Discourses of delusion in demanding times

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how critical discourse analysis can help to uncover the dominant discursive formations that underlie policy guidelines within education. Focusing on the policy guidelines for career education and guidance in New Zealand, it illustrates how these have been used by the state in an attempt to normalise ideological standpoints, shape “common‐sense” thinking and delimit the scope of practice.Design/methodology/approachCritical discourse analysis was employed as this approach helps to uncover the hidden meanings, political imperatives and uneven workings of power/dominance and oppression that are employed in/through textual representations.FindingsNeoliberal discourse is infused throughout the policy guidelines for career education and guidance in New Zealand, and demands that career advisers/teachers should produce entrepreneurial and self‐responsibilised global economic subjects.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough this paper is situated within a New Zealand context, given the creeping influence of neoliberalism in many English‐speaking states, the issues identified have international relevance in relation to the kind of citizen career education is expected to produce.Originality/valueMuch of the literature within the career arena adopts an uncritical, and apolitical, stance, with the truth‐claims made by neoliberal states tending to be positioned as authoritative and inviolable. Drawing from critical theory, this paper contributes a social justice perspective that looks beneath the surface of the seemingly benign and well‐intentioned discourses that permeate the guidelines for career education and guidance in New Zealand.