ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses textbook discourse as a hegemonic strategy of professional identity formation in mainstream economics. Two interrelated explanatory arguments will be presented. The first argument is concerned with the place of textbooks in the field of economics. It will be shown how the social field of the economics discipline facilitates the development of meritocratical values. The second part of the explanation is based on a discourse analysis of textbook fragments. The chapter shows how a textbook culture contributes to the formation of elitist professional identities in mainstream economics. It explains how and why the schoolmaster’s voice refers to a post-republican, neo-scholastic modality of academic knowledge production in teaching contexts.
