An analysis of the discourses and discursive devices used to represent learning disability in the stories told in the classroom to students by learning disability nurse teachers

摘要

This study explores the complexities of the social construction of learning disability. The focus is upon the ways in which learning disability nurse teachers represent their experiences of learning disability nurse practice in stories. The stories focussed upon in this study were identified in a series of 20 audio taped teaching sessions with student learning disability nurses. The research investigations centred upon the learning disability constructions in some 30 stories and were also supported by 5 subsequent interviews with the teachers and observations of 7 teaching sessions. The findings highlight some interesting ideas about the social construction of learning disability by nurse educators and also the personal tensions expressed by learning disability nurses trained in the past but faced with the dominant discourses of today. As a qualitative study, this research drew upon the ideas of social construction and competing discourses most commonly associated with Michael Foucault in his works Discipline and Punish and Madness and Civilisation. In particular the stories were investigated for the influences of medicalising and professionalising discourses which construct people with learning disability as powerless and the learning disability nurse with the power to control. The investigations began with a form of Foucauldian discourse analysis which was used to examine the transcribed storied material, interviews and observations. Following initial engagement the investigations also developed with the aid of discourse analysis more heavily influenced by the discursive psychology of Potter and Wetherell (2004). Both forms of discourse analysis assisted the investigation of the many ways or modes in which learning disability was constructed by nurse teachers.