Discourse Analysis, Methods, Theory and Practice: Investigating Girls and Women in Sciences

Discourse Analysis is widely is used as a method in social research. However, the how and what to analyze is not always clear, particularly in the latest perspectives dubbed Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). CDA is attractive because of the way it identifies a social problem and then goes on to use language lenses to study it. The connection between social problems and language, however, is not always easy. This book gives a snapshot of the trends in discourse analysis, and then goes to give an example of doing discourse analysis in a research that focused on the social-educational problem of girls/women missing out in sciences. Using discourse analysis, the connection between gender, science and language is made; hence unearthing the concerns about women into sciences stemming from society, which though mentioned in many documents, have not yet been spelt out before using linguistic lenses. The author shows the subtle ways in which science classroom practices are influenced a lot by what is within and outside the immediate wall of the classroom and also by the wider society. The methods mentioned in this book will be relevant to researchers interested in discourse analysis in social science specifically in history, political science, linguistics, communication and education practitioners as well as those in industry interested in raising the numbers of women/girls in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).