Socialization beyond the Speech Event

Socialization takes place intertextually, across events. This article develops the concept "trajectory of socialization," a connected series of events across which individuals come to participate in forms of life. The empirical analysis follows a trajectory of socialization traveled by one ninth-grade student as she gets socialized into academic life in an urban U.S. school. This student's trajectory illustrates how connections across events emerge contingently, as both local and more widely circulating resources contribute to social identification across time.