Studying biology entails negotiating knowledges, identities, and what paths, more or less well-trodden, to follow. Knowledges, identities, and paths within the very practices of science are fundamentally gendered and it is, therefore, critical to recognize when exploring students' learning and participation in natural sciences. Even though students' numbers in undergraduate Higher Education Biology are female-biased, it does not mean that gendered processes are absent. In this study, we focus on early undergraduate biology students' identity work at a Swedish university, analyzing 55 study motivation texts discursively. Embedded in a Figured Worlds framework, we explore how students imagined and authored themselves in(to) the Figured World of Higher Education Biology along two imagined identity trajectories, the Straight Biology Path and the Backpacking Biology Path. While the first and numerically dominant imagined trajectory entails typical stories of a scientific child striving toward a research career, the latter recognizes broad interests and biology competences to be collected in a backpack for transdisciplinary use. Students imagining the Backpacking Biology Path authored themselves in relation to and explicitly not as having a linear trajectory, which positions the Straight Biology Path as dominant and culturally recognized. Our findings reveal gendered myths about science practices present in Higher Education Biology, yet also contested through alternative imaginaries. We, thereby, show that it is crucial for Higher Biology and Science Education to be aware of how students imagine their trajectories and how they negotiate masculine norms of science to create spaces for diverse and alternative identity trajectories.

中文翻译：

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“讽刺的是，连我都成为了自然科学家”：学生在高等教育生物学的想象世界中想象的身份轨迹

研究生物学需要协商知识、身份以及要遵循的路径，或多或少已经走过。科学实践中的知识、身份和路径从根本上是性别化的，因此，在探索学生对自然科学的学习和参与时，认识到这一点至关重要。尽管本科高等教育生物学的学生人数偏向女性，但这并不意味着不存在性别化过程。在这项研究中，我们专注于瑞典大学早期本科生物学学生的身份工作，对 55 篇研究动机文本进行了分析。嵌入在一个数字世界框架中，我们探索学生如何沿着两个想象的身份轨迹在高等教育生物学的数字世界中想象和创作自己，直线生物学路径和背包生物学路径。虽然第一个在数字上占主导地位的想象轨迹需要一个科学儿童努力从事研究事业的典型故事，但后者认识到将广泛的兴趣和生物学能力收集在背包中以供跨学科使用。想象背包生物学路径的学生将自己与相关并明确地创作不是具有线性轨迹，这将直线生物学路径定位为主导和文化公认的。我们的研究结果揭示了高等教育生物学中存在的关于科学实践的性别神话，但也通过替代想象提出了质疑。因此，我们表明，对于高等教育生物学和科学教育而言，了解学生如何想象他们的轨迹以及他们如何协商科学的男性规范以创造多样化和替代身份轨迹的空间至关重要。