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During the past decade educational researchers increasingly have turned to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as a set of approaches to answer questions about the relationships between language and society. In this article the authors review the findings of their literature review of CDA in educational research. The findings proceed in the following manner: the multiple ways in which CDA has been defined, the theories of language included in CDA frameworks, the relationship of CDA and context, the question of methods, and issues of reflexivity. The findings illustrate that as educational researchers bring CDA frameworks into educational contexts, they are reshaping the boundaries of CDA.

Among critical approaches to school textbook research, critical discourse studies (CDS) has proven itself a valuable and productive analytical approach. This paper surveys a database of 60 recent peer-reviewed research articles that use CDS approaches to investigate school textbooks. All the reviewed articles were published between 2018 and February 2024 and were drawn from various scholarly databases. The review aims to trace the regional coverage of the studies, types of the analyzed textbooks, the main used CDS frameworks and the major issues that were investigated. Findings indicate that oppressive discourses are the primary focus of most studies, with gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and minority groups, being particularly prominent. While English as a Foreign language (EFL) textbooks are prevalent among investigated textbooks, the regional coverage is diverse, an evidence of the growing popularity of CDS in textbook research. The review suggests that future research should investigate underexplored textbook types, expand its focus beyond well-researched topics to include under-studied emerging global issues and incorporate under-used CDS approaches to better capture the complexities of textbook discourse.

This study analyzes the speech acts of political figures in Commission X of the Indonesian House of Representatives (Komisi X DPR RI) within the context of educational development discourse. Drawing on interpersonal pragmatics, the study critically evaluates the pragmatic force of political speeches, focusing on politeness strategies as outlined by Leech and Brown & Levinson, alongside Grice’s cooperative principle. An analysis of 66 public utterances from 2019 to 2024 reveals that while the majority of speech acts (86.4%) adhere to politeness conventions, 13.6% involve violations. These utterances reflect political figures’ attempts to influence, persuade, and criticize government policies, often employing irony and hyperbole as rhetorical strategies. The findings emphasize the importance of maintaining politeness in political discourse, especially in shaping public opinion and influencing educational policy. The study suggests that political figures should serve as role models by adhering to conversational principles while representing the public’s aspirations. Furthermore, it highlights the need for a strategic framework to guide political figures in maintaining politeness, contributing to more cooperative and respectful parliamentary dialogue.

Due to the emergence of new forms of preschools and parents’ increased freedom of choice regarding early childhood education, more research on parental preschool preferences is needed. Although preschool offers a seedbed for the development of knowledge and competencies, this development matures through interaction with parents. Therefore, parental expectations and wishes are very likely to affect children’s learning. The mobile preschool is a new form of educational practice in Sweden where children travel by bus to different places for play and learning. This form of preschool can potentially lay a foundation for social and ecological sustainability because children learn to meet diverse people, explore different places, and spend time in nature. We interviewed 15 parents of children in a mobile preschool, most from a middle-class background. The main aim was to explore how these parents explain their choice of this type of preschool. Another aim was to identify desirable competencies that the parents think their children will achieve through the mobile preschool. Six themes related to preschool choice were identified; of these themes, “being out in nature” and “enlarging the children’s reality” were the most prominent. Two clusters of competencies were distinguished: care- and cooperation-oriented competencies, and freedom- and independence-oriented competencies. After analyzing these results in relation to two current educational discourses—education for sustainable development and entrepreneurship in a neoliberal society—we show how parents participate in reproducing these discourses. These findings add novel and important knowledge to the field of early childhood educational practices concerning parental choice and preferences.

This case study examined the questions: How are relations between Hutus and Tutsis portrayed in recent History syllabi in post-genocide Rwanda, and how may the narrative about these relations affect efforts towards educating for peace? The findings were based on a content analysis of four History syllabi for Ordinary and Advanced Levels published by the Rwanda Education Board between 2008 and 2015. These findings indicate that the syllabi promulgate an ethno-nationalist narrative of Rwanda's past. In this paper, we highlight stark contradictions in the syllabi between the goals of reconciliation, unity and critical thinking and the official narrative of blame for the genocide. Although the steadying hand of the ruling party has been credited with much of the success achieved in contemporary Rwanda, this study raises concern about the government's omnipresent role in shaping educational discourse. The final discussion presents the possibility for teachers to contribute to change by utilising the space for agency left by contradictions in the syllabi.

An expert discussion about the nature of identity in social work has been led in the Czech Republic for more than a quarter century. This debate did not bring a definite shift in the understanding of what social work is, nor did it bring a shared stance on what its domain should be (Chytil, 2007; Navrátil Navrátilová, 2008; Matulayová Musil, 2013; Punová Navrátilová, 2014). However, if there is any consensus on the identity of social work, it refers to the fact that social work is a socially constructed field (Navrátil, 1998, 2013a) and therefore also multiparadigmatic or discursively open. If it is difficult or impossible to capture sectoral identity with a clear and final definition, sectoral identity can be seen in a pluralistic way through discourses. This paper is built on the premise that one of the most important factors influencing a sectoral understanding of sectoral identity is university education, which is one of the key social institutions that influence or even shape social discursive space (Etzkowitz Dzisah, 2012). In the paper we present the most influential contemporary discourses, which are applied in the education of social workers, and answer the question: What assumptions about the performance of social work and more generally the concept of sectoral identity are implied by the selected discourses of education in social work? Particular among these discourses is a socio-pedagogical perspective we compare these other discourses with and show what values are crucial for each of the different discourses and how they can enrich social work as a discipline. We proceed from the extensive overview of Czech, Slovak and English-language scientific literature, published in regard to the problem o educating social workers in the past twenty years.

This article addresses how Spanish and Japanese Social Science textbooks represent Europe and Asia discursively, and in what way the national viewpoint from each country is manifested in that representation. We analysed 15 textbooks used in secondary schools, and we focused on Geography and Civic Education subjects. Our analysis was developed mainly at semantic levels, and we examined the terms ‘Europe’ and ‘Asia’ answering four interrelated questions. We found that in both countries’ textbooks, Europe is in general described in a positive or even idealized way as a developed and rich region, whereas Asia has a reverse negative image. Underlying this opposition, we can observe a Western ethnocentric view which takes Western development as the implicit standard to rank all societies hierarchically and builds discursively the dichotomy between developed and underdeveloped countries. ‘Our’ country’s position in the world is also conditioned by this Western-centred perspective.

The present research deals with the study of the linguoaxiological plan of small-format texts in the English-language educational discourse. The empirical basis for the analysis included one hundred presentation texts posted on the websites of British urban schools. The study hypothesis is that small-format presentation texts fully reflect the value paradigm formed by contemporary British society concerning secondary education in urban infrastructure. At that, values are interpreted as axiological dominants, verbalized through a system of linguistic markers. The novelty of the approach to the analysis of the linguocultural plan of small-format texts is due to its integrated nature, involving a progressive shift from the level of evaluative linguistic resources to the identification of evaluative micro- and macroconcepts, followed by the subsequent systematization of the obtained data at the level of the relevant axiological dominants associated in the minds of society with the education sector in the context of the urban environment. According to the analysis, the absolute axiological dominant of contemporary education is the student’s “Success” interpreted in a broad sense as academic performance, as well as the ability to apply in later life the skills formed in the course of study. The results obtained can be used for further development of linguoaxiological problematics in other discursive areas.

En este trabajo se analiza la producción de recursos anafóricos en las explicaciones orales de los profesores de historia, en comparación con la que aparece en los libros de texto. En primer lugar, se realiza una revisión del concepto de anáfora y su clasificación en la literatura especializada. Se propone una síntesis que integra dos criterios de clasificación: la clase de palabra y la inferencia asociada a 6 tipos de anáfora. A partir de esta clasificación, en segundo lugar, se construye un sistema de categorías para comparar la producción de anáforas en una muestra de 19 textos de historia. Los resultados ponen de manifiesto una mayor frecuencia de anáforas gramaticales de tipo pronominal en el discurso oral y, por el contrario, una mayor abundancia de anáforas conceptuales (no equivalentes) en los textos escritos. Finalmente, se discuten las implicaciones de estos resultados en relación con la cohesión de las explicaciones históricas en el aula.

The school environment of the 21st century is shaped by rapidly changing social and societal conditions that teachers need to adapt to, increasing linguistic, cultural and ethnic diversity among other things. The development of attitudes to cope with these constant societal transformations is one of the main challenges of teacher professionalization today. In this chapter, we concentrate on the self-positioning and argumentation patterns of two Luxembourgish primary school teachers. We focus on the question how these teachers construct differences and homogeneity, what kind of categories and norms they rely on (e.g. performance, sociocultural background, and language) and in how far mechanisms of in- and exclusion become visible. With its trilingual tradition and school system (mainly Luxembourgish, French and German), and at the same time a highly diverse society with more than 170 nationalities, Luxembourg represents a particularly interesting case. As the recent PISA studies have repeatedly shown, the Luxembourgish school system (including its traditional trilingualism and strong orientation on language education) produces a high degree of inequality, and represents an important challenge especially for children of migration. With our study, which is based on in-depth interviews and which adopts an analytical approach combining elements of content and discourse analysis, we found a tendency towards a backward oriented idealized orientation of the past and a high degree of insecurity. We also show which ambivalences the teachers are confronted with and their efforts to deal with these ambivalences. We hope to contribute to a deeper understanding of how teachers position themselves vis a vis the existing diversity in schools, and which discourse and argumentation patterns they rely on. We see this study as part of research on teacher professionalization that will be useful for reflexive pre- and in-service teacher training.