Describing children at risk: experiments with context.
Drawing on science and technology studies (STS), this article explores information practices around children deemed to be 'at risk'. Risk is not a self-evident epistemic object. Different professional instructions mobilize the concept of context to emphasize the partiality and contingency of descrip...
| Published in: | Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education Vol. 40; no. 1; pp. 16 - 29 |
|---|---|
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Published: |
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Feb2019
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=133803750&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 133803750 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 01596306 54J jtl: Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education issn: 01596306 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Feb2019 vid: 40 iid: 1 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 133803750 10.1080/01596306.2018.1549701 ppf: 16 ppct: 13 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 889KB tig: atl: Describing children at risk: experiments with context. aug: au: Ratner, Helene affil: Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Copenhagen, Denmark su: Science education At-risk behavior Educational psychology Uncertainty Epistemics sug: subj: Science education At-risk behavior Educational psychology Uncertainty Epistemics keyword: actor-network theory children at risk Context description information practices multi-agency collaboration science and technology studies (STS) ab: Drawing on science and technology studies (STS), this article explores information practices around children deemed to be 'at risk'. Risk is not a self-evident epistemic object. Different professional instructions mobilize the concept of context to emphasize the partiality and contingency of descriptions of 'risk'. This article develops the concept of 'description device' to account for how the concept of context (1) displaces a teacher's attention from child to context, hence materializing a relational view of the child, and (2) results in written statements rendering children at risk informational. Empirically, it compares how social services and educational psychology enact different 'contexts' in need of teachers' description, and how these descriptions tame the uncertainty deemed to pertain to children at risk. This type of description has consequences not only for the children being described but also for teacher subjectivities. The article concludes that context is both an opaque and generative description device, displacing teachers' attention from child to context. This effects an enlargement of the world but also a teacher subjectivity that is reflexive about the partiality of her descriptions. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education holder: Taylor & Francis Ltd dt: @attributes: year: 2019 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
|---|