Social Representations and Social Identity in Swedish Folk High Schools: an application of Duveen and Lloyd

Annelie Andersén

Annelie Andersén Jönköping University

Abstract

This article extends Duveen's work on social representations and social gender identity by discussing how it can be applied to the context of Swedish folk high school participants' social representations of folk high school and university, then examines the influence of these representations on participants' desires and ambitions to progress to university. Adopting Duveen's framework to analyze several previous data regarding folk high schools (i.e., a document study of folk high school teachers' magazines, an association study on folk high school participants, and interviews with folk high school participants), I seek to illustrate in this article how most premises concerning the formation of children's social identity (as described by Duveen) also hold for adults entering a new social context.

Author Biography

Annelie Andersén, Jönköping University

ANNELIE ANDERSÉN is a doctoral candidate in Education at the National Centre for Lifelong Learning (Encell), School of Education and Communication, Jönköping University, Sweden. Her research focuses on Folk High School participants´' social representations of Folk High School and University. She also examines how these representations influences the participants´' desires and ambitions to progress to University. Andersén also teaches undergraduate students in education and has contributed to several research projects, including the Swedish national evaluation committee (Statens utvärdering av folkbildningen 2004) known as “SUFO 2”.