Paying for the Gift of Education: A Critical Discourse Analysis of The Intown Academy of Atlanta

• Main Author: Nesbit, Scott
• Format: Others
• Published: ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University 2014
• Subjects: Atlanta Public Schools; Charter schools; US Public Education; Neoliberalism; Philanthropy; School uniforms; Old Fourth Ward; Gentrification
• Online Access: http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/wsi_theses/42; http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1045&context=wsi_theses

In my critical discourse analysis of The Intown Academy's (TIA) various documents and media—including the school's charter petition, charter, Parent-Student Handbook, and website—I articulate the school's subjectifying narratives and analyze how these narratives function to (re)produce particular subjects according to tropes of threat/crisis, opportunity, corporate/non-profit benevolence, and personal responsibility. Identifying these subjects, I analyze how they are effected/affected by the practice of education at TIA. To this end, I examine the various practices of school discipline codified in the Parent and Student Contracts in TIA's 2012-2013 Parent Student Handbook, including mandates for the wearing of school uniforms, volunteer labor, and reorientations of the family and the private space of the home. I conclude that TIA discursively produces indebted subjects whose educational and economic survival depends on the reorientation of their lives in service to the school.