Discourses about Education

In our first paper on this research we described several discourses of education that became visible to us through the research. I want to outline these briefly here.

Violence as a barrier to learning

This discourse bridges divides between violence and education, but does it in a way that preserves dominant discourses about violence and education. The concept of violence as a barrier to learning initially seemed as if it might open up the possibility of addressing issues of violence. It has increasingly been a way that I and others have found not only to open talk about the impact of violence on learning, but also to argue for funding to address these issues. However, I have gradually come to see that although it may reveal women's felt experience of ceasing to learn after an incident of abuse, it does not reveal what is learned though violence or the ways in which that learning is in accord or in conflict with other learnings for girls in western society.

Judy Titzel, a literacy worker from Providence, Rhode Island, modified this approach by stressing the widespread existence of violence as a systemic barrier to women's learning. She argued "the pervasiveness of violence is preventing equal access to quality education for women." This approach allows attention to move from the individual who experiences violence to a consideration of what quality education might look like and to the broad range of systemic barriers to creating that quality for all students in all levels and types of educational setting.

In contrast the focus on a barrier to individual learning separates out those who have experienced violence and conceptualizes them as "other," maintaining a concept of the normal student who has not experienced violence. Students who have experienced violence may be seen as having "special needs," or needs which should be addressed outside the education system, while the educational system itself can remain unchanged.