ERIC Number: EJ1154518
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 20
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0954-0253
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Available Date: N/A
Partners for Success? Undergraduate Women's Post-Feminist Constructions of Intimate Relationships
Blair, Elizabeth E.
Gender and Education, v29 n6 p671-690 2017
Past research suggests that undergraduate women have faced educational cultures in which their college experience is defined through romantic experiences. This study expands this literature by investigating how heightened achievement expectations for undergraduate women inform their broader conceptions of intimate relationships, by asking the following research question: how do high-achieving undergraduate women conceptualise intimate relationships? Through qualitative analysis of 76 semi-structured interviews, I find that study participants reject gendered narratives of romance and instead preserve their achievement by constructing two ideal relationship logics: independent and companionate logics. I suggest that participants' conceptions of relationships have undergone a notable inversion: students' constructions of positive intimate relationships centre on the maintenance of academic achievement and autonomy, and show the long reach of neoliberal, "post-feminist" ideologies into women's everyday lives.
Descriptors: Partnerships in Education, Success, Undergraduate Students, Womens Studies, Womens Education, Intimacy, Interpersonal Relationship, High Achievement, Qualitative Research, Semi Structured Interviews, Neoliberalism, Feminism, Context Effect, Resistance (Psychology), Student Attitudes, Student Experience
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
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Language: English
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