TY - JOUR

T1 - Becoming (ethnic minority) teenagers

T2 - a practice study of emotional well-being at a Danish sports school

AU - Tørslev, Mette Kirstine

AU - Norredam, Marie

AU - Vitus, Kathrine

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - This article explores how everyday school life interacts with students’ practices of ‘becoming teenagers’ at a Danish school, analysing how age and ethnicity intersect with emotional well-being. The article builds on an ethnographic study at a public sports school following ethnic minority and majority students in two school classes from the fifth to seventh grades. Taking a practice approach, the article first analyses school as a social site before turning phenomenological attention to experiences and expectations of becoming teenagers, focusing on the experiences of ethnic minority students. The article addresses how school as social site constituted by discursive, material and social arrangements shapes a normative linear process of becoming at school, that is, becoming a responsible, healthy, Danish citizen. Consequently, dissonance between embodied being and expected normality affects the emotional well-being of ethnic minority students, whose transnational practices are constrained within a national practice architecture.

AB - This article explores how everyday school life interacts with students’ practices of ‘becoming teenagers’ at a Danish school, analysing how age and ethnicity intersect with emotional well-being. The article builds on an ethnographic study at a public sports school following ethnic minority and majority students in two school classes from the fifth to seventh grades. Taking a practice approach, the article first analyses school as a social site before turning phenomenological attention to experiences and expectations of becoming teenagers, focusing on the experiences of ethnic minority students. The article addresses how school as social site constituted by discursive, material and social arrangements shapes a normative linear process of becoming at school, that is, becoming a responsible, healthy, Danish citizen. Consequently, dissonance between embodied being and expected normality affects the emotional well-being of ethnic minority students, whose transnational practices are constrained within a national practice architecture.

U2 - 10.1080/14733285.2017.1287341

DO - 10.1080/14733285.2017.1287341

M3 - Journal article

VL - 15

SP - 638

EP - 650

JO - Children's Geographies

JF - Children's Geographies

SN - 1473-3285

IS - 6

ER -