What's So Special? Teachers' Models and Their Realisation in Practice in Segregated Schools

The concept of 'special' has played a crucial role in the development of educational policy and practice, and the meaning of the term has been the subject of far-reaching debates and controversy. This paper is based on research which explored the meaning of 'specialness' in theory and practice from the point of view of practitioners working in segregated schools, providing education for young people designated as having moderate and severe learning difficulties. The research demonstrates the articulation of the individual model of special in teachers' thinking about pupils, themselves and their relationships with pupils, and also in the learning environment provided for different categories of young people. We argue that the dominant discursive practices of practitioners construct and maintain 'otherness' in special education, and pre-empt alternative discourses.     

Discursive Struggles Animating Individuals’ Talk About Their Parents’ Coming Out as Lesbian or Gay

The goal in the present study was to understand the discourses that animate children’s talk about having a parent come out and how these discourses interplay to create meaning. Data were gathered through 20 in-depth interviews with adults who remembered a parent coming out to them as lesbian or gay. One discursive struggle animated the participants’ talk about their parents’ coming out: the discourse of lesbian and gay identity as wrong vs. the discourse of lesbian and gay identity as acceptable. Analysis of participants’ talk about their familial identities revealed a range of avenues for resisting the negative discourses regarding lesbian and gay identities. The findings highlight discursive power in participants’ talk about their familial identities and how participants organize the conflicting messages they receive in their culture and in relationships regarding family identities.     

Life History or 'Case' History: the objectification of people with learning difficulties through the tyranny of professional discourses

Case histories of people with learning difficulties tend to privilege information that is useful to professionals, such as IQ and medical diagnosis. Such information allows professionals to slot people with learning difficulties into categories which inform 'treatment' and aid prognosis. Case records, as they are currently constructed, appear to further silence an already oppressed group of people, and to objectify, pathologise and label them. The subjects of such case records do not appear to be treated as stakeholders in the case recording process: their voices are not represented in such writings. Case records do not appear to contain information about the lived experience of people with learning difficulties. Ignorance of the unique histories of people with learning difficulties is dehumanising and allows professionals to psychologically distance themselves. Once humanity has disappeared, it is possible to treat people as 'objects' that can be controlled through 'respected' professional theories and their discursive practices.     

Choice and chance: negotiating agency in narratives of singleness

This article presents a discursive analysis of interview material in which single women reflect on their relationships and reasons for being single. Despite changing meanings of singleness, it remains a ‘deficit identity’ ( Reynolds and Taylor, 2005 ) and the problem for a woman alone is to account positively for her single state. Our analysis challenges theorisations which would suggest autonomy and agency in how identity and self are constructed. It employs the methodological approaches developed in critical discursive psychology (for instance Wetherell, 1998 ) to look at the detailed identity work of speakers as part of the identity project proposed by Giddens (1992, 2005) , Bauman (1998) and other writers associated with the ‘reflexive modernisation’ thesis ( Adkins, 2002 ). By approaching ‘choice’ as one of the cultural resources available to speakers, we present a more complex view of the dilemmas around a speaker's identity work in her accounting for her relationships and the course her life has taken     

“It's Difficult to Hide It”: The Presentation of Self on Internet Home Pages

This paper explores identity and interaction with reference to Internet home pages. All home pages reveal identity, whether or not that is the intention of their authors. Identity statements can take categorical, relational, or narrative forms. A survey of home page owners reveals that some home pages are created to maintain relationships formed apart from the Internet (extrinsic pages) and some are created to contact the denizens of the Internet (intrinsic pages). The different motives for creation do not affect home page design and contents, but do relate to differences in overall Internet use and in authors' conceptualizations of the Internet. Both intrinsic and extrinsic pages are analyzed in light of charges that the Internet self is postmodern, transitory, deceptive, and fragmented. The charge of postmodernity is found to be overstated, however, because while the Internet shapes identity statements, it does not determine their form or usage.     

Listening to Hidden Voices: Power, Domination, Resistance and Pleasure within Huronia Regional Centre

A great deal of material has been written regarding the effects of institutional living on people with learning difficulties. Much of this literature focuses on the negative aspects of institutionalization and views the individual as 'products' of these experiences. This paper argues that adults with learning difficulties are active participants in creating their own sense of cultural identity and community. Stories of four adults with learning difficulties, who have grown up in an institution in Ontario are used to explore how they envision a sense of their community through their shared experiences.     

Disorganization,disidentification and ideological fragmentation: Verbal and pictorial evidence from a British business school

Rather than focusing on organizing dimensions of society, one may conceptualize disorganization processes, where ideological values incongruence leads to disidentification and ideological fragmentation. Integrating discourse analysis and critical social psychology, I focus on professional organizations facing ideological, managerialist change to develop a typology of multiple‐identity organizations (MIOs) incorporating various degrees of disorganization, rather than the traditional ideographic–holographic dualism. I then apply a creative, visual method to explore how wider ideological tensions between managerial (utilitarian) and professional (normative) values shape lived experiences in a major British business school. Longitudinal verbal and pictorial discursive analysis shows a cacophony of images competing to construct and deconstruct organizational identity over a decade and a half. The organization tends towards disorganization, but somehow retains a sufficient sense of (multiple) identity to survive, suggesting it is myopic to ignore processes and structures that mark and contribute to the ideological fragmentation of MIOs.     

Masculine Gender-Role Congruence among Sexual Minority Men

Sexual minority men’s sexual identity may be vulnerable to feelings of masculine gender-role incongruence within heteronormative dominant cultural contexts. This study explored associations between masculine gender-role congruence/incongruence and various aspects of sexual identity development in a sample of 106 nonheterosexual men between ages 18 and 74?years (M?=?34.86, SD?=?14.32). The majority of the sample identified as gay (79%), with the rest of the sample identifying as bisexual (10%), and nonexclusively same-sex-attracted sexual identity labels (e.g., pansexual, queer; 10%). Slightly more than half of the men reported congruence between their actual self-perception of masculinity and their ideal masculine presentation. However, men who experienced greater masculine gender-role incongruence, specifically presenting with lower masculine appearance and behavior than they desired, reported higher levels of identity distress and self-consciousness. Thus, though masculine gender roles are being challenged and gender nonconformity is becoming more widely accepted, masculine gender roles are still relevant to the lives of sexual minority men. Future research and clinical implications are discussed.     

A Question of Friendship: Community Care and the Relationships of People with Learning Difficulties

There is evidence that a number of people with learning difficulties living in the community do not enjoy a range of satisfactory social relationships. This paper will examine the way that the issue of the apparent loneliness of people with learning difficulties has been approached in the community care literature. I will argue that there is a clear assumption in much of the literature that friendships between disabled and non-disabled people are of greater value than those relationships between disabled people. The low value accorded to friendships between disabled people is very damaging to their individual self-esteem, as well as to the possibility of political action based on a sense of solidarity. The paper will point also to the constraints that many people with learning difficulties face which render it difficult for them to form friendships and, therefore, reinforce their isolation.     

Mobile Phones and Entrepreneurial Identity Negotiation by Urban Female Street Traders in Uganda

Mobile phones have been posited as enhancing women's entrepreneurship and gender equality in developing countries, yet empowerment outcomes are unclear. This article considers how women in the gender‐segregated informal economy construct their entrepreneurial identity in relation to mobile phones and the discursive repertoires that marginalize and empower. Using data from interviews with six urban female street traders in Kampala, Uganda, it explores how these repertoires illustrate their sense of self, positioning and belonging to the business community. Normative representations and positioning of female traders can sideline entrepreneurial identity and over‐validate gender identity. But, participants also negotiate entrepreneurial identity construction in response to these marginalizing influences. Although the data demonstrate that participants are equivocal about their entrepreneurial identity or fit in business, some representations are more validating and offer a sense of belonging. The article concludes by highlighting the nuanced opportunities for social change their discursive repertoires may present.     

Towards a Sociocultural Perspective on Identity Formation in Education

This article discusses a sociocultural approach to processes of identity that has implications for how we understand learning and identity formation in education. Focusing on the socially constructed and culturally figured nature of language, tools, and interactions in learning contexts, this approach assists in the appreciation of how students navigate through and develop an understanding of themselves in different educational contexts. To this end, reference is made to Wortham's work on interactional positioning in narratives and the work of Holland and colleagues on figured worlds. Wortham provides the tools for a systematic analysis of how individuals construct their identities by positioning themselves in discursive interaction. Holland and colleagues alert us to the cultural shaping of such positioning in cultural worlds and the artifacts mediating identity formation. To explore the potential of combining these lenses, a case study is described involving a series of interviews with medical students about their self-perceptions in two contexts of clinical training. The case study highlights how different worlds and identities are formed in these educational contexts.     

Reviews and abstracts

This study examines leading explanations for unsafe sex in light of in‐depth interviews with 102 high‐risk gay and bisexual men in Toronto to see how well they engage with the social circumstances and reasoning processes of men in their sexual relationships. We argue that there is an inadequate fit between some of the leading explanations and the discursive accounts provided by high risk men themselves. Their accounts focus on unsafe sex occurring as a resolution to condom and erectile difficulties, through momentary lapses and trade offs, out of personal turmoil and depression, and as a byproduct of strategies of disclosure and intuiting safety. This study examines, in particular, the circumstances and rationales associated with men who identify their practices as “barebacking.” We conclude with recommendations for communicating prevention messages to those most at risk based on the self‐understandings of gay and bisexual men who most frequently practice unprotected sex.     

Language,discourse, and class: What's next for sociolinguistics?

Drawing from the various theoretical constructs and analyses of class in sociology, economics, cultural studies, and sociolinguistics, I discuss a number of issues regarding class and possible future research avenues for sociolinguists. These include addressing and exploring how to move beyond the static categorical groupings of class membership, including those of researchers themselves in their work on class, appraising the relevance and utility of the concept of overdetermination (Althusser, 1977; Resnick & Wolff, 1987) in examining the enactments of class, discursive self‐positionings in different domains and scales, the need to re‐examine the construct of intersectionality, and problematizing the notion of identity politics as it relates to class.     

Community without Propinquity Revisited: Communications Technology and the Transformation of the Urban Public Sphere

Recent discussions of the Internet have touted "virtual community" and a capacity to enhance citizen power in democracies. The present essay (a) calls for a more rigorous understanding of community; (b) suggests that relationships forged with the aid of electronic technology may do more to foster "categorical identities" than they do dense, multiplex, and systematic networks of relationships; and (c) argues that an emphasis on community needs to be complemented by more direct attention to the social bases of discursive publics that engage people across lines of basic difference in collective identities. Previous protest movements have shown that communications media have an ambiguous mix of effects. They do facilitate popular mobilization, but they also make it easy for relatively ephemeral protest activity to outstrip organizational roots. They also encourage governments to avoid concentrating their power in specific spatial locations and thus make revolution in some ways more difficult.     

Masculinity and Tom Identity in Thailand

Abstract

Thai lesbian women engage local cultural meanings of masculinity in the creation of personal identities. Lesbian identity in Thailand is largely framed in terms of “butch-femme” gender role-playing, with the masculine woman referred to as tom and the feminine woman dee. According to informants, the dynamics between toms and dees differ from the normative expectations and experiences of hetero-sexuality for Thai women. Although Thai toms express their identity in terms of being “like men,” they often differ from typical Thai male attitudes in terms of attitudes towards female sexuality, masculine sensitivity, and expectations from women in terms of long-term relationships. I conclude that Thai tom-identity is positioned against both normative Thai femininity and masculinity. This paper addresses the feelings towards sexuality and self-identity of many Thai lesbians, and seeks to help health and welfare professionals be sensitive to cultural nuances of gender identity, and attitudes towards relationships and sex among lesbian Thai women.     

Whom Should We Serve? A Discourse Analysis of Social Workers’ Commentary on Undocumented Immigrants

We present a discourse analysis of social work practitioners’ commentaries on undocumented immigrants that were collected from a survey of practicing social workers’ attitudes toward immigration and immigrants. Analyzing 198 open-ended comments, we explore the discursive mechanisms practitioners employ to construct undocumented immigrants, and their professional responsibilities toward them. These views are illustrative of the ways in which the profession determines inclusion and exclusion, writ large in national immigration policies and laws and played out in the arenas of social work and social services. Disparate views of practitioners highlight tensions in the profession's relationships to law and social policies as well as to its own ethics and identity.     

Art work or money: Conflicts in the construction of a creative identity

The identity projects of novice creative practitioners must take account of the economy of art work. It has been suggested ( McRobbie, 2002a ) that in the contemporary cultural industries in the UK, a new understanding of the connection between creative work and money has replaced past ‘anti‐commercial’ notions. This claim is investigated through a narrative‐discursive analysis of interviews from a longitudinal study with current and recent Art and Design postgraduates. Their ongoing identity projects are shaped by established understandings of creative work and the prospects it offers for earning and employment, and also by more local discursive resources given by personal life contexts. An analysis of two interviews with a single speaker shows how these resources are taken up within her ongoing and distinctive identity project. Both old and new repertoires of art and money are in play in her talk. She must negotiate dilemmas and potentially troubled positionings in order to reconcile a creative identity with relationships and responsibilities towards others. Coherence is only achieved momentarily and is disrupted by new life circumstances. By investigating an identity project at the level of talk, the analysis shows the complexity of the speaker's work to construct and claim a creative identity.     

The role of self-advocacy in work for people with learning difficulties

This paper explores the relationship between self-advocacy and work for people with learning difficulties [1]. Explorations are based mainly on a participant observation study in which members of a self-advocacy group for people with learning difficulties included the researcher in their regular meetings. Discussions about work, most broadly defined as meaningful activity which makes a contribution to society, emerged as a critical preoccupation. We examine the importance of self-advocacy as a vehicle for people with learning difficulties who want to remove or circumvent barriers which surround their employment. Our research shows that understanding the role of self-advocacy in relation to work creates many development opportunities for both disabled employees and their prospective, or actual, employers. It is suggested that self-advocates can themselves achieve change in employers' attitudes by challenging oppressive images of people with learning difficulties in the workplace. It is hoped the paper will advance recognition of the importance of self-advocacy for maximising the participation of people with learning difficulties in work, and for acceptance of their status as workers.     

'Tinged with Bitterness': re-presenting stress in family care

The provision of care within families, and specifically the difficulties within such relationships, has become the focus of much research, legislation and debate in recent years. This paper explores carers' and carees'[1] talk about 'stress', home-based care, and comments on how such talk is reflected in UK social policy. Carers' and carees' accounts are presented to theorise the construction of difficulties in the present relationship--focusing in particular on the taking up of or resistance to roles and responsibilities within the family. The way in which competing discourses and discursive strategies are deployed to achieve certain effects within the family, social services and other support agencies is also explored. Family care is re-presented with a focus on language, and a reflection on how such relationships can become tinged with bitterness.     

The reflexive self and culture: a critique

This article attempts to engage with a tendency in the theorization of social change and self-identity, evident in the work of a number of contemporary social theorists, to place an extended process of reflexivity at the heart of modern identity. As symptomatic of 'neo-modern' accounts of selfhood, critical readings of Giddens, Beck, Castells and some aspects of social theory more generally, and their account of modern reflexivity's relationship to culture, are assessed. In light of these criticisms, ways in which culture might still play an important part in the shaping of identity are considered. The relationship between language, culture and reflexivity, drawing from philosophy, sociology and G. H. Mead's own brand of social psychology, are all utilized in establishing a critique of the role Giddens and others designate for culture in the constitution of the contemporary self. By potentially repositioning self-identity in its connection to culture, the overall bearing of reflexivity upon the processes of self-identity is thus questioned. It is argued that a culturally-situated, yet fluid and multifarious account of self-identity is a necessary analytical and normative alternative.