BIG LIFE DECISIONS AT TWELVE YEARS OLD: A CORPUS-ASSISTED CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ON THE ACADEMIC SUCCESS IN RELATION TO SECONDARY SCHOOL SELECTION IN SINGAPORE.

Abstract

This honours thesis investigates the discourse surrounding the selection of Singaporean secondary schools, using two time periods to investigate the effect of a governmental policy implementation in changing the perspectives of its citizens. Its focus lies in the initial discursive constructions of success before the policy and compares it to a period of time after the implementation of the policy in 2021 to see if there are any changes. The policy change is meant to change the scoring system of the Primary School Leaving Examination, which the results of, determine students entry to the next phase of education. Using a corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis method, this honours thesis compares the discourse from a forum focussing on parents’ discussion of secondary school selection. It selects data from 2018 and 2022 to see the discourse the time periods before and after the policy implementation, Using Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework for the critical discourse analysis, this honours thesis manages to consider wider social pressures in affecting and influencing the discourse Results show that due to the meritocratic nature of the Singaporean society, and the need for schools and academic programmes to set admission criteria based on the results of the examination, parents are often taking the criteria set as the indicator of how successful and how good the school or programme is. As such, success is hence indicated by the enrolment into schools with higher requirements, and parents focus on this status of schools and programmes rather than suitability of their children in such environments. The discourse after the policy implementation also show that while there is a slight change in the way parents are selecting schools, the overall attitude remains the same. This study contributes to the ongoing movement of the Singaporean government in changing mindsets with regards to education and success so as to prioritise mental health, and indicates that perhaps their steps taken so far have been ineffective due to their ideals of meritocracy being received in a harmful manner.