A Juggling Act: A feminist post-structuralist analysis of girls' and boys' talk in the secondary classroom

Abstract

Relatively few models of good practice in feminist post-structuralist discourse analysis exist in current educational research. Drawing on a study of girls' and boys' speech in a secondary, mixed-sex classroom, the article aims to show that the use of feminist post-structuralist analysis can often be a tricky juggling act. On one hand, it aims to show the complexity of how girls are multiply positioned by competing classroom discourses as at times powerful and at other times powerless; on the other, it aims to reveal how and why girls can be silenced in particular classroom contexts. Such multiplicity in the analysis does not, however, undermine the use of feminist post-structuralism as a politically confident theoretical framework. On the contrary, it is argued that it can produce powerful insights about gendered discourse that may potentially transform educational practice.