Shapeshifting and patchworking: unpacking students’ identity constructions in the university ecology

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This article approaches the question of how students construct their identities and become professionals within university ecologies. Drawing on sociocultural perspectives, identity is understood as dynamic, relational, situated, and continuously evolving, while academic programmes are positioned as microcultures providing values, norms, and symbolic scripts guiding students’ becoming. Grounded in these perspectives, and using a qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews and inspired by reflexive thematic analysis, we illustrate students’ identity constructions along three lines: Navigating transitional landscapes, Balancing sites of belonging, and Constructing through distinction. The analysis shows how students draw on different spaces for learning, recognition, and boundary-making to make sense of their past, current, and future selves. Building on emerging differences across communities of practice, the findings demonstrate how institutional structures, discourses, and scripts create opportunities for professional anticipation, belonging, feedback, and recognition – in turn shaping identities. In framing universities as spaces for academic, professional, and existential becoming, this study offers novel empirical insights into the layered, affective, and performative dimensions of students’ identities and experiences. The article foregrounds a comprehensive conceptualisation of identity constructions and professional becoming as ongoing processes of shapeshifting and patchworking, arguing that recognising the social, cultural, and symbolic aspects of the university ecology can inform institutional practices and foster environments that support students’ learning and evolving selves.