Converting to Privatization: A Discourse Analysis of Dyslexia Policy Narratives

American Educational Research Journal, Ahead of Print.
In this study, I analyze written testimony submitted to the state legislature regarding Connecticut’s 2015 Act Concerning Students With Dyslexia (PA-15-97), in order to engage with the discourse and rhetoric occasioned by the policy-making process and investigate the phenomenon of dyslexia in contemporary education policy. Drawing on critical discursive psychology, positioning theory, and narrative policy analysis. I examine how dyslexia advocacy discourse forms a cohesive, compelling policy narrative. I argue that this narrative can be understood as a conversion narrative, which drives a privatization agenda in which public schools become mandated consumers for a growing dyslexia industry, and in which the nature of instruction for students with reading difficulties is narrowly prescribed.
Source: American Educational Reasearch Journal