ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a literature review to point to the enormous amount of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) research being conducted by education scholars. It shows how the majority of CDA work in education has focused on the bottom-up forces of teachers and learners across educational sites making room for transformational practices rather than on top-down forces associated with oppression and injustice. The chapter assesses the reconstructive-deconstructive component of the research design and provides exemplar studies to represent variation in approaches across socio-political areas within educational research. It also focuses on race, racism and anti-racism in educational practice. The chapter reflects on the development of a sub-field of CDA that has been referred to as having a reconstructive orientation or Positive Discourse Analysis. It explains various distinct socio-political areas of emphasis that captured educational researchers' attention: cultural and linguistic diversity; teachers' identities; standards; race; sexuality/gender; disability; democracy; and cultural and linguistic diversity.
