| Using critical discourse analysis this dissertation examined the mainstream, dominant discourse of the discipline of educational psychology. This analysis included a discussion of social, political, and epistemological issues. From a position of Foucauldian skepticism regarding the human sciences assumptions of educational psychology were interrogated, and the discipline as a "regime of truth"--a nexus of power, knowledge, and social control--was critiqued. Evidence was offered showing that the discourse of the discipline produces the "truth" of the discipline.;Two textbooks nominated by members of Division 15 (Educational Psychology) of the American Psychological Association as "classic" texts were utilized as sources of the discipline's dominant discourse. These mainstream texts are presented as social artifacts and sites of social struggle embedded in political, historical, and economic contexts. An intertextual reading, i.e., reading "texts against texts", provides a way for perspectives that have been marginalized or disqualified from the mainstream disciplinary perspective to provide counter-discourses to mainstream texts. The result is the disrupting of knowledge claims and practices sanctioned by the discipline, through which students are judged and labeled by their approximation to the "norm" established by the discipline.;The practice of intertextual reading and critical analysis is recommended as a way for educational psychologists and those being initiated into the discipline to work toward a critical literacy. Through such literacy educational psychologists may become more reflexive regarding the discipline and their own practice. |
