A good student subject: a Foucauldian discourse analysis of an adolescent writer negotiating subject positions

• Published in: Critical studies in education Vol. 60; no. 2; pp. 263 - 280
• Main Authors: Worthman, Christopher, Troiano, Beverly
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Melbourne Routledge 03.04.2019; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Adolescents; Classroom Observation Techniques; Discourse Analysis; discourse analysis semiotics; Essays; Expository Writing; Foucault; Foucault, Michel; High School Students; Persuasive Discourse; Reentry Students; Rhetoric; School-based research; Self Actualization; Self Concept; Student writing; writing; Writing Assignments; Writing Processes; youth adolescence
• ISSN: 1750-8487; 1750-8495
• DOI: 10.1080/17508487.2016.1246372

In this article, we draw on the work of Michel Foucault to analyze one student's subject development in an expository writing classroom. James, the participant, was embarking on the project of becoming a good student, as he understood it, after struggling and leaving school previously. Drawing on interviews, classroom observations and written artifacts, we use Foucauldian concepts and discourse analysis, along with one James Gee's discourse analysis tools - the identities building tool - to conduct a microanalysis of James's efforts to objectify himself as a good student subject. The data show how James acquiesced to the truths and practices of the regime of school, including how he mobilized truths of the regime through a process we call masked confession. That is, he negotiated his good student subject position by masking or silencing other subject positions. James's masked confession was his way of negotiating the realm of 'multiple truths,' or multiple subject positions.