The ideation, naturalization, and invisibilization of Discourses in Italy’s tracked secondary education
A critical scalar account
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11293609 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Andrea R Leone-Pizzighella (0000-0002-0585-8407, Eurac Research , Viale Druso/Drususallee, 1, 39100 Bolzano-Bozen , Italy, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 44 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 729-753 |
| Publication date | 2025-11-25 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Multilingua (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0167-8507 • E-ISSN: 1613-3684 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1515/multi-2024-0224 |
| OpenAlex | W4409631252 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 39 |
The present paper analyzes the Discourses underpinning the tracked secondary education system in Italy through the lens of sociolinguistic scales (Blommaert 2007. Sociolinguistic scales. Intercultural Pragmatics 4(1). 1–19). Via an examination of education policy documents, historical accounts of policy discourse, classroom discourse data, ethnographic fieldnotes, ministerial websites, and literary texts, this paper considers how the Discourse of classism (with a capital D , á la Gee 1990. Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses, critical perspectives on literacy and education . London & New York: Routledge) which underlies the foundations of the tracked school system in Italy has gradually become naturalized and then ‘invisible’ (that is, hegemonic) as it has traveled through scales of political and social speech and texts ( discourse with a lowercase d ). This paper considers an alternative view of scales not as spatiotemporal spaces, places, or settings, but as types of metadiscursive labor (Carr 2006. “Secrets keep you sick”: Metalinguistic labor in a drug treatment program for homeless women. Language in Society 35(05). 631–653). This paper also discusses the role of critique, drawing on Pietikäinen’s (2016. Critical debates: Discourse, boundaries and social change. Sociolinguistics: Theoretical Debates ) concepts of emancipatory, ethnographic, and carnivalesque critique, in rendering visible and available for re-scaling the Discourses which become invisible over time
Citizenship · Cognitive science · Ideation · Naturalization · Political science · Scalar (mathematics · Sociology · Global Education and Multiculturalism · Global Educational Policies and Reforms · Law · Mathematics · Multilingual Education and Policy · Psychology
Social Linguistics and Literacies
Constructing School Success
Introduction
Language in Late Modernity
Dogwhistles, Political Manipulation, and Philosophy of Language
Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life
Critical educational linguistics
Reform ripples
Scaling practices in language encounters
Speaking like a ‘good student’
Introduction
Working-Class Boys and Educational Success
Papo Reto
Being ‘the lowest’
Further notes on sociolinguistic scales
Performing the good (im)migrant
SENitizing’ migrant children in inclusive settings
Egoism and the Freedom Movement
Black students' school success
Nexus Analysis
Across the Scales of Time
Chapter 3
Thin Description
Sociolinguistic scales
The regulation of teaching as symbolic politics
Secrets keep you sick
Social Reproduction in Classrooms and Schools
Commodity Registers
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |