Social identities among engineering students and through their transition to work: a longitudinal study

Abstract

This article draws on a longitudinal and qualitative study of students in a master's program in engineering. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to analyze annual, semi-structured interviews with ten students, from the first semester until one year after graduation. The program enjoys a high status and has a reputation of being highly demanding. The results show how the students categorize themselves in relation to outgroups, and partly supports earlier research. The longitudinal design made it possible to study how students' social identities changed throughout their program, and when they went through a transition process to work. The graduated students developed an identity change, which involved a restructuring of the ways in which they understood their position in the social world.

Keywords:

• social identity
• longitudinal study
• engineering graduate
• engineering student
• transition

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank associate professor Ingrid Hylander for valuable comments on a previous version of the paper. Most of the interviews were carried out in a project funded by a grant from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg foundation.