Introduction

Scholars have pointed out that transitions between educational levels and institutions are critical due to the introduction of new and often implicit expectations that students encounter as they meet new academic and cultural norms and practices (Holmegaard et al., 2014; Hurtado et al., 2007). While the transition literature has tended to view these shifts as a directed linear trajectory from one institution or program and into another, recent scholarship argues that students’ transitions ought to be conceptualised as ongoing processes, a dynamic endeavour of encountering a new learning environment. This evolving perspective, referred to as “transitions as becoming” (Gale & Parker, 2014), emphasises the continuous identity negotiation that students engage in when entering a new study. In this new setting novel norms and recognition practices set the scene for feeling a sense of fit of who you are and who you are expected to become (Avraamidou, 2020). This is our first platform of knowledge on which this study is embedded. In this paper, we are interested in how a group of young women come to see themselves in physics in their transition into upper secondary school in Denmark. We do so based on two observations: first, the majority of young people (60%; GL, 2022) continue into upper secondary school -in Denmark, the higher general education program STX - where they are presented with mandatory physics. Physics in upper secondary school is a new subject (as in primary and lower secondary school, it is integrated with chemistry). Thus, our attention is to understand students meeting with upper secondary school physics. This is interesting, as our second observation shows that the number of students advancing to physics A-level is declining during upper secondary. This decline is even more pronounced for female students (Gymnasieskolen, 2018), even though they are the majority at STX (61%, GL, 2023). Such observation is not a surprise, as it is also echoed in the wider literature that points to recruitment challenges toward physics amongst students in general, and women in particular (DeWitt et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2018). However, while the transition into higher education physics has been well studied (e.g., Adamuti-Trache et al., 2013; Johansson, 2018), there has been sparse research on the transition into and through upper secondary school physics, even though in many countries, this is the place where students’ choices of continuing with elected physics are inevitable for a future route into higher education physics. As such, there is a call for research on how young people aged 16–18 years experience the upper secondary school physics classroom (Berge et al., 2020).

The second pool of knowledge by which this study is informed by and in which we have situated ourselves is the particular attention to how gender interacts with the experiences of physics (Gonsalves & Danielsson, 2020). Researchers in physics education have long been interested in understanding how young women (but also students with minority racial and ethnic backgrounds) meet and are met within the physics classroom (Francis et al., 2017). Studies have shown how young people seem to ascribe physics meaning such as hard, masculine, nerdy, and for the naturally abled, which make young women less inclined to pursue physics after compulsory schooling (Francis et al., 2017) - they think physics is unrelatable and “not for me” (Wong, 2023). Archer and colleagus have argued that the production of physics’ elite status for the selected clever few (Archer et al., 2020b), and effortless clever (male) plays an essential role in deterring even the highly qualified, abled, interested young women from seeing post-18 physics as something for them (Archer et al., 2020a). In this way, physics becomes a risky and dissonant choice for young women (Archer et al., 2020a).

Moving into the classroom different studies suggest that upper secondary school physics pedagogy could help support more students in seeing physics as something for them.

(e.g., Oliver et al., 2017; Reid & Skryabina, 2002). According to Archer et al. (2020b), disrupting the current patterns of participation in physics can help change the association between physics and cleverness. Similar results on young people associating physics with masculine performance of smartness led Berge et al. (2020) to call for attention on securing variation and diversity in the construction of storylines in physics class. The classroom pedagogy is also pointed out as key by Hazari and colleagues (2010). They have introduced the concept of physics identity to understand how students come to see themselves within physics teaching as someone who belongs and are recognised as valuable learners (Hazari et al., 2010). In conclusion, they call for more in-depth qualitative studies to explore the link between the pedagogical setting of physics teaching and identity development, for young people in general, and particularly for young women. This is the exact focus of our study. While we share the agenda with our aforementioned colleagues, this study contributes to fill a gap in the literature for three reasons.  First, few studies have focused on the transition into and meeting with upper secondary school physics. Second, more in-depth qualitative studies on how young women come to see themselves and gain recognition as valuable physics learners are needed. Third, physics identity has been shown to have the strongest effect on students’ intended science-related choice of higher education; meanwhile, constructing a physics identity in high school seems to be more challenging compared with other science subjects (chemistry and biology) (Chen et al., 2023).

Based on this platform of knowledge, we strive to understand how a group of young women experience the transition into upper secondary physics, where they meet physics as a discipline for the first time. We aim to contribute nuance by highlighting the differences within the group of young women and thereby move away from approaching girls/women as one homogenous group where gender is conflated with sex (Jaremus, 2021). So, to deepen our understanding of students’ transition into and meeting with upper secondary school physics, we strive to fill this gap in the literature with an in-depth qualitative study investigating the promoted identities- how young women make meaning of the classroom norms and how they relate themselves to them.

Identity and the Ideal Student

Identity research has proven to be a valuable lens for researching how an individual comes to see herself and be seen as someone belonging within science settings (Holmegaard & Archer, 2023). Hence, we approach “transition as becoming” as an identity process. This double process of, on the one hand, feeling a relation with science and one’s sense of self and, on the other hand, being recognised as someone that belongs within science is crucial for the feeling of mattering or connectedness (Strayhorn, 2018).  In such thinking, identities are understood as fluent, complex, and ongoingly negotiated (Avraamidou, 2020). When applied as an analytical tool, it offers an understanding of the complex processes of shaping oneself in the social and cultural landscape of science.

Within science learning contexts, Carlone and Johnson (2007) have proposed what has become a seminal model of identity, outlining how this landscape is composed of performing science student identities, making competence visible in science learning contexts, and being both recognised by oneself and by credible others. They point out how the criteria for credibility and recognition patterns shift across contexts, and even for different students within the same context. Hence, applying identity as an analytical lens enables the analysis of the students’ negotiations formed by the norms, limitations, and possibilities rooted within the practices of the disciplinary settings, in this case upper secondary school physics. Hazari et al. (2010) extended this framework of competence, performance, and recognition by adding interest as a fourth dimension, to understand negotiations of physics and science identities.

Thus, we conceptualized physics identity as four interrelated and overlapping dimensions developed through experiences with learning in the physics classroom (Hazari et al., 2010, p. 983):

  • Competence: knowledge and understanding of physics;

  • Performance: social performances of relevant physics practices;

  • Interest: desire/curiosity to think and understand physics;

  • Recognition: recognize oneself and be recognized by others as a physics-person.

To help understand the specific context of being new in upper secondary physics, we draw on the ideal student (Wong & Chiu, 2021). This concept has been developed to draw out implicit assumptions in university students’ expectations towards new roles and responsibilities as higher education students. These are often unclear for some and assumed for others, generating implied actions or identities. Ideal is to be understood as an imaginary vision that is largely shaped by prior experiences, perceived knowledge, and ideas, while the construction is influenced by the context or culture that is met. As such, the concept makes it possible to explore how students construct and negotiate what it means to be a student in a new educational context (Chiu et al., 2021). By using the identity lens while drawing on the ideal student, we explore what the young women entering upper secondary level view as expected and idealized in the new institutional framing, what expatiations they consider are being promoted within the physics classroom, and how they negotiate their own performance in physics. Hence, we address the following research question: what identities are idealized and marginalized in upper secondary school physics, and how do the students negotiate these identities?

Method

This paper is part of a project focusing on young women in Danish upper secondary and their negotiation of science and math identities, and how these negotiations interact with aspirations for the future. This paper is based on the first round of individual interviews with the young women. All interviews were conducted by the first author, who self-identifies  as a woman, has a background in mathematics and philosophy, and is a trained upper secondary teacher. Throughout the interviews, the forst author was reflexive of her insider/outsider position (Merriam et al., 2001) while positioning the interviewees as the experts in the interview situation.

Context

Attending education in Denmark is free of admission, and around 70% of students attend public upper secondary schools (GL, 2022). Students older than 18 years are provided with non-refundable state grants to cover basic living expenses. The Danish upper secondary educational programs offer preparation for enrolment in higher education and consist of four different school forms. This study is situated within what is called the STX (Ministry of Higher Education and Science, 2023).

Typically, students are around 16 years old when entering the 3-year STX. Different study programs are offered, including both mandatory and elective subjects divided into levels (A, B and C, where A is the highest and C is lowest). The students are graded based on their participation in the class, and in oral and written exams.

Selection of Schools and Participants

As women in general (and in Denmark) are underrepresented in physics (Miller-Friedmann, 2020), our study specifically explored the first-hand accounts of the lived experiences of young women as they engage with upper secondary physics. While we have not situated this study as a gender study, we strive to provide a comprehensive and detailed understanding of how personal narratives contribute to the broader discourse on gender in physics, recognizing the unique perspectives that emerge within this context.

The young women in this study attend three upper secondary schools in different parts of Denmark. The schools differ in relation to their size, the socio-economic background, the distribution of female students, and overall grade point average (GPA). The young women are in their first year and enrolled in three different study programs all with mathematics (A). In the first year all have physics (C) with different possibilities for electing physics at level A or B (see the overview in Table 1) depending on chosen study program.

Table 1 An overview of the participants
Full size table

In total, 47 young women volunteered to participate in the project and 33 were invited to participate in the interviews. This selection was based on obtaining a maximum variation of prior and current relationships with mathematics and science combined with factors as social background and race/ethnicity (Flyvbjerg, 2011). Out of the 33 young women, approximately two thirds come from families with a non-academic background and a very small group have a minority-ethnic background (relatively few minority-ethnic young women are enrolled in the programs, and all who volunteered were selected). Table 1 shows each participant’s pseudonym, potential level of physics, parents’ educational background, and analytical categories.

Narrative Interviews

All interviews were conducted by the first author at the schools during school time and lasted between 40 and 60 min. The interviewees were informed about anonymity, confidentiality, and data protection, and they signed a consent form following the national and university-specific ethical guidelines. The interviews were conducted as individual, semi-structured interviews (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009) and took a narrative interview approach (Andrews et al., 2013). There were four main themes:

  1. 1.

    Upper secondary school experience in general;

  2. 2.

    Experiences with mathematics;

  3. 3.

    Experiences with science subjects;

  4. 4.

    Future perspectives.

In addition, there were four specific themes:

  1. A

    Prior experience with mathematics and science;

  2. B

    Expectations to mathematics and science subjects;

  3. C

    Transition into upper secondary school;

  4. D

    Considerations when choosing the study programme.

The main and specific themes were covered in each interview. The main themes were open, allowing the interviewees to take the conversation in different directions. However, the specific themes involved narrower and  more focused questions. The narrative interview approach allowed for attention on how the interviewees ascribed meaning to their experiences (Bryman, 2016).

The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed where information traceable to the participants was anonymized. In this paper the young women have been given pseudonyms and specific information that would potentially identify them is left out.

Analytical Approach

The transcriptions were analysed with a reflexive thematic analytical approach (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2019) and coded in Nvivo.

The analysis was driven by two analytical questions:

  • Q1: How do the young women narrate what is expected and idealized in upper secondary school physics?

  • Q2: How do the young women narrate themselves in relation to their experiences of what is expected and idealized in upper secondary school physics?

In the first analysis (Q1), the themes were established both inductively (emerging from the empirical material) and deductively (informed by the four categories in the identity framework: Competence, Performance, Recognition, and Interest (Hazari et al., 2010). Because these categories are overlapping conceptually (as described above), so do the themes.

In the second analysis (Q2), the themes were established inductively. Thus, the analysis of Q1 and Q2 was not a linear process; rather, it constantly moved back and forth between the inductive and deductive approach in different steps.

We position ourselves as qualitative researchers in alignment with what Braun and Clarke call a reflexive thematic analytic approach that can be characterised by being multidimensional, context-bound, and subjective: “with researcher subjectivity understood as a resource" (Braun & Clarke, 2019, p. 591) (see also Gough & Madill (2012). In such thinking, the analytic approach strives to provide the reader with transparency of how the analysis was carried out, but without the intention of claiming that the analytic themes are more solid if all coders achieve the same results, again in line with Braun and Clarke (2019, p. 594):

Quality reflexive TA [thematic analysis] is not about following procedures “correctly” (or about “accurate” and “reliable” coding, or achieving consensus between coders), but about the researcher’s reflective and thoughtful engagement with their data and their reflexive and thoughtful engagement with the analytic process.

Hence, the first author categorized the data several times before reaching to the analytic themes. The themes were discussed at many joint meetings with the co-authors and in the wider research group, and also discussed at conferences. Based on the inputs, the themes were adjusted to ensure that the complexity of the data did justice to these young women. For example, the fourth theme was initially named “Succeeding”, but after discussions it was renamed Thriving to describe a subjective viewpoint rather than and objective perception of success.

For analytical clarity, the themes in Q1 are presented as separately in the following result section; however, we want to stress their interrelatedness. In the coding process, this interrelatedness was handled by using double coding, which means that some quotes were categorised in several themes. Such an example is the coding of the following quote by one of the participants: “It is difficult to remember all the different theories, concepts, and formulas. It is easiest to remember, so you know what you are supposed to use or how you are supposed to handle a problem”. Here “remember theories, concepts, and formulas” was coded in both Competence and Recognition as she believed that remembering was both expected of her and also a way to be recognized.

As the themes in Q2 (Struggling, Disconnecting, Rejecting, and Thriving) varied in how the young women saw themselves in relation to the dimensions of the ideal physics identity, not all 33 young women were placed in a theme. Three of the young women fell outside the themes as they either said something conflicting between two themes or said nothing related to the themes.

Results

In this section, we present the results divided into two parts referring to each analytical question. The first part concerns the ideal physics identity and the dimensions while the second part concerns the negotiated physics identities.

The Ideal Physics Identity

The young women’s narratives about what was expected and idealized in physics informed the following Fig. 1 . Here  the dimensions of the ideal physics identity is portrayed. The four interrelated circles refer to the identity framework and contain keywords referring to Competence, Performance, Recognition, and Interest. The largest circle represents the context, in this case upper secondary school physics, and the smaller dotted circles refer to the dimensions in the identity framework and portray the possibilities and restrictions for constructing the ideal physics identity within the context. The keywords and how they are interrelated are explained in the following subsections.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Outline of the ideal physics identity dimensions

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The Ideal Competences

One of the ideal competences expressed in the young women’s narratives entailed having an intuitive understanding of theory. This implied a feeling of baring the sole responsibility for reaching an understanding. For example, Tilde talked about how the teacher often spoke to them “as he expected that we already understood it”. Alia explained how they “would just sit at try to make sense of [the teacher talking]…and if you ask about something, then he says that he will come back to it another time”. This expectation of an intuitive understanding was often narrated as remembering. This was both at home when doing homework, but also in class. Olivia talked about how understanding the homework often was challenging and that she needed to read it several times to “get [the homework] into the brain and stick to it”. Esther explained that “there are formulas to remember and many precise values”, and Petra talked about her difficulties with remembering “the different theories, concepts, and formulas”. As such, understanding physics was experienced as being good at remembering.

This type of understanding was connected to another ideal competence, namely being able to follow a hierarchal learning process. Here one needed to acquire new knowledge and be able to use this knowledge to “build on top” (Pauline) of prior knowledge. In this sense, several learning levels were experienced, making the young women differentiate between “the basic” in lower secondary and “the difficult” in upper secondary. This was likewise illustrated by comparing learning-experiences in physics with learning a new subject biotechnology: “[In biotechnology,] we can’t build on top until we have the basic knowledge. We already got that in physics and now we just have to…of course learn new stuff, but also learn how to use what we learn” (Dagmar).

Another idealized competence was applying mathematics when learning physics. Here the resemblance between the formulas in mathematics and physics was highlighted, and the use of the formulas was experienced as similar: “you calculate much like in math in physics” (Pauline). Hence, physics was about using formulas and “very much calculating stuff. Like finding the wavelength…so very much math in it” (Berit). Luna expressed that lower secondary school physics was much more “drawings and figures”, while in upper secondary school, she related physics to using formulas, calculating velocities and stress ratios. This ideal competences of applying mathematics in physics was also narrated as an intuitive understanding. This was evident in the way that the young women explained the ability to apply mathematics, but also in the way that expectations from physics teachers were expressed (unfolded in the subsection The ideal way to recognition). The young women narrated this intuitiveness was narrated as something implied that one should grasp for themselves. For example, Charlotte highlighted: “We do not get sine explained…in physics. It’s more like okay you just do this on the calculator. And then it is very lucky that we just learned about it in math, so we know why it works like it does”. So, both the application of mathematics in physics and why math was applicable was idealized as something that one should comprehend intuitively on their own.

The Ideal Performances

A part of the ideal performances entailed being able to follow a specific structure. This structure was found in the way that the lessons primarily progressed but also in the activity of following a manual. The structure of the physics lessons was narrated as students “sit and follow the teacher who does something on the board and then [the students] do some assignments” (Tilde), followed by a joint sum-up. This structure was sometimes interrupted by an experiment or the teacher talking for the whole lesson. Pauline explained how physics lessons were monotonous, making them an easy way of performing: “we have read something as homework, and then [in class] we have to raise our hands and repeat what we have read”.

In relation to following a manual, the ideal performance presented itself as being able to fit experiments into theory. Ronja explained that “the teacher always goes through the experiment and the manual before letting us do the experiments”. Gudrun described that in physics, “you have to do what [the manual] says and write down the measurements”, and Christina explained how they would need to do data-processing after doing experiments to “see if it matches with the theory we have learnt”. Hence, the experiments were not considered something it itself, but rather a ritual to see if they would fit the theory. In this way, the experiments were reduced to reproducing already known knowledge.

The ideal performances also entailed finding the correct answer. Viola explained how one would find the correct answer by following the instructions manual. Dagmar explained that in physics, there would always be a correct answer to the calculations. This search for the correct answer was highlighted as a precise way to perform in contrast to performing in other subjects such as Danish or English: “when I say something in physics, then it is correct or wrong. Not something you kind of feel for” (Alia). So, the ideal performances in physics were centered around the binary correct and wrong, moved away from argumentations and explanations.

The Ideal Way to Recognition

The ideal way to be recognized was connected to and overlapped with the ideal competences and performances and often involving the teacher. Thus, performing in the ideal way or having the ideal competences entailed gaining recognition. Therefore, the elements in the ideal way to recognition duplicates elements from the ideal performances and competences; however, in this section they are explained from the perspective of being recognized.

Several of the young women highlighted being able to connect mathematics to physics as a way to be recognized. The teachers would play an essential role as they expressed their expectations: “So in math you have just learned about this, you all remember right? It’s the same here, you just fill in other values and then you can calculate it” (Jane). According to Marie, the teacher would sometimes say: “This you know how to do [in physics], because you just learned about it last Tuesday [in math]”. Or as Emily explained, that the teacher often expressed: “[Math and physics] are so similar to each other”. As such, the teachers would underline the importance of grasping the similarities between mathematics and physics and the applicability of mathematics in physics. Therefore, realizing this self-evident similarity worked as a way to be recognized.

The young women also narrated recognition as related to remembering. Thus, it was essential to remember knowledge and knowing how to use the knowledge to be recognized. For example, Petra expressed, “It is easiest to remember [the different theories, concepts, and formulas], so you know what you are supposed to use and how you are supposed to handle a problem…but I can’t do it”. In this sense, recognition could be accessed through remembering, or in Petra’s case, not remembering became a way to not gain recognition.

Another way to be recognized was through speaking proper physics by verbalizing the correct theories, concepts, and formulas, as well as their use. Luna explained how the teacher would always start the lesson by going through the homework and “ask if someone has any good concepts, then you raise your hand and explain it”. Marie explained how the teacher would start the lesson by asking questions such as “What do you know about atomic physics?” or “What have you read about in the homework for today?”. She continued by contrasting physics to the language subjects, in which the teachers would send the students out for a walk to talk to each other in the language. In physics, however, they would just sit in front of the computer and get told what to do. As such, speaking physics was limited to the classroom managed by the teacher. Zoe also expressed this focus on verbalizing content. She noted that when the teacher neglected to ask about their homework, it would feel like a waste of time having read it, as one could not get recognized by answering questions about it.

Recognition was also connected to following a structure. As described in the ideal Performances the ideal structure of the lessons would primarily start with some theory given by the teacher followed by the students doing assignments and then a joint sum-up. This structure was highlighted as a comfortable and easy way to be recognized. For example, Carla stated that “this works really well…because then you are told if you did it correct or if you did it wrong”. So, this structure was a way to be recognized and to recognize oneself. In a similar vein, Viola described this recognition as providing a feeling of comfort: “If it says in the manual that you are supposed to get a specific result, and you get it. It is nice to know that you did it correct. You kind of feel like you are Einstein” (Viola). Hence, following the structure provided a feeling of being clever and worked as a way to be recognized and to recognize oneself when performing in the ideal way.

The Ideal Interests

In the young women’s narratives, interests in physics were divided into two parts. The first and smallest part concerned interests related to competences such as applying mathematics and understanding when learning physics and to the occasional experiments. These were considered to be ideal interests when learning physics. The other and much larger part was connected to prior experiences with learning physics and present experiences with physics outside the learning content. However, neither were recognized in physics class (unfolded in the next part of the analysis). This division in interests is shown in Fig. 1 as the circle representing the interest-dimension falls largely outside the larger circle representing the context.

Hence, the idealized interests were connected to competences or the occasional experiments in physics class. For example, Ditte explained how she found physics interesting because it was just like mathematics but with other units. Olivia and Isabell expressed that if they had a lesson where they understood what was going on, then they found it interesting. Pauline explained that “experiments are nice…you connect what you learn to something practical”. Julie stated that “you understand because you do it yourself”. Mostly, however, the young women highlighted the change in the environment when going to the lab: “so you don’t sit down all day long” (Pauline) - that is, performing experiments provided a break from sitting down as they would do in most of the subjects.

The Negotiated Physics Identities

In the following subsections we unfold how the young women negotiated their meeting with the ideal physics identity, and the consequences for forming their own identity within physics.

Struggling Identities

A common feature for the young women in this group was that they all found physics interesting but struggled to get their interests recognized in class, as well as seeing themselves as competent and able to perform in the ideal way.

Katie expressed how she liked to learn new stuff:

…like how a star is born, or how fast the speed of light is, just because you like to know, or how a bat can hear, or something like that. Just fun things that makes life a little more fun. (Katie)

At the same time, she felt that her interests and curiosity in the physical world would not be recognized as physics in class. Consequently, her relationship with upper secondary school physics was permeated with dislike. Alia explained about participating in a physics workshop at her school when choosing her study program:

[the teacher] talked about how you could choose what you wanted to explore and […] things I just find interesting […] And also, about space […]. And all kinds of stuff that physics is really just what we live in, that everything is physics. I don’t know how much we have learned about that yet […] Like it’s much more formulas and stuff like that we have learned. (Alia)

For Alia this workshop sparked her interest. However, in the classroom she did not experience physics as inclusive of her interest. Others participants highlighted how the repeated structure of the lessons failed to capture their interests. Aya explained how she would usual experience a physics lesson:

Longwinded and boring…I feel like I’m quickly unfocused, and then you haven’t followed the lesson, and then that lesson was kind of waste. But when we do experiments in physics…then I think it is much more exciting. (Aya)

As such, the experiments were contrasted to normal physics lessons, as something that could spark interest. Olivia highlighted a situation where they had performed their own measurements as more meaningful than “getting an assignment where [others] had done the measurements”. Julie explained how the occasional experiments offered a different way of learning: “You understand it in another way. You kind of see the process happen… So, you understand it because you do it yourself”. Hence, learning physics by doing it themselves and thereby relating the content to themselves made the learning process meaningful to them. Dagmar also highlighted her search for meaning when learning physics:

Sometimes when you just sit and do calculations and stuff like that, you can get a little stuck, and like where is this going? Whereas being out on excursions and see people that work with it in their everyday…then you can see where we are going. Where it might end up. So, you can find meaning in…well we do this for a reason. (Dagmar)

For her, the relatability and meaning in learning physics was not encapsulated in physics lessons; instead, it was something found outside class in real-life situations and jobs.

So, learning physics seemed different from the young women’s interests in the physical world, and from doing experiments and being practical. As such, physics worked as an exclusionary mechanism, leaving them to set aside their passion and enthusiasm for physics as something happening outside and beyond learning physics.

Additionally struggles presented themselves in the interplay between performing and be recognized in the ideal way. Emily experienced that the expectation of finding the correct answer while following the expected structure worked as a narrow way of doing physics, making it unclear how to get recognized:

…when I get an assignment that has a very narrow way of being done, but I don’t know which way I’m supposed to look at it. Like, the teacher knows exactly how you should look at the assignment. But I can’t figure out how the teacher wants me to look at it. (Emily)

For her, the feeling of having to perform in a specific way, but not knowing exactly which way, hindered her performance. For Dagmar, the expectation of speaking properly as a way to be recognized presented itself as a prohibitive task: “It is so exhausting to be ‘on’…I’m just not a big fan of speaking in front of the class…it is just so draining to do it all the time”. As such, the ideal performances and ideal ways to be recognized presented themselves as narrow and exclusionary.

Finally, struggles were evident in relation to the competence of applying mathematics when learning physics. Zoe explained:

The mathematics of physics can seem much more difficult than normal mathematics […] because it is something with units…you have to calculate with…and with so much knowledge in one…small assignment, [it] can seem completely unmanageable. It’s not just numbers. Then it says something with how long time it takes for this ship to do this… So, you need to understand what [the assignment] says to be able to do it. (Zoe)

For Zoe, mathematics and mathematics-in-physics seemed to be two different areas and difficult to unite. In this way, the implied exaptation of transferability from mathematics to physics was not always obvious, making the young women feel less competent in physics. Emily explained how she could easily solve an assignment in mathematics but “in physics, I just have to think an extra time, even though it is the same assignment, just because I don’t have the theory [in physics]…cause sometimes I get lost already [in the theory]”. Hence, the ideal of being able to transfer competences from mathematics into physics seemed like an impossible task: to understand the physics content, you would need to transfer competences from mathematics, but you could not make the transfer without understanding the physics content.

In this way, the young women struggled in several ways: first, by getting one's own interests in physics recognized, but also with being competent and performing in the ideal way. As such, physics offered little space for recognizing interests outside the content and a narrow way of performing, and the expectation of applying mathematics often worked as an exclusionary mechanism. The struggle to get one's own interest recognized while learning physics made the interest as something one could have on the side while learning physics or limited to single events when doing experiments. Consequently, the young women in this group were challenged to find meaning when learning physics and to form a sense of identity, despite expressing an interest and strong enthusiasm for physics.

Disconnecting Identities

The young women in this group were recognized for their competences and in how they performed physics. However, they found that learning physics had no room for fostering interests in the subject.

The structure of the physics lessons was comfortable and provided a clear and predictable script. Pauline highlighted how the structure was something she thought was easy to replicate: “…it’s very monotonous, our physics-lessons, but I actually also think that is fine”. Jane explained how the teaching tended to follow a certain script that made it easy to interpret how to navigate within:

So, I like that [the lesson] kind of works like math [lessons], like you sum-up on the homework and write on the board what you just learned, and then from there you do assignments, related to what you just heard about. (Jane)

Thus, the young women in this group had an experience of successfully enacting the structure of the lesson by applying mathematics.

On the other hand, enacting this structure left limited room for forming an interest in the content. For example, Marie stated:

It is very nice worksheets. That I really like. It says very precisely what we need to do within the timeframe. So, I really like that you know what is going to happen…it is definitely a subject where there has been structure around what we have gone through and where we can find things… But it hasn’t been the most interesting lessons either. (Marie)

She highlighted the predictability of the structure as something positive, but at the same time she felt that this structure left no room for her interests. As such, her performance became mechanical with an outer motivation of achievement instead of an inner content- and interest-based motivation.

Jane also discussed the predictable structure and how she was not able to see herself forming an interest in the content:

So, I like physics…but it’s not like I go oh that’s really exciting. I like it and I think we have a good teacher. Yeah, it’s fine, but not something that interests me further. (Jane)

Consequently, the young women in this group were left to think that physics was not compatible with their own interests. So, performing the predictable lessons while using mathematics was a way to be recognized. However, this performance entailed feeling detached with no room for forming interests or meaning in learning the content. Consequently, for this group of young women learning physics entailed forming an identity limited to being mechanical, detached, and driven by achievement.

Rejecting Identities

The young women in this group were neither recognized in relation to competences nor performances and likewise found that learning physics had no room for fostering interests and meaning in the subject.

Esther expressed how physics lessons often were “quite heavy” and “tough sometimes” making her struggle to follow the lessons:

I just think [physics] can be difficult to understand sometimes. And then sometimes, if you kind of zone out a bit…then you look at the board, and then there is all kinds of things, that I can’t [understand]. (Esther)

She experienced an impossible need to pay attention without missing anything. Because this was not possible, she perceived herself as not competent, a view reinforced by the ideal of having an intuitive understanding of the teacher without discussing or asking questions. For Petra, the feeling of not being competent in the expected way presented itself within the gap between prior and present experiences with physics:

I think it is difficult…compared to physics last year […] Like we go through the content really fast. It’s like there is a lot we need to do…and I think it is difficult to remember all the different theories, concepts, and formulas […] It’s easiest to remember, so you know what you are supposed to use and how you are supposed to handle a problem…but I can’t do it. (Petra)

Even though Petra liked mathematics, the mathematics in physics seemed different, which made her struggle with the pace of learning new content. Additionally, she found she herself had to relate the theories to the practical applications. As a result, she felt incompetent as she saw herself not living up to the expectation of being able to remember. This struggle to unite prior experiences with present expectations in the subject was a common topic for the young women in this group. Selma explained how physics was completely different than her prior experiences, which made her question her abilities to follow the lessons. Idun explained how she could feel completely lost elaborating on the feeling: “I don’t think we have done anything [in lower secondary school] that I could use here in physics”. As such the transition into upper secondary school physics seemed as attending a new subject with a new set of ideals, that made them doubt their own competences and past experiences.

This lack of feeling competent affected how the young women perceived their own performances. For example, Esther described the following when doing occasional experiments: “It’s so much data processing, and sometimes it can be difficult, like to know what you are supposed to do”. She felt that there was a specific way to do things - in this case, the ideal of fitting experiments into theory - but at the same time it felt impossible to fit into the narrow performance.

The distinction between lower and upper secondary school physics presented another problem for the young women in this group, namely in relation to relatability:

But [physics in lower secondary] was more…useful, more like you could relate it to our earth […] I guess you could say that [physics now] also is…but it’s just. It gets so…I don’t even know what…I almost don’t even know what we are talking about now…It seems so distant from me, […] Then I think it somehow becomes unnecessary. (Petra)

For Petra, the relatability in learning physics had disappeared, leaving her struggling to find interest and meaning in the content and complicating her engagement in learning the subject. This lack of relatability was also expressed by Hannah when asked about what went on in physics class. She replied, “I don’t really know, to be honest” - she had the same difficulties with putting into words the learning of physics.

Taken together, the young women in this group were marginalized in relation to the ideal competences and performances, as well as prior interests and experiences. Consequently, the unrelatable content worked as an exclusionary mechanism, as it seemed impossible to form interests and meaning with learning physics. As a result, the young women in this group saw themselves as not fitting in and not able to form a sense of physics identity.

Thriving Identities

This group of young women expressed conformity between themselves and what was expected of them in physics. Consequently, they were all able to see themselves “fit in” and form a sense of identity when learning the subject.

Luna described her feelings about learning physics:

So often when I talk with the others, it is like “oh we have physics next”, but where I’m more like, I actually like having physics. Like doing calculations and stuff, is no problem for me. (Luna)

She saw herself fit into the ideal as competent and, therefore, believed physics as something for her. Anna also expressed how she was able to perform the ideal structure of the lesson:

[…] The best physics lessons are where we go through something on the board, then you sit and write notes and you imagine a situation where something happens, and you use different formulas and then you figure out…how to use it. (Anna)

She saw herself fulfil the ideal competences as one knowing how and when to use the correct formulas.

It was common for the young women in this group to embody ideal competences by being able to transfer knowledge from mathematics into physics, as expressed by Christina:

You see it yourself when doing a physics report, that here is something with tangent you need to use […] you kind of draw on knowledge from mathematics into physics. (Christina)

Hence, grasping on their own the implied application of mathematics in physics was a way to be recognized and offered a way to ascribe meaning to their experiences when learning physics. They not only transferred knowledge from mathematics into physics, but also interests, as Charlotte stated: “if you like mathematics, then physics is a good idea to choose”. Her interest in mathematics could easily be transferred into a like and interest for physics. Anna also drew on her experience of similarities between physics and mathematics when she explained about her decision to continue into physics:

…I just really like physics and everything that comes with it…also because it is connected so closely to mathematics, which has always been my favourite subject. So, it was just…it was the way it was supposed to be, and I couldn’t imagine anything else. (Anna)

Besides drawing on similarities between physics and mathematics, she also saw herself fitting into physics as something predetermined. Luna expressed the same kind of predetermination to fit into physics: “physics is a natural science, so I automatically like it”. She also drew on the idea of physics as a difficult subject and for the clever ones:

[…] the natural sciences are much more difficult than social science, because in social science everybody can participate on a certain level […] where in the [natural sciences] there exist a concrete correct answer, that you need to find. (Luna)

As such, the young women in this group were able to perform ideally and be competent in the ideal way while forming interests in the subject based on these competences. They were able to grasp by themselves what was expected and idealized when learning physics and see themselves fit into the ideal. In this way they were able to form a sense of identity driven by idealizations rather than interests.

Discussion and Conclusion

In this paper, we explored young women’s experiences within their first year of upper secondary school physics. We approached the students’ experiences as identity processes of becoming (Gale & Parker, 2014) and thus as an ongoing negotiation process embedded within the norms and practices of physics. We applied the analytic lenses of physics identities as constructed through the dimensions of competence, performance, interest, and recognition (Hazari et al., 2010) while drawing on the ideal student (Wong & Chiu, 2021). Hence, we have added to the current discussions of science identity in the International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education (Chen et al., 2023; Wong & Copsey-Blake, 2023) by addressing the call for more in-depth qualitative studies at the upper secondary level (Hazari et al., 2010).

In our analysis, we identified four ways of shaping physics identities - Struggling, Disconnecting, Rejecting, and Thriving - and showed how a large group of the students struggled to see themselves within upper secondary school physics (Struggling, Disconnecting, and Rejecting). First, their interests (both prior and present) in physics were not recognized as part of the learning content. As such, it was not a matter of lacking investment in physics, as described in a previous study (Sax et al., 2016). We found that the young women were offered limited room to form interests or to expand their own interests when learning the subject. Similar denial of interests was found by Archer et al. (2020a) when they analysed young women’s experiences in physics. They highlighted the presence of interest, aspiration, and inspiration among the young women in their sample and interpreted the inability to continue with physics as excluding practices and strict gatekeeping by the education system. Second, the predictability and structure of physics teaching narrowed the possibilities for shaping meaningful identities in the subject. Consequently, learning physics entailed forming an attachment to what was experienced as mechanical, instrumental, and often meaningless performances of the subject, making achievement the main drive. Third, physics was repeatedly experienced as being reduced to mathematics in a non-transparent way. This strong association with mathematics resembles prior research at the compulsory level year 11 (DeWitt et al., 2019), at the upper secondary level (Due, 2014), and at the university level (Hasse, 2002). This assumption that applying mathematics as a reasoning tool to think about the physical world has been criticized, as the use of mathematics is substantially different when applied within physics (Karam et al., 2019). A small group (Disconnecting) were able to perform and be competent without forming interests in the subject. Research has demonstrated how girls and women often show less confidence in own abilities when it comes to physics, and thereby have difficulties with seeing themselves “fit in” (Archer et al., 2020b; Mujtaba & Reiss, 2013). Interest has often been identified as a main driver and essential for pursuing the subject (Mujtaba & Reiss, 2014). However, in this study some of the young women believed in their own abilities (competences and performances) despite feeling devoid of interests.

Only a small group of young women (Thriving) was able to form a sense of identity within the physics classroom, particularly through their passion and engagement with mathematics, as mathematics was considered to be a dominant practice to perform as a physics student. Prior research has also demonstrated how performance and success in mathematics are advantages when learning and advancing with physics (Krakehl & Kelly, 2023). Furthermore, studies have demonstrated how students are highly interested in physics especially due to the mathematical aspects of it (DeWitt et al., 2019; Mujtaba & Reiss, 2013). The young women in this study with a strong physics identity were mathematically skilled and interested rather than engaged in physics alone, thus questioning the demands for being able to be in and continue with physics (Archer et al., 2020a).

Our findings echo the results of studies on norms and practices in physics that have shown how physics is a subject that offers narrow and limited positions only accessible to a small group of students who are superior at grasping the often implied expectations (Archer et al., 2017; Bøe & Henriksen, 2013; Johansson et al., 2018). In a study of meanings produced within reformed-based physics, Carlone (2004) showed how girls resisted meanings that they found threatened their good student positions. In a similar vein, some of the young women in this study described their own performances as instrumental and meaningless and at the same time ideal as performing “good student”. Additionally, the students who had an interest in physics when entering upper secondary school were left with the responsibility to relate their physics interests into the classroom practices themselves. Johansson et al. (2018) drew similar conclusions: they found that the overwhelming focus on calculations risked producing positions of instrumental approaches towards physics, and that positions of being smart and curious were left for students who by themselves managed to nurture such interests.

Aligned with exclusions found in other studies (Holmegaard & Johannsen, 2023), the young women in this study were left to take risks (when bringing in experiences or interests from outside the subject) and to negotiate what counted as physics (as more than mathematics). As such, the young women were required to step out of the norms within teaching to align themselves and their interest with the subject. This endeavour becomes risky if one is in danger of not gaining recognition. Such risk-taking is often not applicable for students who are associated with inherently possessing their privileges (thus, they cannot risk being lost).

The implications of the study show at least three interrelated points: First, the study shows how the transition into upper secondary physics left the students challenged to maintain, grow, and develop an interest in the physics content. We found that it is not a matter of lacking interest, but rather the way that physics is practiced that prevents some interests from being met and supported. Similarly, Bøe and Henriksen (2013) have conclude in a study of secondary and territory students’ choice profiles, that physics can be made more inclusive if it supports not only subject-centered interests, but also broader motivations. Furthermore, DeWitt et al. (2019) highlighted a science capital pedagogical approach to better recognize and value what the students bring to the classroom. Therefore, we call for attention on who counts as knowledgeable in physics (Berge et al., 2020) and on what counts as physics in upper secondary education (Godec et al., 2017) to support diverse range of interests within the subject. Second, we wish to question the assumption of an intrinsic interest as a prerequisite for being in and pursuing physics, as lacking interest can feel wrong even when one is competent and able to perform. Research of university-level physics has shown that female students report the same level of well-being as their male peers, even though the male students describe a stronger physics identity and belonging (Bottomley et al., 2024). As such, there seems to be different ways of well-being in physics. Third, the heavy focus on mathematics in physics risks pushing away students that could be supported in finding physics interesting. Currently, the practices in upper secondary school (as well as other levels) challenge young women with an interest in physics, preventing their interests from growing and thereby forming a physics identity. Instead, physics seems to be reduced to a matter of mathematics, formulas, and calculations. Therefore, this implication points to the importance of ensuring physics as a subject that supports students in seeing that physics is something for them beyond mathematics. This raises the question of what mathematics is within physics and what physics is without mathematics to better disrupt the reproduction of the elite status of physics as only for the privileged few (Archer et al., 2020a).

In essences, as DeWitt et al. (2019) concluded, significant transformations are imperative if we want to shift the unequal participation in physics. Changes that can only be made from within the field (Archer et al., 2020b).