Representing class in qualitative research

Abstract

In 1993, with Julie McLeod, I began a seven-year qualitative, longitudinal study of young people in Australia. The 12 to 18 Project1 was intended as a longitudinal study to investigate (i) the development of young people’s gendered identity in Australia now, and (ii) schooling’s contribution to social inequalities: the way in which different schools interact with and produce differentiated outcomes for different types of young people. It was a project inspired by the fact that we had both spent many years studying education, gender formation, inequalities, changing cultural and policy discourse and wanting to design a new type of study to take us further with these interests. It was also a study whose design was influenced by two film series, both of them also concerned, in different ways, with representing social differences and development of individual identity and outcomes over time.