There is a substantial mainstream literature on coming out in organizations, which investigates the positive effects for gay people of being out at work, but very few contributions that challenge the discourse of coming out. Taking as its starting point Butler's famous question 'So we are out of the closet but into what?', this paper problematizes coming out discourses in the workplace. We report on a study in which ten men were invited to talk about their coming out in the workplace. There were three main ways through which our participants constituted themselves as gay men when they talked about coming out: by defining themselves as, and admitting to, being gay; by introducing themselves as being in a gay relationship; and by adopting legitimate subject positions such as the Other, the different one, or the normal gay. Through our analysis, discussions and conclusions, we show how participants position themselves within different discursive variations, thus revealing the multiplicity of 'the gay self' and highlighting how coming out repeats and supports normative systems.
This case study of developing teacher attitudes, beliefs and content knowledge at one primary school in the North-West of England deals with the new spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPaG) elements of the National Curriculum, focusing on grammatical terms and concepts. It uses data collected over 10 months from June 2014 to March 2015, including surveys, interviews and comments made during post-observation discussions and during SPaG CPD sessions. The findings suggest that, while much work remains to be done in developing teachers' knowledge base, attitudes are largely supportive of teaching children grammar terms and concepts.
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the role of affect within education.Within this paper, we make a distinction between affective pedagogy, which we refer to as ways of teaching that are designed to evoke particular emotional states, and affective knowledge, which we refer to as aspects of knowledge or knowing which seem to bring forth particular emotions organically. Using explicit grammar knowledge as a test case, we explore student teachers' affective responses to learning, drawing upon interview data and observations made during a series of grammar courses. We argue that grammar learning is a potential source of pleasure, wonder and intensity. The findings provide an important counter-narrative to the prevailing discourse of grammar as dull and threatening. We also draw broader conclusions about the significance of affect in education, drawing upon affect theory and recent work on epistemic emotions.
This paper is an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the grammatical description and advice contained in new National Curriculum documentation from 2013, focusing on Key Stages 1 and 2. It builds on previous analyses of deficiencies in the systems of grammar and the materials in earlier incarnations of the National Curriculum. It suggests that there have been advances in the accuracy with which grammar terms are used and illustrated, although there is still no coherent overall view of what grammar is, nor a fully consistent approach to describing language. In addition, the lack of any pedagogic guidance save the most basic suggests that knowledge about language may be taught in a way which is incompatible with real understanding and more in line with prescriptivist approaches.
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