SCHOOLING IDENTITIES: An ethnography of the constitution of pupil identities Deborah Catherine You dell Institute of Education, University of London Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy July 2000 1 Abstract This thesis is concerned with the constitution of pupil identities within the school context. My central goal is to offer an enhanced understanding of the processes through which inequities within the context of secondary education come to pivot around biographical, cultural and learner identities. The thesis examines existing school ethnography concerned with pupil identities and maps key theoretical movements within the social sciences and humanities concerned with the subject and identity. I suggest that school ethnography has only recently begun to explore fully the interactions of multiple identity categories and the implications of these interactions. I also suggest that the utility of recent theorisations of power and the subject for understanding school-level practices remains under-developed. My analyses of empirical data generated through an ethnography in one London Secondary School offers a response to these limitations. Drawing on the theoretical contributions of Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida and Robert Connell, my analyses show how the citationallinguistic, bodily, and textual practices of pupils and teachers contribute to the performative constitution of intelligible selves and others. I suggest that while performatively constituted subjects have discursive agency, the intelligibility of performative constitutions is constrained by the historicity of discourse. I demonstrate the significance of the discursive intersections and interactions of identity categories and suggest that identities can best be understood as and in constellations. These constellations open up and close down the possibilities for identities to both become traps and be reinscribed again differently. These analyses add depth to existing understandings of the ways in which identities are constituted, the significance of constellations of identity categories, and the processes whereby educational inequities are sustained. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 5 Key to transcripts and textual conventions 6 List of episodes and figures 8 1. Schooling Identities 9 Introduction Pupil identities and school ethnographies Another school ethnography Structure of the thesis 2. Understanding Identities 42 Introduction Notions of power Notions of the subject Conclusion 3. Researching Schooled Identities 88 Introduction The school context Ethnography Schooling Identities: a school ethnography? Conclusion 4. Naming Identities 123 Introduction Representing naming practices Policing race identities The Same or the Other? Constitutions of marginality The authenticity of race Masculinities and femininities within the heterosexual matrix Given names: abbreviated names; nick names; new names; taken names Conclusion 3 5. Practicing Identities 193 Introduction Representing bodily practices Practicing bodies Desiring bodies: constituting legitimate relationships Conclusion 6. Identity Traps 231 Introduction The incommensurability of IndiannesslAsianness and desirable femininity The price of man The chains of desirable femininity and hyper-masculinity Black sub-cultural identities: (mythical) challenge or discursive entrapment? Conclusion 7. Resisting Identities 266 Introduction Resisting marginality, reinscribing raced masculinity Resisting femininity, reinscribing 'Geeza-girl' Performati ve performances: Leaving Day and National Record of Achievement Day Resisting the Black challenge to White Hegemony, reinscribing Blackness Resisting subjugated homosexuality, reinscribing gay masculinity Conclusion 8. Schooled Identities 313 Introduction Contributions Reflections Conclusion Bibliography 328 Acknowledgements To begin chronologically, my thanks to David Gillbom, Sally Power and Geoff Whitty for encouraging me to start this PhD and supporting me throughout the process. Thanks especially to David and Sally for being such engaged and demanding supervisors. And for stroking me as and when necessary. Superb. I would also like to thank the Institute of Education for facilitating the undertaking and completion of this research, particularly for granting me the extended leave which allowed me to complete much more speedily than could otherwise have been the case. My thanks also to all of my colleagues at the Institute and elsewhere. My immense gratitude to the pupils and staff of Taylor Comprehensive who not only made this research possible but also made fieldwork a pleasure. Next, my love and gratitude to all my friends in London and Sydney. Thank you for pretending to be fascinated when I was so obsessed with this research that I had nothing else to talk about. Thanks also for never drawing attention to this myopia. I have to single out two. My love, thanks and admiration to David Woodhead who made me jealous enough to do it myself and engaged in endless conversations which would bore most of the world to tears. And the fabulous Nicola Douglas - invaluable, as ever. Finally, thanks to my family. Enormous love to my mum Pat; sister Linny; nephews and nieces Ben, Bob, Milligan and Molly (aka The Scum); brothers Steve and Chris and Glenn; and my late father, Maurice. Special thanks to my partner, Angela, for her incredible love and support. Angela, you are amazing, my eternal love to you. 5 Key to transcripts and textual conventions Transcripts Data generated through my fieldwork in Taylor Comprehensive are presented here as 'episodes' which combine the conventions of sociological transcriptions and theatrical scripts. This approach is discussed in detail in Chapter 4. The following conventions have been adopted: Outside quoted speech • Background or contextual information appears in italicised text. • Biographical information about individuals appears as italicised text within (round) parentheses. Within quoted speech • Background or contextual information appears in [square] parentheses. • Detail of the ways in which quoted speech is delivered, non-linguistic utterances and bodily postures, movements and gestures are indicated through italicised text within (round) parentheses. • Emphases and raised voices are indicated by italicised text • A pause is indicated by ... • That material has been edited out is indicated by [ ... ] Sources -- audio recordings, fieldnotes and photographs • Where episodes offer detailed representations of extended discussions these draw on audio recordings supplemented by fieldnotes (written during and/or shortly after the event). • Where episodes offer detailed descriptions of students' attire and/or appearance these frequently draw on photographs as well as fieldnotes. Textual Conventions I have sought to minimise my use of 'single inverted commas' in order to indicate the problematisation of a term or concept. However, it seems neither desirable nor possible to completely jettison this convention. When such problematisation seems necessary, single inverted commas are used only on the first occasion that a given term or concept appears within a section. Single inverted commas are also used to indicate the citation of published works. 6 Due to this dual use of single inverted commas, "double inverted commas" are used where pupils' or teachers' talk appears within the body of the text. Where I adopt terms and concepts drawn from pupils' and teachers' talk within the text, these are enclosed in "double inverted commas" only on the first occasion that they appear within a section. 7 List of episodes and figures Episodes Episode 1. Phenotypes; nations; exotic others 128 Episode 2. Dir'y 'ippies/Shazas and Bazas 134 Episode 3. Popadom; Black; Coolie; Indian; White 144 Episode 4. Heterosexual masculinities/heterosexual femininities (Part 1) 160 Heterosexual masculinitieslheterosexual femininities (Part 2) 171 Episode S. Postures, gestures, movements, contacts 196 Episode 6. Raced heterosexual desire 214 Episode 7. Samosa, munchers and White princesses 234 Episode 8. Excessive masculinity? 241 Episode 9. Masculine rights, feminine obligations 249 Episode 10. Black bodies walking 256 Episode 11. Quoc Trinh's Doll 267 Episode 12. Geeza-girl 273 Episode 13. Bitches and Bibles 286 Episode 14. Bent as a ballet dancer? 299 Figures Figure 1. 'V -ing out' 185 Figure 2. Schema of raced hetero-sex 217 8 1. Schooling Identities Introduction A concern with equity, and the constancy with which inequity appears to be marked by an array of identities, underpins this study. A key goal of the thesis is to offer an enhanced understanding of the processes through which inequity, subjugation, marginalisation and disavowal come to pivot around identity categories. Or, indeed, how identity categories function to enable and sustain inequity. Focusing on one secondary school context, the thesis considers a (potentially inexhaustible) array of identities. These can be characterised as biographical, cultural and learner identities. In making this assertion I have begun a classificatory process which inevitably pervades this thesis. This process is extended further by making explicit some of the identity categories which are inferred by the above umbrella terms and which I scrutinise within this text: sex, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, culture, social class, ability, intelligence. These too can be sub-divided -- for instance the biographical and/or sub-cultural category 'sexuality' can be (is incessantly)