Abstract:
This project is a deconstructive discourse analysis of smart girlhood. From a feminist
post structural framework, with a focus on discourse and performative identity, I scrutinize three
dominant discourses of smartness that are prevalent and academic and popular press. These
constructions frame smart girls as being either Losers, Have-It-All Girls, or Imposters. By
conducting semi-structured group interviews with six self-identified smart girls, I explore the
question of how smart girls perform their smart girl identities in their current sociocultural context. After analyzing the data from the group interviews, I outline five themes that seem to be
prevalent in the stories told by the smart girls in this thesis. Finally, I discuss how the
performative identities of the smart girls in my thesis appear to be much more complex, multiple
and rhizomatic than the discourses under review allow.
