ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that education is explored as characterised by historical discourses which have shaped and changed the way in which education is thought about, and how the purposes of schooling are defined. The notion of discourse is used as a critically exploratory tool which helps us think about education and what happens in school more critically, and not just as a result of emerging educational policy. The chapter offers a historical analysis of common discourses in education and revisits important developments in education and schooling. Although discourse is a very tricky notion to define, it is important to lay some basic definitions which give an insight of what discourse is. S. Hall speaks of discourse as a group of statements which provide a language for talking about – i.e. a way of representing – a particular kind of knowledge about a topic.
