" I See it All, but I Don't Have the Power": Exploring Institutional Change Talk and Subject Positioning in the Context of Higher Education Administration

• Main Author: Olle, Chad D.
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Boston College 2019
• Subjects: Critical; Discourse; Institution; Justice; Positioning; Subjectivity
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:108403

Thesis advisor: David L. Blustein === Critical studies have developed a tendency to schematically neglect the ways in which individuals actively participate in social and self-construction, even while constrained by the systems in which they are embedded. The current study explores discursive forms of self-construction embedded in an organizational hierarchy. Under critical analysis are 13 interviews with individuals employed as mid-level administrators by a large, private Catholic university in the United States (heretofore referred to as “PC University”). As mid-level university employees, most administrators are structurally bound to institutional priorities to some degree, regardless of any personal interpretation of supporting and competing discourses. In the context of this “middle ground,” people may be situated at intersections of overlapping and competing discourses, feeling pulled to position themselves differently depending on the context and its perceived stakes and expectations. How and why they make sense of, (re)constitute, and resist this positionality (in the context of a research interview situation) are the topics of interest. This study utilizes Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA; Arribas-Ayllon & Walkerdine, 2017), a translation of critical discourse analysis (CDA; Martínez-Alemán, 2015). To aid in establishing empirical rigor, I enlisted principles from constructivist grounded theory (CGA; Charmaz, 2017). The shifts and innovations to the original grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) that Charmaz evokes make the method an ideal match for studying subject formation from a critical (Foucauldian) discourse-analytic perspective. Results eventually took the form of 12 recurrent patterns grouped into 3 coherent groups. These groups corresponded to the categorical ways in which participants explained or justified their beliefs and actions related to institutional change. Generally, participants justified statements in three ways: in terms of morality, rationality, and fear. In terms of self-construction, how participants constructed change often related to group identification and outgroup orientation and ultimately, whether or not participants identified with the institution or as an outsider. These identifications were fluid in conjunction with changing circumstances including how groups were constructed and described in any given moment. === Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019. === Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. === Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.