The discursive construction of power in teacher partnerships: Language and subject specialists in mainstream schools

Abstract

This article shows how language and subject teachers in London secondary schools are positioned differently through their discursive performance of pedagogies and knowledge and how members of classroom communities view language and subject teachers as unequal. The data analysis drew on ethnography of communication (Hymes, 1972) and semiotic functional approaches (Jakobson, 1971, 1981) to explain the observations, interviews, class transcripts, and government/school policy documents collected during the 1-year research period. Findings raise questions about the success of a policy that seeks to make teaching relationships between language specialists and subject specialists the main support for meeting the needs of bilingual children in London secondary schools.