Monica Nerland:

Instrumental teaching in a discursive perspective

This article discusses some ideas related to the understanding of instrumental teaching as discursive practice. It focuses on some main aspects of conducting research from a discursive perspective, and explores what such an approach might mean for the research on instrumental teaching. Limitations of the discursive perspective and the possibilities for combining such a perspective with other theoretical views are discussed, and consequences for the view on the researcher's position are also considered. It is argued that in order to understand this kind of teaching practice, it is necessary to understand it from a relational perspective. A discursive perspective seems productive in order to open up the cultural practice of instrumental teaching, and examine what are the taken for granted ideas and mechanisms that organise the way the teaching activity is constructed. It may contribute by helping us understand how this practice is socially and historically bounded. In turn, this insight may serve as a basis for reflection and refinement of the discipline. Through this approach it may be possible to connect several levels that are often treated separately, and to gain new understandings of the relation between teaching and learning.