Critical Discursive Psychology

Recent years have seen dramatic changes in psychology. A discipline that was once wedded to positivist inquiry is now reaping the benefits of a series of objections to its paradigmatic limitations in the late 1960s and 1970s. Arguments about the importance of accounts and the role of language in the creation of psychological facts and subjective experience have blossomed into various schools of discourse analysis and readings of texts. Alongside these strands of work have emerged feminist approaches that attended to the social structuring of meaning and power, and these radical approaches have put critical work on the agenda. The emergence of 'critical psychology' has now provided another important setting for assessing the contribution of qualitative research to what critical discursive research means in psychology, and for taking those debates forward.

In this 2nd Edition, Ian Parker introduces key issues in critical discursive research in psychology, and outlines the historical context in the discipline for the emergence of this work. The book sets out methodological steps for critical readings of texts, arguments that can be made for qualitative research in academic settings, and arguments that could be made against it by critical psychologists.

Ian Parker is Professor of Management in the School of Management at the University of Leicester, and Honorary Professor in Manchester Institute of Education at the University of Manchester. He is co-Director of the Discourse Unit (www.discourseunit.com) and a visiting professor at universities in the UK, Brazil, Belgium, South Africa and Spain.