Abstract
This chapter continues the discussion on meaning from the previous chapter and emphasizes that signification is not shaped in neutral space beyond the social sphere. Words and their meaning are always sites of struggle, which reflect the social conflicts we produce, which, in turn, produce us. The attempt to fix meaning is then aligned with power struggles and political interests. This idea has important implications because many education initiatives echo modern Western totalizing conceptualizations, mostly expressed in essentialized conceptions of the ‘inner’ human and positivistic perspectives of ‘truth’. More importantly, the treatment, in the best positivist psychologized tradition, is to be offered to solipsistic individuals, while ignoring contextual and historical factors.
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Bekerman, Z., Zembylas, M. (2018). Meaning Not Exact. In: Psychologized Language in Education. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54937-2_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54937-2_11
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