In this study I examine how women in a north Indian city narratively construct their identities in relation to medium of education (MoE)--English only (EME), Hindi only (HME), and a combination of both. I specifically analyze how the participants discursively articulate empowerment or disempowerment while narrating stories connected to their MoEs. As such, I examine how they utilize the discourses (Gee, 1992, 1996) and ideologies related to HME and EME in Indian society in their narratives. I adopt a social constructionist perspective which views that knowledge and discourse are mutually constituted (Jorgenson & Phillip, 2002) and use Bakhtin's (1981, 1984) understanding of the polyglot nature of language whereby both centripetal and centrifugal forces are seen to exist within discourse, often in conflicting relationships. Discursive empowerments are viewed as articulations of resistance to authoritative discourses about MoE while discursive disempowerments are instances when such authoritative discourses are hegemonically constructed and perpetuated as normative. Narratives are viewed as being affected by social, cultural and historical conventions (Pavlenko, 2002) and as discursive processes wherein language is used to construct particular relationships between the teller and the social order (Bamberg, 1997) thereby reproducing or critiquing existing relationships of power and knowledge (Mumby, 1993; Peterson & Langellier, 2006). They are also seen as being recipient-oriented and deployed to accomplish interactional goals (Stokoe & Edwards, 2006). I adopt two mutually compatible and interrelated analytical frameworks to show how societal discourses impact upon the sequential organization of interview talk and thus the narrative, and how discursive empowerments are enacted within the narrated and narrating worlds of the participants' stories. I thus investigate both the ideological content of the women's talk with regard to macro-societal discourses and their lived experiences, and the discursive, micro-level of narrative performance. My findings indicate that authoritative discourses exert the maximum amount of power in the discursive disempowerments of the HME only participants. These participants enact discursive empowerment mostly in the narrating or interactional context. For the other two types of participants, discursive empowerment is enacted in both the narrating and narrated worlds. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]