Conference Agenda

Preliminary research question:

How do young women who has experienced school leaving manage their identity/identities and practice meaning making in narratives forming linkages between home and education?

The aim of this paper is to explore the intersection of home, school/education, identity- and meaning making. To do so I have seen to narrative methodology and the concept og linkage. Linkage is an analytic tool within the narrative tradition to understand meaning making (Gubrium & Holstein, 2009, p. 55-56). The paper is inspired by one of the informants in our qualitative, longitudinal study. In one of our conversations, she is sharing a story where both her home and her school serve as narrative environments (Gubrium & Holstein, 2009), and by linking experiences from the two arenas she creates a context for meaning making. Intrigued by this narrative I wondered if I would find other narratives in other interviews, linking home and school as a context for making and understanding meaning.

Gubrium & Holstein points to workplaces and occupations as significant narrative environments (2009, p.123-124, 161) as this is an arena where people tend to spend many hours of the day and it is often seen as an identity marker. But just as important, the skills, thoughts, praxis and traditions at a workplace or incorporated in an occupation encloses the worker and contributes to the frame of how the individual form narratives. For young people, education holds the same role as the workplace in several aspects, but education also has its specific traits. Students in upper secondary school have less options within the school system compared to when they start university or work. In their everyday life and narratives in a school setting, young people are bound to roles as students, teachers and peers. For young people not attending school, the school environment expected to be a narrative environment in their everyday stories, will be lacking. The lack of narrative environment might also shape and influence identity and how the storyteller forms narratives.

In a contemporary Norwegian context, the consequences of not completing upper secondary education can make it harder to enter the job market. But even more so, according to Staer (2015), the core challenge for a student experiencing school leaving in a “knowledge and competence society” is more importantly tied to the symbolic value of the individual's ability to master the opportunities surrounded him/her. Thus, the responsibility is placed on the individuals ability and capacity to master challenges in "an ocean of opportunities", in a country where social equality with equal opportunities and rights are prominent (Frønes, 2017, p. 22; Staer, 2015).

A home can also serve as a significant narrative environment and informs the storyteller. Gullestad argues that home plays a notable part in Norwegian culture, a culture she calls particularly home oriented (1989). Gullestad argues that the home serves as a creative expression for values that are important to us (1989, p. 57). Thus, the home both serve as a place to spend time, preform everyday tasks and celebrate special occasions as well as a holding a unique position for symbolic value.

In addition to education and home, identity and meaning making makes up the third part of the intersection I want to explore. In a modern, Norwegian society, choice and reflexivity can be said to largely have replaced tradition and the importance of societal institutions and social background as decisive for the individual's role and identity (Giddens, 1991, p. 81). This change requires the individual to constantly perform identity-management. In line with Gullestad (2001, p. 33) I see identity-management as something we exercise in interaction with others.

Women’s empowerment may be gaining ground on a global stage (UN Sustainable Development Goal 5). However, notions of empowerment abound and are often poorly defined, misused, or even abused. Woman’s empowerment is often linked to education, however, much less is known about ‘how’ education empowers women (Mosedale, 2005) and indeed may disempower. Even with this knowledge, there is no singular woman’s experience or way to empower. The voices of neurodivergent woman have been marginalised in empowerment discourses, in a meaningful sense, as our literature review suggests the term is often misused when applied to woman with ADHD. This research also builds on an emergent body of evidence suggests that the experiences of woman and girls with ADHD is different to what is commonly associated with ADHD; because much of what is known is based on research with males. For example, when compared with males, females with ADHD appear to present differently, they are more likely to ‘suffer in silence’ and receive a diagnosis at a later age (Murry et al., 2019; Waite, 2007), they also present with higher rates of inattention, internalizing problems, or cooccurring difficulties (e.g., anxiety disorders eating disorders, and depression: Levy, Hay, Bennett, & McStephen, 2005; Quinn, 2008), and social impairments (Biederman et al., 2002; Gershon, 2002). They are less likely to present with externalising issues, conduct problems, or behaviour disorders (Quinn, 2005). There is recognition for the impact of culture (which has an impact on woman in terms of gender specifics roles and responsibilities) on ADHD characteristics, functional difficulties, self-identity, and well-being (Singh, 2011, 2014; Waite, 2010). This paper also builds on an emergent awareness that inclusive research should move away from trying to 'fix' deficits, and construct environments which are inclusive and empowering, and that such research should be done 'with' those directly affected, in this case, woman with ADHD.

This study falls within the theoretical framework of Inclusive Education and Critical Disability Studies. Inclusive education supports that all children, especially children that have traditionally been excluded because of their identities, can be educated together and on equal terms with their peers (Ainscow, Booth, & Dyson, 2006). However, research in the field has mostly focused on specific groups of children (e.g. children with disabilities, children with immigrant background, refugee children) analyzing their experiences as the outcome of one identity and not as the outcome of intersection of identities. This often leads to “a monolithic view of children” (Waitoller & Kozleski, 2013, p.4) ignoring characteristics, experiences and important aspects that may affect the trajectory of their life. In this framework, examining the potential of the education system to consider the intersection of children’s identities becomes important (Besic, 2020).

Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989, 1991) proposed the term ‘intersectionality’ as the metaphor for understanding the way a person's characteristics and identities intersect and the ways that multiple forms of inequality sometimes compound and create obstacles. Originally, she used the term as a tool for studying the ways in which gender intersects with other identities and how these intersections constitute unique experiences for each individual (Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller & Thomas, 1995). At the same time, disability feminists introduced the terms 'double oppression' and ‘multiple oppression’, arguing that all aspects of personal experience must be recognized and explored as a way to include the intersection of disability with other identities and experiences, such as gender (Vernon, 1996, 1998).

In this context, the concept of intersectionality was raised in Critical Disability Studies (CDS), encouraging us to focus on the life experiences of people with multiple identities, including disability. CDS recognizes that disability is constructed and understood culturally, politically, theoretically and socially (Goodley, 2017). Research over the past years has mostly examined the identity of disability in relation to gender, race, sexual orientation, immigrant biography, and refugee background. What emerged through analysis is that people with disability and other identities that are considered as minorities may: (a) experience discrimination and marginalization from both mainstream communities and within the minority communities to which they belong, (b) develop practices of survival and resistance to the oppression they obtain and use their different identities as supportive of each other, (c) be indirectly forced to hide or reject some of the identities which in some cases results in abandoning their culture, language and preferences and (d) experience the intersection of their identities in a different way, depending on their social status, family and culture (Boydell, Bennett, Dew, Lappin, Lenette, Ussher, Vaughan & Wells, 2020; Fylling & Melbo, 2019; Miles, 2019).

In brief, intersectionality is not just a theoretical argument, but an approach that means more than being oppressed due to the intersection of your race and gender (Esposito & Evans-Winters, 2022). Intersectionality encourages us to focus on the experiences of people with disability and highlights the importance of implementing a social justice approach in education policy and practice. Specifically, intersectional understandings of disability can initiate new forms of pedagogical thinking, highlighting on students' intersecting identities and how these intersections contribute to students' experiences of discrimination and oppression on the principles of inclusive education (Liasidou, 2013).

This research aims to examine how the intersectional identities of a woman with disability can be used in a critical conversation about intersectionality and inclusive education. More specifically, it aims to explore the following research question: How do the intersectional identities of a woman influence her life trajectory by her experiences in the education system?