The Rhetorical Construction of "the Teacher"

Abstract

Authors in the field of education inevitably use rhetorical strategies that embody particular,and often implicit, theoretical, epistemological, and political positions. In this article, Jan Nespor and Liz Barber critically examine the rhetorical structure of a 1987 article published in the Harvard Educational Review — Lee S. Shulman's "Knowledge and Teaching:Foundations of the New Reform." The authors examine various textual strategies — such as"the phenomenological hook," "appropriating a constituency," and "moving on" — that Shulman used to construct "the teacher" as an object of study. Through a detailed analysis of this widely cited article, Nespor and Barber address broader issues of representation and power in the social sciences, and conclude with a call for "a more 'critical literacy' among the readers and writers of research texts."