Egebæk, Sara Lisa

Eriksen, Marie

Hansen, Mille Hoffgaard Møller

This project examines some of the discourses that exist about the purpose of the Danish public schools. It uses Fairclough's critical discourse analysis to examine the discourses in texts from public school teachers and the Danish Ministry of Education with the purpose of trying to understand some of the reason why the recent public school reform has caused such a high level of confusion. Fairclough's critical discourse analysis is especially relevant in an attempt to understand the problematic, as it assumes that our way of speaking about social practice actually has a constituting effect on social practice as well as being itself determined by social practice. This project does not claim to explain all aspects of the problematic, but merely to attempt to examine it from a discursive perspective. The discursive analysis contributed with a reading of the teachers' discourse about the public schools as following the ideology of the welfare state and the ministry of education's discourse as following the ideology of the competition state (both terms understood as defined by Ove K. Pedersen). It further showed a discourse between the teachers about the teachers' view on the competition state as being neglecting of the teachers' authority. It concludes that the disagreement between the two parts examined in this project is one of the reasons why the implementation of the reform has been problematic and offers a perspective of androgogy to further explain the problematic of the implementation of the reform in practice.This project examines some of the discourses that exist about the purpose of the Danish public schools. It uses Fairclough's critical discourse analysis to examine the discourses in texts from public school teachers and the Danish Ministry of Education with the purpose of trying to understand some of the reason why the recent public school reform has caused such a high level of confusion. Fairclough's critical discourse analysis is especially relevant in an attempt to understand the problematic, as it assumes that our way of speaking about social practice actually has a constituting effect on social practice as well as being itself determined by social practice. This project does not claim to explain all aspects of the problematic, but merely to attempt to examine it from a discursive perspective. The discursive analysis contributed with a reading of the teachers' discourse about the public schools as following the ideology of the welfare state and the ministry of education's discourse as following the ideology of the competition state (both terms understood as defined by Ove K. Pedersen). It further showed a discourse between the teachers about the teachers' view on the competition state as being neglecting of the teachers' authority. It concludes that the disagreement between the two parts examined in this project is one of the reasons why the implementation of the reform has been problematic and offers a perspective of androgogy to further explain the problematic of the implementation of the reform in practice

Kampen om den danske folkeskole - Et diskursanalytisk projekt om lærerne og reformen

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Roskilde Universitet