Creating the blue code: Identity, gender and class in a police training environment

This dissertation is an ethnographic account of a police-training environment. After extensive participant-observation and interviews with the trainers, the data was coded for identity, gender and class. This data explains the identity that the cadets have gained in the academy and the process through which they acquire and maintain the police identity. I approached the question of gender from a perspective that asks if there are instances in which gender becomes less relevant in the police academy. I found that it does become less relevant when it becomes apparent that when women can access and control bodily power, at which time the assumed sexual differences between men and women are refuted. Lastly, through my own experience at the academy and my awareness of their class (and thus, my own), I found that the police are less powerful than I had originally believed them to be. An understanding of who the police are rather than what they do may help researchers and practitioners determine which programs the police may or may not be successful with in the future.