Control, membership and consequences: Analysis of discursive practices to respond to behaviors of kindergartners with disabilities

Abstract

In this two-year ethnographic case study, I critically examine educators’ relationships with students considered to present challenging behaviours in one classroom located in a predominantly White, middle-class school district. Focusing on the language and practices used by one special education teacher and three teaching assistants, I explore how educators respond to students’ behaviours by analysing educators’ utterances and the implication of such use in their classroom practices. Using critical discourse analysis, I was able to highlight how educators’ language in the classroom reflects discourses of control and conditional membership. As a consequence of such discourses, the discursive practices employed exerted power and represented educators’ understanding of students’ behaviours as deficient and needing consequences. This study also shows that there are possibilities for educators to share power and compromise with students.

Keywords:

• behaviour
• discursive practices
• disability studies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. All the names in this article were changed to protect participants’ identity.