The objectification of identity across events

This paper describes one way in which students develop durable, classroom-specific identities. When students enter new groups their identities are often fluid. Over time, however, students and teachers generally come to identify individuals in predictable ways. Durable identities emerge across events, as signs of identity come to presuppose a consistent trajectory of identification for a given individual. This paper traces the social identification of one student across the course of a two-month curriculum unit in a middle school science class, showing how he developed a complex but robust identity across several weeks in a new lab group.