IDENTITETSSKAPANDE I STUDENTFÖRENINGEN ULRIKA ... - DiVA

S U M M A R Y
were critical events in which discourses of gender and class were activated.
They were about norm transgressions or remarkable events, and they have been
analysed in more detail as manifestations of ideological dilemmas. The analysis
resulted in a preliminary description of the ideal identities.
In the next step a Foucault-inspired genealogical analysis was made of texts
about students, student life and students’ societies in different time periods.
The texts are primarily written by researchers in History or History of Ideas. I
have read and interpreted them as definitions of different discourses about
students through the ages. This showed that certain old ideas, or images of
students, were still active and significant in my informants’ creation of identity.
I also found that certain strategies, rituals and practices that earlier on shaped
students’ identities were still staged in the students’ societies. The different
historical meaning of the concept ‘student’ thus function as ‘presuppositions’
of what characterises a student, and these presuppositions are still manifested in
the ways my informants’ represented themselves. Hence the students’ narratives
could be understood as interplay between the present and the past, and the
preliminary analysis that I had already made of the interview data could be
tightened up.
The ‘Student’ as a Gender and Class Construction: A
Genealogical Analysis of Research on Students
The genealogical analysis, primarily based on earlier research, resulted in the
identification of two discourses about the student. Initially and up until 17th
century Sweden, a guild discourse was prominent. To be included in this, the
male student had to fulfil certain demands, for example to go through the deposition
ritual and place himself at the bottom of the patriarchal hierarchy. As a
member of the university guild, the male student enjoyed the privilege of being
above the general judicial system. Substantial alcohol consumption, violence
and carnivals overturning normal behaviour were part of the student guild’s
social practices. Taken together this made the student appear to be carefree and
irresponsible. Life as a student was seen as a free space in which the student was
allowed to stretch many limits before the seriousness of life in public service
started.
The meritocratic discourse began to manifest itself in the 18th and 19th centuries,
and it constituted the student as a man with the right and ability to be
heard in the public debate. This right and ability was linked to the qualifications
acquired through higher education. The meritocratic discourse had obvious
middle-class overtones, since it was used by the raising middle class in
their struggle against the aristocracy. The student in the meritocratic discourse
was seen as the hope of the nation, and the time of study was no longer a care-
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