Spatially framed metaphoric concepts, educational attainment and locations of poverty: an analysis of newspaper texts

Abstract

Locations of high poverty are, at times, publicly constituted as being educationally deficit, with location-based successes identified as exceptional variances. This is particularly the case in the public domain through media representations that contribute to institutionalised understandings of locations of poverty. Using the National Assessment Program: Literacy and Numeracy test as a starting point for the public representations of educational attainment, this paper draws on spatially framed metaphoric concepts to analyse these textual portrayals of the educational outcomes of communities in locations of poverty. Drawing on a corpus of newspaper articles generated through a systematic newspaper article review, these data will problematise the inferences about educational attainment in locations of poverty. The metaphoric concepts focus on (1) area space related to boundaries, inclusions and exclusions; (2) orientation space referring to a progression within educational performance informed by directional and hierarchical attributes such as up or down, top or bottom; and (3) movement space focusing on comparisons noted by the degree and speed of change in educational achievement. These spatially framed metaphoric concepts in media texts normalise locationally based poor attainment that amplifies inequality.