Discursive Formation: The Construction of the Problem Child

• In Event: Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Making Bodies: Language, Disability, and English Language Teacher Education

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to investigate the way in which Japan constructed the “problem” student. An understanding of the “problem” student correlates to the ideas of what constitutes the “good” or “non-problem” student. This paper asserts that the notion of the problem student in Japan is historically contingent and has shifted over time. The expression of the Japanese word problem has changed from time to time. With the change of usage, the subject of the problem, the conception of the problem and the way of saving the problem students undergo changes. This paper also argues that the construction of the problem student is not an ideological product but a discourse that involves a complexity of power relations.

Author

• Jie Qi, Utsunomiya University