Dedicating, faking, and surviving: disclosing tensions in how three women university students negotiate collectively celebrated norms across European contexts

Abstract

Higher education biology (HEB), a discipline where women undergraduates are numerically overrepresented in most Western universities, has been given little attention in exploring norms of scientific practice from a student perspective. This study brings into focus how biology students negotiate identities in relation to figured worlds of HEB. Through thematic analysis of 27 timeline interviews from a Swedish, German, and British university as a collective case, we identified three hegemonic imaginaries across narratives: showing dedication through sacrifice, faking it to make it, and surviving as the fittest. Using a theoretical framework of feminist science critique, science identity, and figured worlds, we then offer a multiple case approach to how three women students negotiate the collective imaginaries identified, while simultaneously disavowing and challenging them. This conflict suggests they consider themselves successful despite the pressure to engage in ‘typical’ scientific practices they simultaneously contest. Consequently, this study demonstrates that celebrated imaginaries do not remain unproblematised by successful students, but create tensions in their identity work. This provokes discussions on how science imaginaries shape women’s participation in HEB and beyond. Visualising these tensions makes it furthermore possible to challenge and change hegemonic academic norms in HEB, moving towards more socially just and inclusive spaces.