Emotional journeys: young people and transitions to university

an article by Hazel Christie (Edinburgh Napier University) published in British Journal of Sociology of Education Volume 30 Issue 2 (March 2009)

Abstract

This paper offers an interpretation of the role of emotions in understanding the transitions that young people make to university. I draw on qualitative research with a group of non-traditional students, entering élite universities, to argue that youth transitions are emotional as well instrumental affairs. I argue that choice-making processes incorporate both trust in, and fear of, the transitions infrastructure, and that these emotions infuse more instrumental judgements about the economic benefits of higher education. I also demonstrate that emotional aspects of class – including feelings of entitlement to education and the rejection of normative student identities – constitute the experience of “being” or “doing” a student. A broader understanding of how young people become university students then depends not just on developing a new identity but on the complex interaction between emotion and infrastructure.

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