In my other life I have classic academic aspirations. I’ve just been offered a place in my PhD program of choice, and while part of me cringes at the thought of three more years of hard graft, the rest of me is jubilant. In honour of my accomplishment-yes that is really how I am gonna play this-I’ve decided to post a suitably educational essay.
Identity is possibly on of the most contested, and least understood concept in the social sciences. There is no shortage of theories about it, but for every step forward made in the field more questions arise. As populations grow, demographics shift, and cultures interact more closely than ever before the question of ‘who’ one is becomes ever more difficult to answer.
One of the places that this is most apparent is in the educational environment. Schools bring children from various class, racial, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds together in a melee of personal encounters; and some of them are fairing better than others.
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