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Developing Teachers' Critical Policy Perspectives With Critical Discourse Analysis

Sat, April 14, 12:25 to 1:55pm, Sheraton New York Times Square, Floor: Second Floor, Empire Ballroom West

Abstract

This presentation provides an example of a course activity designed to introduce Masters level students enrolled in an Educational Policy and Politics course at a regional public university in California to Critical Discourse Analysis. Specifically, analytic strategies drawn from Fairclough (2001, 2013b) and Fairclough and Fairclough (2012) that apply CDA to policy discourses are combined with the perspectives provided by “classic” frameworks from policy studies to guide students through an exploration of a current relevant state policy measure at the local district level. This approach seeks both to reinforce an overall approach to policy studies that reflects critical theory perspectives, and to offer practical applications of CDA in educator practice, as most students in the course are current or pre-service K-12 classroom teachers. The assignment described in this workshop is based on a pilot activity used in the Fall 2016 semester offering of the same course, as well as two M.A. level qualitative research methods courses and two doctoral seminar courses focused on the sociopolitical contexts of education.

The current iteration of the activity draws from the input of graduate students engaged in their own research and activism in addition to the author’s published scholarly work (Author, 2016a, 2016b) and focuses on the implementation of California’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) in a large urban district. Students are assigned to small groups at the beginning of the semester and work to examine how the organization of required stakeholder input sessions and reporting of data from these sessions demonstrates how power is negotiated and wielded in exchanges between official district representatives and community members. Using McDonnell and Elmore’s (1987) policy instruments framework and Fairclough’s (2001) list of “ten main questions to ask of a text,” students compare and contrast various policy documents provided to educators, administrators, elected representatives, and community members at six schools near the university campus (two elementary schools, two middle schools, and two high schools). As our campus is located at the border of two districts, three of these schools are in one large urban district and three are in a smaller suburban district, with separate school boards and structures. This offers an additional opportunity to explore local variation in the implementation of state mandated practices and policies.

Connecting theory to practice is a key goal of Masters level educational coursework; developing a political consciousness on the part of classroom teachers is a key goal of critical educators. This activity introduces students to a complex area of research and theory (Critical Discourse Analysis) as a way to delve into the complexities of educational policy documents and practice, which are often inaccessible to front-line implementers such as teachers. Analyzing discourse in texts as they are written and enacted is a way to explore the “situational context and the more remote conditions of institutional and social structures” (Fairclough, 2001, p. 21). Ultimately, this approach seeks to empower teachers to investigate, question, and critique policy mandates and initiatives in their roles as educational advocates.

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