This paper discusses the ways in which inner-city, ethnically diverse, working-class girls' constructions of hetero-femininities mediate and shape their dis/engagement with education and schooling. Drawing on data from a study conducted with 89 urban, working-class young people in London, attention is drawn to three main ways through which young women used heterosexual femininities to construct capital and generate identity value and worth; namely, investment in appearance through "glamorous" hetero-femininities, heterosexual relationships with boyfriends, and the "ladette" discourse. We discuss how and why young women's investments in particular forms of heterosexual working-class femininity can play into their disengagement from education and schooling, drawing particular attention to the paradoxes that arise when these constructions play into other oppressive power relations. (Contains 6 notes.)