ABSTRACT
Government policy promotes models of teacher learning largely located in schools, with universities performing a supplementary role. Habermas’ work aims at developing a conceptualisation of an ideal state of communication, free of the distorting influences typical of modern, complex societies. In seeking this ideal state, he argues, we should aim to rid our language of subjective bias. As Habermas puts it, ideal communication operates in the “third-person”. Lacan’s notion of the “Four Discourses”, described earlier, provides a structure for understanding such shifting discursive alignments. In the positions of “Master” and “University”, the image have of the world’s functioning and places within it might be predicated on an underlying principle of dominance or certainty. The discourses of the “Master” and “University” present contingent discursive formations as certainties. A tutor diary entry followed an observation of a student’s teaching in school and subsequent discussion.
