Girls in education: citizenship, agency and emotions

Abstract

Education has been expected to maintain status quo through regulation of citizens, but also to contribute to social change and emancipation. In a collective ethnographic project we have proposed that these contradictions manifest themselves in everyday life at school through tensions between control and agency. Girls encounter practices whereby their use of space is curtailed, their embodiment is controlled and their voice is frequently considered inappropriate. Limitations encountered by girls when striving for independent individuality and citizenship generate a range of emotions. Girls enter educational spaces with the expectation of attaining rational individuality as learners. They often bestow great expectations on schooling and long to attain the position of an abstract independent individual and a citizen capable of exercising agency. In this process they enter a ‘transpositional’ space that frequently reminds them of their gender, as Victoria Foster suggests. The analysis is based on an ethnographic study and subsequent life history interviews on transitions of girls in ethnography.

Acknowledgements

I have had numerous discussions with colleagues on agency. I would like to thank Elina Lahelma, Tarja Tolonen, Janet Holland, Rachel Thomson, Sanna Aaltonen, Jukka Lehtonen, Liisa Husu and Anu Korhonen. An earlier draft of this paper was discussed in a working group in Finnish Women’s Studies conference in University of Rovaniemi—I thank Valerie Walkerdine and other participants for their comments. I extend my thanks to the anonymous reviewers. I am delighted that my interviewees have made this study possible.

Notes

1. For a critical discussion see for example Francis (2000) and Weaver‐Hightower (2003).

2. In this project funded by Academy of Finland (Gordon, 1994–1998) I worked in Helsinki together with Elina Lahelma, Pirkko Hynninen, Tuija Metso, Tarja Palmu and Tarja Tolonen. Janet Holland conducted a similar study in London (see Gordon et al., 2000).

3. In the transitions study Elina and I interviewed 63 young women and men in the first transition interviews and 55 in the second transition interviews. Tuula conducted 65 interviews, Elina 53.

4. The names are pseudonyms, the figure in brackets refers to age at the time of interview.