The Palgrave Handbook of Imposter Syndrome in Higher Education

This Handbook explores experiences, feelings, and understandings of imposterism across social locations, institutional status, and intersecting inequalities. While in higher education, imposter syndrome is often positioned as an individual problem, the authors analyse (non)belonging as working through, with and against educational institutions rather than working endlessly on the self to ‘fit in’. Questioning for whom identifying as an ‘imposter’ is a choice, this innovative handbook highlights complexity and contemporary contestation over educational inclusions and exclusions. As identifying with imposterism becomes more common, the book asks what this can tell us, why these feelings matter, and how they relate to entrenched inequalities and their re-circulation in higher education. This collection dwells on ‘imposters’, wary of simply individualising, or celebrating, them as misfits, fraudsters or failures.