Egalitarian Discourse Research Articles

A Critical Discourse Analysis of EFL Learners’ Post-reading Reflections in a Critical Literacy-based Class

This study examined EFL learners' critical development in a critical literacy-based reading class by analyzing their reflective essays on three articles: one article they read before critical instruction and two after the instruction. The analytical framework was mainly based on Fairclough’s (1992a) Three-Dimensional Model of Discourse, focusing on the dialectical relationship between the students’ discursive practices presented in their reflections and their ideological social practices. Findings show that the students' development of critical consciousness was seen after the critical instruction because in their response to the pre-instruction reading article, almost all of the students reproduced the conservative motherhood discourse, assuming the taken-for-granted responsibilities of a wife and mother, while in their response to after-instruction reading articles, around one third of the students displayed egalitarian discourses that challenge the taken-for-granted ideas about gender differences and admit of diverse ways of being in this world, and liberatory discourses such as the adoption discourse that liberates infertile couples from the domination of the fertility discourse. Therefore, from this study we suggest that critical pedagogy be implemented in EFL language instruction to develop students’ critical consciousness and help them to be active critical readers.

Domestic Abuse and the Limits of Communication (Foucault, Habermas and Beyond)

The work of Michel Foucault and Jurgen Habermas has been highly influential on political and social theory because of their important insights about modern power. One crucial difference is in their views of communication as a mechanism of political agency, resistance, and/or entrapment. While Habermas has conceived of discourse as having the potential to transmit important democratic principles and to foster solidarity, Foucault’s work complicates this theory. Foucault may agree that discourse can create or reinforce egalitarian norms (e.g.) but because there is no “outside” to power, that it could simultaneously reinforce less egalitarian norms. What is more, if public discourse requires a certain form of speaking and presupposes that individuals are aware of the correct forum to discuss or transmit their ideas, Foucault’s work suggests at least two things. First, that resistance and innovation may often happen in less explicit and formal ways: on the margins, in the grassroots, and on the street – not in public institutions. These more informal discourses may never be officially acknowledged or institutionally embedded. Second, an individual’s words could be turned against her: pathologized and set against a more mainstream norm, thus more firmly entrapping her in an informal system of control. Both authors may be correct in their views, but the question is how to resolve the more optimistic (and perhaps utopian) work of Habermas with the more complex observations of Foucault? In working to resolve this puzzle, the more formal and unintentionally universalizing notions of Habermas can represent the ideas of conventional political science, while Foucault’s work allows for an interpretation of power mechanisms that are not often recognized. I propose that the issue of domestic abuse poses such a quandary, highlighting both the need for open, egalitarian, and democratic discourse (Habermas) but also the current limitations of this sort of discourse (Foucault) in the U.S. “system” that deals with this problem. While I believe that Foucault more adequately identifies the shortcomings of mainstream political institutions – particularly those that have both political agents and a whole range of extra-legal actors – I also think that the work of Habermas guides a view of more formal processes which cannot be dismissed. That is, this particular case shows that more formal modes of power – including the sort of discourse that functions democratically, as he theorized – are absolutely necessary. Nevertheless, in terms of analyzing physical violence, Foucault’s work exposes the deficiencies in Habermas’s: violence is not something that corrupts (“colonizes”) modern power relations or the public sphere but which has merely been rationalized and assimilated into contemporary norms: violence has not been eradicated in the contemporary United States at this moment, but rather has been normalized and discursively portrayed as “intimate” or “private” and thus, not political. These barriers to political acknowledgement expose the limitations not of the individuals themselves but the complex bundle of political norms that link political inclusion to Enlightenment norms of rationality, autonomy, and individuality, all of which undergird Habermas’s work. The issue of domestic abuse tests their theories in fruitful ways.

Female EFL teachers: shifting and multiple gender and language-learner identities

Gender studies have taken an important role within the academic community, and specifically in the field of second and foreign languagelearning. In this paper I use a Feminist Poststructuralist Discourse Analysis (FPDA) study to explore how emergent femininities construct genderidentities and power relations inside the EFL classroom setting through interaction. I argue that identities are multiple and shifting accordingto the way individuals position and reposition themselves through discourse(s). In doing so, gender identities can be identified and related tolearners’ identities in EFL contexts. I chose a Feminist Poststructuralist Discourse Analysis (FPDA) methodology (Baxter, 2003) in order toidentify telling cases (Mitchell, 1984) during interactions in which, female adult students from a private university in Bogotá, Colombia makeexplicit the exercising of power during classroom activities, such as debates (Castañeda- Peña, 2009) and disputes (Toohey, 2001) in foreignlanguage learning. I chose video recordings, transcripts and interviews as instruments to cope with the objectives of the study as well as toaccomplish the methodological suggestions. Findings suggest the importance of being aware of the multiplicity of gender identities that mayintervene when learning a language and how to deal with more egalitarian discourses and activities during classes that guarantee, to someextent, the empowerment of silent voices.

Rudd's Apology to the Stolen Generations: Challenging Self‐Sufficient Arguments in “Race” Discourse

While the public debate on whether to apologise to the Stolen Generations ended on 13 February, 2008, public opinion was still divided, reflected particularly in the arguments against apologising that were common in political and public discourse. We examine the ways in which differing arguments can be flexibly deployed and combined within a political context to not just resist, but also to support, an act of reparation for historical injustice. In particular, we consider how Rudd makes use of specific rhetorically self‐sufficient arguments to justify offering the apology; precisely the same arguments that had previously been used by political leaders and members of the public to oppose the apology. It is the use of such arguments in combination with each other and additional common tropes drawn from egalitarian and liberal discourse that allow for the building of a rhetorically powerful case for offering the apology. Rather than the traditional focus of such research on the ways in which racism is accomplished in talk, we suggest that Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generations can be seen as a practical tool‐kit for building an “anti‐racist” rhetoric in the context of Indigenous and non‐Indigenous relations in Australia.

Human Dignity as High Moral Status1

In this paper I argue that the idea of human dignity has a precise and philosophically relevant sense. Following recent works, we can find some important clues in the long history of the term. Traditionally, dignity conveys the idea of a high and honourable position in a hierarchical order, either in society or in nature. At first glance, nothing may seem more contrary to the contemporary conception of human dignity, especially in regard to human rights. However, an account of dignity as high rank provides an illuminating perspective on the role it plays in the egalitarian discourse of human rights. In order to preserve that relational sense regarding human dignity, we can use the notion of moral status, to which some moral philosophers have paid attention in recent years. I explore the possibilities of the idea of moral status to better understand the idea of human dignity and its close relationship with human rights.

Judicialization of Socio-Economic Rights in Brazil: The Subversion of an Egalitarian Discourse

Judicialization of Socio-Economic Rights in Brazil: The Subversion of an Egalitarian Discourse

MOTHERHOOD AS ARCHETYPE OF CARING ETHICS. CRTITICAL REFLEXION ON THE GENDER IDENTITIES IN COMMUNICATION

This article analyzes the vital functions associated with motherhood and claims it as an ethical imaginary that must be shared by men as vital possibilities for their personal development. From here on, a reconstruction of the egalitarian discourse is proposed with a more fruitful perspective of a model of shared responsibilities. To achieve this objective, the importance of the communication media as permanent educators of public opinion is stressed.

Confronting Modernity in Fin-de-Siecle France: Bodies, Minds and Gender

This excellent collection of essays grew from two sessions in honor of Robert A. Nye at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the Society for French Historical Studies in Houston, Texas. Like Nye’s Masculinity and Male Codes of Honor in Modern France (University of California Press, 1998) this collection insists on blurring the boundaries among social, cultural, and political histories, taking gender as a primary focus of analysis. In a very useful introduction to the volume, the editors outline the theoretical and methodological innovations that have informed studies of the early Third Republic since the 1970s, clearly establishing the intellectual roots of the volume’s contributors, many of whom are distinguished scholars in the field themselves. The authors speak not only to Nye’s legacy but also in many cases respond directly to each other’s work, helping create a remarkable level of coherence. The volume is divided into four sections, beginning with two essays in dialogue on ‘Gender, Citizenship, and Republicanism’. Interrogating the Third Republic’s failure to grant women suffrage, Charles Sowerwine argues that Republicans ‘viewed the actual citizen as embodied male’ (20), alongside their egalitarian discourse. He points out that it was Gaullists and communists who deserve credit for finally granting women in the vote in 1944. By contrast Karen Offen contends that many Republican men were in fact feminists in the fin-de-siècle, citing substantial critiques of men and male privilege elaborated by republican women and men. Sowerine’s and Offen’s arguments are not mutually exclusive: while Offen demonstrates that there were indeed Republican feminists (male and female) in this era, Sowerwine also proves that the elected Republicans fell short. Both of these essays underline the productivity of the paradox of universal rights and women’s rights. Together they make a strong case that discursive constructions of equality and difference cannot be thoroughly understood without careful attention to the sociopolitical context and indeed the individuals that produced them.

Gender in the Discursive Practices of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Former East Germany

The author analyzes the construction of gender and gender roles among the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the former East Germany. From a religious point of view, wives and women in general are subordinate to their husbands, fathers, etc. Within a family and in congregations men are expected to “take the lead” and are responsible for their wives and children. In the former German Democratic Republic this religious discourse competed with the egalitarian and secular discourse of the socialist state, which emphasized the necessity for women to work and the importance of public childcare. Thus, the author addresses the question: how and to what extent did this official state discourse influence the Witnesses’ discursive practices on gender during socialism and until the present day? The author has based her article on extensive ethnographic fieldwork on the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Saxony, eastern Germany.

Egalitarian Fundamentalism: Preventing Defection in the Israeli Haredi Community

Fundamentalist religious communities are usually portrayed as patriarchal in relation to women and authoritative towards children and young people. This article explores three cases in which a fundamentalist group, the Jewish Israeli Haredi (Ultra Orthodox) community uses egalitarian discourses and practices. My claim is that egalitarianism is a tool which the community uses to prevent members from defecting or to bring back members who have defected. Egalitarianism or equality between members can be increased or reduced, according to changing needs. While egalitarianism is emphasised among members, condescension is emphasised in relation to the ‘outside’, often portrayed as unequal and abusive. As part of these attempts, Western psychological, feminist, and democratic discourses, usually considered to be alien to the community, are incorporated.

Resisting ‘Alterity’: Ambedkar and theEthics of Recognition

This paper reveals how mainstream society is organized around the politics of exclusion. An analysis of the primary institutional forces that shape social hierarchies shows that these are all based on the politics of non-recognition and exclusion. Not only do these systems exist as one-dimensional forms of subordination, but they also combine to create a larger, self-reinforcing and interlinking system of oppression. The main argument is that once domination is accepted on the basis of one arbitrary characteristic—race, nationality, sex, sexual orientation, or class— then it is easier to accept it also on the basis of another. On the other hand, if one form of domination is questioned, then it is likely that other forms are also questioned. Even before the world could debate the consequences of exclusion, Ambedkar had realised that the politics of exclusion plays a vital role in a non-materialist discourse of human and citizenship rights, democracy, recognition and respect. Conversely, he vied for a redistributive egalitarian discourse, which does not represent a denial of the material conditions that lie at the heart of marginalization. Rather, it offers an opportunity to transform the politics of marginalization into one that addresses questions of power as well as participatory processes. In this paper I have made an attempt to develop an analytical framework in which the politics of marginalization and exclusion can be both understood and forged. I have done this through the application of a number of concepts in social and political theory and finally posit that at issue are not just the promotion of an ethics of recognition, but also the redistribution of power and an egalitarian discourse.

Quality and equality: the mask of discursive conflation in education policy texts

Two key themes of recent UK education policy texts have been a focus on ‘quality’ in public sector performance, and on ‘equality’ in the form of New Labour’s stated commitment to equality of opportunity as a key policy objective. This twin approach can be seen at its most obvious in the concept of ‘excellence for all’. This paper contends that in recent policy texts the vocabularies of quality management discourse and egalitarian discourse have become conflated, serving to mask key issues relating to educational inequality, seen at its most stark in the attainment gap. The paper argues that this has led to a failure to distinguish between the goals of quality management and the ends of egalitarianism. Discursive conflation of this sort risks obscuring the significance of socio‐economic context and the limited impact of within‐school action. The paper also suggests that the focus on equality in terms of school provision paradoxically risks entrenching social inequalities despite the appearance of egalitarian commitment.

‘Race’ matters: racialization and egalitarian discourses involving Aboriginal people in the Canadian health care context

The major purpose of this paper is to examine how ‘race’ and racialization operate in health care. To do so, we draw upon data from an ethnographic study that examines the complex issues surrounding health care access for Aboriginal people in an urban center in Canada. In our analysis, we strategically locate our critical examination of racialization in the ‘tension of difference’ between two emerging themes, namely the health care rhetoric of ‘treating everyone the same,’ and the perception among many Aboriginal patients that they were ‘being treated differently’ by health care providers because of their identity as Aboriginal people, and because of their low socio-economic status. Contrary to the prevailing discourse of egalitarianism that paints health care and other major institutions as discrimination-free, we argue that ‘race’ matters in health care as it intersects with other social categories including class, substance use, and history to organize inequitable access to health and health care for marginalized populations. Specifically, we illustrate how the ideological process of racialization can shape the ways that health care providers ‘read’ and interact with Aboriginal patients, and how some Aboriginal patients avoid seeking health care based on their expectation of being treated differently. We conclude by urging those of us in positions of influence in health care, including doctors and nurses, to critically reflect upon our own positionality and how we might be complicit in perpetuating social inequities by avoiding a critical discussion of racialization.

Developmental Freedom and Social Order: Rethinking the Relation between Work and Equality

This essay points to an institutional account of our existential interest in work as a missing piece in welfare analysis. In contrast with social liberals in the postwar era, both liberal economic and egalitarian discourses today espouse a narrowly atomistic account of human nature and the modern economy. Therefore they are unable to take account of the institutional bases of economic development, individual autonomy and social order, and the way these connect. The essay shows that a patterning of distributional outcomes is a reality in both deregulated and densely governed capitalist economies, but that only the latter offers real scope for social and individual choice. The influence of the atomistic account on liberal egalitarian thought however has produced an unambitious, imprecise, and in the case of welfare contractualism, a coercive, account of both individual freedom and social community. What is needed is a more explicit inclusion of a temporal dimension in welfare and economic analysis and a more differentiated framework of pluralist governance.

Hegemony, Marginalization, and Feminine Masculinity: Antje Rávic Strubel’s Unter Schnee

Hegemony, Marginalization, and Feminine Masculinity: Antje Rávic Strubel’s Unter Schnee Claudia Breger (bio) Postunification German culture has been marked by its ambivalent fascination with masculinity in crisis. Films and literary texts as diverse as Sönke Wortmann’s Der bewegte Mann ( 1994), Benjamin Stuckrad-Barre’s Soloalbum (2001), Helmut Dietl’s Rossini (1996), Thomas Brussig’s Helden wie wir (1995), Caroline Link’s Nirgendwo in Afrika (2001), and Feridun Zaimoglu’s Liebesmale, scharlachrot (2000) have presented multifaceted spectacles of weakness, confusion and the hyperbolic reassertion of power. While this trend attests to the de-authorization of clear-cut gender boundaries and heteronormative assumptions, it also suggests that the egalitarian discourses of feminism and queer activism have not fully succeeded in resolving anxieties about gender identity and difference. Apart from the often ridiculed “Softie,” alternative figures of masculinity seem slow to emerge, and instead well-known heroic templates are reactivated (Bogdal). This apparent need for masculinity gains its cultural significance as part of a broader configuration of “identity longing” in contemporary Germany. Beyond national borders, the 1990s registered as an era of “categorical disorientation and historic reorientation” at the transition from the Cold War into today’s world of globalization, and in Germany specifically the process was dramatized through the “rocky transition from national division to unification” (Adelson 15). In its aftermath, the increased public presence of national rhetoric has underlined intense negotiations of collective identity in the face of troublesome historical memories and contemporary challenges. While ongoing attempts to “normalize” Germany’s relationship to the memories of fascism encountered the split resonances of half the country’s socialist past, the accelerating process of European integration included, not least, controversies on the membership candidacy of Turkey, the country of origin of Germany’s largest minority. The events of 11 September 2001 and the following debates on Islam merely highlighted ongoing conflicts about cultural identity in a society still hesitant to accept the realities of its immigration. In this ongoing quest for identification, masculinity has functioned as a crucial site. For example, Brussig’s parodic investigations of East German heroism respond to, and reiterate, prevailing moves of gendering German unification as a (hetero)sexual union, with the GDR in the role of the female (see Carstens-Wickham), and a novel like Zaimoglu’s Liebesmale, scharlachrot playfully rearticulates ethnic stereotypes [End Page 154] through theatrical stagings of “poetic,” Werther-inflected German emasculation and Turkish masculinity. Critical investigations into these contemporary processes of cultural gendering are much needed. At the same time, it does not seem altogether far-fetched to wonder whether the recent growth of masculinity studies attests to contemporary culture’s fascination with masculinity as well. After a belated start in comparison to Anglo-American developments, the analysis of masculinities has become a dominant paradigm in German gender studies at the beginning of the twenty-first century (e.g. Bosse and King; Brandes; Döge and Meuser; Erhart; Jerome; Schmale; Steffen; Stephan and Benthien). For some feminist critics, this recent trend confirms fears that were articulated early on, when the study of men and masculinities first gained momentum in the 1980s, The study of masculinities could turn into a new strategy of marginalizing women, usurping gender studies resources and venues for a potentially antifeminist focus on masculine identities and experiences (Brod). Of course, matters are much more complex than such a wording suggests. At least part of the current academic fascination with masculinity can be attributed to the long-term academic neglect of this “other” gender. Eventually, this neglect was challenged by a fuller realization that gender works as a relational category, requiring a comparative look at the mutual constitution of masculinity and femininity in specific texts and contexts. Furthermore, the belated start of masculinity studies has turned into a methodological advantage: Building on several decades of academic discussion in women’s and gender, queer, and postcolonial studies, the paradigm established itself in the Anglo-American realm in the 1990s as a highly sophisticated approach. Critical masculinity studies have begun to investigate, for example, the performative character of apparently “unmarked,” naturalized masculinity, relations between hegemonic and marginalized identities, and female masculinities (e.g. example, Connell, Masculinities; Halberstam; Sedgwick, “Gosh, Boy...

University academics, family politics and ‘the egalitarian discourse’

abstract Studies focusing on university academics tend to show considerable gender differences defining workplace opportunities and career trajectories as well as gender inequalities experienced in domestic settings. In South Africa, mothering and social reproductive activities usually delay women's achievements in the teaching and publishing arenas and influence various postponements and interruptions of academic careers. Woman academics often have to struggle against pressures demanding the primacy of ‘motherhood’ and ‘wifehood’ and the relegation of ‘scholar’ to a subordinate place. This briefing is based on a qualitative study of 13 young academics at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, who, whilst they articulate egalitarian ideas, struggle to realise co-parenting and shared responsibilities in practice. Consequently, the constraints of domesticity reconfigure and impact on working lives.

Anglo-multiculturalism: Contradictions in the politics of cultural diversity as risk

The continuing controversy over the place of multiculturalism within national political cultures has been highlighted by recent international policy debates. Nations with European, and especially Anglo-Celtic, roots have been forced into a major re-assessment of their strategies in relation to culturally diverse populations living within the nation-state. The dynamics underlying these tensions reflect fundamental fissures that global terrorism has exposed, sometimes instigating the portrayal of international rifts as confrontations of civilizations. Great Britain and Australia have long historic links, sharing many cultural orientations, the one of course the founder through invasion of the other. To some extent they have shared a commitment to policies of multiculturalism, which they saw as ways of reducing risks of social conflict in late modernity. They both now experience societal debates where multiculturalism has come under strong political critique ironically, for amplifying risk. Both societies have presented themselves to the international community as beacons of tolerance and diversity, as successful expressions of multiculturalism, and as examples of the power of the core values of Anglo-liberalism. Yet external audiences sometimes comment, and internal critics have persuasively argued, that such representations disguise systematic structures of racialized inequality masked by surface egalitarian discourses. As these contradictions become ever more apparent, we are thus directed towards a re-formulation of what a multicultural project would require if it is to demonstrate sufficient robustness to survive much into this century.

‘She might not have the right tools… and he does’: children’s sense‐making of gender, work and abilities in early school readers

Children’s cultural worlds provide them with many different sources of information about gender and work. Early school reader illustrations, for example, are a cultural resource that produces particular meanings about gender, however children may also draw on understandings from other contexts to make their own sense of these representations. The study described in this article interviewed young children about illustrations depicting women and men’s work in two early school readers. Feminist poststructuralist analyses were used to examine representations in illustrations and how children made sense of them. Findings revealed variability of meanings about gender and work in both illustrations and the children’s accounts, assigning women agency and equality on some occasions while locating them in a gender hierarchy below men at other times. Although findings illuminate children’s access to an egalitarian discourse, they also point to an ongoing need to support and encourage children’s critical reading of texts.

Poignant Relations: Three Modern French Women (review)

James Smith Allen's study brings to our attention the lives and works of three forgotten nineteenth-century French women: Marie Leroyer, Geneviève Bréton, and Céline Renooz. Although unacknowledged, these women devoted a significant amount of their time to writing, whether such writing took the form of letters, diaries, memoirs, novels, or scientific treatises. Whereas other scholars have focused on elite women's works and lives during the same period, Allen chooses these little-known women on the assumption that their writings more accurately reflect middle-class French women's lives. His work grows out of the equality vs. difference debate, especially as it opposes historians Joan Scott's (1996) and Mona Ozouf's (1997) views on modern French society. At stake is the extent to which an egalitarian (yet, patriarchal) discourse benefits women. Allen claims that, despite unequal treatment, the women writers he is interested in participated in a broad exchange of ideas and crafted a valuable space for themselves. Clearly, he presents writing as an empowering step toward equality.

'Where's me dinner?': food preparation arrangements in rural Australian families

In the wake of the second-wave feminist movement and related social changes, including the participation of more women in the paid workforce, an egalitarian discourse has dominated notions of the ideal division of domestic labour in heterosexual households, including those tasks involving food preparation. Some critics have argued, however, that this discourse is not taken up in practice, with women still taking more responsibility than their partners for cooking for the family. This article presents findings from a qualitative study involving interviews with 34 heterosexual couples living in a rural region of Australia about their food preparation arrangements. The findings demonstrate that for most of the couples the female partner did indeed take major responsibility for cooking for the family. Three dominant rationales were expressed by the participants to explain why the division of labour remains unequal in relation to cooking: those of expertise, enjoyment and fairness. Importantly, however, there was evidence of a weakening in gendered assumptions about who should cook and of significant participation by men in food preparation. This was particularly the case among younger, more highly educated participants or those in professional occupations or in couples where the male partner was unemployed.