Can Classroom Teachers Become Political Actors?

The present workshop aims at investigating the extent to which teacher discourse projects teacher identity and ideology defined by Popper (1987) as an unavoidable moment of all thinking andacting. Van Dijk (2004) argues that ideologies are typically, though not exclusively, expressed andreproduced in discourse and communication. Therefore, teachers who are deemed to be social actors unavoidably represent their ideologies through enacting discursive strategies and rhetorical devices inthe classroom as a social context of situation and culture in order to exercise power and manipulatetheir audience's personal and social cognition (hence political actors). Some teachers may not be acutely aware of the impact of their classroom discursive acts on student cognition. On the one hand, some discursive strategies should be eliminated, reduced or made less observable in that they aresuggestive of their false ideologies regarding monarchical power. On the other hand, some others could prove to be constructive therefore legitimate, for they help exercise disciplinary power. Teachers are, therefore, suggested to learn how to 'discursively' manage their classes in order to empower both themselves and their students.