Nadira Talib
Nadira Talib holds a PhD from The University of Queensland, Australia. Her PhD research focuses on developing methods of synthesizing philosophical deliberations with Critical Discourse Analysis in analysing social policies to account for how the world is organized and how we should live in it, and to be able to have some understanding of the conditions that govern our existence. She is particularly interested in the strategic role of policy discourse in relation to neo-liberal economic structural reforms, ethics, and morality.
She is the author of the book 'Is it time to let meritocracy go? Examining the case of Singapore' (Routledge), which presents transdisciplinary methods for constructing a flexible philosophical-analytical model that integrates elements of music (three movements of concerto), art (hyperrealism, surrealism), and water-fluid dynamics through which to apply the analytic principles of Critical Discourse Analysis for the interpretation of metaphors across historical policy texts from 1979 to 2019. Her internationally peer-reviewed journal articles are featured in ScienceDaily, Bookforum, and in an editorial review of ‘The Top 100 Cited Discourse Studies’ (2015-2019) in the subject area of ‘linguistics and language’. Demonstrating a high level of commitment to the disciplinary fields of philosophy and political thought, political economy, and policy analysis, her work offers an original re-examination of problems related to economic structural reforms, justice, and equity.
Global impact:
- Publications by Talib and Fitzgerald (2015, 2016, 2018) are among the "Top 100 Cited Discourse Studies", 2015-2019 (Raitskaya, L. & Tikhonova, 2019). The editorial review of the top 100 most cited articles on discourse in the subject area of ‘linguistics and language’ aims to define the dominating trends and and find out the prevailing article structures for Journal of Language and Education authors to follow as the best practice-based patterns and guidelines.
- The Special Issue article on Ethics in Critical Discourse Studies, “Putting philosophy back to work in critical discourse analysis” is noted in bookforum.com. Bookforum is “a showcase for rigorous and elegant writing” (the Village Voice).
- The article, "Inequality as meritocracy: The use of the metaphor of diversity and the value of inequality in Singapore's meritocratic education system" is featured in sciencedaily.com (2015, April 28) in an article titled, "What is the value of inequality within Singapore's education system?". https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150428105815.htm. It is also listed as one of the most read articles in Critical Discourse Studies journal with with 5,900 views in 2023.
-She was invited to write commentaries on Singapore's education system for The Karyawan. They are: "Is it time to equalise conditions across schools?" (2018) and "What is the foundation of Singapore's education system?" (2019)
She was awarded the Dean’s commendation for High Achievement in 2009. She was a recipient of the UQ BA (Hons) and the highly competitive UQ International (UQI) Research Higher degree scholarships.
Peer reviewer for the following journals:
1. Critical Policy Studies
2. Critical Discourse Studies
3. Journal of Education Policy
4. Oxford Review of Education
5. Evaluation Journal of Australasia
6. Asia Pacific Journal of Education
7. Pedagogies: An International Journal
8. Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics
9. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher
10. Journal of Contemporary African Studies
11. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education
She is the author of the book 'Is it time to let meritocracy go? Examining the case of Singapore' (Routledge), which presents transdisciplinary methods for constructing a flexible philosophical-analytical model that integrates elements of music (three movements of concerto), art (hyperrealism, surrealism), and water-fluid dynamics through which to apply the analytic principles of Critical Discourse Analysis for the interpretation of metaphors across historical policy texts from 1979 to 2019. Her internationally peer-reviewed journal articles are featured in ScienceDaily, Bookforum, and in an editorial review of ‘The Top 100 Cited Discourse Studies’ (2015-2019) in the subject area of ‘linguistics and language’. Demonstrating a high level of commitment to the disciplinary fields of philosophy and political thought, political economy, and policy analysis, her work offers an original re-examination of problems related to economic structural reforms, justice, and equity.
Global impact:
- Publications by Talib and Fitzgerald (2015, 2016, 2018) are among the "Top 100 Cited Discourse Studies", 2015-2019 (Raitskaya, L. & Tikhonova, 2019). The editorial review of the top 100 most cited articles on discourse in the subject area of ‘linguistics and language’ aims to define the dominating trends and and find out the prevailing article structures for Journal of Language and Education authors to follow as the best practice-based patterns and guidelines.
- The Special Issue article on Ethics in Critical Discourse Studies, “Putting philosophy back to work in critical discourse analysis” is noted in bookforum.com. Bookforum is “a showcase for rigorous and elegant writing” (the Village Voice).
- The article, "Inequality as meritocracy: The use of the metaphor of diversity and the value of inequality in Singapore's meritocratic education system" is featured in sciencedaily.com (2015, April 28) in an article titled, "What is the value of inequality within Singapore's education system?". https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150428105815.htm. It is also listed as one of the most read articles in Critical Discourse Studies journal with with 5,900 views in 2023.
-She was invited to write commentaries on Singapore's education system for The Karyawan. They are: "Is it time to equalise conditions across schools?" (2018) and "What is the foundation of Singapore's education system?" (2019)
She was awarded the Dean’s commendation for High Achievement in 2009. She was a recipient of the UQ BA (Hons) and the highly competitive UQ International (UQI) Research Higher degree scholarships.
Peer reviewer for the following journals:
1. Critical Policy Studies
2. Critical Discourse Studies
3. Journal of Education Policy
4. Oxford Review of Education
5. Evaluation Journal of Australasia
6. Asia Pacific Journal of Education
7. Pedagogies: An International Journal
8. Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics
9. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher
10. Journal of Contemporary African Studies
11. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education
less
InterestsView All (35)
Uploads
Papers by Nadira Talib
1. The article questions and challenges the official meritocratic principle of ‘equal opportunities’ (Wong, 2000) in Singapore's education system. Drawing on Foucault's and Nietzsche's philosophical perspectives, there is an explicit illustration through an in-depth analysis of how inequality is inbuilt in policy report/speech.
2. Discourse builds in/tangible structures in society and greatly determines the possibilities of the now. As such, I am also arguing that it would be more difficult to 'help' any 'community' if the structural discrimination which has been deeply embedded, is not made explicit through national policies, and by this I mean an explicit illustration through an in-depth policy analysis of how inequality is inbuilt in Singapore's education policies. It may be through this that discriminatory structures could be substantially challenged.
An initial analysis of the original 1979 policy on primary school streaming which I conducted illustrates how dichotomous (arbitrary) categorization of pupils, i.e. 'slow' and 'fast' learners legitimates and sustains increasing institutional/structural access (over the years terms like 'talents' have been employed in policy discourse), of who gets privileged knowledge access. Through this, I also ask then to what ends do forms of 'categorization' or conventional designation entail? By this, given that categorization legitimizes structural access, my question is, what is 'Malay/Muslim community' and how is this categorization necessary?
3. Even though the analysis in the article was based on Singapore's education system, it provides possible ways of understanding how inequality is continuously being inbuilt through policies on the basis of the ideology that economic growth is the (only) way forward. A way to critique this ideology is to expose its underlying assumptions. I believe the findings have much resonance with the widening inequality across many developed nations, as Singapore's policies have parallels with that of the U.K., U.S., and international organizations such as the World Bank.
4. Economically considered, the transliteration of meritocratic discourse into the metaphor of diversity pinpoints how the appeal of development for all necessarily also demands the advance of inequity for the sake of the whole, i.e. advancing the 'growth with inequity' principle.
5. The analysis highlights that value judgments are continually at work in the policy discourse and that despite the strong discourse of meritocracy that the Singapore education system promotes, it is argued that it is in the interests of the Singapore people that 'talents' should get privileged access to knowledge as it is through this that more 'opportunities' for the rest of the population are created. The findings demonstrate that although the underlying assumptions of this 'logic' that has been constructed in policies are unsubstantiated, the logic is continuously legitimated through forms of e/valuations.
This article has been featured in websites such as: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150428105815.htm
http://www.eurasiareview.com/28042015-what-is-value-of-inequality-within-singapores-education-system/
Recent Publications by Nadira Talib
This paper explores how philosophical inquiry and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) can mutually benefit from each other to produce new methodological and reflexive directions in neo-liberal policy research to examine the phenomenon of ‘What is (going on here)’. Through this we argue that augmenting linguistic analysis with philosophical perspectives develops and supports CDA scholarship more broadly by accommodating the shifting complexity of social problems of ideologically driven inequality that are inbuilt through, in our case, social policy texts. In discussing philosophical-methodological issues, the paper argues for the need to continually adapt CDA to the particular data so as to remain sensitive to and avoid hegemonic tendencies in analysis. Through adopting the principles of a working methodology, we discuss a micro-meso-macro CDA framework that draws on the analytical concepts of movement, metaphorical superfluidity, thematic condensation, and surrealism to conceive of a research approach capable of examining and comprehending evolving discourses of political economies. The most immediate benefit of this framework is its capacity to illustrate how forms of valuations perpetuated by and through policy discourse are the motivational locus of meaning making insofar as they strongly inform the moral underpinning the ideology of economic growth.
KEYWORDS: Critical Discourse Analysis, philosophy, data-led methodology, valuation, evaluation, political economy, neo-liberalism, social policy, metaphor, surrealism
Books by Nadira Talib
To investigate this seeming contradiction between the rhetoric and practice of equal educational opportunity, Nadira Talib analyses education policies by drawing on a synthesis of philosophical perspectives and critical discourse analysis as a way of making explicit how the historical constitution of the learner is linked to the legitimisation of inequitable education policies that favour corporatist practices. By making explicit how the underlying assumption of the policy ‘logic’ that increasing expenditure on ‘talents’ must necessarily involve the increasing welfare of everybody is both unsubstantiated and arbitrary, the book presents a moral political problem in demonstrating how education policies are unfounded and unsupported through the idea of meritocracy.
1. The article questions and challenges the official meritocratic principle of ‘equal opportunities’ (Wong, 2000) in Singapore's education system. Drawing on Foucault's and Nietzsche's philosophical perspectives, there is an explicit illustration through an in-depth analysis of how inequality is inbuilt in policy report/speech.
2. Discourse builds in/tangible structures in society and greatly determines the possibilities of the now. As such, I am also arguing that it would be more difficult to 'help' any 'community' if the structural discrimination which has been deeply embedded, is not made explicit through national policies, and by this I mean an explicit illustration through an in-depth policy analysis of how inequality is inbuilt in Singapore's education policies. It may be through this that discriminatory structures could be substantially challenged.
An initial analysis of the original 1979 policy on primary school streaming which I conducted illustrates how dichotomous (arbitrary) categorization of pupils, i.e. 'slow' and 'fast' learners legitimates and sustains increasing institutional/structural access (over the years terms like 'talents' have been employed in policy discourse), of who gets privileged knowledge access. Through this, I also ask then to what ends do forms of 'categorization' or conventional designation entail? By this, given that categorization legitimizes structural access, my question is, what is 'Malay/Muslim community' and how is this categorization necessary?
3. Even though the analysis in the article was based on Singapore's education system, it provides possible ways of understanding how inequality is continuously being inbuilt through policies on the basis of the ideology that economic growth is the (only) way forward. A way to critique this ideology is to expose its underlying assumptions. I believe the findings have much resonance with the widening inequality across many developed nations, as Singapore's policies have parallels with that of the U.K., U.S., and international organizations such as the World Bank.
4. Economically considered, the transliteration of meritocratic discourse into the metaphor of diversity pinpoints how the appeal of development for all necessarily also demands the advance of inequity for the sake of the whole, i.e. advancing the 'growth with inequity' principle.
5. The analysis highlights that value judgments are continually at work in the policy discourse and that despite the strong discourse of meritocracy that the Singapore education system promotes, it is argued that it is in the interests of the Singapore people that 'talents' should get privileged access to knowledge as it is through this that more 'opportunities' for the rest of the population are created. The findings demonstrate that although the underlying assumptions of this 'logic' that has been constructed in policies are unsubstantiated, the logic is continuously legitimated through forms of e/valuations.
This article has been featured in websites such as: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150428105815.htm
http://www.eurasiareview.com/28042015-what-is-value-of-inequality-within-singapores-education-system/
This paper explores how philosophical inquiry and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) can mutually benefit from each other to produce new methodological and reflexive directions in neo-liberal policy research to examine the phenomenon of ‘What is (going on here)’. Through this we argue that augmenting linguistic analysis with philosophical perspectives develops and supports CDA scholarship more broadly by accommodating the shifting complexity of social problems of ideologically driven inequality that are inbuilt through, in our case, social policy texts. In discussing philosophical-methodological issues, the paper argues for the need to continually adapt CDA to the particular data so as to remain sensitive to and avoid hegemonic tendencies in analysis. Through adopting the principles of a working methodology, we discuss a micro-meso-macro CDA framework that draws on the analytical concepts of movement, metaphorical superfluidity, thematic condensation, and surrealism to conceive of a research approach capable of examining and comprehending evolving discourses of political economies. The most immediate benefit of this framework is its capacity to illustrate how forms of valuations perpetuated by and through policy discourse are the motivational locus of meaning making insofar as they strongly inform the moral underpinning the ideology of economic growth.
KEYWORDS: Critical Discourse Analysis, philosophy, data-led methodology, valuation, evaluation, political economy, neo-liberalism, social policy, metaphor, surrealism
To investigate this seeming contradiction between the rhetoric and practice of equal educational opportunity, Nadira Talib analyses education policies by drawing on a synthesis of philosophical perspectives and critical discourse analysis as a way of making explicit how the historical constitution of the learner is linked to the legitimisation of inequitable education policies that favour corporatist practices. By making explicit how the underlying assumption of the policy ‘logic’ that increasing expenditure on ‘talents’ must necessarily involve the increasing welfare of everybody is both unsubstantiated and arbitrary, the book presents a moral political problem in demonstrating how education policies are unfounded and unsupported through the idea of meritocracy.