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This study attempts to understand the creation of identities, especially focusing on vocational identities within the vocational education and training (VET) for hairdressers. To be trained for a vocation like hairdressing means that more has to be learnt other than to do nice haircuts or other treatments. The handicraft is one part of the vocational knowing of hairdressing, but to be a hairdresser is about something more besides handicraft. Identity in this study is understood from a sociological perspective influenced by Richard Jenkins’ (2004, 2008) theoretical model of social identities. This is used together with the Bourdieu-inspired concept of vocational habitus (Colley, James, Tedder, & Diment, 2003). The method is inspired by ethnographic research and the empirical material consists of interviews and observations. Based on this material personal portraits have been created of four students. The intention is to focus on the students’ perspective about the everyday activities in school and their experiences of being trained for a vocation in school. The analyse shows that students are trained to develop a vocational habitus, to look, move, talk and feel like a hairdresser is expected to. The students encounter these expectations differently, depending on their identities as hairdressers, students or identities established in other contexts. A main finding of the study is that student identities and vocational identities sometimes are in conflict with each other. The contribution of the study is an increased understanding of identity creation in vocational education. It also contributes to a better knowledge of young people in vocational education and their relationship with their vocational education and upcoming vocation.

This study attempts to understand the creation of identities, especially focusing on vocational identities within the vocational education and training (VET) for hairdressers. To be trained for a vocation like hairdressing means that more has to be learnt other than to do nice haircuts or other treatments. The handicraft is one part of the vocational knowing of hairdressing, but to be a hairdresser is about something more besides handicraft. Identity in this study is understood from a sociological perspective influenced by Richard Jenkins’ (2004, 2008) theoretical model of social identities. This is used together with the Bourdieu-inspired concept of vocational habitus (Colley, James, Tedder, & Diment, 2003). The method is inspired by ethnographic research and the empirical material consists of interviews and observations. Based on this material personal portraits have been created of four students. The intention is to focus on the students’ perspective about the everyday activities in school and their experiences of being trained for a vocation in school. The analyse shows that students are trained to develop a vocational habitus, to look, move, talk and feel like a hairdresser is expected to. The students encounter these expectations differently, depending on their identities as hairdressers, students or identities established in other contexts. A main finding of the study is that student identities and vocational identities sometimes are in conflict with each other. The contribution of the study is an increased understanding of identity creation in vocational education. It also contributes to a better knowledge of young people in vocational education and their relationship with their vocational education and upcoming vocation.

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The purpose of this study was to address the under-researched theme of achievement among students in a post 1992 university in the UK. The findings are based on a case study of a cohort of first year (FY) undergraduates in a science department in a post 1992 university. Three key research approaches were deployed within this case study, namely, grounded theory, phenomenography and survey research. These three distinctive approaches have been framed within a broad interpretivist perspective in which subjectivity is managed through researcher positionality and the triangulation of data where appropriate. The research findings demonstrate that the point of registration at higher education (HE) institutions does not constitute a successful student because such a constitution is a process of becoming, involving complex meaning-making processes over time. These processes are characterised by a movement from 'outsider and potential achiever' to 'insider and reflexive achiever'. Important phases within this movement are those of: attending; being engaged and solving self-identified difficulties. In the light of the evidence gathered and the review of the existing scholarship, a detailed exploration and theorisation of these phases is offered. The preoccupation with students who fail in some way has led to a lack of research into those who succeed. This research has sought to overcome this lack by exploring the active meaning-making processes that lead undergraduates to achieve. A dynamic is identified between students' reflexive management of their FY experience and aspirations to achieve and the institutional context. This dynamic is also held to undermine the notion of students as customers awaiting satisfaction, suggesting instead that students be regarded as reflexive actors in the shaping of undergraduate achievement. This study presents a novel alternative to the prevalent deficit model in the relevant research which tends to treat students as passive bearers of diverse levels of readiness for undergraduate study. It also offers an alternative to the prevailing research on why students fail to progress or stay at university.

Le présent mémoire repose sur la notion de « valeur », vue sous l’angle du rapport que tout individu entretient avec son action et, par extension, avec autrui et l’environnement social dans lequel il évolue. Dans ce contexte, les valeurs teintent le rapport aux études susceptible d’expliquer l’identité étudiante. Sous cette optique, ce mémoire établit une distinction analytique entre valeurs expressives et instrumentales. Les valeurs peuvent être qualifiées d’instrumentales lorsqu’elles relèvent d’une conception fondée sur la relation d’un moyen par rapport à une fin, tandis qu’elles sont conçues comme expressives lorsqu’elles intègrent des « sentiments », voire des symboles d’accomplissement personnel. Ce mémoire étudiera les valeurs à l’oeuvre chez les étudiants inscrits en médecine et en sociologie. En toute hypothèse, les valeurs instrumentales seraient le fait des futurs médecins, par opposition aux apprentis sociologues qui afficheraient des valeurs expressives. Or, l’analyse menée dans le cadre de ce mémoire démontre que s’il existe des différences sur le plan des valeurs entre les étudiants des deux filières d’études mentionnées précédemment, elles sont loin d’être radicales. Sur la lancée, on découvrira aussi que l’identité étudiante se décline désormais –dans les programmes étudiés dans le cadre de ce mémoire- à l’aune du programme d’études plutôt que par rapport à une appartenance plus générale au statut d’étudiant. / The present master’s thesis is based on the notion of ―value‖ seen from the point of view of the relationship that every individual maintains with his or her action and, by extension, with others and with the social environment in which he or she evolves. In this context, the values tinge the relationship to studies likely to explain student identity. In this perspective, this master’s thesis establishes an analytical distinction between expressive and instrumental values. The values can be described as instrumental when they are a matter of a conception based on the relationship between means and end, whereas they are seen as expressive when they integrate ―feelings‖, or even symbols of personal achievement. This master’s thesis will study the values amongst students registered in medicine and in sociology. It can be suggested that instrumental values would be characteristic of future doctors, as opposed to student sociologists who would display expressive values. And yet, the analysis carried out within the framework of this master’s thesis demonstrates that if indeed there are differences as regards values between students of both subjects previously mentioned, they are far from being radical. In addition, we will discover that, in the school curricula examined within the context of this master’s thesis, student identity is from now on represented in terms of the school curriculum rather than in relation to a more general membership of the student status.

<p>The purpose of this study was to investigate the participation of cisgender collegiate men in community engagement activities. As a group, collegiate men disproportionately engage in unhealthy behaviors compared to their female counterparts. Additionally, they are less likely to participate in community engagement activities. Community engagement activities have a multitude of benefits for both male and female college students, yet national data shows that college men are more likely to play video games or sports when given the choice. This qualitative study used a narrative inquiry method and ten participants were interviewed using a semi-structured process. Several themes from the participants’ narratives emerged including 1) having an insular group that is representative of individual values; 2) commitment to service is deeply entrenched into career or life goals; 3) complex relationship between service and fraternity; and 4) importance of childhood and boyhood as it relates to identity; matriculated masculinity. The study encouraged reconsidering the definition of service and the power of student voice. This study contributes to several interwoven threads of scholarship focusing on the experiences of collegiate males, community engagement, and masculinity. Results suggest implications for higher education practitioners to more effectively support the needs of college men as well as considering new ways to engage more college men in community engagement activities.<br></p>

<p>This four-year study centers on identity research, exploring a two-year student success program in a midwestern school. The program follows a “school-within-a-school” model (Indiana Department of Education website, 2020) as it is housed on the same grounds as the main school but in a different building. The student-to-teacher ratio is lower than traditional schools and the English class covers less material, but in more depth, than parallel 9th and 10^th grade classes. The study follows two students as they progress through the two-year program and integrate into the main student body for 11^th and 12^th grade, to understand how they narrate their journey through high school. The 9th and 10th grade teachers provide a sense of the impact of teacher identity on the student participants. A narrative approach (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990) is used to examine individual’s perspectives- rooted in their experiences- to dig into my participants’ stories, framing them within an equity literacy context (Gorski, 2014). Using equity literacy allows for the exploration of biases and inequities that student participants may face in our education system. The findings of this dissertation study have three major implications: 1. Home identity has a significant effect on student identity. As such, an awareness of what high school students bring to the classroom and how this affects their thinking and motivation to participate in class is critical; 2. The importance of not only making lessons relevant to student lives, but also helpful. Both student participants appreciate being given space to write what they <i>want</i> to write, rather than being <i>told</i> what to write. As a result, writing becomes a means of processing events happening in their lives, and has a positive effect on self-efficacy; 3. Given the second implication, teacher educators need to provide space for preservice teachers to explore ways to make lessons helpful to their students by encouraging them to tell their own stories through discussions in a safe space, while modeling behaviors such as showing vulnerability in the classroom.</p>

This dissertation is comprised of three separate articles addressing related issues central to the culture and future of higher education. The questions that animate the investigations are: In what ways is writing self-efficacy forged in the learning relationships between student and instructor? In what ways, if any, do traditional assessment practices impact student development? In what ways, if any, does institutional culture shape faculty identity, and what is gained or lost in the process? These queries stem from concerns about possible disconnects between visions of higher education's potential and actual practices in the classroom. The dissertation uses grounded theory to explore the deep nature of student learning needs as articulated by the students themselves, seeks alignment between pedagogical and assessment protocols that foster writing expertise, and uses social reproduction theory and intersectionality to reveal the foundations of faculty identity development that can work across student development needs. Specific recommendations for meaningful reform are identified with an eye on cultivating a culture of collegiality and mutual trust where learning relationships can flourish.

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