Search results for: Discourses

This article seeks to examine the ways in which a heteronormative discourse dominates the practice and policies of schools in respect of sexualities. The response of the dominant discourse is to reassert its control, closing down such performance and re-emphasising old normativities. However, in this complex and messy expression of sexualities in schools identities are changed for all.

This article investigates the identity talk of three mid-career teachers in an urban, public school in the USA, to better understand how the teachers used language to accomplish complex professional identities. The analysis presented here extends our understanding of language as a resource in teacher identity construction by using discourse analysis to investigate how speakers use implicit meaning to accomplish the role identity of teacher. Findings show that the teachers strategically positioned themselves in relation to others and to institutional practices, actively negotiating competing discourses about teacher identity.

This article argues that in Britain dominant educational discourses of ‘the ideal pupil’ exclude minority ethnic pupils and prevent them from inhabiting a position of authentic ‘success’. It suggests that ‘the successful pupil’ is a desired yet refused subject position for many minority ethnic young people – even for those who are (to some extent) performing educational success.