“Producing Human Capital”: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Title II of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA)

2019 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 163-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaran Shin ◽  
Liz Ging
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Adult Education ◽  
Adult Learners ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Federally Funded ◽  
The Public ◽  
Workforce Innovation

Historical and legislative evolutions of education policy have repurposed federally funded adult education programs in the United States. The 2014 passage of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) has considerable repercussions for everyone involved in the field because it controls the funding, assessment, and structure of these programs. Using critical discourse analysis, this study examines the public law and a Program Memorandum from the federal government. It demonstrates how the language used in the documents characterizes Title II of WIOA (the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act), the goals of adult education, eligible adult learners, and the process by which programs are held accountable for federal funding. The findings show the ways in which Title II tactically legitimizes the U.S. government’s neoliberal capitalist desire within a democratic society: The idealistic language of opportunity acts as a camouflage for the further infiltration of market-oriented practices into the public sector.

Finding “Improvement” in the Language Transportation Planners Use: A Critical Discourse Analysis to Illustrate an Automobile-Centric Bias in Transportation Policymaking

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-188
Author(s):  
Courtney Jensen ◽  
Josephine K. Hazelton ◽  
Gerard Wellman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Infrastructure Improvement ◽  
Departments Of Transportation

This research considers the urban planning situations in which transportation planners implicitly or explicitly use the term “improvement.” To answer our research questions—what do planners and policymakers mean by improvement, and how do these improvements challenge or reinforce car-centered transportation planning—we conducted a discourse analysis on documents from 50 cities, counties, and state departments of transportation. Using a critical discourse analysis, we find that perceptions about what is a transportation infrastructure “improvement” reveals policymakers’ and planners’ situatedness, defines for themselves and the public they serve “correct” travel methods, and upholds the car-centric status quo in the United States.

scholarly journals Re-defining gender as a heinous crime: A case study from the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies

2020 ◽  
pp. 095792652097721
Author(s):  
Janaina Negreiros Persson
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Gender Ideology ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Public Hearing ◽  
Rhetorical Invention ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Core

In this article, we explore how the discourses around gender are evolving at the core of Brazilian politics. Our focus lies on the discourses at the public hearing on the bill 3.492/19, which aimed at including “gender ideology” on the list of heinous crimes. We aim to identify the deputies’ linguistic representation of social actors as pertaining to in- and outgroups. In addition, the article analyzes through Critical Discourse Analysis how the terminology gender is represented in this particular hearing. The analysis shows how some of the conservative parliamentarians give a clearly negative meaning to the term gender, by labeling it “gender ideology” and additionally connecting it with heinous crimes. We propose that the re-signification of “gender ideology,” from rhetorical invention to heinous crime, is not only an attempt to undermine scientific gender studies but also a way for conservative deputies to gain more political power.

Creating Intersectional Subjects: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Health Science Breastfeeding Research

2021 ◽  
pp. 233264922098109
Author(s):  
Shannon K. Carter ◽  
Ashley Stone ◽  
Lain Graham ◽  
Jonathan M. Cox
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Health Science ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Race Disparities ◽  
Breastfeeding Policy

Reducing race disparities in breastfeeding has become a health objective in the United States, spurring research aimed to identify causes and consequences of disparate rates. This study uses critical discourse analysis to assess how Black women are constructed in 80 quantitative health science research articles on breastfeeding disparities in the United States. Our analysis is grounded in critical race and intersectionality scholarship, which argues that researchers often incorrectly treat race and its intersections as causal mechanisms. Our findings reveal two distinct representations. Most commonly, race, gender, and their intersection are portrayed as essential characteristics of individuals. Black women are portrayed as a fixed category, possessing characteristics that inhibit breastfeeding; policy implications focus on modifying Black women’s characteristics to increase breastfeeding. Less commonly, Black women are portrayed as a diverse group who occupy a social position in society resulting from similar social and material conditions, seeking to identify factors that facilitate or inhibit breastfeeding. Policy implications emphasize mitigating structural barriers that disproportionately impact some Black women. We contribute to existing knowledge by demonstrating how dominant health science approaches provide evidence for health promotion campaigns that are unlikely to reduce health disparities and may do more harm than good to Black women. We also demonstrate the existence of a problematic knowledge set about Black women’s reproductive and infant feeding practices that is both ahistorical and decontextualized.

Beginning teachers in early childhood education: A critical discourse analysis of policies in Aotearoa New Zealand and the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 147821032110016
Author(s):  
Jessica Cira Rubin ◽  
Susan Tily
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Beginning Teachers ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Professional Careers ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Teachers Experiences ◽  
Politics And Culture ◽  
Early Phases

The early phases of teachers’ professional careers are multi-layered and informed by many factors, including teachers’ values, their own experiences in schools, and the nested contexts of their professional employment. While in teachers’ everyday lives government policies sometimes operate beneath the surface rather than overtly, these policies influence many teachers’ experiences, contributing significantly to what critical discourse analysis scholars call the ‘issue’ of teachers’ available subjectivities being influenced by prevailing ideologies as they are newly entering the profession. In this analysis, we activate critical discourse analysis in order to offer new understandings about policies and contexts associated with new teachers entering the profession. Our analysis is significant in its co-consideration of policies from contexts that we see as experiencing the influence of neoliberal ideologies in different ways. As critical discourse analysis is transdisciplinary, it also offers chances to transcend boundaries of politics and culture to inquire into social wrongs as we actually experience them in a world that is globally connected and globally influenced. The significance of this analysis, then, lies with the continued questioning we hope that it, and others like it, make possible.

scholarly journals Julkinen kaivoskeskustelu diskursiivisena välienselvittelynä

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veera Kangaspunta
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Online News ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Online Newspapers ◽  
The Public ◽  
Analytical Tools ◽  
Unique Part

The aim of this article is to approach one specific environmental topic and the public debate around this topic from a user-oriented perspective – through online news comments. The article analyses online news and comments sections from three Finnish online newspapers concerning the mining accident of Talvivaara company in November 2012. Discourse and discursive legitimation strategies are used as analytical tools with the focus of critical discourse analysis. The study aims to solve what kind of discourses the public debate contains and how these discourses are connected to certain legitimation strategies. In addition, the article also continues the conceptual deliberation about the concept of the public as a group of people participating in public discussion. The study shows that Talvivaara news and news comments consist four main strategies, authorization, rationalization, moral evaluations and mythopoiesis, used for legitimation, relegitimation and delegitimation. However, the parties differ in the way they utilize these strategies and different discourses. Consequently, online news commenting appears as a unique part of the public debate about the topic, rather than remaining marginal flaming. The users tend to absorb the role of the public as a part of the public showdown about the shared issue.

scholarly journals Uncovering whiteness as discourse: A critical discourse analysis of the in-state resident tuition debate for undocumented students in Texas

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Nicholas Tapia-Fuselier ◽  
Veronica A. Jones ◽  
Clifford P. Harbour
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Postsecondary Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Policy Discourse ◽  
Structural Barriers ◽  
State Resident ◽  
Undocumented College Students

Undocumented college students in the United States encounter a number of structural barriers to postsecondary education success, including disparate in-state resident tuition (ISRT) policies across the country. Texas, the first state to establish ISRT benefits for undocumented college students, has been a site of tension respective to this issue over the last 20 years. In fact, there have been eight legislative attempts to repeal the state’s affirmative ISRT policy. In order to investigate this ongoing ISRT debate in Texas, we used critical discourse analysis methods to analyze the implicit and explicit messages communicated in the policy and surrounding policy discourse. Our conceptual framework, grounded in three constructs of critical whiteness studies including ontological expansiveness, color evasiveness, and individualization, allowed us to uncover whiteness as a pernicious undergirding force within this policy discourse.

Fighting the virus, “hunting the witches” – moralizing in public discourses during the coronavirus pandemic in Croatia

Kybernetes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Krešimir Žažar
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Public ◽  
Moral Communication ◽  
Moral Discourses

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.

scholarly journals How Public is Public Art? A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Racial Subtext of Public Monuments at Canada’s Pier 21

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-136
Author(s):  
Patience Adamu ◽  
Deon Castello ◽  
Wendy Cukier
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Nova Scotia ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Monuments ◽  
Canadian Multiculturalism

AbstractMuch of the literature on public space focuses on physical inclusion and exclusion rather than social inclusion or exclusion. In this paper, the implications of this are considered in the context of two monuments, The Volunteers/Les Bénévoles, and The Emigrant, located outside the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. These monuments, while perhaps designed to celebrate Canadian multiculturalism, can be read instead as signaling Canada’s enduring commitment to white supremacy, Eurocentricity and colonization, when viewed through the eyes of racialized immigrants. Thus the “public space” becomes exclusionary. In the context in which the monuments are situated, the racial subtext cannot be ignored. This article purports that images, text and placement, regardless of intention, have significant implications on public space and public demeanor.

The People or the Police: Who to Blame? A Study Investigating Linguistic and Textual Devices Journalists Use in Framing News Stories

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (12) ◽  
pp. 2245
Author(s):  
Hamza Ethelb
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Stories ◽  
The People ◽  
News Organizations ◽  
Al Arabiya ◽  
News Event

One news event may be represented differently by different news organizations. Research in news representation remains sparse in Arabic. This article investigates some of the linguistic and textual devices used in journalistic texts. It looks at the way these devices are used to influence public opinion. This gives rise to significance of conducting this research. This study uses these devices within the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). For the purpose of this study, four news articles produced by Aljazeera and Al-Arabiya were examined under CDA in order to show how journalists structure their news stories to imply an ideological stance. The analysis showed that Aljazeera and Al-Arabiya represented the people and the police differently, each according to their ideological and political leanings. This resulted in the public having different opinions of the event.

scholarly journals A Critical Discourse Analysis Of The Ontario Government's Dissemination Of The FDK Program

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Willetts
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
The Public ◽  
Full Day Kindergarten ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Government ◽  
Full Day

This major research paper applies a critical discourse analysis (CDA) to examine the Ontario government’s rationalization of full day kindergarten to the public and the underlying discursive representation of social citizenship that the government sets forth. A content analysis of nineteen textual documents identified twelve rationales for FDK. A social investment discourse was identified as the dominant discourse underlying these rationales, while a social justice discourse and a combination of both discourses was also present. A CDA of three textual documents indicated that the Ontario government employed nominalization, modality and interdiscursivity to perpetuate the social investment discursive representation of FDK. The prevalence of social investment discourse in the Ontario government’s rationalization of FDK holds important implications for advancing just and caring early childhood policy for all children and families.

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