Högskolan i Skövde

Nearly all pupils in Sweden continue their studies at upper secondary school. A central point of departure in this thesis is therefore to examine how the upper secondary school deals with its now both complex and difficult to interpret task of ”one school for all” and to describe and analyse the creation of identity for pupils within this institution. How the creation of identity occurs in different programmes during the pupils’ period of education is specifically studied with a theoretical starting point in Anthony Gidden’s structuration theory complemented with theories that concern pupil adaption and resistance.

The study was conducted at a municipal upper secondary school and used critical ethnographic research and document analysis. The programmes that were included in the study are the individual programme, the health care programme and the technical programme. Five pupil groups were followed for three school years.

The results show that the differentiation of pupils within the education system is strengthened in the everyday activities of the upper secondary school. At a general school level, an explicit pupil identity is sought after, but in the different programmes different possibilities for the pupils to achieve this are discerned. The pupils are faced with different demands and expectations depending on which upper secondary school programme they are studying at. This applies to both their performances and the social relations of the positioning processes involved in being a pupil. The creation of pupils' identities is formed and developed in different ways and can also be related to the prevalence of special support, as well as to gender, social background and ethnicity.

During their education most pupils strive towards adapting to the pupil identity that the school, at a general level, seeks. But they do so with varying degrees of resistance. In the thesis, the results are discussed in relation to the increased marketisation of the education system where individual performance, control and the evaluation of pupils are becoming more and more central. There is a need to critically examine these questions since they have such significant consequences for the future of young people.