This article analyses how students in two Swedish upper secondary schools with different demographics articulate inequalities, and how their positions in society give rise to different learning patterns. Using material from focus group interviews undertaken during a teaching module about trust, the article departs from the proposition that learning about trust in school also means negotiating trust and experiences from outside the school context. The article concludes that students who identify as non-ethnic Swedes must bridge the gap between the learning content and their own experiences. Such negotiations allow for a critical view on democratic institutions. However, this critical potential stems from a position that also necessitates more work to ‘learn’ the content provided, compared to the ethnic Swedes who encounter the teaching materials from a position where it can be inserted and combined with an already existing and matching worldview. The article argues that challenging the views and the normative position held by the latter group is a remaining task for citizenship teaching.