1. Emotional Journeys: Young People and Transitions to University
- Author
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Christie, Hazel
- Abstract
This paper offers an interpretation of the role of emotions in understanding the transitions that young people make to university. I draw on qualitative research with a group of non-traditional students, entering elite universities, to argue that youth transitions are emotional as well instrumental affairs. I argue that choice-making processes incorporate both trust in, and fear of, the transitions infrastructure, and that these emotions infuse more instrumental judgements about the economic benefits of higher education. I also demonstrate that emotional aspects of class--including feelings of entitlement to education and the rejection of normative student identities--constitute the experience of "being" or "doing" a student. A broader understanding of how young people become university students then depends not just on developing a new identity but on the complex interaction between emotion and infrastructure. (Contains 1 note.)
- Published
- 2009
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