Bookishness, blue skies, bright hats and brickies: discourse and positioning in academics’ conversations around ‘academic intelligence’ and the ‘good’ student
通过分析三组高校学者关于‘学术智力’的焦点小组对话，揭示他们如何通过话语构建‘学术智力’和‘好’学生，并指出这些构建如何掩盖教育不平等、维护学术等级制。
This study is an interpretative discourse analysis [following Gee, J. P. 2005. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge; Gee, J. P. 2011. How to Do Discourse Analysis: A Toolkit. London: Routledge; and Willig, C. 2008. Introducing Qualitative Research in Psychology. 2nd ed. Berkshire: Open University Press], of three focus group conversations between academics in higher education during which talk centred around the topic of ‘academic intelligence’. The research attended to the ways in which the academics discursively produced ‘academic intelligence’ and related social constructs, and how these constructs engendered discussion about ‘good’ students. The findings are discussed in three thematic sections: ‘conceptual [un]ease’; ‘bookishness, blue skies and brickies’; and ‘resistance and reproduction’. The paper draws attention to the ways in which constructions of ‘natural’ academic intelligence underpin the illusion of meritocracy and justify academic hierarchy, whilst masking inequalities in educational practice.