Subjectivity and pedagogy in a context of social change.
Date
2014-01-16
Authors
Ferreira, Ana Cristina
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Abstract
This study is an exploration of the relationship between subjectivity and pedagogy in
the secondary school English classroom in South Africa during a time that can be
characterised as one of considerable social change. It examines the subject
positions students take up in relation to a teaching intervention that invites them to
historicise their identities. In so doing, it seeks to contribute to the growing body of
education research on how to meaningfully engage young people in post-conflict
societies with their recent past and their shifting present, with the primary aim being
to understand how these students are positioning themselves in relation to the
changing sociopolitical context. The research was conducted in two Grade 11
English classrooms, one a de(re)segregated former Model C school and the other an
elite private school. The research design is a two-case case study, employing
ethnographic tools to generate a multi-layered and multifaceted understanding of the
students’ engagement in all its forms.
Poststructuralist theories on discourse and subjectivity form the theoretical
framework for this study, informing both the methodology and the data analysis. At
the heart of this lies Foucault’s notion of the discursively constructed subject,
extended through the work of Stuart Hall, Chris Weedon, Bronwyn Davies and others
in ways that facilitate their application to individual subjectivity, particularly in relation
to the classroom as a pedagogically structured discursive space. The data is
subjected to poststructuralist discourse analysis, adjusted to suit the mode and type
of data which includes, inter alia, the analysis of a multimodal artefact, analysis of
performative classroom talk and moment-by-moment analysis of classroom
interaction.
The analysis shows that students’ subjectivities are not fixed but shift in ways that
are contingent on the pedagogic context. Such shifts are particularly noticeable when
there is a shift in the interactional situation; when students move between different
semiotic modes; or when they are provided with the opportunity for extended
conversational interaction around an issue. In addition, students’ participation in the
section of work on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) shows
that engaging with the past in post-apartheid South African classrooms can have
unpredictable results. Students’ resistance to engaging with recent history seems to
be related to discomfort with the ways in which the grand narrative of the past works
to position them in racialised ways. While there is evidence of students seeking to
‘unfix’ racialised subject positions, it is also clear that past discourses linger. Despite
their desire to be rid of the past, students’ subject positions are frequently tied to their
historically constructed locations in the sociopolitical and economic landscape of
South Africa. These ambiguities and contradictions are viewed in part as a function
of the complexity of the relationship between subjectivity and pedagogy, where what
students are able to say and who they are able to be is shaped by the discursive
structure of the classroom space. Ultimately it would seem that more serious
consideration needs to be given to ways of developing a pedagogy that is able to
tolerate contingency and heterogeneity and that would have relevance not only in
post-conflict contexts but also beyond.
Keywords: subjectivity, pedagogy, poststructuralist discourse analysis,
positioning, identity, English classroom, TRC, multimodal artefact, classroom talk,
South Africa
Description
Keywords
Subjectivity, Pedagogy, Poststructuralist discourse analysis, Positioning, Identity, English classroom, TRC, Multimodal artefact, Classroom talk, South Africa