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Jennifer S. Moon is a graduate student and instructor at the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA.
Margaret C. Hagood is a graduate student and instructor at the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA.
"Popular Culture in the Classroom: Teaching and Researching Critical Media Literacy" is a book written for teachers, researchers, and theorists who have grown up in a world radically different from that of the students they teach, study, and theorize about. Carmen Luke (1997) wrote that there is an "urgent need for educators to engage constructively with media, popular and youth culture to better understand how these discourses structure childhood, adolescence, and students' knowledge" (p.45). As literacy educators, we believe there is a special need to understand how cultural and political contexts influence the questions that teachers and researchers ask about popular media texts (for example, who produces these texts, for what purposes , and for whose consumption). It is toward such understandings that we developed this book.
What is Critical Media Literacy The term "critical media literacy," a concept best defined by taking into account some of the work being done in sociology and the interdisciplinary area known as cultural studies, has to do with providing individuals access to understanding how the print and non-print texts that are part of everyday life help to construct their knowledge of the world and the various social, economic, and political positions they occupy within it (Baker & Luke, 1991; Christian-Smith, 1997; Luke, 1997). Critical media literacy is also about creating communities of active readers and writers who can be expected to exercise some degree of agency in deciding what textual positions they will assume or resist as they interact in complex social and cultural contexts (Buckingham, 1998; Hilton, 1996; Luke, 1998).
This conception of critical media literacy follows up on what Allan Luke and Peter Freebody (1997b) have referred to as the move away from psychological and personal growth models of reading toward the view that reading is a social and cultural practice. In their words, "This move is significant in terms of how we see differences and diversity in the classroom... In so far as we view literacy as a psychological phenomenon, we will tend to define classroom problems in terms of student lack... Instead, a sociological approach focuses on the kinds of discourses, language, and practices that students have had access s to and practice with. These are the products of participation and membership in particular interpretive communities, not of simple individual difference. They are the resources of cultural practice, not of innate intelligence, natural ability, or developmental stages. (p. 208)"
Finally, it is important to consider that our conceptions of critical media literacy do not deny the psychological or cognitive aspects of reading, writing, and speaking; instead, we see them as attendant processes in a much larger social context -- one in which "literacy is always already political" (Green, 1997, p. 241) and relations of power are at stake in people's daily interactions around popular culture forms. We also acknowledge that issues of gender, race, class, age, and other identity markers are historically part of these everyday interactions (Luke & Freebody, 1997a).
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Much needed book.,
This review is from: Popular Culture in the Classroom: Teaching and Researching Critical Media Literacy (IRA's Literacy Studies Series) (Paperback)
There's very little written about the role of popular culture in the classroom. Nearly all teachers get little or no education in what popular culture is all about, but yet popular culture has a powerful influence on shaping the self-images, values, and ideas young people have about themselves, their peers, and the larger society.The authors of this work start from the premise that "The ability to read and critique popular media is significant for at least two reasons. First, in an age of expanding consumerism, children and young people who learn to question how their identities are constructed by the various forms of popular culture that they elect to take up are likely to make more informed decisions about how they live their lives. Second, the abundance of media messages (both image based and verbal) in the home and community suggests that there is an urgent need to help students learn how to evaluate such messages for their social, economic, and aesthetic contents." These authors go on to tell about the ways they approached or observed the teaching or use of popular culture in the classroom. Topics such as the differences between the Backstreet Boys and Puff Daddy, the Spice Girls, self-identity and images of young women in popular texts, and the various approaches to the pedagogy of popular culture are explored. The authors offer no cookbook strategies to take to the classroom, but they do provide a framework for teachers interested in introducing popular culture in their classroom. Finally, I would like to say it's significant that this work is published by the International Reading Association, for "reading" popular culture is very much a part of how young people read their world. For far too long adults have assumed that the adult world is the only world to read and understand. In this approach, we have allowed the media and popular culture to educate our youth, while we assumed that the "adult," canonized world of school could have a greater impact. Well, it's not. We need to come to grips with that. We can use popular culture to help young people understand and become critically aware, as the authors explain, of how the social, political, and economic messages emanate from different forms of popular culture. I highly recommend this work to my fellow teachers.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent introduction to the topic.,
By Art Lover (Indiana) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Popular Culture in the Classroom: Teaching and Researching Critical Media Literacy (IRA's Literacy Studies Series) (Paperback)
I have used this text as basic reading for pre-service and in-service teacher seminars that focus on issues of popular culture in education. Students have rated the text highly. The text could be supplemented applying the inquiry techniques or teaching strategies, suggested by these authors, to new topics of popular culture. I highly recommend it for introductory teacher education courses.
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