This study analyzes the internal and external forces that led to the creation and revisions of a community college's mission statement over the course of its 53-year history. We used discourse-historical analysis to examine published college mission statements, transcripts of interviews with the founding dean of the college, and the college's…

The paper examines critically the dimension of empowerment in the European discourse, starting from some operational definitions used in official documents. The author analyses the shift in the European documents from 2000 to recent years, from a lifelong learning vision to an adult education approach, basically labour market-oriented, thus…

Framed by theories and methods from critical discourse analysis and social semiotics, this comparative case study of six Missouri school systems asked: How do school districts represent and address their changing communities? Discourses of equity, language, identity, and demographic change were examined across school system websites, mission…

In this article I use the current (r)evolution of interculturality to examine the logics, discourses and situated practices of internationalization in Finnish Higher Education. Based on a case study in Finland, different policies are analysed to see if and how the construction of internationalization takes place in these documents and what…

This paper seeks to contribute to recent comparative discussions about the shift of traditional referential points as a result of new global governance by the OECD through PISA. In doing so, the authors investigate whether the lower PISA rankings of the US have resulted in the shifting of its referential status in South Korea. For the purposes of…

Objective: To examine the discursive strategies deployed by community colleges to sustain legitimacy in an evolving and contradictory institutional environment. Method: Using corpus linguistics software, I compared 1,009 mission statements from 2012-2013 with a reference corpus of 427 mission statements from 2004. Results: Keywords analysis,…

This paper uses critical discourse analysis of English higher education institutions' policy statements about access to explore the changing ways that institutions have used language to shift their market positionality away from widening participation for all and the process of higher education to "fair access" (i.e. social mobility for…

This article presents a discourse analysis of President Barack Obama's 2011 State of the Union Address. Fredric Jameson's concepts of cognitive mapping, cultural revolution, and the unconscious are employed to examine the president's vision of educational and economic transformation. Ultimately, it is argued this vision evokes a world in which…

The learning ministries in Ontario have made a concerted effort to underscore Aboriginal learners' needs and preferences in publicly-funded and assisted schools and training services throughout the province. Through a trilogy of policy documents, the Ontario Ministry of Education (OME) and the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU)…

The Fraser Institute "Report Card" of school rankings has won the hearts of parents and the press. For over a decade, the rankings have been particularly burdensome for low-ranking (usually low socio-economic status, high-poverty) schools when parents of high-achieving children move them to higher-ranking schools. In February 2010, after…

This article addresses the question, How do changes in policy discourses shape public representations of literacy learners and the goals of adult literacy education? It examines specifically how the agency of adult literacy learners is constructed. We carry out a critical discourse analysis of two key adult literacy policy documents from the U.K.:…

This article offers a comparative analysis of the Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, within a critically discursive framework. The author creates the notion of "possibilities of practice", and analyses each policy document as to how these are created, by means of…

The paper draws on critical discourse analysis to examine and discuss some of the key developments in the governing of education in Scotland since the election of the Scottish National Party (SNP) government in May 2007. It analyses these developments, drawing on a study of key policy texts and suggests that discourse analysis has much to…

This paper will examine how Japanese education policy was articulated discursively from 1996 to 2010 in the semi-annual speeches of prime ministers to the Diet. It will identify three distinct discourses within these policy statements: a progressive discourse emphasizing the rights of individuals; a neo-liberal discourse of social independence and…

This article investigates the underlying themes and principles that inform curriculum debate and how they are articulated in current school policy discussions. This topic is approached with the help of a case study covering the debate on which subjects should be mandatory for students at the upper secondary school curriculum in Sweden. The focus…