Abstract:
This paper will discuss young learners' discourses of identity and difference within a theoretical framework of D/discourse provided by James Paul Gee (1990, 1992, 1993, 1996). It will reflect on the ways in which Australian students find themselves in a relatively new discursive space; wrestling with the uncomfortable place that Asia has occupied in Australia's past on the one hand, whilst facing a future charted by a pro-Asia discourse. The paper will reveal findings from research in progress that point to young learners in primary schools developing powerful and contradictory discourses of identity and difference. It will outline a number of contrastive case studies that have been framed within a critical literacy pedagogy and will highlight shifts or transformation in students' discourses over time .