A possible "discursive turn" is believed to have been observed within Swedish political science in later years. The purpose of this study is to examine whether or not such a turn has actually taken place, in order to further determine if a resulting theoretical homogeneity poses a risk to the ability of Swedish political science to identify and respond to its full width of possible research problems, and to determine its perspectives on both these problems and the results that are later communicated to the general society. To do so, the study poses the following primary research question: "Has a discursive turn occurred within Swedish political science?" This question is then broken down into two specified research questions. "Has discourse analysis become a more common approach for doctoral dissertations in political science during the period of 2000-2013?" "Have ideas corresponding with discourse theory become more common within doctoral dissertations in political science that are not pure discourse analyses during the period of 2000-2013?" These questions are then answered by examining all known 406 doctoral dissertations in political science published in Sweden during the 21st century up until (and including) the year of 2013, using two forms of content analysis, one manual and one computer-assisted. The study finds no clear evidence of a discursive turn in Swedish political science since the turn of the century. The results demonstrate, however, that while ideas corresponding with discourse theory do not appear to have become unambiguously more common in recent times, they do appear in some form in a majority of the examined dissertations, albeit most often on the margin. The study finds no significant indications of a theoretical homogenisation that might impede upon the ability of political science to identify and respond to its full width of research problems. Discourse analysis appears to have a stable presence within Swedish political science, but does not appear to risk contributing to a homogenous research climate that might damage the plurality of research. Instead, it might be seen as a contribution to this plurality.

While sorting through my experiences as a student teacher, my research question has shifted from “How can teacher education be improved?” to “How is teacher education represented?” I am interested in the juxtaposition of these two inquiries, and use them not to suggest pedagogical rules, but to draw attention to the kinds of spaces such a juxtaposition opens up. The shift in my research question is influenced by the discursive turn—the movement from social justice theories to poststructuralist theories, from theories based on experience to theories based on discourse. Questions of representation are the focus not only of poststructuralist theories but also of psychoanalytic theories, or theories of the unconscious, and both theories acknowledge that representations of reality are excessive: they contain more and less than that which they represent (Orner et al., 2005). The concept of excess enables me to make sense of moments in my teacher education program that could not be contained by dominant educational discourses of knowledge, reflection, and inclusion. The excessiveness of a teaching strategy called the Six Thinking Hats troubles the theory/practice binary in discourses of knowledge. The excessiveness of an assignment about philosophies of teaching, and a class discussion in response to the film Submission trouble the enlightenment/ignorance binary in discourses of reflection. And, the excessiveness of my attempt to question curricular content troubles the normal/exceptional binary in discourses of inclusion. I use excessive moments from my teacher education program to question existing discourses, and to suggest that we need to change the stories we tell ourselves about education (King, 2003). Our current educational discourses perpetuate histories of violence that we have inherited, and I suggest that social justice, poststructuralist, and psychoanalytic theories will enable us to more effectively heal from these inherited histories. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2007-12-04 16:19:40.676 / This work was funded in part by a Canadian Graduate Scholarship granted by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (766-2006-0775).