Relative truths regarding children's learning difficulties

This study explored the discursive subject positions §that 18 parents, teachers and administrators §involved with children identified as experiencing §learning difficulties in a Queensland regional §primary school between September 2003 and August §2004 drew upon to explain the causes of those §difficulties. The study used a post-structural §adaptation of positioning theory and social §constructionism and a discourse analytic §method to analyse relevant policy documents and §participants'' semi-structured interview transcripts §to interrogate what models were being used to §explain a student''s inability to access the §curriculum. Despite the existence of alternative §explanatory frameworks that functioned as relatively §undeveloped resistant counternarratives, the study §demonstrated the medical model''s overwhelming §dominance in both Education Queensland policy §statements and the participants'' subject positions. §This dominance shapes and informs the adult §stakeholders'' subjectivities and renders the child §docile and potentially irrational.