Another reason to consider intersectional questioning is how it can influence my thinking on fluidity and reflexivity. Identity researchers often see identity as a fixed thing, which is problematic. Fluidity research shows how agents may or may not shift positions adopting different identities depending on the field (Carter 2005). In an exploration of fixed and fluid we must consider how an increasing
85 neoliberal context shapes both social and learner identities while fixing certain identities in place. Stuart Hall (1996) writes:
I use ‘identity’ to refer to the meeting point, the point of suture, between on the one hand the discourses and practices which attempt to 'interpellate', speak to us or hail us into place as the social subjects of particular discourses, and on the other hand, the processes which produce subjectivities, which construct us as subjects which can be ‘spoken’. Identities are thus points of temporary attachment to the subject positions which discursive practices construct for us (see Hall, 1995). They are the result of a successful articulation or ‘chaining’ of the subject into the flow of the discourse. (5-6)
For Phoenix (2010) intersectionality is a process of subjectification which begins to explain fluidity. Many sociologists believe identity is infused with history, discursively shaped and constructed primarily through difference where identity is always ‘in process’ (Hall 1996). Therefore, both identity and the study of identity remain a complex and highly reflexive process. For Hall: “identities are about processes of becoming rather than being: ‘not ‘who we are’ or ‘where we came from”, so much as what we might become, how we have been represented, and how that bears on how we might represent ourselves’” (Reay 2010: 277). Therefore, identity processes are about ‘routes’ as opposed to ‘roots’ (Hall 1996: 4).
In sociological research, social and learner identities have recently undergone an agentic makeover within the prevailing attention to neo-liberal ideology and reflexivity (Threadgold and Nilan 2009). Whereas with Willis’s work ‘resistance’ to schooling was seen in terms of class consciousness, “contemporary theorizations would understand both resistance and conformity as identity work that to varying degrees is contextualized within broader notions of the social” (Reay 2010 281). Identities are constructed within discourses where they acquire different degrees of reflexivity. Moreover, identities – whether they be learner or social – emerge within the play of: “specific modalities of power, and thus are more the product of the marking of difference and exclusion” (Hall 1996: 4). Bourdieu’s concept of habitus is useful to consider here, as the habitus can also
86 generate reflexivity through experiences beyond a usual field of existence. Schemes of perception are then brought back into the original field by the individuals and this allows the subject to think/behave differently (and reflexively), which can then disrupt normal practice as agency and structure mutually inform each other.
Furthermore for students: “success in school is not simply a matter of academic ability but assumes a reservoir of expertise necessary to understand and play the system. Success is reliant on motivation, commitment, perseverance in the face of setback” (MacBeath 2009: 82). However, ‘success’ is never just down to the individual, however increasingly the so-called autonomous achievement perpetuates educational policy and classroom culture. In his close analysis of the subtle ways neo-liberalism shapes school contexts and learner identities, Wilkins (2011) writes:
It is this imagery of educational achievement, as exercised by an empowered, self-maximising subject in pursuit of success and autonomy, which sometimes results in low attainment being transposed or re-coded into a matter of personal sin (i.e. a private psychological propensity or ‘attitude’ particular to the individual), and therefore attributes social disadvantage to a lack of principled self-help and self-responsibility. Such a view is therefore problematic in that it de-socialises academic achievement and treats it as a kind of individual rational calculus, thus failing to take into account how structural inequalities pertaining to practices of exclusion and division circumscribe individual effort and affect educational outcomes. (4)
Accounting for differences in primary socialization, we are reminded of how middle-class parents consistently describe their children as ‘bright’ (Reay, Beedell et al. 2007; Reay, Hollingworth et al. 2007), while attributes working- class parents are likely to focus upon are the children’s ability to stay out of trouble, get on with others, and to (physically) work hard (Gillies 2005). In the intersecting of social and learner identities the ontological security and ethos of the: “working classes is more likely to lie in ‘fitting in’ rather than standing out” (Skeggs 2004a). The desire to ‘fit in’ is further highlighted by Reay and Lucey’s
87 (2000a) research into secondary school transition where working-class children do not want to be seen as different in the school environment. Working-class socialization, primarily through gender and social class, fosters elements of fixity and fluidity within a prevalent neo-liberal ideology. Fluidity and the ability to adopt multiple identities (Carter 2006) have been recognized as capital (Threadgold and Nilan 2009). Therefore, depending on the field and the degree of reflexivity, fluidity arguably can become operable.
Within the fluidity paradigm, conceptions of class, gender and ethnicity are all processes which potentially foster the ability to engage with multiple and shifting subjectivities. Extending Connell’s work on the contextual development of masculine identities, Gilbert and Gilbert (1998) assert that: “masculinity is diverse, dynamic and changing, and we need to think of multiple masculinities rather than some singular discourse” (49). Concentrating largely on poor behaviour exhibited by boys in schools, Gilbert and Gilbert (1998) cite the tremendous anxiety many adolescent boys experience within the school environment and how this pushes them to “folly” by fixating on one form of masculinity, a: “form of masculinity which is narrow, rigid and inflexible, and whose integrity and viability depends on its opposition to femininity and more diverse concepts of masculinity” (1998: 222). Particularly salient in the literature, numerous studies have shown many white working-class boys rejecting education through the processes of self-making, through enacting their masculine identity. However, Gilbert and Gilbert (1998) note that it is not just the boys in pursuit of a ‘macho’ identity that reject school. In fact, their research demonstrates that many different masculinities will reject education in an effort to become men, showing that fixity is a danger for many different forms of masculinity.
Furthermore, I would argue that disengagement from education is often centred on the dialectic of fixed and fluid identity construction. In considering fixit y and fluidity, it is worth considering the degree of reflexivity in regard to their own gender identity, social class position and social class in general. Threadgold and Nilan (2009) show the power of the social space to influences reflexivity. If identity becomes fixed, it serves as a weakness. However, if identity is fluid it can be utilized as a capital. Prudence Carter’s (2006) work with African-
88 American and Latino youth and learner identities in Yonkers, New York supports this theoretical underpinning. Extending Ogbu’s work, she represents how some students could strategically move back and forth among different fields, turning: “cultural codes on and off” (322). Students who were more academically engaged, which she terms as ‘cultural straddlers’, were more “‘blended’” and able to: “identify with their multiple social identities simultaneously operating in a variety of cultural spheres” (322). Complementing Carter’s findings, Horvat and Lewis (2003) found engagement with academic studies to be a gendered process for university-bound African-American females where, depending on the peer group, they camouflaged their academic success or openly shared it. Horvat and Lewis remain critical of Carter; their argument is more framed around the power of the field to influence the habitus. They show the heterogeneity of black female peer groupings and how they enacted different learner identities, accessing different capitals depending on certain environments and the social composition of the group.