Figured Worlds and Education: An Introduction to the Special Issue

Identity and Self are concepts that are not only constituted by the labels—‘‘smart girl’’, ‘‘delinquent’’, ‘‘incompetent’’, or ‘‘beloved teacher’’—that people place on themselves and others, especially in schools. Identity is also very much about how people come to understand themselves, how they come to ‘‘figure’’ who they are, through the ‘‘worlds’’ that they participate in and how they relate to others within and outside of these worlds. The articles included in this special issue of The Urban Review focus on different social contexts of education and how the worlds formed in these contexts helped shape how people came to make sense of themselves in these worlds and in society. Before exploring the different figured worlds in education researched by the contributors, I will provide an overview of this theoretical framework.