Ideology, rationality and reproduction in education: a critical discourse analysis

In undertaking a critical discourse analysis of the professed aims and objectives of one of the most influential curricula in the teaching of thinking, this article foregrounds issues of power and ideology latent in curricular discourses of rationality. Specifically, it documents the subtle but powerful ways in which political and class commitments are (re-)produced in the forms of thinking that are valued in schools and societies. Through a nuanced analysis of the language features of the text and the social and political ideologies that underpin it, the article argues that such curricula engage in shaping our common-sense understandings of what thinking and rationality is and should be in instrumental forms that both connect to neoliberal prerogatives and that facilitate the social reproduction of a particular fraction of the middle class.