Resisting and Acquiescing with Social Control

Abstract

In the previous chapter my analysis of two ‘Values Enhancement’ classes (‘The Confidence Game’) was concerned with various discourse practices employed by the Cognitive Skills tutors to secure the Course participants’ compliance with the preferred values of the Course. However, these practices are open to challenge from below and are indeed contested by the inmates. I believe that an analysis of strategies of resistance is crucial for an understanding of power relations between interactants. I suggested in Chapter 1 that resistance, or at least the capacity for resistance, is immanent in the exercise of power, including the exercise of power in discourse. This chapter is therefore devoted to the examination of specific discourse practices the inmates employ as modes of resistance in the Cognitive Skills classes.