The Distortion of Discussion

David I. Backer

This dissertation addresses a common, but troubling, educational interaction: when a facilitator (whether teacher, professor, or organizer) announces that a discussion will take place about some subject or question, but proceeds to speak at length and field questions regarding that subject. In this case, a controlled and unequal form of interaction known as recitation has occurred, though the interaction was called a "discussion" at the outset. Since discussion, as a form of interaction, connotes democracy, equality, and freedom, this interaction (where recitation passes for discussion) is distorted. After a survey of discussion's many pedagogical meanings, a Marxist theoretical approach--primarily drawing from Louis Althusser and Valentin Voloshinov--is used to critique the distortion of discussion. From the Voloshinovian perspective, the aforementioned distortion composes and...