The paper describes the relationship between subcultural and school/institutional interpretations
in the inner discourse of an alternative school (the ’Diákház’) in Budapest. Interpretations and
practices, that belonging two different interpretive frameworks, appear simultaneously and
intertwined in the Diákház communication scene. This contributes to problem-solving
capacities/knowledge that individually do not appear in either of the two. In this discourse, the
subcultural manifestations of difference, deviance, marginality, resistance or communitas, and
the manifestations of knowledge, autonomy, responsibility and the hierarchical structure of the
school sometimes appear in opposition, sometimes in reinforcement to each other. The knowledge
formed in the discourse can be used by the Diákház to keep (formerly drop-out) students within
the institution, and by the students to reduce their own feeling of invalidity. In this way, the
Diákház is able to use the two opposite social states, communitas and structure, to its own
benefit