Category Archives: discourse

thingification

Posted on July 13, 2011 by

Post-positivist social sciences typically name a set of characteristics that describe key features of the topic under question. This has the effect of making the subject under scrutiny a ‘thing’ whose attributes can be refined, named and renamed, discussed and … Continue reading →

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the context, text and effects approach to researching policy

Posted on July 11, 2011 by

Sandra Taylor(1) has argued that policy analysis can be undertaken through investigation of three inter-related avenues: (1)   Context. The context of any given education policy is always specific and particular. It is always also historically situated. Examining the context of … Continue reading →

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collocation

Posted on July 10, 2011 by

This is a term used in critical discourse analysis (1). It is used to describe two terms which are routinely found in conjunction with each other, and which may in fact be joined by a conjunction. One common collocation used … Continue reading →

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policy as problematisation

Posted on July 10, 2011 by

Carol Bacchi argues that policy works by creating a problematisation of a social/cultural/political phenomenon and then providing a solution. She notes that the problematisation may not always be IN the policy text -this may just outline the solution and how it is … Continue reading →

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a Foucauldian approach to discourse analysis

Posted on July 10, 2011 by

A Foucauldian notion of discourse (1) holds that: discourse is a culturally constructed representation of reality, not an exact copy discourse constructs knowledge and thus governs, through the production of categories of knowledge and assemblages of texts, what it is possible to talk … Continue reading →

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