Background: Women are underrepresented in engineering. Furthermore, those who enter engineering fields are less likely than men to persist. Although conflict between work and family roles has been a major explanation for this gender gap, there has been little examination of how work and family identities fit with the engineering identity of…

In this study, using the concept of "perezhivanie" as an analytical tool, we were trying out new ways to investigate L2 identity taking the peripheral educational context into account. We examined how two graduates from non-academic high schools perceived their peripheral school situation through their "perezhivanie," and…

This study investigates women's science identity development in physics and the physical sciences in higher education through a gender perspective. It arises from the real-life sociological issue of women's lower level of participation in physics and physical sciences in Ireland, where the gender gap is the highest of all science disciplines,…

This article shows the significance of college-going aspiration in the future identities of young girls and the sources of such influence in their worlds. Using the figured worlds theory, the paper analyzes the process and implications of these young girls' college-going aspirations. Drawing on interviews and observations with nineteen young girls…

Background/Context: Inclusion of African immigrant youth voices in educational and research discourses remains rare despite the steady growth of this population in the United States over the past four decades. Consequently, the multilingual abilities of these youth remain typically unnoticed or ignored in the classroom, and little is specifically…

Research on university-educated Muslim women in different cultural contexts has displayed an intricate and paradoxical connection between experiences of higher education and identity mediation. A traditional model conceptualizes Muslim female university students as 'rebels' against their heritage religion and culture. Recent developments in the…

Girls' identity constructions are influenced by the dominant sport, health and beauty discourses in their society. Recent research indicates that sport and health discourses embedded in physical education (PE) compete for influence. Some of these studies have illustrated how these discourses inform girls' social construction of body ideals and…

This study explored the relationship between identity and learning English by designing and administering a 30-item Foreign Language Identity Scale (FLIS) to 470 female participants enrolled in English courses offered at advanced levels in private institutes in Mashhad, Iran. The application of the principal axis factoring to the responses and…

The purpose of this article is to explore how one group of students reflect upon their transition into the higher education environment. This qualitative research project followed one group of female undergraduate students as they moved through the first year of study. All of the participants were the first in their family to consider further…

In this article, the author discusses three books whose shared concern is what constitutes an "individual". Each, in its own way, challenges the idea that "identity" is fixed or uncomplicated. The books, in trying to find the underlying cause of what makes up an individual's "identity", advocate strongly the need…

Gender differences in achievement have been widely documented and a number of feminists, particularly from the West, have used the concept of identity to explain them. This paper draws on constructions on gender and achievement generated through surveying 59 boys and 103 girls from four secondary schools, as well as interviewing 40 of the girls in…

There has been a paucity of research on gifted individuals' perceptions of gender stereotypes. The purpose of this study was to explore mathematically gifted adolescent females' perceptions of gender stereotypes through a research design of the qualitative multiple case study involving the constant comparison and the Three C's analysis scheme.…

It is a well-acknowledged fact that the role of women in society has been changing worldwide over recent decades and South Africa has not been exempt from this trend. Dramatic changes--politically, socially, economically and educationally--have occurred in South Africa since its first democratic, non-racial elections in 1994, which have affected…

This paper is written as a return to the generation of young Muslim women who were participants in a piece of research carried just over a decade ago. Some of these original participants have been re-interviewed in 2007. The paper traces the shift in discourses around multiculturalism and identity, ethnicity and religion via two recent significant…

In this paper we examine the identity negotiation processes of North African immigrant women in France. Participants engaged in various forms of identity work, including selective association and management of appearance, as well as resisting others' attempts to categorize them as immigrants. Given that these women have chosen to move to France…