Identity and Education by Janet Parr

Author:Janet Parr [Parr, Janet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Women's Studies
ISBN: 9781351775953
Google: mwyjDwAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 590698
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2000-05-28T00:00:00+00:00

Her voluntary work and her husband's support have given Alison a boost to her confidence, but she is still looking for the confidence which comes from proving to herself that she has academic ability:

Personally, I'll say one thing the course has done, is I feel it's given me a great deal more confidence in my abilities. It's made me realise so much - I had such a low opinion - I'd got a very low opinion of what I was capable of doing. I'd been led to believe that it was going to be really hard and I'd never make it, and the family would suffer...

Alison also expressed a need for a different identity from that which is located in her domestic role:

I know there's a point where the family's got to come first, but I also feel that if you're mentally frustrated you're no good to anybody. And, I just feel I was beginning to get very bored at home not knowing what to do next. I'm not the type of person that enjoys cleaning up all the time. I just needed to do something else and this has stretched me a great deal and I've just learned so much about so many things, I was just really glad.

The major benefit which this student has gained from education though is linked with self-worth and identity. She expressed the conflict she feels between her past and present lives:

My husband was a finance director. When he was in his last job, the people there were typical, I would say, finance directors' wives that thought they were really something, and I'd never felt like that. I've never felt good enough to be a finance director's wife! I always felt beneath everybody and yet, at the same time, because I live in a poor background area, because Christian's a finance director and has a good job and a good car, people still look up at me. I felt torn between the two and not felt that I knew where I belonged.

Within college, she feels she is able to define her own identity and is not constrained by the labels she feels have been attached. She talks of more independence and control over her life:

While I've been on the course, because I've been mixing with people from all different backgrounds, I've felt very comfortable. I can relate to people again at an equal level. They've not looked up at me and seen me as a finance director's wife, they've just seen me. I don't feel I've been labelled - whereas before I felt I was labelled. You know? I was either Mrs... the finance director's wife, or Alison, the unmarried mother. Because I'm still in the same area that all this has happened to me - because my parents just live two bus stops away - I've always felt I've had this label attached to me and I wanted to get away from it. I feel I've been able to do that this last year.

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