The Refusals of Citizenship: Normalizing Practices in Social Educational Discourses

The foundational assumptions of the framing discourses in social education have often been assumed to be neutral and natural. Utilizing a poststructural perspective in the analysis of the foundations of teacher education reform and multicultural education discourses this paper highlights the dangers of uninterrogated normalizing practices in social education. These discursive practices are illustrative of reductionist tendencies and governing mentalities that exclude through gendered and raced discourses. This reduction includes the legitimized (dominant) construction of the subject position of “good” teacher, citizen, and student. Talking differently about the challenges of critical and transformative efforts in social education suggests spaces for a more adequate knowing that complicates our assumptions of citizenship within social education by theorizing about the refusals of citizenship.