Strategies of legitimation in sex education texts

[摘要] This study seeks to investigate strategies of legitimation within the politically sensitive subject of sex education. Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) is one of the few areas of the present UK school curriculum which is not compulsory, and which contains a parental right to withdrawal of their child. The thesis looks at how arguments are marshalled in a small set of sex education manuals for British teenagers for the purpose of legitimating the subject to a potentially ambivalent readership. Legitimation strategies are identified within the texts and then broken down into their composite parts using the recently-developed argumentation framework created by Fairclough and Fairclough (2012). It is argued that the framework can be extended for use beyond their own remit of political texts, and that this can provide analysts of educational texts with a useful tool for investigating latent discourses.

[发布机构] University:University of Birmingham;Department:School of English, Drama and American & Canadian Studies, Department of English Literature

[关键词] L Education;L Education (General)