| dc.description.abstract | This PhD thesis explores how ethnicity is formed and lived in the context of a multiethnic high school in Norway, at a crossroads where four central axes meet: Norwegian equality goals, new demands for skills at school, changing ethnic relations, and youth. The thesis examines what consequences forms of ethnicity shaped at this crossroads have for high school pupils’ possibilities for individual development and different senses of belonging. The study is based on participant observation over a period of five months in a school class in first grade of high school, and in-depth interviews with 26 pupils in this class, where the majority were girls and minority ethnic pupils. The pupils were 15-16 years old. The analysis draws on postcolonial theories to grasp power and structures, and narrative theories to conceptualise aspects of identity and emotions. A theory of affective practices provides a site of analysis of lived ethnicity and aspects of power, negotiations and possibilities for change. A central finding is that the strong, locally situated sense of ethnicity that the pupils created was entangled with, but somewhat untied from, ‘race’ and background countries. Being called ‘Norwegian’ or ‘foreigner’ respectively was not necessarily about ethnicity in the sense of a background culture. The pupils created ‘ethnic packages’ where e.g. certain skin colours, slang, specific sexuality mores and classroom behaviour were salient, but not essential resources to become a recognised member of each group. Integral to the process of creating local ethnic collectives, was the formation of collective narratives. Typically, ethnic minority pupils would be narrated as noisy and low achievers and the girls as sexually virtuous. Ethnic Norwegians would be narrated as good pupils and the girls as sexually active. There was a strong tendency to re-narrate many aspects of life – for example ideals of gender equality, school attitude and skill, and sexuality – as having to do with ethnicity. The school lacked clear borders in pedagogy and architecture, which demanded of the pupils an ability to contain and discipline themselves. This opened a room for a group of space-claiming, visible and noisy minority girls. These girls performed an aggressive relational noisiness, which in form drew on gangster imagery, in need expressed frustration, disentitlement from success in a perceived Norwegian school and a need for protection from indignity. For the pupils who did not make as much noise, the combination of noisy school days, high demands and internal or external pressure was hard. Despite the school’s emphasis on self-discipline, this trait was hard to find in the pupils – but where it was found, it was laced with toil and sadness. The loose school structure seemed to be geared towards pupils with a larger capacity for self-discipline and more opportunities for support from parents than the majority of its actual pupils. That the differences in school attitude and skill were conceived as related to ethnicity, might limit the pupils’ possibilities for conceiving alternative trajectories for oneself. In the particular meeting between different forms of belonging and becoming, and as a manifestation of Norway’s official gender equality aim and its coexistence with changing demographics, the study describes a girl position that defies the common media image of quiet, even oppressed, ethnic minority girls. Measured against Norwegian equality aims, many ethnic minority girls challenged gendered borders in the school’s classroom in terms of visibility and aggression, but they simultaneously limited girls’ possibilities in terms of sexuality. For them, a perceived lack of institutional power and group homogeneity seemed to be rectified in the enactments of local power and the construction of a morally better group than the ethnic Norwegians, especially regarding sexuality. On the other hand, the most typical female ethnic Norwegian sexuality appeared more legitimate in relation to the school’s teachers and curriculum. | en_US |