Negotiating Intelligence, Nerdiness, and Status in Physics Master’s studies

Abstract

Motivated by widespread concerns for representation and equity in physics education, this study investigates negotiations of identity positions of master’s students in physics. The goal is to explore how sociocultural features of physics can structure the possibilities for becoming a physicist. Interviews with international master’s students in physics were analyzed focusing on perceived norms about physics and how students responded to and negotiated these in crafting a position as competent physicists-to-be. The results show how physics master’s students from varying backgrounds have to negotiate stereotypes of intelligence and nerdiness, as well as an implicit ranking of physics specializations. The stereotype that physicists are intelligent and nerdy is further complicated in physics studies, as some specializations—the more pure and theoretical—are viewed as more intellectually demanding and are in this way accorded a higher status. Students on these specializations are simultaneously seen as more intelligent and more nerdy, while a perception that students who choose other subjects do this just because they are not good enough to do theoretical physics is perpetuated. These notions become significant in relation to western society’s high regard of authentic intelligence and idolization of geniuses, ideas that can serve as powerful ideals in physics. This study gives novel insight about how well-known norms and stereotypes about physics come to matter in physics master’s students’ negotiations to become recognized as competent physicists.