Classroom Interaction and Construction of Social-Cultural Identity: Building a Discursive Perspective

Abstract

Classroom is a place where students participate in various topics either directly or indirectly as participants or spectators. During these classroom encounters, their socio-cultural identities are profoundly influenced. There has been very little attention paid to the link between classroom interactions and pupils' socio-cultural identity construction. This paper attempts to build a perspective and empirical framework for investigating the link between classroom interactions and their impact on construction of socio-cultural identity of students. It is argued that this can be enquired into with the help of ‘critical discourse analysis’ theory provided by ‘Norman Fairclough’. The purpose of this article is to understand the need for a new critical framework for studying the relationship between classroom interactions and the construction of students' socio-cultural identities. Fairclough's theory views language as a social tool for hegemonic control, and thus his framework provides a valuable perspective in investigating classroom interactions from a critical standpoint.