identity class + girls achievement

• archer 2010

  hyper heterosexual female identities 

  • many girls invested time, effort and money in constructing desirable + glamorous hyper-heterosexual, feminine identities.
  • brought the girls status from their female peer group, helping them avoid being ridiculed
  • were ridiculed by school: punished for make up, jewellery. teachers saw girls’ concern for appearance as a distraction to learning
  • This led to the school "othering" the girls - defining them as incapable of success - symbolic violence - Bourdieu 
• archer

  having a boyfriend 

  • gave symbolic capital, but lowered girls' aspirations. these girls aspire to "settle down", have children and work locally in working class feminine jobs such as childcare
• archer

  being loud

  • Some working class girls adopted loud feminine identities that often led to them being outspoken, independent and assertive, eg questioning the teachers' authority. 
  • This failed to conform to the teachers’ ideal pupil identity as passive, brought conflict, and was interpreted as aggressive
• archer

  working class girl dilemma

  • either gained symbolic capital from peers by conforming to a hyper-heterosexualised feminised identity
  • Or gained educational capital by rejecting their working class identity and conforming to the schools middle class notions of a respectable, ideal female pupil
• archer

  successful working class girls 

  • Evans - working-class sixth-form girls aimed to go to university to boost their earning power, mainly to support their families, reflecting their caring identities 
  • Many preferred to attend local universities to save money and stay close to home linking to working class habitus
  • This can lead to self-exclusion from elite universities, limiting their educational and career opportunities.
• Francis 

  • found that while boys got more attention, they were disciplined more harshly and felt picked on by teachers, who tended to have lower expectations of them