This C-essay is a qualitative study designed to create a basis for understanding how managers involved in school affairs perceive the impact of merit points on students’ chances to continue on to higher education and how this will affect individuals' life chances. The study is based on three interviews with managers involved in school affairs. In this paper grades, merit points and socioeconomic class differences are discussed. The aim of this paper is to answer the following questions:  What impact does merit points in language studies and the way different languages are valued, in the system, have for the individual and for society?  Who are the winners in the new grading system and who are the losers; how are different socioeconomic groups affected? The material was interpreted with the help of a report written by Ingrid Nordqvist and Monica Langerth Zetterman called "Secondary School competition field-a regional perspective", a paper written by Helen Raven who did a study on grades, national tests and social reproduction and the Frenchman Pierre Bourdieu's theories. The results show that class differences will increase and that it will be difficult to rise in the social hierarchy in the future.

The main purpose of this C-essay is to answer the question: What have been the consequences and effects of the merit point system on language studies and the parties concerned (teachers, students and principals) during the school year of 2010/11? The merit point system is the result of a political decision and was implicated for the first time in the Swedish upper secondary school during the school year 2010/2011. Being a completely new phenomenon it is of great interest and importance to study its effects. The study in this essay also aims to verify, falsify or nullify two hypotheses very often referred to in the political discussions regarding the merit point system: The merit point system will replace affection and interest as main reasons for language studies in upper secondary school and cause a rectification amongst the students choices of additional courses. The merit point system will have a segregating effect upon society and make it harder for people to rise in society through education in the future. A verification of these hypotheses would imply the appearance of an increased rectification amongst students as well as an orientation towards an in the future more segregated society. The empiric material has been collected and examined with qualitative as well as quantitative methods (questionnaires and interviews) and belongs epistemologically to the phenomenological and hermeneutical traditions.