Ironising with intelligence |
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| Authors: | Peter Erlandson Dennis Beach |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Pedagogical, Curricular and Professional Studies, Gothenburg University, Gothenburg, Sweden, and School of Education and Behavioural Sciences, University of Bor?s, Bor?s, Sweden.peter.erlandson@gmail.com;3. Department of Education and Special Education, Gothenburg University, Gothenburg, Sweden. |
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| Abstract: | This article is part of a project that seeks in part to explore how students understand and use the concept of intelligence. It is based on an ethnographically contextualized study of linguistic events and was conducted in an inner-city upper secondary school in Sweden. The article shows that the concept of intelligence is not spontaneously used by students but is given meaning by them when they are asked, and that this meaning is given in relation to future expectations, hopes, ambitions and the grades and performances in school that are seen as a means to attain them. When doing this the students also appear to describe their education, the demands it places on them and their performances with a sense of irony. Indeed, on closer analysis, irony seems to be an important communicative strategy for these students more generally. |
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| Keywords: | linguistic ethnography intelligence discourse meaning irony |
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