Returning to Class – Connections between language practices, educational identities and classed positions

In her thesis, Larsen explores inequalities related to constructions of educational identities among contemporary Danish youth in their trajectory from gymnasium students to graduates.

The study consists of two parts. The primary study is based on linguistic ethnographic fieldwork at a provincial Danish gymnasium. The second part is a follow-up study based on online interviews with 40 students from the school, conducted approximately 1.5 years after the students graduated.

The first part of the study investigates how local language norms and ideologies in combination with wider circulating discourses concerning class positions, language and school performance entails unequal access to perform linguistically as competent students. It is shown that students and teachers can engage in different language norms and ideologies, that the students have to navigate multiple and sometimes contradictive norms to position themselves as good students and that especially the students’ ideologies concerning linguistic authenticity, can affect their own and their classmates’ possible positions in the classroom. The study further shows that discourses which directly and indirectly connect class positions, language practices and school performance circulate locally and in print media. It is argued that such discourses can affect the students' identification practices in the gymnasium in different ways.

The second part of the study investigates the students' educational trajectories after graduation and their narratives about these with a special focus on two focal participants. With the application of a Bourdieu-inspired approach to class and accumulated capital, it is argued that choices of rejecting tertiary education can be part of manifesting a privileged position. In addition, it is argued that for these students, positioning in the contemporary stratified social hierarchy is not merely related to exam diplomas, but to freedom of choice and to narratives they tell about tastes and choices.

The dissertation contributes new insights into language practices in the contemporary diverse gymnasium in Denmark. Additionally, the thesis illustrates how we can grasp and investigate connections between language practices, social class positions, and education in contemporary society from a sociolinguistic perspective.

The dissertation consists of four articles connected through nine short introductory and concluding chapters. These chapters support and elaborate theoretical, methodological and empirical points that are only briefly addressed in the articles. In the first part of the study, it is shown that students and teachers can engage in different language norms and ideologies, that the students have to navigate multiple and sometimes contradictive norms to position themselves as good students and that especially the students’ ideologies concerning linguistic authenticity can affect their own and their classmates’ possible positions in class. The study further shows that there, locally and in print media, circulates discourses, directly and indirectly, connecting class positions, language practices and school performance. Based on three case studies of students whose parents do not have a gymnasium degree, it is argued that such discourses affect the students' identification practices in the gymnasium.

The second part of the study focuses on the educational trajectory of two students with higher middle-class backgrounds, who during their time at the gymnasium had positions as good and competent students. In contrast to those of their peers, whose parents do not have a gymnasium degree, who all articulate intentions to enter further education, these two students express wishes to self-educate and create their own businesses. Their narratives are related to ‘masternarratives’ about self-realisation and ‘hackschooling’. It is argued that their positions can be related to a decreasing status of formal education in the twenty-first century, where the possibility to position as a competent, self-educated entrepreneur is connected to high status and middle-class privilege.

The different parts of the dissertation collectively contribute new insights into language practices in the contemporary diverse gymnasium in Denmark. Additionally, it contributes perspectives on how to understand and investigate connections between language practices, social class positions and education in contemporary society.