‘Smart students get perfect scores in tests without studying much’: why is an effortless achiever identity attractive, and for whom is it possible?

Abstract

Discourses about the value of effort and hard work are prevalent and powerful in many western societies and educational contexts. Yet, paradoxically, in these same contexts effortless achievement is often lauded, and in certain discourses is heralded as the pinnacle of success and a sign of genius. In this paper we interrogate discourses about effort and especially ‘effortlessness’ in Swedish and English educational contexts. Informed, in particular, by interview data generated in upper secondary schools in Sweden and secondary schools in England, we address the questions: why is effortless achievement attractive, and for whom is it possible to be discursively positioned as an effortless achiever? We argue that the subject position of ‘effortless achiever’ is not available to all categories of students equally, and for some it would be almost impossible to attain; the intersections of gender, social class, ethnicity and institutional setting are influential. We end by considering the problematic implications of effortless achievement discourses.

Keywords:

• effortlessness
• effort
• intelligence
• gender
• social class

Notes

1. Again, comparative research suggests that this is less obvious in Asian countries (Stables et al. 2014; Stevenson, Chen, and Lee 1993).

2. Although in some cases, girls reinforce boys’ presentations as effortless achievers, for example, in Holford’s (2012) study, where some girls did their boyfriend’s homework.

Additional information

Funding

Funding. Jackson’s work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number RES-000-27-0041]. Nyström’s work was supported by The Faculty of Educational Research at Uppsala University, Sweden.