Including excluded adolescent boys: discursive constructions of identity

The main aim of this thesis is to problematise discourse relating to adolescent boys in
order to gain a better understanding of the persistent practice of exclusion and to seek
to highlight examples of how discourse can position boys in ways that are more
inclusive. In doing so this work is an attempt to theorise my practice as a researcherpractitioner
educational psychologist, to be reflexive and to raise my consciousness of
the means by which professionals, parents and I can both liberate and limit the ways
in which the identity of excluded adolescent boys becomes discursively constructed.
Taking a predominantly relativist and post structuralist position I propose a model
based on Lacanian theory integrated with methods of analysing discourse, 'a critical
discursive psychology' which frames and guides the research process throughout. As
the thesis unfolds my initial intention to pursue the research topic from a linguisticdiscursive
perspective becomes influenced by a psychoanalytical dimension as the
limitations of a purely discursive approach become apparent. My attempt to take a
psychoanalytical reading of the discourse data draws attention to unconscious
processes that may influence the signifying of some adolescent boys as either
pathological or deviant and enables me to speculate as to why such discourses persist
whilst others are repressed. However, and most importantly to this study, by exposing
through the discourse analysis how discourse constructs the identity of some
adolescent boys at both a societal and individual level, I am able to reveal that
discursive constructions of the identity of adolescent boys are also open to resistance
and change. This in tum provides rich possibilities for future research and practice.