When you’re in with the in-crowd

Abstract

This paper examines the discursive construction of the International Baccalaureate (IB) in a 1.5 million word corpus of Canadian newspapers. Combining corpus analysis with the Discourse Historical branch of Critical Discourse Analysis, the study aims to identify discursive strategies employed in the construction of an IB in-group and a non-IB out-group, and suggests they are similar to those evident in discourses of discrimination that marginalise or exclude the outgroup (Baker, Gabrielatos and McEnery 2013a; KhosraviNik 2010; Reisigl and Wodak 2001). While discourses of discrimination tend to be directed at minority groups, in this case, the minority group is the in-group, exhibiting uniformly positive qualities. As a result, a ‘dichotomous world of insiders and outsiders’ (Reisigl and Wodak 2001:105) is created, privileging one and disadvantaging the other. This paper seeks to problematise the seemingly uncritical acceptance and adoption of IB programs in Canada’s publicly funded education system.