Innovative Explorations of the Spatial Contexts of Education: Linking Space and Discourse for an Analysis of Teacher Discourse in Mauritius

• In Event: Roundtable Session 22
  In Roundtable Session: How Can We Improve? Thinking About Space, Place, and Voice in International Contexts

Abstract

This study considers the importance of spatial context for the study of teacher discourse. I explore how eight teachers speak about children’s local places in an elementary school in Roche-Bois, Mauritius. Drawing on seven months of ethnographic data, I examine how notions of place, constructed historically, shape the very ways educators engage with children’s local realities with consequences for the construction of racial identities. Using Lefebvre’s (1991) conceptualization of space as produced socially in tandem with Wodak and Reisigl (2009) discourse analytical tool of strategy in identity construction, I evaluate whether place-based meanings perpetuate or transform longstanding historical patterns associated with Roche-Bois as a racialized community. Finally, I draw implications for place-based pedagogies that draw on children’s local experiences.

Author

• Elsa Wiehe, University of Massachusetts - Amherst