Hello everyone.
I would be very grateful if any of you could advise me.
I am currently studying at Master's level on a social science programme in the UK, and my undergraduate degree was in English Literature, a discipline in which the overall aims and processes involved with a dissertation are very different. There were no attempts to test hypotheses, for instance.
For this reason, I am feeling somewhat swamped by the new approach I am faced with of 'refining the hypothesis/question's of my current project.
I have been doing a lot of reading on critical discourse analysis, and I am wanting to apply it to my dissertation. This much I know. CDA has a lot of parallels with the research skills I used in English, and I think this is both where my strengths and my passion lie - interrogating discourses which maintain power is of central interest to me.
The topic(s) I am interested in applying it to are:
1. Representations of deprived areas and the people who live there (e.g. often as individuals making poor choices, in a neoliberal lens)
I know some work has been done on this so far (Fairclough, 2002; Levitas, 1998).
2. Representations of upward mobility as an exercise of 'good agency', specifically supported by the New Labour years through a discourse of responsibilisation and aspiration
And 3. lived experience of upward mobility from people in deprived backgrounds into higher education, and specifically here examining whether 'lower' class (under, and working, though I am aware these are contested terms) students feel a pressure to 'assimilate', and lose their cultural backgrounds in order to support the hegemonic neoliberal discourse of meritocracy.
For part 3, I would want to use mixed methods and conduct qualitative research via probably interviews with students in HE from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
By critiquing the discourses which go into silencing cultural difference along class lines, I hope to interrogate whether upward mobility, when it does happen, essentially invites such people not to "challenge the theoretical underpinnings of the State or the organizational structures of institutions" but rather to have the "opportunity to access those structures in an equitable fashion" (Coffey), thereby strengthening hegemonic support for meritocratic values which in turn increase inequalities for people who are already disadvantaged.
If anyone can give me some comments on whether this is realistic/problematic/too novel/too researched, that would be a huge pressure off of me.
Thank you
I think what will be studied is very interesting. Something that has not been studied in detail. Many studies see generally that culture will determine its individual movement to improve living through education. However, I think it is interesting that individuals who are under-position due to cultural pressure then refuse to share the policies adopted by compressing education as a basis for determining classroom improvement in society, including obtaining certain jobs. The point is, I argue, debated when it is in a general system that it is difficult for the individual to circumvent the demands of education as a basis for obtaining better employment. In fact, many successful entrepreneurs do not depart from an adequate education. What, then, is the question whether the entrepreneur is an example of an individual who refuses education as the basis for determining a job so as to seek to build his own work or business. If that's the case, then such conditions are the driving force for the success of a lowly educated individual in his or her own business. So my thoughts, thank you.
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