Master Solveig Roth

Title of dissertation:

Educational trajectories in cultural worlds: An ethnographic study of multiethnic girls across different levels of schooling

This dissertation was written within the field of educational research with the aim of exploring how multiethnic female learners experience everyday practices and socially-gendered positional identities that both relate and manifest in the transition between lower and upper secondary schools.

In an ethnographic study, thirteen students in two schools in a multiethnic suburb of Oslo, Norway were studied as learners both inside and outside of school over two years during transitional stages between school levels. The research design was based on a longitudinal theme using the case history method, in which detailed analyses of both biographic and social interactions were carried out. Roth has analysed the role of everyday practices in how gendered learning identities take shape over time regarding interactions with family and within both academic and everyday non-academic settings.

This dissertation provides several significant findings that illuminate aspects of current specificity of the Norwegian as well as global educational systems and draws out the challenges of the contemporary educational context in interactions regarding expression of cultural diversity and the movements of people. In addition, it shows how these changing contexts are mediated by young girls as tensions and contradictions via contexts that afford new challenges yet also offer possibilities within transitions to shape future pathways. Finally, this dissertation shows the importance of learners’ everyday (micro-level) practices, which improves our understanding of schools and students’ orientations towards the future. This is important for grasping the shape and texture of complex gendered identities and learning identities in multiethnic societies. Hence, learning is a complex matter that is connected to life experiences, dialogical conversations and inquiry processes. Therefore, alternative ways of understanding young people’s learning trajectories are needed to approach new and significant challenges for educational systems.

 

Published June 13, 2017 10:35 AM - Last modified June 13, 2017 10:35 AM