Lost wants? An autoethnography of class and ethnicity on the long path to higher education

ABSTRACT

A central element in the writing of marginal subjects is the personal and autobiographical voice they use to write about themselves and their experiences. This article uses a personal voice- autoethnography – to examine, in a multi-layered manner, one-stop of the author’s educational biography and her path, as a working-class Mizrahi woman, to higher education, tracing how the intersection of class and ethnicity reveals itself in the way the experience of education is structured. This intersection sheds light about the possible connections between the classed ethnic identity and higher education ambitions, as well as explain her fragile presence in Academia. Using autoethnography grants voice, and allows for a connection between academia and the field, bridging the gap between intellectual discourse and the lived experiences of subjects.

KEYWORDS:

• Autoetnography
• ethnicity
• higher education
• memory
• Mizrahim

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. All names are pseudonyms.

2. A special scholarship for outstanding students from what were considered as economically disadvantaged families, in the 8^th Grade. The scholarship was created in the period following the establishment of Israel, and was intended for the payment of high school tuition.