Cheetham, Chloe. 2025. Strategies, Statuses and Selves: A Linguistic Ethnographic Study of the Interplay between Leadership, Language and Identity in a North London Primary School. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London [Thesis]

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Abstract or Description

The aim of this thesis is to explore the relationship between language, leadership and identity in the talk of 10–11-year-old children attending a North London primary school. While existing research is already questioning the value of ‘grand theories’ of leadership and advocating for social constructionist approaches, the talk of older, secondary school-aged children, or adults, is often explored in environments created by researchers or teachers. This thesis combines analysis of talk from natural contexts with ethnographic knowledge to examine how leadership is meaningfully achieved at a local level. It considers two contexts. Firstly, curriculum-oriented talk, where the children make decisions towards completing a cross-curricular project, and, secondly, play-oriented talk, where the children play a verbal game and a video game in self-selected groups.

An important finding of this study is that, for these children, leadership is related to local social practices and language. It shows leadership is most successful when both girls and boys are able to draw on particular locally-accrued statuses, construct a local ethnographic position associated with kindness or niceness, and pay attention to relational practices by using linguistic strategies traditionally associated with indexing normative femininity.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Keywords:	language, gender, leadership, linguistic ethnography, ethnography, children, talk, play, curriculum, social constructionism, primary school
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	English and Comparative Literature
Date:	28 February 2025
Item ID:	38676
Date Deposited:	04 Apr 2025 10:15
Last Modified:	04 Apr 2025 10:15
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/38676

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