Discourse analysis as a tool for perpetuating or questioning the status quo
When talking about discourse, one of the most important referents for critical analysis is the French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-1984). We will focus only on some aspects of discourse, in order to briefly present our views regarding power and education. Foucault saw discourse as the internalization and reelaboration of power relations, distilled in particular institutions where power relations and structures took shape and where the most effective for self-preservation: schools, jails, and mental hospitals. He considered that these instutions defined, classified, and controlled people. But could this be so?
Can we compare schools to jails or mental hospitals? The objective of schools is educating younger generations. The purpose of hospitals is curing and containing the insane or sick. On the other hand, the purpose of jails is keeping the violent, deviant, and socially irrecoverable within walls and clear social boundaries. Do these institutions perpetuate power relations? What is the dominant discourse for applied psychiatry? Let's just think about the humane portrait and denounce of the enviroment in mental hospitals as depicted in the movie "One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975). What is the dominant discourse there? How are the patients' and the staff's identities created based on the official discourse?
If we think about jails and their dominant discourse, some movies come to mind, "The Big House"(1930), "White Heat" (1949), and "The Kiss of the Spider Woman" (1985) among many others. What is the purpose of jails? How are identities constructed, destroyed, and then built up again? How do inmates see themselves, and how does society see them? Are they rehabilitated, or just broken and then put together anew in order to be socially acceptable or functional?
Finally, we can see how schools mold young minds in movies like "If..." (1968), "The Wall" (1982), or "The Breakfast Club" (1984). Are these movies just interpretations, or do they in fact prove what Foucault thought about schools as institutions for brainwashing and controlling? As a teacher, I need to believe that as in movies such as "The Dead Poets Society" (1989), formal education has a more elevated purpose. Young intellects are ripe for the taking, as long as this means enriching, empowering them.
Then, what is discourse analysis good for? As Warriner (2016) states, discourse analysis in education must serve the function of being an "eclectic set of theoretical and methodological approaches" that can provide the tools for the scientific study of "discourse, language in use, notions of context and contextualization, questions of power, and increasingly discussed issues of embodiment, spatiality, virtuality, and complex ecologies shaping educational contexts" (p.8). What does this imply in the 21st. century? This means that discourse must be dissected and analyzed, measured and weighed, evaluated under the microscope in order to find its true meaning. Is this meaning constructive, we say? So, let's reproduce it and spread it. Is this meaning an instrument for submission and homogeneity? If so, then we need to examine it, and restate it as something positive, as a set of skills and values that our students will learn and improve in the future.
In other words, discourse analysis needs to be instrumentalized as a vehicle for stripping lies naked and for embellishing the bare truths. Anything beyond that, is mere speculation and a game of mirrors. As teachers, researchers and evaluators, it is our duty to declare our position, take a stand, and act consequently. Are we willing to perpetuate the status quo, or to fight for our students' intellectual and spiritual independence? The choice is ours, but first, we need to analyze our own discourse, our own educational practice.
References:
Warriner, D. S. (2007). Discourse analysis in
educational research. In K. King & N. Hornberger (Eds.),
Encyclopedia of Language and Education, Volume 10: Research Methods in
Language and Education (2nd ed., pp. 203-215). New York: Springer. https://www.academia.edu/1329396/Warriner_D._S._2007_._Discourse_analysis_in_educational_research._In_K._King_and_N._Hornberger_Eds._Encyclopedia_of_Language_and_Education_Volume_10_Research_Methods_in_Language_and_Education_2nd_ed._pp._203-215_._New_York_Springer
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