Is There a Sociologist in the Room? Raising the Sociological Voice in Educational Spaces

Sari R. Alfi-Nissan

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.21.4.02

Authors

Sari R. Alfi-Nissan University of Oxford, UK https://orcid.org/0009-0003-9947-8038

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.21.4.02

Keywords:

Sociological Research, Discourse Analysis, Education, Space, Qualitative Research

Abstract

Educational spaces are both material and human sites. While people design and build the physical space of educational institutions, these spaces also shape human behavior, interaction, and thought, playing a crucial role in the articulation of discourse. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) in educational research tends to rely primarily on document and text analysis, often overlooking the spatial dimensions of discourse and how social actors interpret the spaces they inhabit. This article presents the use of semiotic codes analysis of educational spaces as a methodological tool for studying discourse in institutions where ethnographic access is limited. Drawing on a qualitative study conducted in twelve Israeli state schools, this article examines how global discourses of entrepreneurialism and aspiration, which promote an ideal of a future-oriented and self-managing individual, are expressed and interpreted in everyday school settings. Through observations, walking interviews, and semiotic analysis, the study demonstrates how spatial articulations, wall texts, and visual displays work together with educators’ interpretations to shape and sometimes contest dominant ideals. The analysis merges critical spatial semiotics with a pragmatic approach to everyday meaning-making, offering a methodologically innovative and reflexive approach to discourse analysis in education.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Sari R. Alfi-Nissan, University of Oxford, UK

Sari R. Alfi-Nissan is a postdoctoral fellow at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA) at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on discourses of entrepreneurialism, youth aspirations, and the formation of self and identity in the iGeneration era in school education and among young people. During her Ph.D. studies at Bar-Ilan University, she was awarded the Presidential Doctoral Fellowship of Excellence and the Rector’s Award of Distinction, and won the University Presidential Award for Article Publications. She is a member of the Critical Sociology and Philosophy of Education (CRISP) research group at the University of Helsinki. Sari is also a novelist and a lecturer specializing in research methods and Storytelling of Knowledge.

References

Alfi-Nissan, Sari R. 2024. “The Discourse of Self-Fulfillment in the iGeneration Era: Ideology and Practice in Israeli Education.” Ph.D. dissertation, Bar-Ilan University.
Google Scholar

Alfi-Nissan, Sari R. and Michal Pagis. 2023. “Glitches in the Aspirational Discourse: Between Enterprise and Compromise.” Sociological Forum 38(3):708-729.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/socf.12935

Alfi-Nissan, Sari R., Shlomo Guzmen-Carmeli, and Rachel Werczberger. 2025. “‘The Light Within Me’: Celebrating the Self through Jewish Holidays in Israeli State Education.” Journal of Contemporary Religion 40(2):239-257. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13537903.2025.2520059.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13537903.2025.2520059

Andrzejewski, Carey E. and Hannah Carson Baggett. 2020. “Magic and Hocus Pocus: Teaching for Social Justice in a Qualitative Methods Course.” The Qualitative Report 25(3):864-875.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2020.4139

Ball, Stephen J. 2012. Foucault, Power, and Education. New York, London: Routledge.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203078662

Billig, Michael. 2003. “Critical Discourse Analysis and the Rhetoric of Critique.” Pp. 35-46 in Critical Discourse Analysis: Theory and Interdisciplinarity, edited by G. Weiss and R. Wodak. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230514560_2

Björkvall, Anders, Sara Van Meerbergen, and Gustav Westberg. 2023. “Feeling Safe while Being Surveilled: The Spatial Semiotics of Affect at International Airports.” Social Semiotics 33(1):209-231.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2020.1790801

Brunila, Kristiina and Päivi Siivonen. 2023. “Preoccupied with the Self: Towards Self-Responsible, Enterprising, Flexible and Self-Centred Subjectivity.” Pp. 174-187 in Neoliberalism and Education, edited by B. M. A. Jones and S. Ball. New York: Routledge.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003253617-11

Cayubit, Ryan Francis O. 2022. “Why Learning Environment Matters? An Analysis on How the Learning Environment Influences the Academic Motivation, Learning Strategies and Engagement of College Students.” Learning Environments Research 25(2):581-599.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10984-021-09382-x

Charteris, Jennifer. 2022. “Post-Panoptic Accountability: Making Data Visible through ‘Data Walls’ for Schooling Improvement.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 43(3):333-348.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2021.2018651

Coburn, Cynthia E. 2004. “Beyond Decoupling: Rethinking the Relationship between the Institutional Environment and the Classroom.” Sociology of Education 77(3):211-244.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/003804070407700302

Crampton, Jeremy W. and Stuart Elden, eds. 2007. Space, Knowledge and Power: Foucault and Geography. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing.
Google Scholar

Curtis, Rowland. 2014. “Foucault Beyond Fairclough: From Transcendental to Immanent Critique in Organization Studies.” Organization Studies 35(12):1753-1772.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840614546150

de Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Google Scholar

de Saint-Georges, Ingrid. 2004. “Materiality in Discourse: The Influence of Space and Layout in Making Meaning.” Pp. 71-87 in Discourse and Technology: Multimodal Discourse Analysis, edited by P. LeVine and R. Scollon. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Google Scholar

Dovey, Kim. 2009. Becoming Places: Urbanism/Architecture/Identity/Power. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203875001

Ecclestone, Kathryn and Kristiina Brunila. 2015. “Governing Emotionally Vulnerable Subjects and ‘Therapisation’ of Social Justice.” Pedagogy, Culture and Society 23(4):485-506.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2015.1015152

Ericsson, Stina. 2023. “Equality, Marginalisation, and Hegemonic Negotiation: Embodied Understandings of the Built and Designed Environment.” Multimodality and Society 3(4):313-335.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/26349795231178936

Fairclough, Norman. 2003. Analyzing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203697078

Foucault, Michel. 1975. Discipline and Punish. Paris: Gallimard.
Google Scholar

Foucault, Michel. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-77. New York: Pantheon.
Google Scholar

Foucault, Michel. 1996 [1971]. “The Discourse on Language.” Pp. 339-360 in The Continental Philosophy Reader, edited by R. Kearney and M. Rainwater. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar

Foucault, Michel. 2013 [1972]. Archaeology of Knowledge. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203604168

Frye, Margaret. 2012. “Bright Futures in Malawi’s New Dawn: Educational Aspirations as Assertions of Identity.” American Journal of Sociology 117(6):1565-1624.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/664542

Fuller, Martin G. and Martina Löw. 2017. “Introduction: An Invitation to Spatial Sociology.” Current Sociology 65(4):469-491.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392117697461

Gane, Nicholas. 2012. “The Governmentalities of Neoliberalism: Panopticism, Post-Panopticism and Beyond.” The Sociological Review 60(4):611-634.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2012.02126.x

Gewirtz, Sharon and Alan Cribb. 2006. “What to Do about Values in Social Research: The Case for Ethical Reflexivity in the Sociology of Education.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 27(2):141-155.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01425690600556081

Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books.
Google Scholar

Golder, Ben. 2020. Foucault and the Politics of Rights. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Google Scholar

Graham, Linda J. 2011. “The Product of Text and ‘Other’ Statements: Discourse Analysis and the Critical Use of Foucault.” Educational Philosophy and Theory 43(6):663-674.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-5812.2010.00698.x

Griswold, Wendy, Gemma Mangione, and Terence E. McDonnell. 2013. “Objects, Words, and Bodies in Space: Bringing Materiality into Cultural Analysis.” Qualitative Sociology 36:343-364.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-013-9264-6

Guhin, Jeffrey. 2021. “Why Study Schools?” Pp. 381-397 in Handbook of Classical Sociological Theory, edited by S. Abrutyn and O. Lizardo. Cham: Springer.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78205-4_17

Haapanen, Lauri and Ville J. E. Manninen. 2023. “Etic and Emic Data Production Methods in the Study of Journalistic Work Practices: A Systematic Literature Review.” Journalism 24(2):418-435.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849211016997

Hacking, Ian. 2004. “Between Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman: Between Discourse in the Abstract and Face-to-Face Interaction.” Economy and Society 33(3):277-302.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0308514042000225671

Hallett, Tim. 2010. “The Myth Incarnate: Recoupling Processes, Turmoil, and Inhabited Institutions in an Urban Elementary School.” American Sociological Review 75(1):52-74.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122409357044

Hardy, Cynthia and Robyn Thomas. 2015. “Discourse in a Material World.” Journal of Management Studies 52(5):680-696.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12113

Heberle, Viviane Maria, Felipe Antônio de Souza, and Luiza Horbach Dodl. 2020. “The Happiest Place on Earth: A Spatial Discourse Analysis of Disney’s Epcot World Showcase.” Revista Linguagem em Foco 12(3):405-426.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.46230/2674-8266-12-3983

Jones, Phil et al. 2008. “Exploring Space and Place with Walking Interviews.” Journal of Research Practice 4(2):D2.
Google Scholar

Keller, Reiner. 2022. “The Symbolic Construction of Spaces: Perspectives from a Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse.” Pp. 36-56 in Communicative Constructions and the Refiguration of Spaces, edited by G. B. Christmann, H. Knoblauch, and M. Löw. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367817183-5

Kellock, Anne and Julia Sexton. 2018. “Whose Space Is It Anyway? Learning about Space to Make Space to :earn.” Children’s Geographies 16(2):115-127.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2017.1334112

Lamont, Michèle. 2019. “From ‘Having’ to ‘Being’: Self-Worth and the Current Crisis of American Society.” The British Journal of Sociology 70(3):660-707.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12667

Lawes, Rachel. 2019. “Big Semiotics: Beyond Signs and Symbols.” International Journal of Market Research 61(3):252-265.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1470785318821853

Leiringer, Roine and Paula Cardellino. 2011. “Schools for the Twenty-First Century: School Design and Educational Transformation.” British Educational Research Journal 37(6):915-934.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01411926.2010.508512

McCullough, Keiko M. and Jessica Nina Lester. 2023. “Beyond Talk and Text: Visuality and Critical Discursive Psychology.” Qualitative Research in Psychology 20(1):74-99.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2022.2090468

Mills, Sara. 2003. Michel Foucault. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203380437

Mizrachi, Nissim. 2022. “Transcending the Liberal Grammar of Critical Sociology: The Theoretical Turn in Israeli Sociology.” The American Sociologist 53(4):492-511.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-022-09554-z

Mizrachi, Nissim. 2024. Beyond Suspicion: The Moral Clash between Rootedness and Progressive Liberalism. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.194

Morrin, Kirsty. 2017. “The ‘Space’ between Reproduction and Resistance in and ‘Entrepreneurial Academy.’” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Manchester.
Google Scholar

Morrin, Kirsty. 2022. “The ‘Contradictory Space’ of the Entrepreneurial Academy: Critical Ethnography, Entrepreneurship Education and Inequalities.” Pp. 176-199 in Inside the English Education Lab: Critical Qualitative and Ethnographic Perspectives on the Academies Experiment, edited by C. Kulz, K. Morrin, and R. McGinity. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526145390.00017

Nicholls, David A. 2008. “Putting Foucault to Work: An Approach to the Practical Application of Foucault’s Methodological Imperatives.” Aporia 1(1):1-11.
Google Scholar

Pinson, Halleli and Ayman K. Agbaria. 2021. “Ethno-Nationalism in Citizenship Education in Israel: An Analysis of the Official Civics Textbook.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 42(5-6):733-751.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2021.1902277

Preminger, Jonathan. 2020. “Meritocracy in the Service of Ethnocracy.” Citizenship Studies 24(2):247-263.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2020.1720604

Ravelli, Louise J. and Robert J. McMurtrie. 2015. Multimodality in the Built Environment: Spatial Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315880037

Rinaldo, Rachel and Jeffrey Guhin. 2022. “How and Why Interviews Work: Ethnographic Interviews and Meso-Level Public Culture.” Sociological Methods & Research 51(1):34-67.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124119882471

Rogers, Rebecca et al. 2005. “Critical Discourse Analysis in Education: A Review of the Literature.” Review of Educational Research 75(3):365-416.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543075003365

Rose, Nikolas. 1998. Inventing Our Selves. Psychology, Power, and Personhood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Google Scholar

Sam, Cecile H. 2019. “Shaping Discourse through Social Media: Using Foucauldian Discourse Analysis to Explore the Narratives that Influence Educational Policy.” American Behavioral Scientist 63(3):333-350.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764218820565

Sasson, Irit et al. 2022. “Designing New Learning Environments: An Innovative Pedagogical Perspective.” The Curriculum Journal 33(1):61-81.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/curj.125

Savage, Glenn. 2017. “Neoliberalism, Education and Curriculum.” Pp. 143-165 in Powers of Curriculum: Sociological Perspectives on Education, edited by B. Gobby and R. Walker. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar

Sayfulloevna, Salimova Shahlo. 2023. “Safe Learning Environment and Personal Development of Students.” International Journal of Formal Education 2(3):7-12.
Google Scholar

Segal, Aliza and Galia Plotkin Amrami. 2024. “Therapeutic Discourse in Teacher Professional Discourse: On Multidimensionality and Elasticity of Psychology-Based Reasoning.” Research Papers in Education 39:206-228.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2022.2125051

Senor, Dan and Saul Singer. 2011. Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle. New York, Boston: Random House Digital.
Google Scholar

Spohrer, Konstanze, Garth Stahl, and Tamsin Bowers-Brown. 2018. “Constituting Neoliberal Subjects? ‘Aspiration’ as Technology of Government in UK Policy Discourse.” Journal of Education Policy 33(3):327-342.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2017.1336573

Štremfel, Urška. 2021. “European Neoliberal Discourse and Slovenian Educational Space.” Pp. 206-222 in The Impacts of Neoliberal Discourse and Language in Education, edited by M. Sardoč. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367815172-13

Swidler, Ann. 2001. Talk of Love: How Culture Matters. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226230665.001.0001

Thompson, Lucy, Bridgette Rickett, and Katy Day. 2018. “Feminist Relational Discourse Analysis: Putting the Personal in the Political in Feminist Research.” Qualitative Research in Psychology 15(1):93-115.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2017.1393586

Zilberstein, Shira, Michèle Lamont, and Mari Sanchez. 2023. “Recreating a plausible Future: Combining Cultural Repertoires in Unsettled Times.” Sociological Science 10:348-373.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.15195/v10.a11