Sink or swim? Responsible situated agency constructed by socioeconomically underprivileged students of English in neoliberal Brazil

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Published: Aug 14, 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5195/dpj.2020.319
Keywords:
Second language education neoliberalism socioeconomically underprivileged students agency dialogical practices

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Carla Janaina Figueredo
Universidade Federal de GoiasFederal University of Goias
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9097-6290

Abstract

This article discusses the results of a four-year investigation on the neoliberal challenges faced by socioeconomically underprivileged students in Brazil who were majoring in English teaching. It is a qualitative study that employs the concept of language as a sociocultural and dialogical practice as well as the concepts of responsibility and agency; it also examines the relationship between these students’ experiences and neoliberalism as seen in language education. The data generated by questionnaires, students’ essays, and semi-structured interviews reveal that the participants’ initiatives to engage themselves in outside classroom interactions acted as counter-centralizing forces. By exercising their responsible situated agency towards their English language appropriation process, these participants react against neoliberal challenges viewed here as hierarchical centripetal forces that constrain their access to different kinds of capital. The study participants are also guided by the agency of spaces promoted by discourses marked by decolonial thinking; however, though these students find different ways to negotiate neoliberal challenges, it is still crucial that the faculty in charge of the investigated context build on existing decolonial practices in the classroom. In doing so, more students can become part of “discursive actions” that foster their responsible situated agency towards a more egalitarian society.

 

Article Details

How to Cite
Figueredo, C. J. (2020). Sink or swim? Responsible situated agency constructed by socioeconomically underprivileged students of English in neoliberal Brazil. Dialogic Pedagogy: A Journal for Studies of Dialogic Education, 8. https://doi.org/10.5195/dpj.2020.319
Issue
Vol. 8 (2020)
Section
Articles

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Author Biography

Carla Janaina Figueredo, Universidade Federal de GoiasFederal University of Goias

Dr. Carla Janaina Figueredo is an Associate Professor of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, from the Federal University of Goiás, Brazil. She currently teaches English and Applied Linguistics to undergraduates and Second Language Education to graduate students. When doing her postdoctoral studies, Dr. Figueredo focused on the dialogical and sociopolitical nature of discourse and its implications on the ways Brazilian learners react to the challenges of both appropriating and teaching English in Brazilian educational contexts. In her doctorate, she emphasized the dialogue between Bakhtin and Vygotski’s tenets to discuss how intercultural identities clash but also converse to one another so as to confront and contribute to classroom dynamics. As for her Master’s, she highlighted the interactional function of communication strategies in the English learning/teaching processes under Vygotskian and Collaborative Learning perspectives. For the past decade, Dr. Carla Janaina Figueredo has advised ten Master students and one PhD candidate.

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