Discursive Construction of the Images of U.S. Classrooms

Abstract

Recent work in applied linguistics has critiqued the discursive construction of essentialized cultures of ESL students as the Other. Also discursively constructed are the images of the Self compared with the Other. This article focuses on the images of U.S. classrooms in terms of the goals of education, the characteristics of teaching, and student characteristics, and aims to reveal their discursive nature by reviewing literature in applied linguistics, studies on instructional practices in U.S. schools and colleges, and a revisionist critique of the educational crisis in the United States. This literature review demonstrates that the applied linguistics and revisionist discourses that emphasize cultural differences convey positive, idealized images of U.S. classrooms whereas research on classroom instruction in mainstream contexts portrays negative images of U.S. classrooms quite similar to applied linguistics' images of Asian classrooms. This disparity indicates that a particular representation of the Self as the ideal norm is produced in contrast with the Other. Discursive practices of Othering, dichotomization of the Self and the Other, and legitimation of power relations between the Self and the Other echo a past-present continuity of the discourses of colonialism. The article discusses the effects of the essentialization of cultures