practices of a society. Thus teacher is not only a role—but also a position—defined
by the interlocking binary of teacher–student.
The concept of positioning opens the idea that one’s sense of self is shaped by
broader social discourses about who and how to be. One of the pedagogical
implications arising from a shift from a focus on role to a focus on positioning is the
presumption that it will not be sufficient to focus only on developing the skills and
knowledge associated with performing the role of teacher. Rather there will also be
a need to critically engage with the way in which social norms, and discourses
influence their very sense of what is possible and desirable. A post-structural
feminist model of change presumes that a collective process, incorporating critical
engagement, will assist the participants to articulate and recognise the shaping
discourses, conditions and practices that hold things in place. This suggests the
importance of emphasising the constructions of the thinking spaces that underpin
the binaries of teacher/learner, expert/novice which tend to infuse teacher–student
interactions.
14.4 Post-structural Theory of Change
Consequently, it is important to engage teachers in examining the influence of the
traditions and discourses that preexist their position. This requires a pedagogical
design which structures opportunities for critical thought, and methods for catching
the discourses at work in shaping desires, presumptions, perceptions and behaviour.
Davies argues that for people to create change in patterns of behaviour they must
engage in a threefold task through which they (a) identify the shaping discourses
which influence their senses of what is acceptable or appropriate; (b) catch these
discourses at play in shaping their responses; and (c) work collectively with others
to imagine and enable new possibilities (Davies 1993 ). The work of deconstruction
is posited to open the space for reconstruction, generating the possibility that things
can be done differently. Davies argues that the conditions of possibility affect the
choices people make:“choice stems not so much from the individual, but from the
conditions of possibility—the discourses which prescribe not only what is desirable,
but what is recognisable as an acceptable form of subjectivity”(Davies et al. 2001 ,
p. 172). From this theoretical premise, approaches to improving teacher–student
relationships will need to engage with the social discourses that influence the
“conditions of possibility”in interactions between students and teachers.
One of the challenges educators face in engaging participants in the process of
deconstruction is that dominant discourses tend to remain unnoted and therefore pass
by without critique. A key challenge for the educator, then, is tofind pedagogical
strategies which assist students to detect the shaping influence of dominant stories.
Working from this premise, it is important tofind pedagogical strategies which
help to make visible the ways in which hegemonic cultural stories“teach”ways to
understand the“problem”and suggest“conclusions”about the possibility of taking
action.
14 Repositioning, Embodiment and the Experimental Space... 211