The Research

Przymus, S. (2025). The language of reality: a semiotic guide for shaping thought about American education. Social Semiotics, 1-15

Abstract

Almost everyone in the United States experiences some form of schooling and thus forms opinions of what schools are, falls victim to folk theory about curriculum, and lives their lives by the myths about American education. Truth and reality have become debatable concepts in public language. The semiological concept of myth plays an influential role in these debates. However, just as myths can be used to confuse and convince, if remythified they also can be used to clarify and conjure up a new language of reality. In this article, I critique the myth of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in US schools. I then extend the work of Barthes ([1957] 1972. Mythologies. Translated by Annette Lavers. New York: Hill and Wang) in applying a third semiological chain that acts to remythify this myth with a new, more positive meaning and reality, with hopes that this process could be extended to other American education mythologies.

Application in Process

This article provides a new way for educators to talk about the history and current reality of how race is talked about in schools. It also provides the language to fight misleading myths about public education.

“Language has always been the mechanism for creating reality, first as the means to think within an individual’s mind and then as a tool for convincing others to think the same way.”

Steve Pryzmus