A Member Worthy of Belonging: The Construction of the Self as Protagonist in Autobiographical Narrative

This article draws upon a qualitative study with an original objective of finding patterns of social inductions in U.S. high school bands. Twenty-five participants, aged 18–25, were interviewed over two sessions and asked to share their stories of becoming part of their high school band. In the process of analyzing the data from these interviews, an interesting pattern became evident. Of the participants who stayed in band through their senior year of high school (i.e., did not quit band), those who were categorized as perceiving themselves as weaker performers on their band instrument often struggled to tell their stories. They sometimes provided justification for why they belonged, and even contradicted themselves. In contrast, those who were categorized as perceiving themselves as stronger performers told their stories more easily and did not make explicit attempts to justify their belonging. Using a framework of Foucaultian notions of power (Foucault, 1980), I claim that those participants who struggled to tell their story faced resistance in forming a self-concept as a band member who belonged because they were working against the power of the prevailing paradigm in which strong performance is the primary means to social belonging in high school bands (Shucha, 2019).