ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I examine how, despite their constitutionw overall as a ‘difficult intake’, some individual children were constituted as ‘good’ learners in the Reception classrooms at Gatehouse and St Mary's, and that this was made possible by the discursive provision of some ‘intelligible space’ where they could be recognisable as ‘good’. I also consider the children who were constituted as ‘bad’ learners, the children's agency in their constitution as learners, and the importance of performing their learner identities in ways which allowed them to remain recognisable as learners. I begin with a discussion of the ‘good’ learner identities of a group of Muslim girls at Gatehouse, before I use one of the girls as an example of how minority success can be discursively dismissed as inauthentic. I then use another example of a Black girl at St Mary's to consider the limitations of intelligible space for some pupils, before I consider the learner identities of the White pupils at Gatehouse. The second part of the chapter focuses on negative learner identities, particularly those of the Black boys at St Mary's. I end the chapter with a discussion of the implications of these findings for children in schools.
