In this paper, I address Jacque Lacan's theory of the four discourses, namely, master/slave, university, hysteric and analyst. The four discourses are explored via interviews with five postgraduate business students from a leading Irish business school. Three of the students were prepared to abdicate responsibility for career decision-making to…

This article focuses on job and career coaching provided by a multinational company, as a means of learning how to become employable. On the basis of a critical discourse analysis informed by Fairclough, we interrogate tips and advice in blog posts written by job and career coaches on the company's website. The aim of the article is to examine the…

The author seeks to revitalize the interests of social educators in the value of using critical, postmodern discourses for rich comprehension of and productive scholarly research in our field. These discourses (a) challenge existing understanding within social education and the knowledge and knower they help produce; and (b) imagine more complex,…

The purpose of this qualitative action research study was to explore how critical pedagogy can foster writing competency and critical consciousness among adult basic writing students in a community college writing classroom. To this end, critical pedagogy and related critical discourses were used to theoretically frame this study. These theories…

As educators who teach courses that examine social power, we often struggle with a specific form of resistance in the equity-oriented classroom: "That's just [the author]'s opinion." This "opinion discourse" emerges when students study scholarship that unsettles dominant knowledge claims and methods or when students are themselves asked to situate…

This paper considers how young children in early childhood education draw on popular texts and consumer goods in their constitution of subjectivities and social relations. The paper draws on poststructuralist theories of subjectivity, agency, consumption and power, to explore how performative practices of consumption figure in the constitution of…

Explores parallels found by comparing descriptions of the technical communicator with differing views of the communication process--the transmission, translation, and articulation views of communication. Argues from the standpoint of the articulation view for a new conception of the technical communicator as author and of technical communication…

This paper explores various epistemological paradigms available to understand, interpret, and semiotically depict young people. These paradigms all draw upon a metadiscourse of developmental age and stage (e.g. Hall 1914) and then work from particular epistemological views of the world to cast young people in different lights. Using strategic…

This paper conceives of a model of democracy that is tied up with narrative practices, and demonstrates how the initially democratic and radical auspices of one scholar's critique developed into a form of theory that was profoundly undemocratic in its narrative. The paper notes that the contemporary debate about power derives from a series of…

Academic institutions document their rhetoric through the written communications that show up in faculty mailboxes. Much of what arrives serves to remind faculty of what needs to be done to participate in the events and decision-making processes of the institution. The mail encountered by graduate students also reflects hierarchical power inherent…

The professoriate is a powerful and privileged position. As faculty design leadership programs and plan courses, discourse about gender and race is often limited or treated as a taboo subject. The power and privilege to avoid equity discourse in preparation programs leads to similar avoidance in school communities where practitioners report fear…

Students' non-participation in tutorials seems to be more widespread in certain cultural environments than others. This paper investigates the usefulness and effectiveness of tutorials as pedagogical tools and cultural links. It is postulated that the conflict results from face-considerations and the students' definition of tutorials within an…

This article discusses citizenship education, education policy and discourse to explore their relations with the exercise of power in society. Taking the case of 1990 and 1997 legislative debates on citizenship education policy in Hong Kong, it briefly surveys the substantive arguments favouring or opposing the retention of government controls…

A study of 68 children's contributions to dinner talk showed that, among Jewish American, Israeli, and American Israeli families, children have less access to the floor than adults. In the two Israeli groups, children were exposed more to topics raised by mothers than by fathers; the reverse was true for Jewish American families. (Contains 65…

Building upon the late Pierre Bourdieu's belief that intellectuals had a major responsibility in bridging intellectual work and the operation of politics, this paper argues that intellectuals, especially those in higher education, need to recognise that youth is an important moral referent and political starting point for addressing a number of…