School Discourse Research Articles

Professional Book Reviews: Transformational Talk

The Professional Book Reviews department contributes reflections on compelling books that enhance our understanding of the transformative nature of discourse in schools, homes and communities of practice. To open the column entitled Transformative Talk, Heidi Mills offers an overview of each book in the text set and a synthesis across all three books reviewed. Toni Williams offers a thoughtful review of Practicing What We Teach: How Culturally Responsive Literacy Classrooms Make a Difference edited by Patricia Ruggiano Schmidt and Althier M. Lazar (2011). Williams inspires readers to access this text for insights and strategies around culturally responsive teaching grounded in meaningful discourse and literacy engagements. Scott Johnson’s thorough review of Talk about Understanding: Rethinking Classroom Talk to Enhance Comprehension by Ellin Oliver Keene (2012) compels readers to take up this book to foster deeper understandings during literacy instruction through principles and practices that promote healthy teacher talk and substantive student learning. Emily Whitecotton and Priscila Alvardo review Beyond Communities of Practice: Language, Power, and Social Context edited by David Barton and Karen Tusting (2005). They articulate the ways this book offers theoretical frames for noticing, naming, challenging and/or revising communities of practice. As Mills suggests in the overview, “Individually and collectively, these books push us to imagine how our words might change ours and others’ worlds” (p. 49).

'Doing Right' By Melissa: An Inquiry Into School Spaces

This educational ethnographic case study explores Melissa’s literacy experiences in an urban elementary school. Using a modified domain analysis (LeCompte & Schensul, 1999), this paper focuses specifically on what it meant for Melissa to ‘Do the Right Thing’ in various school spaces. Her application of doing the right thing in different spaces complicates what it means to take ‘right action’. Therefore, ‘taking right action’ was divided into three domains: 1) Institutional Domain: Code of Compliance 2) Dominant Literacy Domain: School Code and 3) Personal Domain: Melissa’s Self- Reliance. While Melissa was considered a model fifth grader in her urban elementary school setting by her teachers and peers, her personal code of literacy often subsumed the dominant school discourse of ‘do the right thing’. Analysis generated prospective inroads for understanding how literacy learning is inextricably intertwined with relationships of space and discourse. Insights from this close analysis point to the need for nuanced recognition of students’ intellectual lives and underscore the plague of low expectations that narrowing curriculum imposes upon students.

La Canonisation des tragédies raciniennes à l’Ecole républicaine

The critical reception of Racine during the French Third Republic reflects a shift from the Christian/monarchical view of the “tender Racine” to the secular/republican image of the “Racine cruel.” The importance of Racinian tragedy in the literary pedagogy of this period can best be grasped by examining the transformation of university criticism (Nisard, Brunetière, Lanson) into school discourse (Albert, Calvet, Longhaye). The official canonization of the dramatic poet as the paragon of traditional French esthetic values (clarity, good taste, and elegance) gave way to the decanonization of his oeuvre since the early 1970s.

A ficção científica de Júlio Verne e o ensino de Física: uma análise de “Vinte Mil Léguas Submarinas”

This article presents the results of a research on the literary work of Jules Verne in the context of the teaching of scientific concepts. In the book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, taking Bakhtin as reference for analysis, we find a systematic and deliberate teaching concepts by Verne. We note a similarity between the situations described by the author and the statements of physical phenomena typical of high school textbooks, with some differences: the richness and complexity of the Verne's narrative, with plots that make highly contextualized the scientific concepts and that expand the possibilities for the reader's understanding. Accordingly, the approach of different genres allows the emergence of interdiscourses that reading can produce, or, in the context of Physics Education, we find in the Verne's literature various points of support for the understanding of scientific knowledge in this school discourse.

Interactive micro-processes in classroom discourse: turning points and emergent meanings

Based on a qualitative analysis of classroom discourse in Italian primary schools, this paper analyses the micro-processes that are emergent moment-by-moment in the unfolding interactions between teacher and pupils. More in particular, our purpose is to identify the conditions under which the interactive orientation of a sequence changes. We argue that unpredictable emergent contributions function as turning points, re-directing and changing the sequence’s orientation. The results show that the turning points introduce changes in the sequences as far as three discourse characteristics are concerned: (a) communicative pattern; (b) lesson objective; and (c) role of primary knower. The discussion points out the importance of these results for the teachers’ work and training.

Administrator and Teachers' Perceptions of School Success in a Publicly Funded Catholic School in Ontario, Canada

School success is a complex and abstract notion. Asking questions about what is meant by school success is important, since the ways in which educators and administrators define school success tends to guide their practice, and may have implications for current and future policy initiatives. This qualitative case study explores how one publicly funded Catholic school in Ontario, Canada, conceives of school success. First, a brief historical description of publicly funded Catholic schooling in Ontario is given, followed by a short introduction of the contemporary school success discourse. Next, the methodological approach is described, leading into a detailed account of the study’s findings. Last, a comprehensive discussion follows around a particular publicly funded Catholic school’s notions of success in their local context. This study pays particular attention to the question of whether or not narrow achievement priorities from the provincial government dominate local school discourse and practices.

The role of classroom experiences and school ethos in the development of children as political actors: Confronting the vision of pupils and teachers

The significance of the school as a context for citizenship education (CE) has been widely emphasised (Fielding, 2011; Ichilov, 2003), and the object of educational policies across Europe (Eurydice, 2005). CE involves specific subjects, school assemblies and extra-curricular activities, but is recognised as being highly determined by regular classroom experiences and the school ethos (Kerr et al., 2010). In fact, democracy and citizenship can be experienced in schools, as pupils are meaningfully involved in participatory dialogue and decision making (Dahlberg, Moss & Pence, 1999; Fletcher, 2005; Wilde, 2005). Are these experiences, however, recognised both by pupils and teachers, as instrumental in learning to be engaged, critical and responsible citizens?In this paper, we present the results of a case study in the metropolitan area of Porto to consider the (dis)continuities between school discourses and practices regarding citizenship in the vision of teachers and pupils, from kindergarten to grade 8. Focus groups were used to consider issues of citizenship, participation and the role of the school. In the case of pupils, the focus group involved the completion of a task of transforming a newly-discovered island into a country (Adelson & O’Neill, 1966). The more collaborative and participatory approach to solve the task came from the younger children who attended kindergarten, reproducing the class ethos, as appears evident in the discourse of pre-school teachers. Older pupils revealed, as would be expected, more complex political discourses – but, as their teachers recognised, the demands of the mandatory curricula seem to supersede those discourses and CE appears to be more related to extra-class (and extra-school) experiences. The implications for CE and the work of educational psychologists will be discussed considering both direct intervention with pupils and consultation with teachers and other relevant stakeholders.

The social construction of urban Fijian childhoods: literacy teaching, Waka readers and children’s lives

The article draws on the elements of poststructural theory to explore the mismatches and alignments in language and literacy teaching discourses in urban Fijian primary schools. More specifically, it compares the liberal progressivism of whole language and literacy pedagogies with the culturalism that informs a key reading resource in the teaching of literacy and language. The constitution of urban Fijian childhoods emerging from these two major discourses is then compared with several cohorts of urban Fijian children’s own accounts of their lives. Major discursive mismatches and alignments between these discourses and the children’s own expressed life ways are noted. Where alignments exist between sets of discourses, children’s language and literacy development are more likely facilitated. However, where mismatches occur, there are implications not only for children’s effective language and literacy learning but also for more equitable access to language and literacy pedagogies for all Fijian children.

Prácticas y discursos pedagógicos en Toconao: Cultura, patrimonio e interculturalidad

This paper analyzes the process of implementation of the Programa de Educacion Intercultural Bilingue (PEIB; Intercultural Bilingual Education Program) focused the Licanantay people, specifically at the Toconao School (San Pedro de Atacama). We examine the schooling practices and discourses that construct representations about the ethnic, intercultural, and Licanantay identities. This article presents seven axes of analysis that articulate an anthropological view about the tension between the homogenizing practices of the school and a new position that Indigenous Law 19.253 and Education Reform allegedly have regarding cultural diversity and cultural differences. In this sense, I will also provide schooling discourses and practices to discuss the complexity of the negotiation and resistance processes that emerge in the Toconao School surrounding intercultural education.

“But They Won't Let you Read!”: A Case Study of an Urban Middle School Male's Response to School Reading

This qualitative case study presents the perceptions of Derrick, a Black urban adolescent male who enjoys reading but believes that inconsistent school discourses hinder his success and enjoyment as a reader. Findings show that Derrick's purposeful work while reading was limited and misunderstood because, among other factors, there was a pervasive effect of test-driven reform. I argue that his critique of formal reading instruction reveals that even progressive approaches to education are not immune to the discursive power of the accountability and standardization movement, and that resultantly, the active and avid reading engagement of this Black adolescent male was ultimately neglected, inhibited, and dismissed.

THE ROLE OF BIOGRAPHIES IN CHEMISTRY EDUCATION AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO UNDERSTANDING HOW SCIENTISTS AND SCIENCE WORKS

In this study it is presented several considerations concerning the elements that biographies could contribute to chemistry education. It is analyzed two particular cases: biographies from two high school chemistry textbooks and an audiovisual in the form of an animated fictional documentary about the life of Marie Curie. The analysis was carried out following a methodology designed to analyze textbooks in which we visualize science as a network where we identify elements that allow us to track how science circulates; we have used previously these elements in analyzing audiovisual materials for classroom (Arroio and Farías, 2011). These results show that despite the fact that biographies have elements which justify the criticism they have received within science education they can improve the contextualization and localization of scientific activity by making new connections between those actors that are not generally part of schools’ accounts of science: scientists, institutions, and places, amongst others. This fact was further substantiated after analyzing the documentary. It is proposed that the inclusion of biographies has a vast potential for conveying a more realistic image of scientific activity - but only if the biographies are specifically designed for teaching and are understood to be narrowly related to the popularization of science, science education, and the historiography of science. Moreover, biographies can lend more weight to the role of scientists as narrative axes, where then the school discourse can recover the person, that is, the scientist as a subject and individual. Within a setting where school science is primarily centered on concepts this process can strengthen the affective links between students and teachers. Key words: audiovisual, image of science, narratives, scientists, textbooks.

Como se fabricam os anjos?: uma arqueologia do corpo nos manuais escolares de moral e de higiene na França, 1880-1974

A partir de um acervo constituído por 342 manuais escolares de moral e de higiene, o artigo analisa como se constitui um biopoder ou um micropoder no âmbito do discurso escolar. O corpo é ali fabricado, a carne é ali trabalhada como o fora por outras formas de livro (em grego Biblos). Vemos, claramente, aparecer através da arqueologia dos manuais escolares de moral e de higiene na França de fins do século XIX até os anos de 1970 que os preceitos judaico-cristãos, católicos, ou, mais largamente, monoteístas estão vivamente presentes nos manuais. Todavia, é importante sublinhar que esses manuais são parte constitutiva da escola republicana, que, na França, é descrita segundo as leis de 1905, como instituição separada da Igreja e, após as leis elaboradas por Jules Ferry (1880-1882), como instituição laica.

Swedish progressive school politics and the disciplinary regime of the school, 1946–1962: a genealogical perspective

This article examines the vision of the Swedish comprehensive school reform between 1946–1962 as it pertains to the ever-troubling questions of discipline and order in school. Inspired primarily by the work of Michel Foucault and his genealogical perspective, the article problematises the notion that character formation and school discipline during this period underwent a radical democratic transformation, and that this was the successful result of a progressive political agenda. This account of school discipline is shown to be problematic since it conceals a complex and even ironic historical process, where a disciplinarian discourse in school lingered and even widened and deepened disciplinary practice during the period.

Finding a Civic Voice: Latino Immigrant Youths' Experiences in High School Social Studies.

Socialization into the dominant civic and political discourse lies at the heart of social studies. As they become proficient in the discourse of home and school, Latino immigrant youth demonstrate the potential to uniquely benefit from this socialization. This qualitative study explores ten Latino immigrant young adults' perceptions of how their social studies experiences shaped their young adult civic selves. Participants internalized not only their parents' high expectations for them, but also those of their teachers, highlighting the potentially instrumental role of schools in the civic fabric of the nation. In addition, the Latino young adults felt empowered by their social studies teachers via civic expectations and academic encouragement and perceived this empowerment to have facilitated the skill development necessary for later civic leadership. In closing, we reflect on immigrant students' incorporation of the discourse of the dominant culture with that of the home to develop their own civic voices.

Rethinking Antiracist Education in the Light of the Capability Approach

In anti-racist education, it is important to reflect on the pitfalls of the ideal of equality in order to obtain greater social justice. Too narrow an understanding of equality without an acknowledgment of the individual's ethnic identity provides fragile grounds when dealing with the social and cultural recognition of minority pupils. The capability approach contributes to discussing theoretically the anti-racist dialectical aim of equality and difference. In assessing the individual's capability to combine his/her own substantive freedoms within his/her specific living, it also gives the possibility to evaluate the concrete social arrangements and resources available to minority pupils. If considering the curriculum as a resource, French and Norwegian school discourses in civic education offer too few conversion possibilities for minority youth to expand their capabilities in the multicultural society and to use their own voice in order to build self-governance based on self-mobilization and self-articulation of concrete cultural and social aspirations.

The body and pedagogy: beyond absent, moving bodies in pedagogic practice

Following the corporeal turn in social theory, this paper explores how the body is implicated in pedagogic practice and leaning. Focusing on the body has usually been recognised as part of the regulative rather than instructional discourse in schools. Work has begun to redress the mind–body imbalance through the ‘corporeal device’ developed from Bernstein’s ‘pedagogic device’, the fundamental relay through which social inequalities are reproduced in schools. To properly recognise the way bodies act as pedagogic relays requires a robust understanding of persons as multi-sensorial acting beings. Examples for choreographic pedagogy are used to illuminate the complex and multimodal features of instructional discourse and to suggest how the moving body could be enlisted to enhance students’ access to formal academic discourses and better understand why some young people fail to achieve in schools.

Mentoring to reproduce or change discourse in schools

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to share findings from a Master's study exploring teacher professional learning needs with the purpose of elucidating the needs of teachers, and mentor teachers, within the school cultural context in the Republic of Ireland. This study coincides with a relentless neo‐liberal drive to outsource most of what was traditionally seen as state investment across all public services, including education.Design/methodology/approachThe research methodology is a small scale qualitative research study exploring the perceptions of experienced teachers in two secondary schools. It examines the conditions which may account for different levels of engagement in this regard.FindingsThe key findings show very different levels of engagement in school based teacher professional learning in the two secondary schools.Research limitations/implicationsThese findings have serious implications for the type of whole school mentoring that needs to be offered within schools at a time when policymakers are mandating teacher professional learning and requiring the development of critical reasoning capacities for all pupils in a global knowledge world.Originality/valueThis study is concerned with the readiness of the experienced teacher to mentor beginning teachers, and student teachers, in ways that value co‐inquiry, care, agency and critical thinking within the ecology of a whole school environment. Mentoring has become a popular construct in everyday usage. The originality of this research lies in the use of productive mentoring as a framework developed by the authors and under continual interrogation.

A sequential analysis of classroom discourse in Italian primary schools: The many faces of the IRF pattern

A sequential analysis of classroom discourse is needed to investigate the conditions under which the triadic initiation-response-feedback (IRF) pattern may host different teaching orientations. The purpose of the study is twofold: first, to describe the characteristics of classroom discourse and, second, to identify and explore the different interactive sequences that can be captured with a sequential statistical analysis. Twelve whole-class activities were video recorded in three Italian primary schools. We observed classroom interaction as it occurs naturally on an everyday basis. In total, we collected 587 min of video recordings. Subsequently, 828 triadic IRF patterns were extracted from this material and analysed with the programme Generalized Sequential Query (GSEQ). The results indicate that classroom discourse may unfold in different ways. In particular, we identified and described four types of sequences. Dialogic sequences were triggered by authentic questions, and continued through further relaunches. Monologic sequences were directed to fulfil the teachers' pre-determined didactic purposes. Co-constructive sequences fostered deduction, reasoning, and thinking. Scaffolding sequences helped and sustained children with difficulties. The application of sequential analyses allowed us to show that interactive sequences may account for a variety of meanings, thus making a significant contribution to the literature and research practice in classroom discourse.

Money talks: the language of the Rochester School

PurposeSince the late 1970s, research in accounting has been colonized by positive accounting theory (PAT) despite strong claims that it is fundamentally flawed in terms of epistemology and methodology. This paper aims to offer new insights to PAT by critically examining its basic tenets.Design/methodology/approachThe paper subjects the language of the Rochester School to a deconstruction that is a transformational reading. This uncovers rhetorical operations and unveils hidden associations with other texts and ideas.FindingsA new interpretation of the Rochester School discourse is provided. To afford scientific credibility to deregulation within the accounting field, Watts and Zimmerman used supplements and missing links to enhance the authority of PAT. They placed supplements inside their texts to provide a misleading image of PAT. These supplements rest on von Hayek's long‐term shaping blueprint to defeat apostles of the welfare state. Yet, to set PAT apart from normative theories that Watts and Zimmerman claimed were contaminated by value judgments, they made no reference in their text to the tight links between the Rochester School and the libertarian project initiated by von Hayek.Research limitations/implicationsAny reading of PAT cannot present the infinite play of meaning that is possible within a text. Deconstruction involves a commitment to on‐going, eternal questioning.Originality/valueThe paper provides evidence of the relation between PAT and the neoliberal (libertarian) project of von Hayek. PAT is viewed as part of the institutional infrastructure and ideological apparatus that legitimates the hegemony of markets.

Girls, identities and agency in adolescents’ digital literacy practices

This paper focuses on the ways girls use digital environments, like Word, PowerPoint and chatting programmes, for writing and communication purposes. By combining quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis and by adopting a critical discourse framework, we will explore the relationship between girls and new media, especially the ones related to digital writing, in terms of three interconnected variables. The first one is related to the role of the two most important socialisation institutions, home and school, at the present historical juncture, characterised by intense mobility and an expansion of traditional forms of literacy. The strategic choices of the girls’ families and their schools’ teaching practices contributed significantly to the formulation of their digital writing practices. The second variable is gender. Our data clearly show that a substantial number of girls were more inclined than their male peers to use word-processing and presentation software, performing, thus, the school discourses of ‘diligent students’. The third key variable concerns the personality of the girls who filtered in their own unique ways their social experiences, overcame limitations, took initiatives and appropriated technologically-mediated writing media for personally meaningful ends that enhanced their school and/or entertainment Discourses.