Constructing Academic Legitimacy: A Qualitative Study of Master's Students' Perceptions at Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53103/cjess.v5i6.393Keywords:
Academic Legitimacy, Disciplinary Boundary Work, Bourdieu's Field Theory, Social Identity Theory, Student Perceptions, Moroccan Higher EducationAbstract
This qualitative case study explores how Master's students at the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University construct academic legitimacy for their own fields while positioning others as less legitimate. Academic legitimacy—the perceived validity and value of academic work—significantly impacts students' educational experiences, yet remains understudied in non-Western contexts. Drawing on Bourdieu's Field Theory and Social Identity Theory, this research investigates student perceptions of the competitive strategies employed to establish legitimacy for their disciplines while simultaneously devaluing others. Through interviews with 40 Master's students across five humanities programs (Applied Language Studies and Research in Higher Education, Language, Communication & Society, Moroccan Cultural Studies, Translation and Cross-Cultural Communication, and Gender Studies), data analysis revealed four main themes: perceptions of academic hierarchies, strategies for constructing legitimacy while positioning others as less legitimate, navigation of interdisciplinary spaces, and disciplinary knowledge domains. Findings demonstrate that students actively construct legitimacy through capital accumulation, boundary work, and discursive strategies that simultaneously elevate their disciplines while diminishing others. The study contributes to understanding academic identity formation and legitimacy construction in humanities disciplines within Moroccan higher education, revealing how students navigate competitive academic environments through sophisticated positioning strategies that reproduce and sometimes challenge existing disciplinary hierarchies.
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