Problematizing Identity: Everyday Struggles in Language, Culture, and Education

ISBN-13: 9780805853391 Publisher: Taylor & Francis Publication date: 11/29/2007 Pages: 248 Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d) This book argues that identity as a term needs to be problematized, not taken for granted – for both the risks and the potential that the concept offers to educators for understanding issues of social inequality and how social inequality is being reproduced, and for exploring possible alternative ways educators can work with identity de/formation processes to seek to break the social reproduction structures mediated through identity fixing and essentialization. It provides some of the meta-language and theoretical, analytical tools to embark on such a practice of making the familiar strange, problematizing the taken-for-granted, and uncovering the linguistic, discursive, and cultural processes that serve to subordinate some people while privileging others. The chapters are organized around three themes: Identity, Class, and Difference; Gender, Eth