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This paper examines the current theory base that is explicit in research to understanding mental health disparities seen among Asian Americans. I will argue that the disparities framework is effectively insufficient due to the epistemological and ontological dominance of "mental illness" and "mental health services" via comparisons to non-Latino whites that is implicit in its methodology. Using a social constructionist conceptual framework as well as a critical discourse analysis, I will explicate the perpetuating limitations of the current disparities research agenda and propose cultural reflexivity in framing future research that may be more equitable and inclusive for Asian American health and well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the refugee influx of 2015 and 2016, many German higher education organisations (HEOs) responded with support programmes for refugee students. In this context, refugees became formally and discursively differentiated from other international students. During later stages of the programmes, this differentiation became blurred, and discourse surrounding refugee students partly shifted back to framing them as international students, which is also represented in further support programme development. Based on a systems theoretical framework, this paper investigates the shifting organisational discourse on refugee students within the context of functional needs and structural changes at German HEOs. The analysis shows that structural development is strongly related to the way functional needs and ways to address them are constituted by discursive representations. It is based on 25 expert interviews with heads of international offices and first contacts for refugees at eight German HEOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the narrative of Shannon, a Taiwanese Canadian female assistant language teacher (ALT) of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme, one of the world's largest government-sponsored programmes for recruiting English language teachers to teach overseas [Nagatomo (2016). Identity, gender and teaching English in Japan. Multilingual Matters]. The interview data were analyzed with the methodology of critical discursive psychology (CDP), a version of discourse analysis developed by Wetherall and Potter (1992. Mapping the language of racism: Discourse and the legitimation of exploitation. Harvester Wheatsheaf). CDP allows the researchers to engage in 'double movement' of Marxist ideological critique and Foucauldian genealogical analysis, with which I demonstrate how Shannon's subject position was conditioned by broader ideologies and discourses about race, gender, and language. My analysis highlights how the ideology of native speakerism impacts an Asian native speaker's experience as an ALT in Japan with a particular focus on Shannon's struggle in a dilemmatic subject position between Asian Self and foreign Other. Due to her Asian appearance, Shannon constantly felt that she was 'not foreign enough' to fulfil the role of an exoticised native speaker and struggled to negotiate her legitimacy as an English teacher. Taking dilemma as a generative space for change, I discuss potential pathways for ideological critique and discursive transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global rise of populism and concomitant polarizations across disenfranchised and marginalized groups has been magnified by so-called echo chambers, and a major public health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic has only served to fuel these intergroup tensions. Media institutions disseminating information on ways to prevent the propagation of the virus have reactivated a specific discursive phenomenon previously observed in many epidemics: the construction of a defiled 'Other'. With anthropological lenses, discourse on defilement is an interesting path to understand the continuous emergence of pseudo-scientific forms of racism. In this paper, the authors focus on 'borderline racism', that is the use of an institutionally 'impartial' discourse to reaffirm the inferiority of another race. The authors employed inductive thematic analysis of 1200 social media comments reacting to articles and videos published by six media in three different countries (France, United States and India). Results delineate four major themes structuring defilement discourses: food (and the relationship to animals), religion, nationalism and gender. Media articles and videos portrayed Western and Eastern countries through contrasting images and elicited a range of reaction in readers and viewers. The discussion reflects on how borderline racism can be an appropriate concept to understand the appearance of hygienic othering of specific subgroups on social media. Theoretical implications and recommendations on a more culturally sensitive approach of media coverage of epidemics and pandemics are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-reliance has been advanced by policy actors as an aspirational objective by and for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) with evolution in framing over time. Most recently, it has been advanced by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in an organisational strategy titled the Journey to Self-Reliance (J2SR). This paper identifies why self-reliance has evolved over time, how actors have supported its use, and implications for development practice. We identify self-reliance frames using peer-reviewed and grey literature and key informant interviews. Thematic analysis using framing theories was conducted. Self-reliance originates from a historical legacy of postcolonial scholarship, but it has been transformed from an emancipatory paradigm to a strategy championed by international donors. Three frames were identified: (1) the emancipatory frame, led by LMIC actors; (2) the reformist frame, led by donor agencies; and (3) the J2SR frame, led by USAID. We argue that while the J2SR frame is the most visible in today's discourse, the emancipatory frame continues to influence policy and rhetoric. This phenomenon reflects the importance of strategic ambiguity and the ability of the frame sponsor to exert power through ideas. It also represents the limits of donor agencies in instrumentalising frames to meet their institutional interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how the rationing of medical care for older people by frailty score was justified and operationalised in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 was expected to overwhelm the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. In March 2020, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published the 'COVID-19 rapid guideline: critical care in adults', which advised that clinicians use the Clinical Frailty Score (CFS) to inform decisions about which patients over the age of 65 should be offered ventilatory support. We present a Foucauldian Critical Discourse Analysis of this guidance and the supporting online resources. Analysis shows how the guidance merchandises the CFS as a quick and easy-to-use technology that reduces social and physical complexity into a clinical score. This stratifies older people by frailty score and permits the allocation of resources along these lines. We show how this is justified through epidemiological discourses of risk, which are merged with the language of individual mortality prediction. We discuss the proceduralisation of the CFS alongside a growing body of research that problematises its application in resource allocation. We argue that the pandemic has increased the use of the concept of frailty and that this effectively obfuscates the concept's limitations and ambiguities; the ageism implicit in the response to COVID-19 in the UK; and the relative resource scarcity facing the UK's NHS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past four years, Australia has undergone a major change in the way it funds supports and services for people living with disability. Part of this change has, of course, occurred in the discourse of disability, and the emergence of the term "support" rather than "care" has been a feature of this discursive shift. In this paper we used aspects of Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) theory to analyse how the term "support" is used in a seven key policy and program documents related to disability written over a ten-year period. We aim to understand what is meant by the term "support" and how its meaning is built up, deepened and made more complex over time through its use in Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme. The findings reveal that the meaning of support is relatively flexible, and as such develops meaning and complexity over time, reflecting a shift from a values and rights-based understanding of the concept to the operationalisation of the term in policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An empathetic patient-practitioner relationship has been shown to improve treatment and recovery among patients, and decrease the likelihood of malpractice suits among medical professionals. It is, therefore, puzzling why an empathetic approach to medical education through medical humanities has not been more widely adopted. The interdisciplinary field of medical humanities includes topics such as graphic narrative. Operating from a discourse analytic perspective, this paper presents a dissection of the place of graphic narrative in medical education grounded in the visual semiotic theories of Kress and Van Leeuwen (2001) and Jewitt and Oyama (2001). Graphic medicine is a form of graphic narrative that gives those suffering with, treating, or caring for loved ones with an illness, a form of expression that isn't available through verbal communication. Through semiotic analysis of representational, interpersonal, and compositional metafunctions of four graphic narratives composed by medical students at Penn State College of Medicine, this paper explores the significance of empathy in the doctor–patient interaction, revealing that an empathetic approach to medicine is valuable to patients and their families, as well as to doctors and medical students, and should be further implemented beginning in medical school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we advance discourse analysis to interpret how the state and direction of climate governance is imagined or interpreted by the multitude of actors present at UN climate conferences. We approach the annual Conferences of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as active political sites that project ideas, assumptions and standards for the conduct of global politics. This paper examines to what extent the discourses of green governmentality, ecological modernization and civic environmentalism identified by Bäckstrand and Lövbrand [(2006). Planting trees to mitigate climate change. Contested discourses of ecological modernization, green governmentality and civic environmentalism. Global Environmental Politics, 6(1), 51–71; Bäckstrand, K., & Lövbrand, E. (2007). Climate governance beyond 2012. Competing discourses of green governmentality, ecological modernization and civic environmentalism. In M. Pettenger (Ed.), The social construction of climate change. Ashgate] a decade ago still inform how climate governance is imagined and enacted in the post-Copenhagen era. After reviewing scholarship on climate governance and International Relations, we introduce our discursive framework and systematically compare three contending discourses of climate governance articulated at COP 17 in Durban (2011), COP 19 in Warsaw (2013) and COP 20 in Lima (2014). We end by discussing whether the discursive struggles played out at UN climate conferences represent a shift in the ways in which climate governance was imagined and enacted on the road to Paris, and to what extent our findings may help to extend scholarship in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the issue of populist parties' 'incumbency challenge' in government position. While populism became a key issue in political science during the past years, research projects focusing on the adaptation of populist parties to government positions are comparatively rare. Based on the research of West-European right-wing populist parties, scholars of the topic often argue that incumbency results in adaptation and mainstreaming processes for populist parties and in the weakening of their populist discourse and claims. The paper conducts a case study analysis of the Hungarian populist radical right party Fidesz, one of the most successful populist parties in East-Central-Europe. The research operationalizes the performative and discursive theory of populism, and analyses the discourse maintained by Fidesz during its two consecutive government period between 2010 and 2018. Based on the research results, the paper ultimately argues that the externalization of the populist 'them and us' dichotomy allowed a strategy to maintain, or even radicalize, populist discourse in government position. These findings challenge the dominant stream of populism literature stating that long-term incumbency of populist parties either results in electoral losses, or in adaptation and mainstreaming processes weakening the populist rhetoric. Even if this 'externalization strategy' might not be exclusively used by populist parties, it can be identified as a viable strategy for populists in government to overcome the incumbency challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper performs a case study of the hit television series, Transparent, and considers the public pedagogy (Burdick & Sandlin, 2013) the show produces. In order to do this, it conducts a discourse analysis (Gee, 2015, 2017) of two scenes that take place during the show's first season. We conducted interviews with six members of the show's creative team who identified these two scenes as germane to the pedagogical aspirations of the show, and they comprise the focus of the paper. Accordingly, the authors analyze both the scenes and excerpts from the interview transcripts to critically examine the ways in which the television show may teach its audience about gender, sexual fluidity and trans* subjectivities. The piece concludes with implications for how the show furthers the public Discourse regarding nonbinary, trans*, and gender creative individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relief of patients' suffering – both physical and non-physical – is a primary aim of palliative care, and has been described as an obligation and ethical duty for palliative care providers. This paper suggests that common approaches to relieving patients' non-physical suffering – such as creating opportunities to make meaning, achieve personal growth, and hone one's resiliencies – comprise the larger, more tellable part of the palliative care discourse. A more marginal, less tellable part of the discourse acknowledges that some non- physical suffering cannot necessarily be relieved. Inspired by Foucauldian writings, this paper suggests that palliative care discourse may be disciplining the relief of non-physical suffering, with unintended ramifications for front-line practice. Making more space for both the tellable and untellable stories of patients' non-physical suffering holds potential for an evolved palliative care discourse; one that un-disciplines dying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the practices deployed to de-democratise elements of the Irish planning system. It does so through scrutinizing the processes by which a new streamlined planning procedure for large scale residential developments was institutionalized. The paper investigates how a development lobby group successfully prompted the institutionalization of this streamlined procedure by momentarily capturing the policy formulation agenda surrounding a housing crisis. It demonstrates how this was achieved by defining problems regarding the democratic character of the planning system and accruing agency through solution specification and resonance with the ideologies and rationalities of pertinent political and senior civil servant decision makers. The paper undertakes this analysis by situating a discourse analytical approach within the Multiple Streams Framework. In doing so, the paper provides an original contribution to academic scholarship through novelty of theoretical application on a disquieting aspect of neoliberalism in a planning context that as yet has received limited attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of socio-economic inequality has after many decades of benign neglect, in both the academy and journalism, become an increasingly important question. The economic crisis, beginning in 2007/2008 and followed by years of austerity has exasperated class and regional division. There have been numerous socio-economic and political outcomes from this; not least the Brexit vote in the UK and the election of Donald Trump, both unimaginable a decade ago. The role of journalism and the wider media in the production and reproduction of inequality is an increasingly important issue. Has journalism treated the issue of inequality in a satisfactory fashion? Has journalism challenged powerful interests, or has journalism itself played an ideological role in the reproduction of structures of inequality? This special edition includes eight papers concerned around the area of socio economic inequality and media treatment; including investigations of discourses defending growing economic inequality and discourses around economic policy including the representation of economic ideas. The special edition is also concerned with issues of representation and inequality; including class, ethnicity and gender. And finally the special edition asks how changing conditions faced by journalists themselves may, in fact, act to prevent challenges to the discourses of inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the number of freelance journalists increases, the changing nature of work in journalism has effects and possible implications for the kinds of news discourses that are circulated. This paper explores the experiences of freelance journalists in the Republic of Ireland in the context of increasing casualised work. We consider whether challenging working conditions impacts the type of journalism work carried out by freelancers and by extension influences the construction of news and wider discourse. Following the constructionist school, this paper explores the journalistic routines and practices employed by freelancers who are often constrained by resources and time. We do so to consider the impact of these influences on discourse before the text. The study was conducted by interviewing freelance journalists about their lived experiences. This paper contributes to debates around journalism's so called 'fourth estate' function. In particular we question if this role is undermined by changes in the working environment of freelance journalists and posit that growing precarity in the news industry may act to constrain journalism that challenges power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

21st century skills is a global network of corporate and governmental influences that promotes competences suited to fit the future knowledge economy. Through a discourse analysis of an influential Official Norwegian Report, 'The School of the Future. Renewal of Subjects and Competences' (NOU 2015:8), this paper explores how ideas of 21st century skills are translated into the Norwegian education policy context. Firstly, the paper analyses the context-specific reasons for receptiveness by investigating discursive warrants. Secondly, the paper identifies how the policy document constructs a set of preferred subject positions that constitute an image of an ideal student. Thirdly, the paper investigates the discursive framing of these subject positions. We find that the policy document constructs an image of an ideal student who is creative, responsible, cooperative, engaged, self-regulated and in complete control of herself, her learning and her future. This image draws on more pronounced neo-liberal discourses, but also well-established discourses in the Norwegian context, such as social democratic progressivism. This intertwining of discourses shows how traits of homogeneity related to global ideas, as well as heterogeneity related to the Norwegian policy context, are both visible in the Norwegian translation of 21st century skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soccer in Germany represents a social sphere for the expression of masculinity and features significant ideological battles over gender roles. This paper discusses whether the growth of women's soccer can challenge the prevailing hegemonic masculinity in an area that represents an important economic aspect of consumer culture and social identity. Does women's soccer have the potential to subvert existing gender norms and challenge dominant understandings of gender? While women's soccer has seen some important areas of growth in Germany, there are reasons to remain sceptical about the subversive potential of women's soccer. This article argues that the unholy trinity of the sports-media-business alliance is the root cause for the limitations women's soccer faces in challenging hegemonic masculinity. This sports-media-business alliance has served as the structural framework that has shaped societal discourses about women's soccer in Germany. This paper discusses three of those discourses: the evolution of the macro-historical discourse over the societal role of women's soccer in post-World War II Germany; the discourse comparing men's and women's soccer and asserting the superiority of men's soccer; and the discourse on the role of femininity in women's soccer and the sexualization of the players. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the results of a study in which the discourse within 75 professional development school (PDS)-related publications was examined to determine where the power, influence, and representation lies in PDS partnerships, as indicated by how those partnerships are described in writing. The results found that while university faculty overwhelmingly wrote the articles, their perspectives and experiences were under-represented in the literature and, moreover, their influence within the partnerships appeared to be negligible. School and university administrators were similarly absent in PDS writing. Significantly, university authors and researchers represented themselves in a way that was highly deferential to practitioners and denigrated the role of theory and research in PDS work. In contrast to the traditional image of university dominance of partnerships, this research suggests that the real power and influence in PDS partnerships are the classroom teachers. The paper concludes with suggestions for creating a new, shared PDS discourse that tries to blur the artificial lines between theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability in marketing has gained some traction over the years, yet we still remain uncertain about exactly what 'sustainability marketing' means. Utilising the Scopus database, a discourse analysis was conducted on nearly 200 published journal articles. The analysis categorises multiple sustainability views and outlines three conceptualisations of sustainability marketing: Auxiliary Sustainability Marketing (which focusses on the production of sustainable products), Reformative Sustainability Marketing (which extends the auxiliary approach through the promotion of sustainable lifestyles and behavioural changes) and Transformative Sustainability Marketing (which further extends the auxiliary and reformative approaches through the need for transformation of current institutions and norms, and critical reflection). This paper then discusses how these three conceptualisations might be used by scholars and practitioners to interpret and implement sustainability marketing going forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the participation processes displayed by women with physical functional diversity in Spain, from the perspective of feminism and human rights. Responses from 18 participants with physical functional diversity allowed us to describe the female participants, as well as to explain their participation histories and plans, including any enabling or obstructing elements. This feedback also allowed us to interpret the participation models of women in positions or situations of influence. This paper, using qualitative methodology, combines grounded theory, intersectionality, and discourse narration to analyse the life contexts and elements that impede access to social participation on a level playing field for these women. The results present emancipatory tools for women and arguments for political decision-making that can help women overcome oppression and violence, thereby facilitating their integration into society. The defence of people's rights is a professional endeavour grounded in social work theory and involves drawing attention to inequalities, in this case, those faced by women with functional diversity. Social work training should prepare social workers for advocacy based on human rights and be led by people with disabilities themselves. Research into disability in social work yields advances in strategies for social and civic participation, particularly for women with functional diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, there has been growing awareness about issues of sexual consent. This has resulted in a global shift towards prioritising education and campaigns which address consent and sexual violence. Yet much discourse about consent continues to reinforce legalistic and binary notions of consent/rape which do not map onto young people's experiences of navigating sex and relationships. This paper draws on findings from an innovative 2-year participatory action research project about sexual consent with young people that involved a series of educational and action-based projects at seven sites in Southern England. By drawing on important feminist work about continuums, this paper considers the generative potential of theorising and teaching about consent using the device of a continuum. It offers insight into how young people construct consent and develops an expanded model of consent using 'continuum thinking'. Findings suggest the need to encourage and embrace a wider variety of terminology regarding consent and sexual violence in order to invite more people into the consent conversation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Function creep – the expansion of a system or technology beyond its original purposes – is a well-known phenomenon. Correction: it is a well-referenced phenomenon. Yearly, hundreds of publications use the term to criticise developments in technology regulation and data governance, but surprisingly, no-one has ever written a paper about the concept itself. This paper fills that gap in the literature, by analysing and defining 'function creep'. This creates conceptual clarity that can help structure future debates and address function creep concerns. After analysing the term 'function creep' itself, I discuss concepts that share family resemblances, including other 'creep' concepts and many theoretical notions from STS, economics, sociology, public policy, law, and discourse theory. Function creep can be situated in the nexus of reverse adaptation and self-augmentation of technology, incrementalism and disruption in policy and innovation, policy spillovers, ratchet effects, transformative use, and slippery slope argumentation. Based on this, I define function creep as an imperceptibly transformative and therewith contestable change in a data-processing system's proper activity. Argumentation theory illuminates how the pejorative 'function creep' functions in debates: it makes visible that what looks like linear change is actually non-linear, and simultaneously calls for a much-needed debate about this qualitative change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participation is a prerequisite for mutual-help housing projects aimed at the sustainable transformation of informal urban areas. Given the ambiguity in how participation is understood in such projects, a deeper understanding of the discourses and socio-spatial constraints that frame participatory design processes is needed. To unpack the problem-solving narratives implicit in participatory design projects, this paper employs a critical discourse approach to analyse two prominent mutual-help housing projects in Chile and Brazil. The findings reveal that while both cases showcase dwellers’ participation as a construction labour force, their discourses on participation follow distinct orientations that are influenced by their policy environments and the problems they target, such as material poverty and social injustice. These findings aim to provide urban designers and practitioners with a conceptual tool to rigorously examine participatory design practices and to better constrain the use of the concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anti-vax conspiracy theories are major drivers of “vaccine hesitancy”, a top-10 threat to global health according to the WHO. This paper investigates the interpretative mechanisms and discursive conditions of anti-vax discourse on Twitter (X), through the analysis of seven tweets posted by an anti-vax influencer. Mixed methods of discourse analysis are employed, focusing on the strategic character and potential social effects of discourse. As a set of relations, the code-text of anti-vax conspiracy theories is characterized by a conflict between authority and freedom. The archetype of the enemy is diffuse and composed of different elements (government, mainstream media, medical/scientific community) that are all totalized into one-and-the-same evil: “the authorities.” Overall, when facing the increasing deconstruction of epistemic authority on social media, the form (independently from content) with which anti-vax discourse seeks to provide argumentation (by framing identities and social relations in the shape of dichotomic oppositions) is fundamentally undesirable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an epoch-making event, Covid re-set understandings of teacher professionalism, raising the question what it might now mean to be a 'professional teacher'. This paper draws on data from interviews conducted in 2021 with eight academics employed in Australian teacher education programs as part of a wider study, Critical Times: Producing the Global Graduate in a Pandemic. It uses 'big D' Discourse analysis to explore complex constructions of the 'global teacher graduate' in academics' accounts of producing such graduates during a pandemic. It focuses on an expansive Discourse of professional teacher that participants invoked to construct their graduates as autonomous professionals with a shared service ethos and distinctive disciplinary knowledges. Based on retrospective, occupationally defined accounts of 'teacher' and professionalism, this Discourse appears to have a generational aspect. Despite academics' hopes, it may represent experiences of saying, doing and being a 'professional teacher' no longer available in the present epoch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to examine how consumers understand and discuss female agency portrayed in contemporary advertising in relation to the body. It employs a Poststructuralist Feminist framework, drawing on the ideas of discourse, language and subjectivity in order to understand the power structures that dominate and hinder women. The empirical material, consisting of interviews (individual and focus groups) with a total of 38 women, was analysed using a discourse analysis [Willig, Carla. 2013. Introducing Qualitative Research in Psychology. Maidenhead, Berkshire: McGraw-Hill Education]. The construction of agency and power as bound up with different perceptions of claiming space was found throughout the interviews. It also seemed as if the space-claiming ability of the model allowed for a subjective sexuality; when the models exuded agency by claiming space in different ways, then the sexuality was deemed more on their terms, as if they were more in control than when their body positions were crouched or perceived as smaller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments across the world differently invoked citizen responsibility for responding to the risk of COVID-19 infection. Approaches which focused on changing social practices served to reinforce distinctions between 'sanitary' and 'unsanitary' citizenship. This paper examines citizens' responses to public health policy messaging, exploring as a case study the reception of UK Government messaging about responsible behaviour during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. We examine the public responses to such messaging from narrative interviews with 43 people who became ill with COVID-19. These interviews were with people who identified as members of the minoritised religious and racialised groups, who were most heavily burdened by the impact of COVID-19. Interviewees challenged assumptions that they were 'irresponsible' for having caught COVID-19, and instead directed attention towards the ways in which pandemic guidance was unworkable. Some actively critiqued government messaging, questioning the problematic racialisation of pandemic messaging and challenging individual responsibilisation for the management of the pandemic. Through this analysis we demonstrate the active role of citizens in enacting, and at times resisting, health policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses significant changes in the political rationality underpinning Sweden's official reading policy between the 1940s and 1980s. Using official inquiry reports as empirical material and drawing on a discourse analytical method, we examine policy changes regarding ideal readers (what reading should result in) and administrative practices (what policy actions could be used) and the kinds of academic knowledge that was used to justify specific measures. It is found that official reading policy ceased to be limited to distributing literature and expanded to include active reading promotion. The replacement of sociological perspectives by cognitive viewpoints as constituting knowledge is also noted. It is concluded that changes in the political rationality had consequences for how the individual reader was construed, from a subject with the potential to change society to a subject who had to adjust to society. We argue that the cultivation of readers evident in reading policy constitutes a specific technique of governance not sufficiently considered in previous cultural policy research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

K-pop products generally avoid cultural particularity, but they speak to specific neoliberal aspirations of middle-class urban audiences in Asia, even if such dreams are a distant reality in working-class regions in Thailand. This paper features the popular "Deksorkrao" YouTube channel, produced by a group of K-pop fans in Thailand's northeast. We provide a discourse analysis of their home-made cover of Blackpink's "Pink Venom" that incorporates symbols particular to agricultural life. We argue that this form of creative participatory engagement is a uniquely authentic expression that speaks to a familiar discourse in Thai life, but uses K-pop as its vehicle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we show how male peer talk about menstruating women may be used to discursively bolster hegemonic masculinities and denigrate women. Focus group discussions among 37 young isiXhosa-speaking men from two South African schools were facilitated by two young men; statements garnered from a sexuality education class about menstruation conducted in the same schools were used as cues. Data were analyzed using discourse analysis. The interactive talk constructed a bifurcation: "disgusting" menstruating women versus "reasonable" non-menstruating women who abide by idealized feminine behavior and are available sexually. We argue that as the non-menstruating woman cyclically become the other (menstruating woman) in women of particular ages, the trace of disgust inhabits the signifier "woman" for these men. Menstruation also disrupted a core identity strategy of local hegemonic masculinities: virile (hetero)sexuality. Given this, discursive distancing of the self from the very topic of menstruation is necessary. Small moments of resistance to these constructions were quickly closed down, and caring masculinity emerged only in the context of negotiating sex during menstruation. Involving men in menstrual hygiene management programs may provide spaces for resistance to denigrating discourses about menstruation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consensus moderation, where collaboration and discussion take place to reach an agreement on mark allocation, is a frequently used approach to quality assurance in higher education. Unit coordinators play a vital role in facilitating consensus moderation, yet limited research has focused on their role in moderation practices. This study explored unit coordinators' perceptions and experiences of consensus moderation in Australian higher education through five focus groups. Using Foucauldian discourse analysis, data analysis identified three discursive constructions of consensus moderation situated in the wider discourse of the neoliberal university: a truly collaborative process, an illusion, and a process to manage markers. Unit coordinators in this study were positioned as either supportive, compliant but ineffective, or powerful. In contrast, markers were positioned as helpful and compliant although inexperienced and needing support; uncooperative, resistant, troublesome and demanding; or inexperienced and malleable. This paper has identified varied knowledge and understanding of consensus moderation processes and practice. These findings can inform moderation policy and practices and unit coordinator professional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the sociology of education, opponents of deficit thinking would be seen as important change agents, potentially inspiring radical policy change aimed at reducing systemic discrimination of specific sociodemographic groups. That is, contestation of deficit thinking can in theory lead to its destruction. In this paper, we argue that contestation can be overruled or downplayed via public discourses. From a discourse-historical approach, we illustrate how contestation was attenuated in the context of ethnicity in Flemish higher education in the period 1985–2020. We show how a variety of discursive processes eventually marginalize anti-deficit narratives in mass media texts, even though these stances were dominant at certain moments. The major contribution of our study is that it highlights important discursive mechanisms underlying the reproduction of deficit thinking in times of contestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present findings of a research project focusing on the tensions between the idea of 'Europe' and that of the 'nation' as well as on perceptions of national and popular sovereignty in times of crisis. We start from the assumption that in the context of the recent crisis, EU politics have become 'normal politics,' generating political passions, polarization, and a deeper Eurosceptic mood. Working on the emblematic case of Greece, we focus on two critical moments (referendum 2015 and Prespa Agreement 2018) so as to address the question of how the idea of 'Europe' was politicized and reconceptualized in its competitive symbiosis with perception(s) of the 'nation'. Drawing on discourse analysis and ethnographic research, we maintain that European identity, in this critical juncture, was not deconstructed but rather remodelled in constant tension with national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking off from the theory of social semiotics and using the methods of multimodal critical discourse analysis, this paper demonstrates how the communicative affordances of a Swedish reality makeover show, The Great Health Journey, are used to promote discourses normalizing extreme fitness ideals. It is a show that reduces health to body fitness and supports a particular health consciousness gaining prominence today, an ideology here depicted as fitnessism. Progressing the ideas put forward by Crawford with the notion of healthism, fitnessism accentuates the careful submission to strict fitness-related regimes as crucial for a healthy lifestyle. It turns the very fit body into a sign of good morals, indicating the values of self-discipline, self-control, and willpower, personal characteristics seen as crucial in the neoliberal era. But the healthiness of this fitness ideal can be questioned. Rather than serving the interest of public health, fitnessism seems to mainly encourage "aesthetic labour" and support commercial interests to exploit body dissatisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water diplomacy agents typically manage tensions between promoting peace and securing self-interest. This paper conducts a discourse analysis of a commissioned policy report by a leading Netherlands think-tank that helped inform Dutch policy on water diplomacy. We first establish the importance of the report. We then identify its focus on the theme of 'neutral broker' and apply vocabulary analysis, argumentation analysis and metaphor analysis, together leading up to frame analysis. From this report and the larger water diplomacy literature, we propose that water diplomacy must be viewed in connection with discursive politics and trade promotion. We illustrate relevant methods for future enquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the process of “technology transfer”, this paper aims to critically examine the production and usage of the information and communication technology (ICT) curriculum, and discusses its possibilities. It is found that the goals in both of the two stages of the ICT curriculum in Taiwan were rather “rhetorical”. Three problems are then discussed: an “inevitable” discourse, but opposed to its original intention, the exclusion of instructional issues, and the exclusion of students' life experience and reflection. Finally, three possibilities for the ICT curriculum are proposed: expanding educators' understanding of the ICT curriculum, developing an ICT curriculum beyond the dominance of ICT experts, and rethinking the role of teachers in the implementation of the curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

4Chan remains a compelling yet insufficiently explored phenomenon of the modern Internet. Through the years, it has developed an infamy, especially concerning its /pol/ subboard, for being a belligerent and potentially extremist online community. The subboard has developed a user base composed predominantly of males who, almost completely anonymously, through a giant number of daily posts, discuss issues in some way connected to politics. This has resulted in one predominant discourse on women and their roles in the political world, one marked by description of a presumed all-encompassing and crippling inferiority. This paper seeks to illuminate this discourse by performing discourse analysis on a database of posts made by Serbian /pol/ users. The analysis is described in three closely connected sections. The first focuses on the explicit framing of women in political roles. The second and third sections describe the discourse as it pertains to the lack of fitness women allegedly show through impersonal social relations and as intimate partners, which together construct a basis and influential linkage as subboard users argue that they are unfit for politics as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on language ideologies in relation to identity in Basque secondary education, in a context where the teaching of a minority language is part of the curriculum. More precisely, it addresses the views held by teachers and immigrant students in relation to Basque, which is a minority language in the Basque Country. The aim is to analyse these views in their discourses both separately and in interaction. Methods include documentary analysis, participant observation, individual interviews and focus groups. Results indicate that there are engrained ideologies indexing identity in tension: those of teachers as Basque supporters and those adopted by students as Basque detractors, which come into conflict during classroom interaction when it involves learning Basque. The article concludes that these two ideologies constitute opposing identities and provides educational guidelines to improve classroom dynamics when acrimonious interactions such as these occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Covid-19 has produced a set of social characters during the corona crisis and that these characters represent different approaches toward control. Social characters emerge as constructs responding to current discourses. They may function as role models in uncertain times and offer orientation. The paper identifies such characters in communication on the online platform Jodel. It analyses and discusses the properties of the following social characters, which are reconstructed inductively from the data, classifying 156 Jodel posts into the following typology: the social worker, the crisis entrepreneur, the worried and depressed loner, the crisis manager, the admonisher, and the health expert. All these characters also display different approaches to how the crisis could be controlled. Some of them highlight economic discourses, others psychological discourses, and again others bureaucratic discourses. The analysis of the social characters and their approaches to control contributes to research on the role of discourses in modern European societies and on how these discourses contribute to different approaches to controlling a crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Revolutions are moments of epiphany of the people: they manifest themselves 'physically' in the street, in demonstrations, stand-ins, sit-ins, but above all symbolically, to demand a transfer of sovereignty. The manifestation of this symbolic 'authority' is also a phenomenon of discourse, of which revolutionary slogans are the main tool. This paper aims to show how slogans can be perceived as an ambiguous form of speech, imitating the language of authority but drawing on emotion to achieve what can be defined as a coup in the language, picturing a consensual vision of the people as a united body. Through quotation and reuse, authority is sometimes built and sometimes undone in the circulation of slogans. This paper aims to show how the fantasized category of 'the people' reveals itself as a legitimate but fragile voice, since the effectiveness of revolutionary slogans cannot exceed a very limited moment of consensus and cannot give a stable definition of 'the people'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature and interplay of the logics that inform the day-to-day work of small cultural productions. Positioned in the literature on cultural and creative industries, it embraces a discourse perspective and in particular the concept of "polyphony" as an analytical lens. Empirically, the paper draws on a case study of a music association, in which the authors especially followed the production of a music festival. What emerges is a situation of pluralism of discourses, a variety of relations among these discourses, and fluidity of discourses across actors and roles, which lead the authors to question, at least in part, the presupposed artistic vs. business dualism within which cultural productions and creative industries are instead typically framed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Safe Schools Coalition Australia's teaching resource All of us, or 'Safe Schools', as it became known, was subjected to unrelenting attack from politicians in the Australian Parliament. This paper draws on analysis of the Australian Parliamentary Hansard, examining 18,000 words spoken about Safe Schools by Senators and Members of Parliament from November 2015 to August 2016. This dataset was interrogated with discourse analysis strategies to examine the ways in which the SSCA's supporters and opponents constructed narratives about Safe Schools, and its intentions and capacities. The analysis found that politicians employed two familiar metaphors: 'the child' and the 'strict father', to meet discursive aims. This paper argues that the invocation of these metaphors had repercussions for the way that the narrative around Safe Schools unfolded and offers Safe Schools as a case study with implications for how to observe future education debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The word 'vulnerable' is frequently used in public health research and practice. We use critical discourse analysis to explore the use of this term in articles published between January 2015 and January 2018 in the American Journal of Public Health and the Canadian Journal of Public Health. We find that terms such as 'vulnerable groups' are often vaguely defined or undefined, requiring the reader to 'fill in the blanks' as to who is vulnerable, why they are vulnerable, and what they are vulnerable to. Where terms such as 'vulnerable groups' are applied with some specificity, they are used as proxies for a wide range of groups, conditions and situations. Often, groups are constituted as inherently vulnerable, as authors imply that even if policies and processes change, group vulnerability will remain. Notably, populations and groups in power – and therefore responsible for generating structural vulnerability – are rarely examined. In our experience, researchers often use the word 'vulnerable' strategically to attract resources, policy interest and public concern. At the same time, we propose that the vagueness associated with terms such as 'vulnerable' conceals the structural nature of public health problems. We conclude that this vagueness can serve the political function of obscuring power relationships and limiting discussion of transformational change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lack of research on the Women's Royal Indian Naval Service (W.R.I.N.S.) has led to the misconception that most of the women recruited into the Royal Indian Navy during World War 2 were either British or 'Anglo-Indian'. In reality, by far the majority of the 'Wrins', as they came to be called, were Indian. In this paper I follow two parallel lines of enquiry. The first inspects the material stored in British archives to offer the first comprehensive account of the W.R.I.N.S.' formation, operation and dismantlement. This provides the context for an examination of the visual material created to promote the service. Comparing the few surviving photographs of Wrins with Lee Miller's photos of Wrens, I argue that W.R.I.N.S. material mediated a specific and, for the time, new set of discourses about women's role in a nation-in-making that may still speak to Indian women today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facebook is challenging professional journalism. These challenges were evident in three incidents from 2016: the allegation that Facebook privileged progressive-leaning news on its trending feature; Facebook's removal of the Pulitzer Prize-winning 'Napalm Girl' photo from the pages of prominent users; and the proliferation of 'fake news' during the US presidential election. Using theoretical concepts from the field of boundary work, this paper examines how The Guardian, The New York Times, Columbia Journalism Review and Poynter editorialized Facebook's role in these three incidents to discursively construct the boundary between the value of professional journalism to democracy and Facebook's ascendant role in facilitating essential democratic functions. Findings reveal that these publications attempted to define Facebook as a news organization (i.e., include it within the boundaries of journalism) so that they could then criticize the company for not following duties traditionally incumbent upon news organizations (i.e., place it outside the boundaries of journalism). This paper advances scholarship that focuses on both inward and outward conceptions of boundary work, further explores the complex challenge of defining who a journalist is in the face of rapidly changing technological norms, and advances scholarship in the field of media ethics that positions ethical analysis at the institutional level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a culturally based discussion of the role English as a foreign language (EFL) plays in shaping the ideological positions of those involved in teaching, learning, and planning English in Israel. The English curriculum is uniform for speakers of Hebrew (the majority) and speakers of Arabic (the minority). Furthermore, the English curriculum states that EFL pedagogy should take a global rather than an Anglo-centric approach. This situation constitutes the paper’s main assumption regarding the cultural content of EFL materials being ideologically oriented toward: (1) reproducing and perpetuating dominant Western hegemonic ideologies; (2) maintaining social misrepresentations and inequalities regarding the Other. By employing critical discourse analysis (CDA) to uncover Westcentric cultural biases in EFL discourse and cultural discourse studies (CDS) to reconstruct the role of Eastern and local Arab discourses in EFL pedagogies, I examine a new culturally critical way of observing EFL discourse and linking it with social change. I suggest a holistic, ecological EFL pedagogy that constructs EFL discourse as cultural practice. Promoting an EFL ‘ecological discourse’ prioritizes narratives emphasizing positive multicultural values, respect, and acceptance of the Other and encourages learners to consider cultural differences as the source for reading EFL texts about the Other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents lesser known accounts from policy makers whose experiences as elite informants span 40 or so years in Australian early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy history between 1972 and 2009. Drawing on a post-structuralist theoretical frame, this paper employs a Foucauldian-influenced approach to discourse analysis. Given the complexity of policy-making contexts, an adaptation of Bradley’s categories was utilised to categorise the elite informants as policy insiders according to their roles and positions within organisations. Bacchi’s approach to policy analysis was drawn upon to critically analyse the effects of policy insider categories on meanings of quality in the formation of ECEC policy. The findings raise questions about what could be known and spoken about meanings of quality in past policy-making processes. They suggest the innermost categories of policy insiders struggle to retain complex meanings of quality in final ECEC policy decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper analyses the anti-immigration discourse in Poland in terms of Proximization Theory (PT). PT [Cap, P. (2008). Towards the proximization model of the analysis of legitimization in political discourse. Journal of Pragmatics, 40, 17-41; Cap, P. (2010). Axiological aspects of proximization. Journal of Pragmatics, 42, 392-407; Cap, P. (2013). Proximization: The pragmatics of symbolic distance crossing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins; Cap, P. (2017). The language of fear: Communicating threat in public discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; among others] is a cognitive-critical model that accounts for the ways in which the discursive construction of closeness and remoteness can be manipulated in the political sphere and bound up with fear, security and conflict. It reveals how top public actors construe closeness of an external threat, to claim leadership and solicit legitimization of preventive measures to offset the effects of the threat. The present paper applies PT in the domain of state political discourse in today’s Poland, outlining strategies whereby anti-immigration stance and policies are legitimized by discursively constructed fear appeals and other coercion patterns. It demonstrates how the ‘emerging’, ‘growing’, ‘gathering’ threats - physical as well as ideological - are construed by the Polish right-wing government, who thus claim their right to oppose EU immigration agreements and pursue strict anti-immigration measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-reads a selection of critical interdisciplinary theories in an attempt to open a space in higher education for cross-cultural dialogue during the rise of Asia. Theories of globalization, deterritorialization, power/knowledge and postcolonialism indicate that students and academics have the ability to re-imagine and influence globalization processes in higher education. The current power effects of global discourses restrict the imaginaries and territories of globalization - leading to specific enactments in ways that prioritize western understandings of higher education. The paper argues for the need to explore hegemonic discursive formations of globalization to uncover processes of “othering” and the subjugation of knowledges. In this regard, a postcolonial perspective can help by opening up scenarios for the future of higher education in the Asian Century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the Wittgensteinian method of discourse analysis to analyze the narratives of Islamophobia in Donald Trump’s speeches and interviews. Theoretically, the analysis is informed by hegemonic neoliberal ideology. It argues that to sustain itself, hegemonic neoliberalism must contrast itself against other belief systems that it unilaterally denounces as inferior. After having done so, hegemonic neoliberalism then seeks to neoliberalize those belief systems. In this vein, this paper contends that hegemonic neoliberalism has an Islamophobic “face” because it “otherizes” Islam and Muslims in order to justify its neoliberalization of Islam and Muslims. Thus, this paper defines neoliberal Islamophobia as the conceptualization of Islam and Muslims as antithetical to neoliberal values. In all, Trump’s speeches and interviews contain five Islamophobic narratives: (1) radical Islam is the sole cause of terrorism; (2) radical Islamic terrorism is a global existential threat; (3) Muslim refugees and immigrants are a threat to American security; (4) the proposal to suspend entry of Muslim refugees and immigrants to the US; and (5) the faux humanitarian policy of establishing safe zones for Muslim refugees in Syria. The paper concludes with policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]