A Critical Project Gone Awry? Discourse and the Critique of No Child Left Behind

• In Event: Roundtable Session 28
  In Roundtable Session: Teacher Subjects, the Teacher Self, and Investigations Into Teacher Positioning

Abstract

Employing a multidimensional discourse analytic framework, this paper examines selected critiques of NCLB published in peer-reviewed journal articles. The author identifies a typology of critiques of NCLB and concludes that given their use of language, all critics exhibit a disposition to work within the cultural logics of the policy; an approach that validates and makes the underlying cultural logics of NCLB stronger regardless of the critics’ critical orientations and intentions. An analysis of critiques of NCLB is significant for bringing into perspective the discourses, educational philosophies, and ideologies from which scholars critique NCLB and for examining the extent to which critical education advocates in academe are accomplishing their goals in light of their ostensible agendas to serve the public good.

Author

• Cristian R. Aquino-Sterling, SDSU/The Graduate Center, CUNY