Governing More Than Language: Rationalities of Rule in Flores Discourses

• In Event: Flores v. Arizona: Legal, Political, and Pedagogical Implications for English Language Learners

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to describe the discourses surrounding the Flores v. Arizona case in terms of their productive and governing effects. The study utilizes a conceptual framework that blends a methodology of critical discourse analysis in the tradition of Fairclough (1992, 2003, 2011), Bernstein (2000), and Woodside-Jiron (2011) with a theoretical analysis of political reason, drawing specifically from Rose’s (1996) concept of advanced liberal techniques of government, or technologies that “govern at a distance” (p. 43).

With this framework, the study investigates the rationalities of rule embedded in legislative, judicial, and popular (mediated) discourses that appeared alongside the Flores case as it unfolded. Artifacts in the data set include the following text types: audio and video recordings of legislative floor debates, written records of policy decisions, published court hearings, decisions, and related legal documents, and texts from more popular and available media sources like newspaper articles and press releases.

Key findings include linked themes across texts that reflect an interest in what Gamble (1988) terms the “strategic vision of neo-liberalism”—risk management, insurantial techniques, actuarialism, forced freedom, rational choice, and Prudentialism. In short, discourses surrounding Flores v. Arizona reflect neoliberal rationalities of rule and are “invested” in engendering productive neoliberal subjects in and out of classrooms and schools that educate ELL students.

Unlike scholarship that is interested in interrogating the strengths and weaknesses of different educational strategies for ELL students (Gándara & Rumberger, 2009; Wong-Filmore & Snow, 2000) or discussing the detrimental effects of segregating students based on racial, ethnic, or language background (Balfanz & Legters, 2004; Borman & Dowling, 2010; Gándara & Orfield, 2012), the scholarly significance of this paper is in its interpretive qualities rather than its prescriptive ones. Following Dreyfus and Rabinow (1983), the data presents an opportunity to engage in an “interpretive analytic”. Therein, its findings do not yield “a subjective invention nor an objective description” (p. 253) of Flores’ rationalities of rule. Rather, this study contributes “an act of imagination, analysis, and commitment” (p. 253)—commitment to narrating contemporary problems articulated by and through the Flores case and to critically casting paradigmatic dangers surrounding the invention and dispersal of truths about subjects as layered with governing rationalities, techniques, and effects that have consequences outside of those already under discussion.

Author

• Melinda A. Hollis Thomas, Arizona State University