2015
DOI: 10.14507/epaa.v23.2141
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The discursive construction of lower-tracked students: Ideologies of meritocracy and the politics of education

Abstract: This study considers the discursive construction of a particular type of student in Singapore - the lowest-tracked, Normal Technical (NT), secondary school student. Shaped by meritocratic policies, educational practices, and ideologies common to many late-modern societies, students in the NT track are institutionally and individually constructed through the results of high-stakes testing regimes and essentialist views of ability. This article extends an understanding of the NT student as a widely held, deficit… Show more

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Cited by 30 publications
(10 citation statements)
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References 59 publications
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“…Instead, typical practices aligned with the NT syllabus, which identifies "reading and viewing short texts and readers with a suitable high interest content and a controlled vocabulary" for "developing proficiency in English for everyday situations and functional purposes" (MOE 2010b, p. 6). Thus Mr. H's instruction aligned with typical NT course expectations, which is not surprising considering the ubiquitous, deficit characterization of NT students in the national syllabus, media, and elsewhere (Anderson, 2015).…”
Section: Typical Writing Practices In Mr H's Classroomsupporting
confidence: 53%
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“…Instead, typical practices aligned with the NT syllabus, which identifies "reading and viewing short texts and readers with a suitable high interest content and a controlled vocabulary" for "developing proficiency in English for everyday situations and functional purposes" (MOE 2010b, p. 6). Thus Mr. H's instruction aligned with typical NT course expectations, which is not surprising considering the ubiquitous, deficit characterization of NT students in the national syllabus, media, and elsewhere (Anderson, 2015).…”
Section: Typical Writing Practices In Mr H's Classroomsupporting
confidence: 53%
“…This article thus illustrates how authoring MTs afforded this cohort of low-tracked Singaporean students a different point of entry and incrementally more ways from which they could represent new forms of interpersonal relations through their authoring using an expanded set of tools and practices as compared to their typical classroom practices. This argument is especially prescient given deficit discourses surrounding NT students in Singapore and the impoverished curriculum they face (Anderson, 2015). Rather than skill-and-drill, cloze passages, tightly scripted topics, and focusing on form over content, this unit represented an unprecedented departure for these students.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
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“…More particularly, within discourse analytic traditions, a researcher may study the function of language at a micro (e.g., conversational, see Gabriel & Paulus, 2015), meso (e.g., institutional, see Anderson, 2015), and/or macro (e.g., social or historical, see Peters, 2007) levels. They may accordingly take a more pragmatic view of language (e.g., Gumperz, 1982) or one that it is steeped in a socio-historical perspective of discourse (e.g., Foucault, 1989), among other positions.…”
Section: An Abbreviated Overview Of Discourse Analysismentioning
confidence: 99%
“…(p. 205) Within such groups, labels such as SES, parents level of education and other factors play significant roles in how students view and group themselves. Similarly, lower tracked students may disassociate with school all together (Anderson, 2015). Other times labels may be seen not as an explanation for but as an excuse for self-destructive behaviors (Black & Grahm-Murray, 2013;Deschenes, Cuban & Tyack, 2001).…”
Section: The Impact Of Labels: Family Teachers and Other Support Strmentioning
confidence: 99%