ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on what is said about children and their families who live in poverty. It describes how what is known about young people is constituted through discourse and emerges in a space of difference and tension – between potential and possibility. One of the ways in which teachers make sense of low literacy achievement, particularly in boys, is to blame poor behaviour. The effects of schooling practices – namely, underachievement in literacy – can be attributed to the culture, mindset and aspirations of the poor. Recognising these discursive effects does not shift the blame from families to educators and it does not deny the impact of the material conditions of schooling in high-poverty contexts. Foucault described discourse as: ‘the difference between what one could say at one period and what is actually said’. Discourse shapes what can be done, the questions that can be asked and the solutions that can be considered.
