Abstract
The student category of ‘at risk’ is often assigned to learners who are considered by teachers and school administrators to not meet specified curriculum and assessment requirements. It is a pervasive term that manages to go unquestioned. Being ‘at risk’ implies being out of alignment with opposite terms, that is terms such as stability, safety, not at risk. This way of thinking can lead to an assumption that there is a fixed, normal position for learners, and that being other than that involves becoming ‘risky’. This paper questions the very idea that such a binary exists and explores the ways teachers talk about learners who are considered to be ‘at risk’ within the schooling system. We also argue that teachers’ talk about such learners and their ‘at riskness’ can constitute learners in ways that are either more constraining or more enabling to their pathways through schooling. The paper draws on our experience of analysing teacher interview data collected across a variety of research projects with teachers in Australian schools. Employing discourse analysis focusing on the discursive element of time as we trace temporal markers in teacher interview talk, we provide specific analysis of one teacher’s talk about her English language learners on their path to also becoming literate in English. Her talk demonstrates an optimistic and generative discursive position that challenges views of English language learners as ‘wanting’ and potentially as ‘at risk’.
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Alford, J., Woods, A. Constituting ‘at risk’ literacy and language learners in teacher talk: Exploring the discursive element of time. AJLL 40, 7–15 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03651980
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03651980