Identities, Pathologies and Power Relations

Abstract

In Chapter 3 we suggested that student identities are formed and reformed throughout the transitional process. We further suggested that students, by virtue of their position or role, are located within: official rules and arrangements of resources; stories, narratives, arguments, and chronologies; structures of agency; and discursive structures, all of which has implications for their particular transitions. They are placed within these arrangements (which are not static but evolving) and have to find their way through them. There are clues as to how a good student might think, behave, feel or act, such as in following the rules, or conforming to the relevant norms of the new practice. However, the student has a choice to make here: should they blindly follow these rules or should they try to understand the underpinning principles of these rules. They can therefore follow a set of rules, and perform in the practice in the correct way, without at the same time fully understanding notions of originality, ownership, self-realisation, performance and the like. Or they can develop a deeper understanding of these rules, with the possible consequence that their compliance becomes more circumspect. And within the appropriation of these rules and norms is a notion of identity as a student. This never imposes in any absolute sense on the student; however, the person who actively seeks an identity as a student works within these arrangements of rules and resources.