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Somali Stories in Ivory Towers: Narratives of Becoming a University Student

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.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/41507
Date26 November 2020
CreatorsAbdulkadir, Idil
ContributorsDalley, Phyllis
PublisherUniversité d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
Source SetsUniversité d’Ottawa
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Formatapplication/pdf

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