Framing School Choice: A Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis

• In Event: Examining School Choice Using Varied Methods and Theories

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the way U.S. secretaries of education have discursively framed the topic of school choice in their public speeches between 1994 and 2020. Speeches from the Clinton-era positioned school choice within a frame that favored public institutions, but these were followed by the more overtly neoliberal Bush-era speeches, which touted free markets and strict accountability. The Obama-era speeches also framed school choice within a neoliberal vision, yet unlike the Bush-era speeches, these evinced a depoliticized and technocratic emphasis on high performance. Finally, in the Trump-era speeches, school choice was once again overtly politicized, yet this time within an anti-institutional frame—one that seemed to advocate school choice as an end in itself.

Author

• Michael Ian Cohen, University of Northern Colorado