Teacher Education as a Form of Public Discourse: The Public and the Private in Conversations About Teaching

Abstract

Introduction:  One of the great contributions of postmodern thinkers like Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida to the human sciences generally, in which Education is situated, has been the concept of "discourse."  To call a particular way of thinking and acting a discourse is to reference the way meaning is achieved amongst actors by a mutual agreement, direct or tacit, about key terms and actions.  A discourse is a kind of self-enclosed semantic and practical universe within which people operate "as if" everyone knew what everyone else is talking about.