope with alienation from classmates until they become familiar with one another and build a cohesive classroom. For the examined school cultures, specific risks for the development of school alienation became apparent. Whereas in the ES track there was a great risk of alienation from learning caused by high academic performance standards and intense pressure, the less demanding practices in the modulaire track potentially reduced present alienation from teachers and learning. Based on the teachers' focus on student needs and the mitigation of academic pressure, it enables students to extend or rebuild their bonding with school. Similarly to the ES track, during the last two years of primary school the risk of alienation from learning increases since academic pressure grows while exams become more important (facing the secondary school track placement).
Ideal student characteristics. The comparison of ideal student characteristics among the examined school cultures also reveals similarities and differences. Teacher expectations regarding student attitudes at primary school and in the academic ES track were quite similar, with both groups focusing on academic learning, including demands to take learning seriously and highlighting the ability to cope with academic pressure.
In contrasting schools' expectations, a continuum concerning the need for self-reliance appeared. From the teachers' perspective, the ES track was seen as holding the top position, with high self-reliance. Primary school (the middle position) offered support but expectations to increase self-reliance. At the bottom end, the modulaire secondary track was characterized by low expectations of self-reliance. Working autonomously also had different relevance. While ES students in particular were expected to work autonomously, students at primary school experienced detailed instruction and guidelines. In contrast, the modulaire track provided instruction in basic everyday practices. Again, the demands in the modulaire track clearly differed from those expressed in the ES track and at primary school. Teacher expectations in the modulaire track focused on acquiring basic skills, whereas the other schools focused explicitly on academic skills and performance.
With regard to behaviour, it became obvious that student presence was perceived differently. While modulaire teachers were satisfied with their students being physically present and paying selective attention, complete mental presence was demanded in the ES track. Similarly, high expectations applied at primary school as continuous active participation during class was required.
Social competences and behaviour in class were also prioritized differently. At primary school, cooperation with classmates was a crucial competence. Although the ES teachers' demands clearly focused on the academic domain, they were also attentive to students' social behaviour. However, they fostered social competences only as a supplementary aspect and when time allowed it. In the modulaire track, social competences were mainly depicted as an important aspect of the classroom climate. Students' social behaviour varied greatly and teachers had to cope daily with the fact that several students act in an antisocial way. Accordingly, disruptive behaviour was accepted to various extents. While teachers from primary school and the ES track perceived disruptive behaviour as highly disturbing and strove to exclude such students from the classroom, modulaire teachers accepted it as an integral part of the everyday classroom.
Our analysis revealed very different school cultures for the different tracks at secondary school. Thus, ideal student characteristics varied sharply, highlighting a strongly different relevance of orientation towards academic performance. Whereas deviant behaviour was mainly rejected in the ES track, it was widely accepted in the modulaire track. Against this background, no overall school culture for this particular secondary school, which includes different educational tracks, was found. Instead, very different track-specific school cultures with strongly different images of the ideal student emerged.

Discussion and conclusion
Although each individual school culture might be distinct, this study focused on the systematic differences between school cultures of primary and secondary education and investigated the link between transition processes and the process of increasing school alienation. One marker of different cultures is teacher expectations regarding students. Therefore, this study set out with the aim of investigating teacher expectations of student attitudes and behaviour at school in the development of school alienation at the point of the transition from primary to secondary education. First, we have argued that the transition comes with a substantial change in school culture, challenging students' cultural fit. Second, the specific school culture and its inherent expectations influence the development of school alienation. Accordingly, the more students' dispositions match the specific school's expectations, the less likely they are to experience school alienation.
In line with previous studies in school culture research (Helsper et al., 2010;Köhler & Thiersch, 2013;Kramer, 2013), our findings indicate that the transition to secondary school comes along with a substantial change in school culture requiring adaptation to a new school culture, values, and demands.
This supports the importance of the transition to secondary school as a crucial juncture in students' educational trajectories. Furthermore, this study confirms the importance of understanding the transition to secondary school as a process that affects students in the long run and points out the relevance of adaptation processes at the secondary school level. Going beyond existing research, this study provides one of the first evaluations of the development of school alienation in the educational system of Luxembourg, broadening the understanding of educational success and failure in a multilingual, stratified educational system. From this study, it can also be concluded that different students face different expectations when they move from primary to secondary education because it was found that primary and ES schools are more similar to each other than they are to the modulaire track. However, it became obvious that modulaire students already struggled with the strong focus on academic performance at primary school, indicating that the transition to a school culture orientated towards their needs and capabilities provided the opportunity to (re)connect to school and learning. The results indicated substantial differences between the school cultures of the examined schools and tracks regarding the image of ideal student characteristics, including presupposed competences and those that students should develop over the course of the transition.
Specific demands in an individual school's culture turned out to entail different risks concerning the development of school alienation. While alienation from learning is predominantly relevant for strongly performanceoriented school cultures, it became obvious that the potential to rebuild bonding with school in order to reduce school alienation is connected with the focus on individual well-being exercised in the low-achieving track. Thus, overcoming school alienation requires a scope of action to focus on individual needs, which seemed to be strongly restricted in highly competitive and highachieving educational environments. Surprisingly, the results revealed that alienation from learning appeared to be particularly prevalent in the highachieving track, characterized by the aforementioned performance orientation restricting interest and joy in learning among students. These results also indicate the importance of track-specific aspects for analysing school cultures.
The research findings have several implications for teachers' practices. As the main pedagogical implication, the study results suggest that a core task for teachers is to maintain balance between academic demands in terms of school or teacher expectations and student needs. However, in light of trackspecific and school-culture-specific superordinate demands, teachers' scope of action was limited as curricula and educational goals restricted the time available for individual treatment. The results of this study reveal that the extent of these systemic constraints depended on the track-specific school culture. While during year 6 at primary school and in the ES track fulfilling educational goals was prioritized, the school culture in the modulaire track opened more space for considering student needs due to the predominating absence of a performance orientation.
With respect to tensions in education among the school culture, school track-specific demands, and student needs, there is a need for more frequent in-depth communication among the actors within a single school's school culture, but also between schools and educational administrations in order to develop strategies to find ways to balance these demands and prevent the development of school alienation among students. Exchanges between primary and secondary school teachers on school cultures, practices, and student needs may also be fruitful. Furthermore, more detailed information for primary school students about what it is like to be a student in the different secondary school tracks-maybe even including visits to secondary schools-towards the end of primary schooling and close to the transition to secondary school may help students to mentally prepare for the change in school culture.
The present paper arose from the international SASAL mixed-methods project, which included a three-wave student survey, group discussions with students and teachers, and individual interviews. For this paper, we focused on the teacher perspective as teachers' definitions of the ideal student and accompanying expectations of students determine their behavior and so are major determinants in the transition process. However, some limitations need to be taken into account. Being limited in the selection of cases and the small number of participants, this study did not aim at a generalization of findings to cover the entire school landscape. This means that the results apply to the examined school cultures only and cannot be generalized to other schools representing the educational tracks in Luxembourg. Accordingly, further research is needed to extend knowledge about school cultures in Luxembourg. Although the applied theoretical perspective focusing on the school culture provided a helpful and adequate perspective for reconstructing school-and track-specific demands expressed as teachers' images of the ideal student, the teachers' perspectives may differ from the perspectives of the students and the parents. Equally, group discussions as the dominant method of inquiry allowed us to transcend the individual perspective of one teacher and reconstruct collective orientations among the teachers of a class. In a crosssectional approach, however, they are not sensitive to chance or individual development. The methodological approach of sequential habitus reconstruction led to comprehensible and reasonable results as it was adequate for defining institutional demands at school and for pointing out differences among the investigated school tracks.
Making use of the teachers' perspective to represent school cultures turned out to be beneficial in order to reconstruct schools' demands on students. As this article did not examine student perspectives themselves, the next step in this research would be to include student perspectives in order to contrast teachers' and students' perceptions of the transition. Moreover, more individual schools within the specific school tracks should be included in the research in order to differentiate between track-specific and school-culturespecific aspects.
All in all, this qualitative study revealed some indications of a mismatch among school cultures, teacher expectations, and student needs, although one of the main arguments for stratification from advocates for a stratified schooling system is that (external) differentiation would allow student needs to be better met. A somewhat general implication vis-à-vis this finding is to ask for an integrative school that involves in-classroom differentiation and caters to all the needs of students and teachers. Our results may have offered insights into arrangements and practices that help to improve school environments. Practically, this knowledge may help in finding effective measures to reduce disciplinary problems and enhance participation by decreasing school alienation and emotional withdrawal.