Stigmatized: Destructive Discourses and the Identities of Children

• In Event: Curriculum, Bodies, and Space in Educational Contexts

Abstract

Etymologically speaking, stigma means to brand or to stick. Drawn from a larger research project, this study considered the ways in which stigma in/forms the subjectivities of children in care and how stigmatization is an effect of discourses that can arise through policy enactments (Ball et al., 2012). Enlisting empirical data from interviews with teachers and principals, as well as poststructural theoretical insights, I demonstrate how policies meant to support children in care produce inequality and exclusion through their enactments. This study provides insights into how discourses that produce inequities might be interrupted, allowing children marginalized in/by the school system) to be constituted differently.

Author

• Melanie D. Janzen, University of Manitoba