Abstract:
This paper identifies a range of discursive practices and strategies employed by three 'on screen' teachers - who appear in the films Dangerous Minds , Kindergarten Cop and Dead Poets Society - which are directed at constructing particular student dispositions. The paper suggests that the strategies these teachers employ are frequently evident within dominant and discriminatory discourses of race, class and gender. By making these strategies and discourses explicit, the paper seeks to open spaces for exploring how teacher-student relations might be reconstructed in more culturally sensitive ways; for teachers and students to 'seize' the opportunity for their discursive practices to advance the struggle towards a radical democratic politics within classrooms, schools and society generally.