A Blueprint of Power and Control: Ethnographic Study of Educators’ Discourse in a Kindergarten Classroom

• In Event: Professional Development for Inclusive Practice: Exploring Teacher Perceptions and Discourse

Abstract

A blueprint that is started in kindergarten has long lasting consequences for the educational careers of students with disabilities considered as presenting challenging behaviors. This study is a two-year ethnographic case study that critically examines educator-student relationships in one kindergarten classroom. The present research describes the discursive practices used by four educators to respond to student’s behaviors and analyzes how it constructs and positions students over a year of kindergarten education. A critical discourse analysis evidenced that educators’ language represented power within discourses of hostility and control, conditional membership and expectations based on standards. These discourses provided a framework of power and control acted in the routine use of consequences, which has implications for the future education of students.

Author

• Fernanda Orsati, Hussman Institute for Autism