Gender, deprivation, and identity: Research informed practical implications

It has long been identified that there is an interaction between deprivation and lack of educational success, resulting in a lack of social mobility. The exploration of deprivation and social mobility has tended to be constrained to sociological and political research. This paper focuses on my PhD research which aimed to explore the role of identity in young women living in a deprived seaside town in the UK, and their relative lack of educational success. Although the research did not fully explore future educational and work aspirations, it offered an interesting insight into potential explanations for the lack of future identity work. By using Foucauldian Discourse Analysis, the research indicated that young women are actively engaged in ‘identity work’ managing identity threats, either due to the lived experiences of being a young woman in Blackpool or the stigma related to the seaside town. Prior to analysis, the research relied on creative methods of data collection and amplifying the voice of the young women. Here I will discuss the decisions I made and how effective they were in engaging the young people involved in the study. Issues that arose will also be discussed and how these indicated a sense of agency that the young people displayed through the research process.