A General Critical Discourse Analysis Framework for Educational Research

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a qualitative analytical approach for critically describing, interpreting, and explaining the ways in which discourses construct, maintain, and legitimize social inequalities. CDA rests on the notion that the way we use language is purposeful, regardless of whether discursive choices are conscious or unconscious. CDA takes a number of different approaches and incorporates a variety of methods that depend on research goals and theoretical perspectives. This methodological guide presents a general CDA analytic framework and illustrates the application of that framework to a systematic literature review of CDA studies in education. CDA research studies are no less likely than other forms of scholarly research to reproduce ideological assumptions; qualitative rigor and trustworthiness are discussed.