The cultural politics of identity: Student narratives from two Mexican secondary schools

This narrative study provides an analysis of the identity construction of students in two Mexican secondary schools within the structural, cultural, and informational resources that schools as institutions provide. A within-case analysis of the narratives of two students is explored in depth, emphasizing, in one case, issues of social class and, in the other, issues of gender. The analysis explores the lack of congruence between the resources educational institutions provide students and their daily struggles to construct personal and occupationalidentities.Characteristics specific to the Mexican context are provided, and the ways that Mexican students' dilemmas are at once different from and similar to the U.S. context are explored.