Utilizing Michel De Certeau in Critical Policy Analysis

Brewer, Curtis; Werts, Amanda Bell

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-39643-9_12

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…As elaborated elsewhere (Brewer & Werts, 2017), we assert that de Certeau’s (1984) theory of consumption is useful in the practice of critical policy analysis. de Certeau (1984) put forward a theory of resistance to everydayness , or the colonized everyday, and attempted to understand how people reappropriate the everyday for liberatory means (Wood, 2014).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 66%

“…The poem above, written using quotes from each participant’s interview, reveals the emotional discomfort and murmurings in the everydayness teachers in this study experience. As mentioned above, everydayness refers to the colonized daily experience where the authoritative order, in this case the school, seeks to systematize teaching practice to increase production (Brewer & Werts, 2017). Although participants showed the ways they deviate from such directives, they were still very much “caught in the nets of ‘discipline’” (de Certeau, 1984, p. xi).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the previous section, we described how teachers gave in to the demands of the everydayness ; however, their interviews also revealed ways in which they deviated. Importantly, de Certeau (1984) contends that the everyday , or site of resistance, consists of reappropriation of regulations for the purpose of subtly subverting the dominant forms of organization (Brewer & Werts, 2017). These subtle forms of consumption can be described as strategies and tactics.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

“Caught in the Nets of ‘Discipline’”: Understanding the Possibilities for Writing Teachers’ Resistance to Standardization in Local Policy

Duarte

Brewer

2018

Educational Policy

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article contributes to the practice of critical policy analysis by using de Certeau’s concept of consumption to analyze how writing teachers resist policies that work to systemize and commodify student writing. Through narratives, we represent the ways teachers tactically and strategically sidestepped the mandated curriculum in an effort to support their sociocultural views of writing. We use a poem built from participant responses to represent discomfort that teachers felt from dominant forms of organization that tried to define writing instruction. These multiple forms of representation extend the practice of critical policy analysis by allowing us to evoke the grind of resistance to local policy.

show abstract

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 66%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

“Caught in the Nets of ‘Discipline’”: Understanding the Possibilities for Writing Teachers’ Resistance to Standardization in Local Policy

Duarte

Brewer

2018

Educational Policy

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Despite these pseudo‐beliefs (Brewer and Werts 2017), teachers complied. Their compliance revealed unresolved conflicts with what they were being asked to do.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“Part of Their Chemistry”: The Reproduction of Neoliberal Governmentality in Principal and Teacher Subjectivities

Duarte

2021

Anthropology & Edu Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the voyage to increase student achievement, centralized education agencies apply pressure to school principals and teachers in ways that transform their work. This critical ethnographic study of a historically underperforming public elementary school serving predominantly Latinx/a/o students in Texas utilized poststructural theories of subjectivity to demonstrate how the political system of educational policy governs, in plural and contradictory ways, a principal and her teachers in a school serving marginalized youth. The results expose the ways in which neoliberal power is reproduced through the participants who questioned and subtly resisted the practices that they implemented to improve student achievement. The study has implications for both practitioners and researchers to come together in order to reconcile the difficult subjectivities that participants exhibited while they implemented neoliberal policies.

show abstract

“…If we are to learn anything, however, we argue it is vital we subject what we initially viewed as our tactical moves as teacher educators in rewriting the literacy course and our students’ responses to a critical analysis. de Certeau (1984) supported us to critically consider how the beginning teachers might occupy “the space between authority and absolute freedom” (Brewer and Werts, 2017, p. 254) when enacting literacy policy.…”

Section: Concluding Thoughtsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“I haven’t earned the right to just play around with my literacy programme”: strategies, tactics and policy actors/subjects

Tilson

Sandretto

2021

ETPC

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose The purpose of this New Zealand study is to analyse the influence of the literacy course from an initial teacher education degree, to support beginning teachers to view themselves as policy actors, not mere policy subjects. In our role as teacher educators, we sought to support beginning teachers to find freedom within the constraints of official literacy policy to include multiliteracies. Design/methodology/approach Using de Certeau’s dialectic of strategies and tactics, the authors critically analysed the influence of the literacy course. The data included an assignment from the literacy course, an end-of-literacy course survey and a follow-up interview six months into their first teaching position with a group of five beginning primary school teachers. Findings The findings shed light on our apparent inability to support beginning teachers to see themselves as policy actors/subjects. The analysis reveals the beginning teachers’ tactical responses to our strategies intended to position them as policy actors. The analysis also illustrates how the tactics the authors deployed were viewed as strategies by the beginning teachers, ironically further solidifying the literacy policy they had sought to critique and destabilise and (re)positioning them as policy subjects. Originality/value de Certeau’s framework supported the illumination of the complex interplay of strategies and tactics deployed by ourselves and beginning teachers as the authors sought to support them to identify the freedoms within the constraints of official literacy policy. Any future attempt to develop beginning teachers as policy actors/subjects will benefit from the careful examination of the strategies and tactics at play in initial teacher education.

show abstract

Utilizing Michel De Certeau in Critical Policy Analysis

Cited by 4 publications

References 12 publications

“Caught in the Nets of ‘Discipline’”: Understanding the Possibilities for Writing Teachers’ Resistance to Standardization in Local Policy

“Caught in the Nets of ‘Discipline’”: Understanding the Possibilities for Writing Teachers’ Resistance to Standardization in Local Policy

“Part of Their Chemistry”: The Reproduction of Neoliberal Governmentality in Principal and Teacher Subjectivities

“I haven’t earned the right to just play around with my literacy programme”: strategies, tactics and policy actors/subjects

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About