Constructing race in white spaces of Dutch education (1968–2017)

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Luce Sijpenhof

PurposeThe key purpose of this paper is to explore how teachers' historical constructions of race and racism may reify whiteness in Dutch classrooms. How has whiteness contributed to how teachers understand and teach race and (historical) racism in white educational spaces in the years 1968–2017?Design/methodology/approachInterview data are obtained from a selection of Dutch secondary school (former) teachers, mostly history teachers, who have taught in the period between 1968–2017 (N = 28). Grounded theory and critical discourse analysis are used for analytical purposes.FindingsThe findings reveal that most teachers minimize and distort (historical) racism and its connection to the normalization of whiteness in the Netherlands. These teachers are constantly (re)constructing race based on their own histories, which silences race. This implicates contemporary educational spaces in numerous ways. Among other things, teachers normalize whiteness, while racializing the “other”, they explain racial inequities by reference to factors that exclude racism, and perpetuate whiteness through their teaching.Originality/valueWhile in the USA, critical scholars have long provided evidence for racism in educational contexts, racism in Dutch education remains largely unexamined. This paper offers a critical perspective on teachers' racial contributions.

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
William James Zuber ◽  
Colin Webber

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine current research on self-advocacy and self-determination of autistic students in order to provide an overview of the research and to critically evaluate researcher’s methods of inclusivity of autistic people. Additionally, this paper will critically analyse the discourse of the current research to assess the extent of deficit, stigma and pathology discourse. Design/methodology/approach Research will be selected from a list of criteria which is to seek research that is inclusive of autistic people. The research will be analysed using elements of critical discourse analysis, critical disability studies and critical autism studies. The critical autism studies approach used in this paper is emancipatory to promote autistic scholarship, autistic inclusivity and autistic led research methods. Findings The result of this paper is that by prioritising, and including autistic individuals in the studies about them provides valuable educational insights and often challenges assumptions, stigmas and stereotypes of autistic individuals. Research limitations/implications The findings of the paper may be limited by the selection of literature reviewed and generalizability, therefore, researchers are encouraged to explore further. Practical implications This paper holds potential implications that question the consistency of current discourse and research into self-advocacy for autistic individuals in addition to providing effective research, teaching and support strategies based on insight. This paper also highlights some research that challenges assumptions of autistic individuals. Social implications This paper challenges assumptions and stigmas associated with autistic individuals and demonstrates the importance of self-advocacy and self-determination. This research transforms the paradigm of autism and education practice that has the potential to improve autistic individuals’ education and ultimately, improve their lives. Originality/value This research is important and valuable as there is limited research in this area. The potential of this research is that it can shift the broad perceptions of autism and make improvements in education and autistic individuals lives.


2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 404-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Poulsen

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine a selection of creative writings by students at one Australian secondary school over a period of 50-plus years, charting the frequency with which key markers of gender appear in student storytelling over this period and sampling the types of gendered representation demonstrated in these stories. Design/methodology/approach – Taken from a larger study, and grounded in feminist and poststructuralist reading practices, the research draws on Critical Discourse Analysis and quantifies verbal processes relating to gender using Halliday and Matthiessen’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) (2004). Findings – The research finds the visibility of females in the selected corpus has increased considerably, yet the nature of female and male participation in these texts remains comparatively unchanged when measured by the process types of Halliday and Matthiessen’s SFL (2004). Originality/value – If past decades of (pro)feminist choices are only challenging gendered patterns of representation at the level of quantity but not type, this has significant implications for teachers of English. The paper’s conclusion considers what more might be done in present and future teaching to assist students to problematise their own, as well as others’, representations of gender.


2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 507-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Ravazzani ◽  
Carmen Daniela Maier

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how organizations can strategically frame their legitimate perspective on a specific issue in order to gain salience and public support in a social media context. Design/methodology/approach By means of framing theory and a critical perspective on strategic discourse in hypermodal spaces, the study examines in detail the discursive strategies and framing processes employed by a non-profit organization that faces local and global contestation of its corporate operations. Findings Through a critical discourse analysis of the organization’s 385 Facebook posts during two periods of time, the results not only show how the corporate perspective is strategically framed and legitimized, but also challenged and consequently adapted in this hypermodal issue sub-arena. In addition to legitimizing the organizational perspective by providing evidence-based facts and external expert views as reliable and neutral sources, and echoing supporters’ voices and actions as further endorsements, the organization also strategically manages the Facebook dialogue by delegitimizing counterarguments. Originality/value This study contributes to the corporate communication field by revealing how framing can be materialized in specific discursive strategies aimed to legitimize and delegitimize. It shows how such strategies are interrelated in hypermodal clusters in ways that sustain the organizational discourse, and can evolve across time and within the same actor’s strategy. Methodologically, this study expands the research toolkit by introducing hypermodality in exploring framing and strategic organizational discourse.


2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Thomas ◽  
Amina Selimovic

Purpose – This study aims to explore how two Norwegian national online newspapers, Dagbladet and Aftenposten, have framed halal food in the past 6 years (2008-2014), a period conflating with a rise in Muslim demographics in Norway. Design/methodology/approach – A mixed-methods approach is used. Employing among others a Hallidayan transitivity analysis and other approaches from critical discourse analysis (CDA), clausal semantic structures, collocations and nominalizations were explored with a view toward fleshing out ideological significance. Particular attention was given to the neologism – “covert-Islamization” – popularized by the populist right-wing Progress Party. Findings – The findings reveal that Dagbladet refracts halal food through a discourse of crime and other dubious frames tapping into topoi of Islamophobia. Halal is, in this manner, transformed into a synecdoche for deviance. This is contrasted with Aftenposten’s more “halal-friendly” gaze which inter alia is attributed to greater access for Muslim contributors (over 40 per cent), with nearly all authorship penned in the aftermath of the Breivik massacre of July 22, 2011. Research limitations/implications – As a comparative research that explores two newspapers – albeit with substantial national circulation – there are obvious limitations. Future research could explore the contents of Verdens Gang, the biggest newspaper in Norway, and perhaps incorporate iconic semiotic content. Social implications – The prevalent media discourse on halal in Norway casts a shadow over a fundamental aspect of the identity construction of Norwegians who adhere to Islam, thus highlighting issues of belonging and citizenry in the “new” Norway. National discourses of identity and belonging impact upon the Muslim consumer’s perception of self and ethnicity, and how these perceptions are negotiated in the interstices of a skewed media coverage of halal certainly serves to undermine this self-perception. Originality/value – Several recent studies have broached the subject of the manifold representations of Muslims and Islam in the media using a CDA, but there is a dearth in studies with a specific focus on halal food. This study contributes to the lacuna in the literature in an area of growing importance, not just as a socio-political and religious phenomenon, but a lucrative commercial project in a Scandinavian context.


Author(s):  
Marina Dekavalla

This paper presents preliminary findings from a wider study into the form that political debate takes in Scottish and English/UK newspapers’ reporting of the 2001 and the 2005 UK Elections. The research project aims to contribute to the discussion regarding the role played by the Scottish press in political deliberation after devolution and compares its contribution to the electoral debate with that of newspapers bought in England. This paper explores the results of a content analysis of articles from daily Scottish and UK newspapers during the four weeks of each election campaign period. This reveals that, despite some differences, the overall picture of the coverage of major election issues is consistent. A selection of the coverage of taxation, the most mentioned reserved issue in the 2001 campaign, is subsequently analysed using critical discourse analysis, and the results suggest more distinction between the two sets of newspapers.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jugathambal Ramdhani ◽  
Suriamurthee Maistry

In South Africa, the school textbook remains a powerful source of content knowledge to both teachers and learners. Such knowledge is often engaged uncritically by textbook users. As such, the worldviews and value systems in the knowledge selected for consumption remain embedded and are likely to do powerful ideological work. In this article, we present an account of the ideological orientations of knowledge in a corpus of school economics textbooks. We engage the tenets of critical discourse analysis to examine the representations of the construct “poverty” as a taught topic in the Further Education and Training Economics curriculum. Using Thompson’s legitimation as a strategy and form-function analysis as specific analytical tools, we unearth the subtext of curriculum content in a selection of Grade 12 Economics textbooks. The study reveals how power and domination are normalised through a strategy of economic legitimation, thereby offering a “legitimate” rationale for the existence of poverty in the world. The article concludes with implications for curriculum and a humanising pedagogy, and a call for embracing critical knowledge on poverty in the South African curriculum.


2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 1542-1562 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Price ◽  
Charles Harvey ◽  
Mairi Maclean ◽  
David Campbell

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to answer two main research questions. First, the authors ask the degree to which the UK corporate governance code has changed in response to both systemic perturbations and the subsequent enquiries established to recommend solutions to perceived shortcomings. Second, the authors ask how the solutions proposed in these landmark governance texts might be explained.Design/methodology/approachThe authors take a critical discourse approach to develop and apply a discourse model of corporate governance reform. The authors draw together data on popular, corporate-political and technocratic discourses on corporate governance in the UK and analyse these data using content analysis and the historical discourse approach.FindingsThe UK corporate governance code has changed little despite periodic crises and the enquiries set up to investigate and make recommendation. Institutional stasis, the authors find, is the product of discourse capture and control by elite corporate actors aided by political allies who inhabit the same elite habitus. Review group members draw intertextually on prior technocratic discourse to create new canonical texts that bear the hallmarks of their predecessors. Light touch regulation by corporate insiders thus remains the UK approach.Originality/valueThis is one of the first applications of critical discourse analysis in the accounting literature and the first to have conducted a discursive analysis of corporate governance reports in the UK. The authors present an original model of discourse transitions to explain how systemic challenges are dissipated.


Kybernetes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Krešimir Žažar

Purpose The purpose of the paper is to discuss particular features of the public debate around the COVID-19 pandemic and its mitigation strategies in Croatian media from the beginning of 2020 to mid-September of the same year. Design/methodology/approach The discussion is theoretically grounded on Luhmann’s concept of moral communication combined with the key assumption of critical discourse analysis that language reflects a position of power of social actors. Based on these premises, the analysis of a sample of articles in a chosen online media was conducted to uncover the moral codes in the public debate concerning the corona outbreak and connect them with specific moral discourses of particular social actors. Findings The findings clearly indicate that the communication about the pandemic is considerably imbued with moralization and that moral coding is profoundly used to generate preferred types of behaviour of citizens and their compliance with the imposed epidemiologic measures. In conclusion, Luhmann’s claim of moralization as a contentious form of communication is confirmed as the examined public discussion fosters confrontations and generates disruptions rather than contributing to a productive dialogue among diverse social actors. Originality/value The novelty of the approach lies in the combination of Luhman’s conceiving of moral communication with critical discourse analysis that, taken together, entails a pertinent research tool for analysing relevant attributes of the ongoing vibrant debate on the coronavirus outbreak.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Goldman ◽  
Brandon Brown ◽  
Eric C. Schwarz

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to find evidence of the benefits and constraints of collaborative consumption experiences by investigating the perceptions of hosts and visitors that attended professional regular season basketball and baseball games in the USA.Design/methodology/approachData were collected through four focus groups with 37 total participants and were analyzed through qualitative content analysis.FindingsThe results show that participants in a collaborative consumption experience perceive four types of value: social interaction and belonging, new fandom, travel bucket list experiences and local and sport knowledge. In addition, the results provide evidence of five consumption constraints related to collaborative consumption: expenses, average experiences, seat location, interpersonal disconnects and personal risk.Research limitations/implicationsThe selection of only two sites for the study limited the data triangulation that was possible. This study should be replicated across a wider range of teams and countries to confirm the main findings of the study.Practical implicationsPractitioners can use this initial study to better understand the benefits hosts and visitors perceive in the experience, and therefore the kind of experience design that would encourage increased purchases and loyalty.Originality/valueThis paper provides qualitative insights into the benefits and detriments of a collaborative consumption sport experience, based on participants' involvement in an innovative peer-to-peer platform.


2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 781-813 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kieran O’Halloran

In the article, I model an alternative critical discourse analysis (CDA) pedagogy which is based on an ethical subjectivity instead of a political subjectivity. Aimed at undergraduates, it facilitates critical purchase on arguments which attack the standpoint of relatively powerless groups/organizations (who seek political change). Via corpus linguistic analysis of appropriate web-based data, I show how the analyst can rigorously find out at scale the recurrent key concerns of a relatively powerless Other with whom they were previously unfamiliar. They use this counter-discourse information as a lens on an argument which criticises the relatively powerless group, ascertaining whether or not the argument has distorted the group’s key concerns. Should this be the case, I highlight how the analyst can go on to explore whether any mischaracterisation has implications for the argument’s credibility because it loses coherence relative to the outlook of the Other. The approach is grounded in Jacques Derrida’s ‘ethics of hospitality to the Other’. It is in being hospitable to the outlook of a relatively powerless Other, and adopting it for purposes of argument evaluation, that the analyst effectively creates an ethical subjectivity. That said, the ethical and political are, in principle, relatable with this method as I indicate.


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