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This exploratory study examined the life-histories of 21 men who were mature (27 years +), full-time students in two Scottish ancient universities. Most were first-generation entrants. Individual semi-structured interviews asked about the men's origins and lives so far. The aim was to understand men as gendered beings, and to consider the dynamics that had impacted on their lives. Though useful findings in their own right, the research also used this data to consider sociological theories of contemporary identity/ies, and to contemplate Bourdieu's theories of social-class reproduction. The legacy of trying to promote equal opportunities through education made Scotland an important test-bed for widening participation. Ancient universities were selected to throw dimensions of educational inclusion/exclusion into relief. Researching male 'first-generation' students responded to concerns that men from manual origins should return to education given the dissolution of their traditional roles. The research found few 'hybrid' identities, as experienced by first-generation students in other research. This may reflect the men's complex cultural trajectories prior to university, and distancing from former working-class origins. Adopting 'student' identities held few problems. 'Traditional' students were seen as insecure, and mature students as providing a valuable contribution to the institution. For older men, student-hood fulfilled a latent ambition. For others, 'student' added a more positive aspect to their previous identities. The post-modem celebration of playful identities was dismissed, as even playful uptakes revealed politically darker sides. There was more support for the self-reflexive identity project, which was gendered in that (with some notable exceptions) it was constructed in the context of traditional gender relationships. Bourdieu's conceptual framework was useful in explaining these 'divergent trajectories'. The Catholic community could be seen to promote a class-fraction habitus, which valued education, commitment and social networks. Residing in university-rich cities reduced the cultural distance between the men and HE, whilst the 'flexible' labour market created spaces where men from manual origins worked alongside undergraduate and graduate others. Such influences were compatible with Bourdieu' s theories. However, there was another influence that Bourdieu was less successful at explaining. The matrimonial field did not operate with the logic of other fields. Graduate women formed long-term relationships with these men, despite significant differences in their capitals. For Bourdieu, class endogemony is a key part of class reproduction. That is challenged here; human emotion cannot be reduced to simple logic. Furthermore, cities offer importance spaces for the reconfiguration of gender (as well as class) dynamics.

This study employed narrative methods to explore how two Somali-Canadian women formed and understood their identities as first-generation university students. In conceptualizing identity, the study draws on sociological literature that frames identities as a collection of social roles that are performed. Within this framework, university student is a cultural object related to specific kinds of capital. The data are presented in narrative form, based in life history and life story approaches. Within their narratives, participants recounted the ways in which their attempts at developing a university student identity were complicated by their identities as Black, Muslim, economically marginalized individuals from refugee backgrounds. The tension at the heart of each participants’ narrative was not how to perform the university student role, but the cost of that performance on other parts of their identity. These findings reveal the narrow definition university student within the Canadian imagination and its consequence for the lives of marginalized communities.

Studies indicate that global self-esteem, an individual's overall sense of self-worth, and academic self-esteem, self-worth related to academics, are positively related to academic achievement. This relationship holds for white adolescents. However, while still positive, this relationship is weaker for African Americans, who have high global and academic self-esteem, but very low academic achievement. Patterns for Mexican Americans are less clear, but their global and academic self-esteem appear to fall between the range for white and African American adolescents, while their academic achievement is similar to that of African Americans. To address this, I construct Combinatoric Identity Theory (CIT), a symbolic interactionist theory that incorporates the importance of racial/ethnic and student identities into our current understandings of self-esteem and achievement. I then apply CIT to data collected on Mexican American and white tenth-graders.After a discussion of the relevant literature on education, self-esteem, and identity, I discuss my data collection strategy and techniques. This is followed by empirical analysis. Results indicate that identity processes do affect self-esteem, and that they operate in similar ways for Mexican American and white adolescents. Implications of these results and directions for future research are then presented.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka vad elever i år 9 lägger i begreppet lärande och hur de uttrycker sina förväntningar på skolan, utifrån hur de beskriver hur de lär sig, hur de uppfattar lärarrollen och elevrollen samt hur de beskriver skolan. Detta studeras mot bakgrund av kategorierna etnicitet, genus, studieresultat och bostadsområde. Studien är en kvalitativ studie. En form av triangulering har använts och metoderna är semistrukturerade fokusintervjuer samt strukturerad enkät. 22 elever från tre olika skolor har intervjuats i fem fokusintervjuer. Dessutom har en strukturerad enkät genomförts i 6 klasser/grupper på de tre olika skolorna. Resultatet visar att många elever uppfattar skolan som ett nödvändigt tvång. Skolk, sena ankomster kan ses som ett motstånd mot skolplikten och skolans institutionella diskurs. Eleverna är tämligen överens i sina uppfattningar om lärarrollen, däremot skiljer det sig mer i fråga om elevens roll, där några uppfattar att det handlar mer om personlighet och uppförande och andra mer uppfattar elevrollen som ett arbete, där vissa uppgifter ska utföras. Elevernas olika sätt att förhålla sig till skolan har delats i fem kategorier; det sociokulturella, det traditionella, det pragmatiska, det omgivningsberoende samt det kaotiska förhållningssättet. Skillnader mellan innerstad och förort tas upp. Undervisningen i So, så som eleverna i studien beskrev den skilde sig åt. Innerstadselevernas So-undervisning framstod som baserad på en mer traditionell förmedlande pedagogik, medan förortsskolans elever beskrev en undervisning ur ett sociokulturellt perspektiv, mer i linje med läroplanen. Graden av förhandling och meningsskiljaktigheter var högre i förortsskolan. Förortseleverna gav också uttryck för en bild av sin förort och sin skola som segregerad och isolerad, där eleverna beskrevs som dåliga förebilder för varandra. Elever förhåller sig till olika diskurser, som påverkar deras syn på skolan. Likheterna mellan de olika kategorierna förefaller större än skillnaderna. De svenska eleverna tycks i högre grad påverkade av en traditionell diskurs, medan elever med invandrarbakgrund i högre grad tycks pragmatiska. I förortsskolan tycks graden av förhandling av olika begrepp och identiteter högre än i innerstadsskolan.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Kakali Bhattacharya / Thomas Vontz / The purpose of this study was to better understand constructs of national identity in transnational space by illuminating the processes and relations of national identity disruption and development. This study is pertinent as cultural and social identities are traditionally framed by nation-centric processes in education. However, the effects of globalization continue to transform education through learning abroad initiatives and changing migration behaviors, which necessitates perspectives de-centering the nation as an assumed boundary. The theoretical framework for this study was transnationalism. A transnational perspective has brought new focus to educational research and national identity development by questioning the multiculturalist assumption of nationality as stable national identity and exploring the concepts of national identity and nationalism in transnational spaces created by globalization. The methodological approach was critical autoethnography as informed by narrative inquiry, in which I critically examined my own disruptive experience as a teacher in the Marshall Islands by engaging in retellings of experiences with one of my former Marshallese students as an informant. The method of interactive interviewing with an informant was necessary to develop a critical lens and to connect individual reflexivity with writing ethnographically to relate to broader human experience. Qualitative coding methods were applied to our retellings as thematic analysis to categorize accounts in the narrative. Finally, writing as a method of inquiry and analysis was used to explore emotions, positionality, and perspective. Through iterations of performing narrative with the informant and applying narrative analysis I found that the theme of belonging was apparent as a personal feeling in our narrative. Recognizing this as the theme posed another question; how does this address the original guiding question: what is a sense of belonging in terms of relations and processes? To answer this I considered space-sensitive understandings of belonging as a transnational perspective. This conclusion reconceptualized and grounded national identity development in the materiality of belonging as a feeling to reflect (1) the material consequences of physical characteristics, (2) the allocation of resources, and (3) language as power. In curriculum and instruction, this understanding of belonging as process could reinforce the ideological inclusivity of multiculturalism while liberating constructs of identity from the constraints of the nation. This perspective could have implications on the development of students’ national and transnational identities, allowing for the recognition of diversity without diminishing issues of difference such as racism, sexism, classism, and xenophobia in society creating students capable of celebrating difference while recognizing inequity and promoting social critique.

This is a qualitative study of how school culture in relation to student identity affects students’ academic performance, especially in a low-income community. The study was conducted in southern Malmö at an elementary school where 9th graders were given the opportunity to participate. Nine students answered a survey anonymously which I then analyzed using identity theory. My conclusions indicate that school culture does play a part in affecting students’ performance. The findings suggest that high performing students more strongly identify academically than low performing students. Finally, this research indicates that more studies on the topic need to be done. I hope this study contributes to a broader interest in how schools can create a culture where students become more motivated and performs better academically. Possible areas to further investigate would be how low performing students are included by schools and what actions schools take, or could take, to create an academic culture for all students.

This thesis sets out to investigate the students at Uppsala university’s self-image and the image that they had of the Swedish population at the start of the 1790s. During this time the Swedish state was fearful of the Swedish students and their political opinions due to, amongst several reasons, the involvement of French students during the French revolution. The students at this time were also regarded in two different ways, firstly as youths, secondly as the future power wielders in the state bureaucracy. Due to these aspects the students view of themselves, and the population were regarded as political and dangerous. The problem this thesis aimed to investigate was therefore to investigate what exactly these opinions were.  The research has shown that students often portray themselves as the future teachers and saviors of the country. They do this by creating an image of a population that is uneducated and subject to both prejudice and oppression. In the narrative they create, they portray a conceptual ruling elite that is made out to represent the old, wicked ways that the students are going to save the population from through their virtues. The influence of social classification and influence from the French Revolution is adamant throughout the entire pamphlet and provides an opportunity to understand the students’ opinions in a larger contemporary framework. The findings in this thesis can aid in understanding an early power relationship between those who are governed and those who govern. Showing how the students, who would become the future societal elites, may have viewed those whom they would later on wield power over

As of 2007, approximately 73% of the 18 million college students in this country could be identified as nontraditional (Ross-Gordon, 2011). A key characteristic distinguishing this group from the traditional college student is the influence of multiple roles of the adult learner on the learning and engagement process (Keith, Byerly, Floerchinger, Pence, & Thornberg, 2006). Ross-Gordon remarks on some roles that may provide life experience, an asset to understanding theoretical constructs otherwise immaterial to younger, traditional learners. However, it is important to recognize the complex dynamic of conflicting roles as challenges to the academic competence of nontraditional college students. This research examined the vague definition of the nontraditional student and the factors that influence the learning and engagement processes. Through the lens of Hermans and Gieser's (2012) dialogical self-theory and higher education discourse, a novel examination of group role identity salience is proposed as a useful model for improving the educational and social realities of the adult learner.

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