The triple shift: student-mothers’ experiences of identity work and engagement with low status vocationally-related higher education

This paper discusses a piece of qualitative research that examined the narratives that a group of learners articulated when they discussed their experiences of studying on a relatively low status, vocationally-related higher education programme. These students were school-based teaching assistants who were undertaking Foundation degree study at a post-1992 English university. Data collection was primarily undertaken via semi-structured interviewing with first and second year foundation degree students. Eight group interviews were carried out with 44 participants. These were followed up with 12 individual interviews. Participant observations and documentary analysis of course-related documents were also drawn upon as contextualising sources of information. The accounts that were provided by students who undertook study alongside mothering are focused upon within this paper. These learners were routinely found to be involved in a triple shift of identity work (Snow and Anderson 1987). This stemmed from their positioning in the home, higher education and their workplaces. It is suggested that Goffman’s (1963) concepts of identity management, disidentifiers and stigma can be usefully employed alongside Bourdieu’s (1977, 1984, 1997) habitus and field to make sense of the accounts that are documented.