Fashioning Post‐modernism, Finishing Modernism: tales from the fitting room

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Abstract
This article sets out to examine the policing of the so‐called ‘borders’ of ‘modernism’ and ‘post‐modernism’, arguing that such polarising metaphors are distinctions that cannot be made without self‐contradictions that would make even a post‐modernist blush. Instead, we must deconstruct the notion of boundary or border, drawing on Derridean formulations of difference in the fields of literature, feminism and post‐colo‐niality: what new metaphors of difference are possible, and what do they imply for the ‘essentialisms’ of educational ideals, or for notions of sexual, ethnic, or cultural identity? The ambition of the article is to explore a way of deconstructing the unspeakable ‘slash’ between modernism/post‐modernism that can model how similar arguments may be deployed against a wide range of educational topics where questions of identity and difference are brought to the fore, such as equal opportunities, special needs, antiracism, as well as more mundane categories of pupil or teacher — or researcher — identity. It fails, of course, but perhaps interestingly enough to encourage further explorations in such directions.