In this article the relationship between identity and context is examined at a high school in Johannesburg, South Africa, which has, since 1995, been racially desegregated. Findings suggest that the identities of the learners are influenced not only by the immediate context of the school, but also by the past context of schooling in South Africa and by the broader social context, which refers to relationships between learners and between learners and teachers, and also the interests, likes and dislikes of learners. Using the high school as a case study, and relying on qualitative research techniques, the nature of this triple-layered context was examined, as well as the interactions between these layers and the subsequent impact thereof on the process of identity construction among learners. A total of nine focus groups with 53 learners and two focus groups with 11 teachers provided the main data on which the findings are based. Identity articulation, from the viewpoint of the learners, was centred on "race," language, religion, gender, youth and class. The nature of these identities can be attributed to interaction between the different dimensions of the three-layered context, and not merely to prevailing hegemonic identity discourses at the national level. (Contains 1 table and 9 notes.)[This article was produced by Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, Philadelphia, PA.]