Getting Schooled on Resistance: Dominant and Counter Narratives of Writing and the Circulation of Power in Urban School Reform

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Urbanski, C. (2012). Getting Schooled on Resistance: Dominant and Counter Narratives of Writing and the Circulation of Power in Urban School Reform. Unc Charlotte Electronic Theses And Dissertations.
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Abstract

Michel Foucault argues that power is everywhere, all of the time. He describes it as concrete, "capillary," acting in, on and through the actual body. All "knowledge" and "truth" is an effect of that power which is why power and knowledge are integrally related. Power/knowledge produces social positioning. In this study I use Activity Theory to describe how power/knowledge works in the figured world of an inner city urban middle school that has been "marked" as underperforming by the institutional discourses of urban school reform and how that marking produces the types of interventions the school receives as well as the identities of the people in the school when these interventions "fail." The study documents how power/knowledge positions the principals, teachers, National Writing Project consultants and children, and how power acts in, on and through their words and bodies. The research explores how the principals, teachers, and writing consultants negotiate dominant school reform narratives alongside counter narratives of writing and ways of being in the world as they work with children to become writers in social studies classes. By using Critical Discourse Analysis, I describe more specifically how four girls improvise their identities as writers in order to perform "good student" in the figured world of the school. This three-year qualitative study demonstrates how children's and teachers' resistances to the objectivist reform agenda make visible possibilities for educational change.

Details
Author

Urbanski, Cynthia

Title

Getting Schooled on Resistance: Dominant and Counter Narratives of Writing and the Circulation of Power in Urban School Reform

Physical Description

1 online resource (224 pages) : PDF

Date

2012

Degree Granting Institution

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Abstract

Michel Foucault argues that power is everywhere, all of the time. He describes it as concrete, "capillary," acting in, on and through the actual body. All "knowledge" and "truth" is an effect of that power which is why power and knowledge are integrally related. Power/knowledge produces social positioning. In this study I use Activity Theory to describe how power/knowledge works in the figured world of an inner city urban middle school that has been "marked" as underperforming by the institutional discourses of urban school reform and how that marking produces the types of interventions the school receives as well as the identities of the people in the school when these interventions "fail." The study documents how power/knowledge positions the principals, teachers, National Writing Project consultants and children, and how power acts in, on and through their words and bodies. The research explores how the principals, teachers, and writing consultants negotiate dominant school reform narratives alongside counter narratives of writing and ways of being in the world as they work with children to become writers in social studies classes. By using Critical Discourse Analysis, I describe more specifically how four girls improvise their identities as writers in order to perform "good student" in the figured world of the school. This three-year qualitative study demonstrates how children's and teachers' resistances to the objectivist reform agenda make visible possibilities for educational change.

Genre

doctoral dissertations

Subjects--Topics

Education

Degree

Ph.D.

Keywords

Discourse
Middle School
Power
Resistance
Urban School Reform
Writing

Subject Area

Curriculum & Instruction

Advisor(s)

Brannon, Lil

Committee Members

Knoblauch, Cy
Scott, Tony
Avila, JuliAnna

Degree Note

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2012.

Rights Statement

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Rights Holder Information

Copyright is held by the author unless otherwise indicated.

Identifier

Urbanski_uncc_0694D_10285

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13093/etd:1707