Deferral

Deferral – an acknowledgement that, for a particular detail is made the focus of attention, one must ignore (“defer”) not just a sea of other possible foci, but the many layers of intersecting discourses that render that focus a matter of interest. The idea of Deference is prominent in both Post-Structuralism and Postmodern Epistemologies (see Epistemology) as they challenge the modernist quest for totalized understandings. These discourses assert that complete knowledge is unattainable, as all claims to truth are partial (both in the sense of “partial = incomplete” and the sense of “partial = biased”).

Please cite this article as:
Davis, B., & Francis, K. (2022). “Deferral” in Discourses on Learning in Education. https://learningdiscourses.com.