What is Voice? Issues of Identity and Representation in the Framing of Reviews

Abstract

There is a well-founded ethical concern in the present regarding the question Ήow can we include everybody's voice equally in the framing of reviews?' This paper is a response to the complexities that inhere in that question. It is not about Review of Educational Research (RER) as a specific site but about the systems of reasoning that construct the opening question about reviews and that suggest possible answers, including the response: 'What is voice?' To the extent that reviews are considered a canonizing genre for summarizing and codifying subfields of educational research, inclusion and censorship have become issues of concern in their framing and writing. The content of educa tional reviews is frequently taken to be symbolic of broader power relations. It is in the midst of a review's authorizing or legitimating function that debate over voice, identity, and representation, with para-texts of power, has emerged. In the latter twentieth century, voice, identity, and representation have been considered cognate terms presumed to bear some relationship to the construc tion of knowledge and the circulation of power. If reviews of educational re