Spohrer, Konstanze (2016) Negotiating and contesting ‘success’: Discourses of aspiration in a UK secondary school. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 37 (3). pp. 411-425. ISSN 1469-3739 (Online)
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Abstract
The need to ‘raise aspirations’ among young people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds has been prominent in UK policy debates over the last decade. This paper examines how this discourse is negotiated and contested by teachers and pupils in a Scottish secondary school. Interviews, group discussions and observations were analysed by drawing on Foucauldian discourse analysis. The analysis exposes contradictions and silences inherent in dominant discourses of aspiration, most notably the tension between the promise and the impossibility of ‘success’ for all. It is argued that attempts to reconcile this tension by calling on young people to maximise individual ‘potential’ through attitude change silence the social construction of ‘success’ and ‘failure’. The paper concludes with suggesting ways in which schools could embrace the contradictions underpinning dominant ‘raising aspiration’ discourses and adopt a more critical-sociological approach in working with young people.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information and Comments: | This is an Author's Original Manuscript of an article submitted for consideration in Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education [copyright Taylor & Francis]; Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education is available online at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01596306.2015.1044423 |
| Keywords: | Aspirations; success; young people; discourse; education policy; Foucault |
| Faculty / Department: | Faculty of Education and Social Sciences > School of Education |
| Depositing User: | Susan Blagbrough |
| Date Deposited: | 26 Feb 2016 16:04 |
| Last Modified: | 11 Nov 2024 14:50 |
| URI: | https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/765 |
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