La construcción discursiva de los estudiantes de rendimiento bajo: Ideologías meritocraticas y políticas de educación

Translated title of the contribution: The discursive construction of lower-tracked students: Ideologies of meritocracy and the politics of education

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26 Scopus citations

Abstract

This study considers the discursive construction of a particular type of student in Singapore–the lowest-tracked, Normal Technical (NT), secondary school student. Shaped by meritocratic policies, educational practices, and ideologies common to many late-modern societies, students in the NT track are institutionally and individually constructed through the results of highstakes testing regimes and essentialist views of ability. This article extends an understanding of the NT student as a widely held, deficit construction in Singapore by considering its use as an ideological label in interpersonal and institutional discourse. I consider how school leaders’ and government commentaries about NT students’ abilities, opportunities, and supposed characteristics provide insights about the processes through which students are recruited into institutional categories of deficit and risk–i.e. differentiated instruction, ascribed ability, and these processes’ translation into educational structures and practice in the name of meritocracy. While the illustration of this phenomenon is uniquely Singaporean, implications include concerns about equity, constructions of ability, and ideologies of merit common to late modern society.

Translated title of the contributionThe discursive construction of lower-tracked students: Ideologies of meritocracy and the politics of education
Original languageSpanish
Article number110
JournalEducation Policy Analysis Archives
Volume23
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 9 2015

Keywords

  • Discourse
  • Ideology
  • Meritocracy
  • Singapore
  • Tracking

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Education

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