Front Row Friendships: Relational Dialectics and Identity Negotiations by Mature Students at University

Abstract

When adults enter university after several years of work and life experience, they must negotiate their identity as mature students and their friendship with other students. In this interpretative study, I examined the tensions experienced by 15 such students (aged 28–54) at a university in Ireland where they were attempting to integrate themselves into university life while also striving to preserve a sense of authentic and continuous selfhood. I employed a range of interviewing methods and framed the study in Baxter and Montgomery's relational dialectics theory. The results complement existing research and offer insights both on mature student friendships and on the complex processes of identity negotiation such students engage in.