Identity at Risk: Students’ Identity Configuration in the Aftermath of Trauma

ABSTRACT

Two and a half years after the July 2011 massacre on the Norwegian island of Utøya, 68 of the adolescent survivors were interviewed about their everyday life at school. The interviews revealed changes in the interplay and counterplay between student identity and social identity when new identities connected to the massacre were introduced in the school arena. This dynamic has two prominent contradictory aspects: (1) the strong need to avoid being associated with the massacre, yet (2) they also experience a high degree of imposed external framing of identity configuration. This article investigates school as an arena where unwanted identity changes are played out. School emerges as an arena that can complicate the rehabilitation process by confirming and specifying the changes caused by exposure to trauma. Implications for what trauma support at school could entail for trauma-exposed adolescents are indicated.

KEYWORDS:

• Identity work
• traumatic stress
• terrorism
• adolescence
• adapted education

Acknowledgements

We thank the following researchers for valuable comments: Laila Aase, Eva Alisic, Pål Bjørby, Sylvi Penne, and Grete Dyb (project leader of the Utøya study).

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. “Russ” are students who are about to graduate from upper secondary school in Norway. They wear caps with a tassel and knots are tied into these tassels according to certain rules. The aim is to get as many knots as possible. The more knots, the more “crazy” your “russ” celebrations have been.

Additional information

Funding

The Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research and the Norwegian Directorate of Health have financially supported this study.