- Title
- 'Silences' in the 'inclusive' early childhood classroom: sustaining a 'taboo'
- Creator
- Watson, Karen
- Relation
- Interrupting the Psy-Disciplines in Education p. 13-31
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51305-2_2
- Publisher
- Palgrave Macmillan
- Resource Type
- book chapter
- Date
- 2016
- Description
- In the 'inclusive' early childhood classroom, the gaze of educators, professionals, children, and researchers often focuses on the 'child with a diagnosis', their assessment, remediation, and transition into the mainstream. Rarely does this gaze of scrutiny fall on the 'including space', the 'normal', 'the children without a diagnosis'. This chapter turns the interrogatory gaze toward the 'normal' and its discursive constitution, presenting data from a six-month ethnography in three early childhood settings in Australia. Utilizing a post-structural framework, I examine how children in the classroom take up the available and sanctioned discourses, positioning themselves and others within these discourses. As the children position and reposition themselves, 'silences' are observed. In various nuanced ways 'silence' is taken up by the children, as they share 'silences', perform as 'silent' subjects and 'speak' only in certain terms. As 'silences' are performed by the children, a 'taboo' emerges, re/produced around the discursively produced Other. As psy-knowledge circulates and makes meaning in the early childhood classroom, 'silence' creates a powerful effect. In this chapter, I theorize how traces of scientific and medical discourses of the past continue to produce 'silent' effects in the classroom, perpetuating exclusionary practices.
- Subject
- psy- disciplines; education; Foucault; discourse analysis; childhood studies; educational leadership; education policy; governmentality; social work
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1348487
- Identifier
- uon:30214
- Identifier
- ISBN:9781137513045
- Language
- eng
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