Abstract:
This dissertation expands the theory of subjectivity by examining how discourses
behave. Of particular intent here is the subjectivity of preservice teachers. Students from
Oregon State University's Masters of Arts in Teaching program volunteered as
participants. Audio-taped sessions of their small group talk about gender issues and
education, dialogue journals, and brief autobiographical sketches form the data base for
the study. Analysis of the data involved the identification of discourses present in the
language of individual participant's talk. The result is an illustration of subjectivity as a
battle site, disciplinary power of a discourse, the insidious nature of discourses, and care
of the self The language of preservice teachers is analyzed so that we as teacher
educators might challenge our own assumptions about teaching and learning to teach. The
application of a poststructural feminist theoretical framework challenges traditional ways
of gathering, reporting, and analyzing data. Therefore, the reader may recognize tensions
arising between the required structure of the dissertation, the content, writing style, and
the methodology used.
