Re-inscribing gender binaries: Deconstructing the dominant discourse around women's equality in science, engineering, and technology

This paper tracks and attempts to unravel a persistently dominant discursive construction of the problem of women's under‐representation in science, engineering, and technology (SET) education and work: the idea that the interaction of gender stereotyping with the masculine image of SET disciplines and workplaces prevents girls and women from choosing SET subjects and going into SET careers. The discursive framework of ‘Women in SET’ will be examined at both macro and micro levels as it operates in the field of activist and pedagogic activity that has grown around the issue since the 1970s. A Foucauldian analysis will be applied in order to explore the kinds of subject positions this framework enables and excludes. It will be argued that the ‘Women in SET’ framework re‐inscribes the gendered binaries that have at a symbolic level defined girls/women and SET as mutually exclusive, and as a result practices based on this framework may be counter‐productive because their subjectivating effects on girls and women may undermine their broad political aims.     

Understanding the dominant discourse of colonialism: A qualitative,single case study of an eighth-grade U.S. History classroom

The purpose of this qualitative, single case study is to investigate how teacher-created curricula addresses key Native American events in early U.S. history and to determine if such curricula provided students with accurate representations of Native American content. To do this, we used discourse analysis to consider the meanings of words and phrases, as well as the underlying assumptions and intentions of the teacher-created curricula and the experiences it claims to represent. Given the presence and use of dominant narratives to preserve power systems, curricula that deconstructs the colonizing narrative and historical representation of Native Americans can encourage the active destruction of such narratives. By analyzing four teacher-created narratives, we found is that even when a teacher creates content with the intent to be more historically accurate, the curricula still reflects a dominant narrative that privileges White settlers over Native Americans. We then provide suggestions for teachers who wish to design more culturally relevant and appropriate curricula on Native American content.     

Responsibility and sociological discourse

This article reads Chaim Perelman's theory of argumentation in order to formulate the task of social theorizing as responsible discourse. Taking rationality as sound argument which proceeds in terms of a link between speaker's intentions (the audience) and the public, the first part examines Perelman's notions about the relativity of facts to particular traditions of communication which link speakers, argumentation, and publics. Accepting that this view, shared by many sociologists, allows for no general criterion of rationality to be used as a principle for responsible speaking, the second part discusses how a choice for one or another tradition of reasoning in sociology might responsibly be made. This criterion for choosing is presented in terms of the relative generality and breadth of intended audiences and the relative openness to criticism of traditions of discourse.Preparation of this paper was assisted by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Leave Fellowship No. 451-801455, and the kind hospitality of lain Mangham and the Centre for the Study of Organizational Change and Development, University of Bath. Lloyd Bitzer, Joan Budge, Bob Hollinger, Valerie Sloane, Steve Turner and an anonymous, supportive referee have all helped me shape this essay. My gratitude for their assistance does not imply responsibility for the remaining faults and infelicities; that is mine.     

Next steps in the expanded learning discourse

This concluding chapter examines the emerging themes, challenges, opportunities, and next steps for ELTO.     

Sovereignty and the other in Ecuadorian nationalist discourse

This article explores how exhortations for national unity are intrinsically linked to the symbolic displacement of a problematic other through an examination of elite Ecuadorian nationalist discourse and its construction of Indigenous activists as internal enemies. Specifically, this article looks at the role that the 2008 border row between Ecuador and Colombia played in publicly legitimating a concept of Ecuadorian citizenship rooted in racial homogeneity. Ecuador's northern border served as an ideal mechanism for performing the Ecuadorian state's authority to establish the internal borders that separated ‘citizens’ from ‘enemies’. These performances of state legitimacy highlighted Ecuador's victimisation by a more powerful neighbour/imperial proxy as a means for building regional empathy, while reinforcing the legitimacy of the Ecuadorian government to marginalise Indigenous social movements as a means to symbolically assert ‘national unity’.     

Backstage discourse and the reproduction of white masculinities

This article documents the shared patterns of private white male discourse. Drawing from comparative ethnographic research in a white nationalist and a white antiracist organization, I analyze how white men engage in private discourse to reproduce coherent and valorized understandings of white masculinity. These private speech acts reinforce prevailing narratives about race and gender, reproduce understandings of segregation and paternalism as natural, and rationalize the expression of overt racism. This analysis illustrates how antagonistic forms of “frontstage” white male activism may distract from white male identity management in the “backstage.”     

Wages and the dominant firm

The standard one-period model of an industry populated by one large firm and a fringe of small competitors is used to show that the traditional focus on dominant firm pricing strategies is too narrow. In an era of industry-wide wage-setting or spillover effects, the dominant firm may also improve its position through generous wage contracts that spread to its competitors and raise their costs. Some general observations are made about the model’s applicability and its possible extension to oligopoly theory and stagflation. I wish to thank Richard C. Levin and Derek C. Jones for their many helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.     

Challenging the international peacebuilding evaluation discourse with qualitative methodologies

Monitoring and evaluating international peacebuilding efforts have become more sophisticated over the past years, but still relies on managerial approaches that often do not capture the complexity of war, peace and the grey areas in between. The article argues that organizations should embrace qualitative approaches more widely and introduces ethnographic vignettes as one example to explain the complexity of post-conflict situations. By understanding the personal dimension, the life- and work-styles of international peacebuilders, the current evaluation discourse can become more meaningful-both for organizational learning and sustainable peace efforts on the ground. The article ends by highlighting some approaches that deserve more attention and that promise to help to critically enhance current and future debates about the evaluation of peacebuilding.     

Managerial discourse and the restructuring of a district authority

This paper arises out of continuing debates on the class position of managers and professionals in the context of public sector restructuring. Recently, attention has been focused on the self-sustaining and autonomous character of ‘professionalism’ in organisational dynamics. Such an approach underplays the cultural significance of managerial discourse as this is active in the reconstitution of professional work. In a case study of a district authority it is possible to highlight the complex nature of managerial discourse in its relations to both central and local government. This relation is above all mediated by shifting conceptions of public service on the part of managers and those in non-managerial positions. The paper concludes that due to the structural constraints under which local authorities operate directly managerial discourse is becoming increasingly significant in the reconstitution of professional and semi-professional identities.     

Image repair discourse and crisis communication

This article describes the theory of image restoration discourse as an approach for understanding corporate crisis situations. This theory can be used by practitioners to help design messages during crises and by critics or educators to critically evaluate messages produced during crises. I begin by describing and illustrating the basic concepts in this theory. Then, I offer suggestions for crisis communication based on this body of theory and research.William L. Benoit is Associate Professor of Communication, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO.     

Analysis of the image repair discourse in the Michael Phelps controversy

The following study reviews the image repair strategies used by Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, his sponsors and the organizations that govern him as an amateur swimmer after a picture of Phelps allegedly smoking from a marijuana pipe appeared in a British tabloid. Additionally, the study reviews media coverage of the controversy to determine whether Phelps was successful in repairing his image. The study concludes that Phelps’ image repair campaign was a success. Implications for public relations practitioners and suggestions for future research also are discussed.     

Securitization vs the yearning for peace in the Israeli casino discourse

This study analyses the controversy in Israel in the years 1958–2003 surrounding the legitimacy of casino gambling, with particular focus on how it was affected by the operations of Casino Oasis in the Palestinian Authority territory between 1998 and 2000. An interpretative narrative analysis of debates in the Israeli Knesset (parliament) and in the local press reveals that, prior to the casino's opening, most of the arguments raised were similar to those seen elsewhere in the world, with opponents objecting on moral, religious and social grounds, and those in favour emphasizing its economic and tourism benefits. However, once Casino Oasis opened its doors, the controversy took on a character not seen anywhere else in this context – opponents raised concerns about terrorism, while proponents championed the casino as a promoter of peace and coexistence – reflecting a broader, more fundamental national debate within Israeli society over the country's physical boundaries.     

Roma and the politics of double discourse in contemporary Europe

ABSTRACT

The article analyses the politics of ‘double discourse’ in relation to Roma that has evolved in contemporary neoliberal Europe. On the one hand, the double discourse promotes the integration, rights and equal opportunities of Roma, on the other, it denies recognition of, and ways to address, enduring structural violence and rising social insecurity. The article argues that the politics of ‘double discourse’, as a neoliberal approach towards Roma, is structured by two contradictory discourses that speak to different audiences, using duplicitous approaches to create anti-Roma consensus and maintain the critical difference and subordinated position of the racialised Romani populations in Europe. By studying the representation of Roma in the cases of so-called 'child theft' in Greece and Ireland, and in the recent ‘refugee crisis’, the paper identifies and discusses three dimensions of contemporary neoliberal double discourse: racialised de-Europeanisation, neoliberal undeservingness and (dis)articulation of citizenship.     

Legal discourse and the cultural intelligiblity of gendered meanings1

This paper considers the methodological challenges that ‘post-modern’ approaches to gender ( Cameron 2005 ) pose for the field of language and gender. If we assume that gender cannot be ‘read off’ the identities of speakers, but rather is a social process by which individuals come to make cultural sense, then how do we best investigate this process? As Stokoe (2005) and Stokoe and Smithson (2002) have argued, it is problematic within such frameworks to conduct research that pre-categorizes individuals as women and men, since it is individuals' constitution as women or men that should be the issue under investigation. Indeed, for Butler (1990: 145), to understand ‘identity as a practice … is to understand culturally intelligible subjects as the resulting effects of a rule-bound discourse’ (emphasis in original). This suggests that we attend to cultural norms of intelligibility (i.e. the ‘rule-bound discourse’) and their effects. Following Blommaert (2005) and Woolard (forthcoming) , in this paper I investigate a speech event, a courtroom trial dealing with sexual assault, where understandings of social identities and categories (i.e. ‘norms of intelligibility’) are not only evident in the local talk of speakers and hearers, but also in the recontextualizations of this local talk by powerful institutional representatives (i.e. judges). By examining such recontextualizations of courtroom talk, gender is not ‘read off’ the identities of individuals (i.e. courtroom participants) but rather investigated as it appears in the cultural sense-making frameworks of judges. Moreover, given that judges are the ultimate interpreters of the linguistic representations of courtroom talk, this paper also demonstrates some of the social consequences associated with the performance of culturally intelligible and unintelligible gendered identities.     

Moving beyond the nature-based solutions discourse: introducing nature-based thinking

Urban Ecosystems - Suites of concepts and approaches have been launched during recent years to promote urban nature and greener cities. However, it is doubtable whether tinkering within the current...