This article presents research from a school in a multicultural suburb on the outskirts of a large Swedish conurbation that used a particular pedagogy with strong classification and framing to address an identified problem of academic failure amongst its pupils. The analysis shows that the pedagogy was chosen based on an assumption that pupils needed to be 'saved' from their backgrounds and assumed characteristics of their neighbourhood and that its inhabitants were lacking positive pedagogical resources. The article indicates a disparity between these assumptions and statements made by the pupils. Moreover, it shows how the chosen pedagogy positions the pupils between two discourses that strongly affect the possibilities they have to develop as learners and participate equally in education and society in the future.