Exploring reading in social semiotics: theory and methods

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to critically review how social semiotics has contributed to the study of reading and to develop an agenda for further research. We consider the theoretical and methodological resources that social semiotics has developed to account for multimodal text in the contemporary semiotic landscape, and explore how they can be used to teach critical reading skills to young people to support their participation in different social domains. We reflect on the possibilities and limitations of different analytical frameworks, highlighting barriers and possibilities for advancing social semiotic scholarship on reading and beyond. We end with a sketch of a new research agenda for social semiotics, in the light of technological change and its implications for reading.     

The prevalence of social maladjustment among school-age children

PL 94-142 mandates that students who are seriously emotionally disturbed be provided with a free and appropriate public education. Embedded in the federal definition of serious emotional disturbance is a clause that excludes socially maladjusted students from the diagnostic category. Although socially maladjusted children may therefore not receive special education services, their presence in the schools may have implications for society and particularly for the educational system. However, there is little data concerning the prevalence of socially maladjusted students in the schools. The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of social maladjustment in two rural/suburban school systems in the southeastern United States. Results of the study indicate that the percentage of students reported as exhibiting characteristics of social maladjustment is sufficiently high to indicate that services beyond special education may be necessary to meet their educational and social needs.     

Performance,structure and ideal identity: Reconceptualising teachers' engagement in online social spaces

In recent years, teachers have turned to online social spaces for peer‐to‐peer interaction in increasing numbers. This online engagement has been highlighted by both practitioners and academics as having important implications for teachers' professional learning and development. However, there is a need to move beyond instrumental discourses that simply discuss engagement and technology in terms of costs and benefits, and analyse the complex social contexts in which engagement takes place. Therefore, presenting data from a digital ethnography of three online social spaces used by teachers, this paper uses professional identity as an analytical framework in order to understand teachers' online engagement in holistic terms in a way that acknowledges the messy social realities in which teachers work. It then presents a new theoretical framework for conceptualising teachers' professional identity that develops the concept of embedded ideal identity and takes into account context, social complexity, structure and agency.     

Teachers' social class,professional dispositions and pedagogic practice

Through theoretically driven case studies, the research reported here considers the ways in which students in different social class settings are inducted into school knowledge. The paper brings to the centre the social class positioning of teachers in considering their role in schooling processes. The central question of the paper is whether we can establish a relationship between teachers' own social class backgrounds, their professional dispositions and their pedagogic practice. The interest emerges from a long-standing assumption that teachers are middle class, and reproduce the practices associated with that social location. The paper is exploratory and is not able to provide a definitive answer to the question of the relationship between class, professional disposition and pedagogic practice. Although it suggests a relationship between teachers' social class position and schooling practices, the main contribution of the paper is to offer a metric for exploring the issue further. That is, through a specifically selected sample, the paper provides a means for considering the implications of teachers social class background, professional dispositions and pedagogic practice for the processes of the reproduction of social inequality, and its interruption.     

ADHD medication and social self-understanding

This paper addresses some of the contradictions, dilemmas, and struggles in a Danish primary school practice involved in medicating children diagnosed with ADHD. It draws on a social practice research study of a 7-year-old boy diagnosed with ADHD, who was medicated against his will. It focuses on his struggles when being medicated, and particularly on meaning making processes and changes in social self-understandings in the first grade class, 1B, generated among students, teachers, and parents. The paper is an analysis of moments and movements in Dennis’ social self-understanding generated as part of a social practice research project combining a variety of methods, ranging from collective biography inspired group work and qualitative interviews with teachers and students, photo-based interviews, and participant observation in the school. The study has a double aim of generating theory regarding social self-understanding and ADHD medication, and analyzing concrete contradictions, dilemmas, and action possibilities in a primary school, enabling new “practice recognitions” that (at least partly) move beyond practices that generate marginalized social self-understandings.     

The social implications of national assessment

This paper considers the implications of national assessment in the United Kingdom. The increased emphasis on competition and on differentiation of children, the consequences for pedagogy, the likelihood of raising standards of performance, and the difficulties of addressing bias in open-ended models of assessment are all discussed. Emphasizing the position of national assessment within the ERA, the paper concludes that the effect will be to control what is taught, to raise standards of performance on the assessment, and to emphasize inequalities in educational attainment, reflecting social inequalities.Some of the material in this article appears in Gipps, 1990.     

Beyond the far too incessant schism: special education and the social model of disability

Special education critics' vigorous appraisals of the social model of disability, along with their analysis of its implications for special education, provide a valuable forum for meaningful dialogue about how educators are to understand the nature of disability. In this article, we offer our response to their recent articles. As advocates of the social model, we find their critiques intriguing, at moments a bit provocative, but more importantly we find in their work an opportunity to advance beyond the far too incessant schism between those who support the medical model of disability and those who endorse its alternatives.     

Sustainability of educational change: The role of social geographies

The paper examines the conceptual and strategicrole of social geographies in contributing toor undermining sustainable school improvement.It develops a four-fold definition ofsustainability as involving improvement overtime, within available or achievable resourcesthat does not impact negatively on thesurrounding environment and that promotesecological diversity and capacity more widely.A conceptual framework of social geographies isdeveloped along with its implications forsustainability. This analysis is then appliedto a further framework of seven strategicgeographies of educational change whichdeliberately try to arrange, order or exploitspace in particular ways to secure schoolchange. These are market geographies, networkgeographies, virtual geographies, geographiesof scaling up, standardized geographies,differential geographies and geographies ofsocial movements. The paper concludes byreviewing the other contributions to the volumeon the theme of social geographies ofeducational change, and describes the SpencerFoundation funded conference from which theysprang.     

School diversity and social justice: policy and politics

This paper focuses on the long established diversity in the English education system – independent schools, grammar schools and religious schools – and in so doing explores tensions between education policy, politics and social justice. It explores the differential access to these different types of school, their social composition and implications for social justice and for wider society. It is argued that if social justice is to be a goal of government, further policy changes are needed over and above those that have already been made. However, the political challenges, which have limited policy changes to date, would be significant.     

A social learning explanation of moral development

This paper presents a social learning explanation of moral development. From a social learning perspective, children abstract an array of generative rules which guide moral judgments and behaviors. Unfortunately, this social learning position has been misunderstood. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to clarify these misunderstandings and to discuss the educational implications of a social learning approach to moral development.     

The challenge to professionals of using social media: teachers in England negotiating personal-professional identities

Social media are a group of technologies such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn which offer people chances to interact with one another in new ways. Teachers, like other members of society, do not all use social media. Some avoid, some experiment with and others embrace social media enthusiastically. As a means of communication available to everyone in modern society, social media is challenging teachers, as other professionals in society, to decide whether to engage with these tools and, if so, on what basis – as an individual (personally), or as a teacher (professionally). Although teachers are guided by schools and codes of practice, teachers as individuals are left to decide whether and how to explore social media for either their own or their students' learning. This paper analyses evidence from interviews with 12 teachers from England about their use of social media as to the challenges they experience in relation to using the media as professional teachers.. Teachers are in society’s spotlight in terms of examples of inappropriate use of social media but also under peer pressure to connect. This paper explores their agency in responding. The paper focuses on how teachers deal with tensions between their personal and professional use of social media. These tensions are not always perceived as negative and some teachers' accounts revealed a unity in their identities when using social media. The paper reflects on the implications of such teachers' identities in relation to the future of social media use in education.     

Life at the margin: education of young people,social policy and the meanings of social exclusion

This paper explores the term ‘social exclusion’ in the context of new social and education policies being constructed in the UK. It examines the links with terms such as ‘poverty’, ‘deprivation’ and ‘equality’ and the implications of policy developments for those identified as socially excluded. Tensions and contradictions appear to be emerging between the UK government's stated policy intentions to address social exclusion, and local knowledge and experience. Issues of power, market power, participation and inclusiveness are explored specifically in the context of education. The paper draws on research being undertaken in a deprived inner-city area with voluntary sector organizations that provide education for marginalized young people.     

CCTV,school surveillance and social control

Burgeoning fears for safety in UK schools have resulted in a rapid growth in the use of various security measures, most notably closed‐circuit television (CCTV) systems. Utilising semi‐structured interviews and non‐participant observation this research examines how CCTV is used in schools, explores the manner in which this facilitates social control and considers the wider implications of such surveillance technology. It is argued that this technology, which is predominantly focused on students, is effective in facilitating direct observation, but does little to foster self‐surveillance in the longer term. It is concluded that CCTV use in schools represents an underlying shift in values, away from exercising social control through enculturation towards system integration. This has important ethical implications.     

Childhood social anxiety and social support-seeking: distinctive links with perceived support from teachers

Social support-seeking is recognised as an important strategy used by children to cope with negative emotions. However, there are important gaps in our knowledge about children’s perceptions of different sources of social support, and the associations that these perceptions have with individual differences in socio-emotional functioning. The present study focused on elucidating the links between social support-seeking and social anxiety in children, with particular attention to support from teachers. One hundred and eight 11- to 12-year-olds completed measures of social anxiety and depressive symptoms, as well as a questionnaire measuring social support-seeking processes for coping with a generic friendship problem. Preliminary analyses showed that teachers were less likely to be approached for social support than parents and peers, and were viewed as least available and least effective. However, social anxiety—independently of depressive symptoms and gender—was positively associated with a greater self-reported likelihood of approaching teachers for support. Moreover, this effect was partially mediated by the perceived effectiveness of emotion-focused support from teachers. These results point to theoretical and practical implications regarding the salience of social support in school for children with higher levels of social anxiety.     

The relationships between social participatory roles and cognitive engagement levels in online discussions

Understanding the relationship between social interaction patterns and cognitive engagement levels has critical implications on collaborative learning theory, pedagogy, and technology. This study used a multi-method approach to examine the relationship between students' social participatory roles and cognitive engagement levels within asynchronous online discussions. Results showed that students' social participatory role was a critical indicator of cognitive engagement level. Socially active students made more cognitive contributions to knowledge inquiry and knowledge construction. But there were exceptions: after taking leadership roles (i.e., discussion designers and facilitators), some students moved from peripheral participation to active participation. Second, there was a progressive development process: individual students' deep-level knowledge inquiry could trigger peer interaction, which could further advance group knowledge construction. Third, students had a tendency to keeping social-cognitive engagement patterns throughout discussions. Based on the result, this study proposed implications for collaborative learning theory, pedagogy support, and tool development.     

Net generation at social software: Challenging assumptions,clarifying relationships and raising implications for learning

This paper takes as its starting point assumptions about use of information and communication technology (ICT) by people born after 1983, the so called net generation. The focus of the paper is on social networking. A questionnaire survey was carried out with 1070 students from schools in Eastern Finland. Data are presented on students’ ICT-skills generally; their access to the Internet; their use of social software; and time spent on the Internet compared to watching television. Results show that whereas there are some general characteristics of ICT use that can be applied to net generation students, when it comes to social networking there are differences in the way they use software. A critique is offered of generalisations about the net generation and some implications for learning arising from the findings are discussed.     

The scholarship of teaching and learning from a social justice perspective

We argue that there is a reciprocal relationship between all scholarly activities, most importantly between teaching, learning, research and professional learning. The article builds on the work of others who call for a social justice approach to inform the SoTL. It focuses on the implications for professional learning, as an aspect of the SoTL which has been neglected. The tripartite account of participatory parity as advanced by Nancy Fraser is shown to be a valuable frame to describe instances of social justice, as well as the kind of institutional arrangements that should be instituted to support participatory parity. Alongside this, the notion of a ‘pedagogy of discomfort’ is shown to be an effective, but challenging means to advance awareness of justice and injustice amongst academics. The article draws on examples from three action based research projects run by the authors.     

The relationship between temperament and social adjustment to peers

In recent years, evidence has accumulated indicating that peer relations constitute an essential component of child development. Although investigators have explored a number of factors that affect peer relations, few have considered the impact of temperament. The present study investigated whether temperament is related to a child's initial reactions to peers in a preschool setting and to changes in social behavior over time. The central hypotheses were confirmed: temperament was related to initial and later social behavior with peers. The theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed.     

Maternal social support as a predictor of mother-child stress and stimulation

There is increasing interest in the role of social support in determining risk for child abuse and neglect. The present study assessed the relationship between maternal social support and two areas: stress in the mother-child relationship: and level of stimulation provided in the home. Maternal social support was assessed prenatally and at a two-year follow-up, while the latter variables were compiled at the two-year follow-up. The data were obtained from 38 urban, low SES (80% on public assistance) mothers and their 2-year-old children. Maternal social support correlated positively with level of stimulation and negatively with level of mother-child stress, and was the best predictor of both, relative to any SES, mother or child variables. In addition, high stress, low support mothers provided significantly less stimulation to their children. The theoretical implications for social support as a mediator variable as well as its implications for early identification and prevention efforts in abuse and neglect are discussed.     

The interaction between social goals and self-construal on achievement motivation

The motivational effects of mastery goals and performance goals have been widely documented in previous research on achievement motivation. However, recent studies have increasingly indicated a need to include social goals so as to gain a more comprehensive understanding of achievement motivation. The purpose of the present research was to examine how social goals predicted achievement motivation among students with different self-construals (independent versus interdependent). In Study 1, 134 Chinese 8th graders completed a questionnaire on self-construal, social goals, and avoidance behaviors. In Study 2, the causal effect of self-construal and social goals on students’ willingness to take a course for improvement after failure was examined with experimental manipulation. Participants were 121 Chinese 7th graders. Results demonstrated that social goals yielded higher report of avoidance behaviors (Study 1) and lower willingness to improve after failure (Study 2) for students with independent self-construal, but lower report of avoidance behaviors (Study 1) and higher willingness to improve after failure (Study 2) for those with interdependent self-construal. The research sheds light on the theoretical framework of achievement motivation that goes beyond mastery and performance goals.