Peter Appelbaum, Arcadia University appelbaum@arcadia.edu
Cultural Studies is an important intellectual movement that arose in the latter part of the twentieth century, and which had significant origins in curriculum studies and other educational research efforts.
One early work in cultural studies is a famous book, Learning to Labour, by Paul Willis. Willis spent a lot of time with adolescent boys and tried to describe the sorts of ways that they made meaning out of experiences in and out of school, and how these particular experiences were part of a coherent set of ways of being that educators and social theorists might not be thinking about. This book, first printed in 1977, has as its subtitle, “how working class kids get working class jobs.” One important interpretation of these “lads’” lives is that they resist school culture and what it promises, and their resistance creates a working class culture that prediscposes them to a certain future of working class lives. Brief info is available at the current publisher’s website: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/data/023105/0231053576.HTM . Willis is British, as were most of the pioneers of cultural studies. He was part of a group of people at the University at Birmingham, which later became known ans established as the “Birmingham School” of cultural studies. (see also http://www.wsu.edu/~amerstu/tm/cultstud.html)
For a recent American example of the kinds of work that might be labeled Cultural Studies, see the projects section of Michelle Fine’s website: http://web.gc.cuny.edu/che/mfine.htm, or her biography in the cross-city campaign for reform: http://www.crosscity.org/reports/mfine_bio.htm .
Another well-known scholar in cultural studies and education is Cameron McCarthy. You can check out his work on his website: http://www.comm.uiuc.edu/icr/home/Faculty/mccarthy.htm .
Nowadays, I would say that cultural studies has exploded into an interdisciplinary interrogation of the ways that people make meanings out of the materials of culture that permeate and mediate their life experiences. There is much overlap among cultural studies, ethnographic studies of youth, popular culture studies, media studies, post-colonial studies, literature, sociology, and those broad perspectives on curriculum that we have talked about that take everything in life as a kind of curriculum.
Here is a quote from the University of California at Davis, taken from their proposal for a graduate program in the field of “cultural studies,” reprinted in their proposal from the journal Cultural Studies:
Cultural Studies is an interdisciplinary
approach to the
study of culture and society which responds to, and builds upon,
critical analyses of traditional disciplines and epistemologies as
well as upon developments specific to gender, ethnic, and sexuality
studies which have emerged over the last twenty-five years. Key to
the Cultural Studies approach is the perception that language,
gender, race, sexuality, nationality, and class organize identities,
complex social relations and cultural objects. Also key is the
assumption that the study of culture in all its complexity requires
cross disciplinary work.
Cultural Studies assumes that the object of knowledge will
determine the methodologies to be used. It actively encourages the
crossing of disciplinary boundaries and promotes the innovative
interweaving of methodologies which have been traditionally
associated with a wide range of different disciplines. Thus, for
example, a scholar taking a cultural studies approach to the current
debates over "family values" might investigate the ways in which
visual and literary texts, political debate, policy decisions,
political and religious movements, and groups of people living their
everyday lives produce different, overlapping and competing
representations of family, family values, and the social order
generally. Such a study, therefore, might involve methods
traditionally associated with sociology--such as quantitative and
qualitative studies of family forms and dynamics--methods
traditionally associated with literary and media studies--such as the
close reading of literature, films, television programs, advertising,
and political speeches--and methodologies traditionally associated
with anthropology such as ethnography which might involve asking
questions of groups of people and studying how they live. Cultural
Studies, therefore, flourishes within formations
that facilitate
communication and collaboration amongst scholars from diverse fields. (http://culturalstudies.ucdavis.edu/CS%20Program%20Proposal.htm)
You may see ways that this stuff builds on our discussions of multiculturalism, and particularly the discussions of identity and border literacies in critical multiculturalism.
1. Look through the websites below to get a sense of the kinds of things that people are talking about lately in Cultural Studies. Come to class with:
· a list of things you found interesting enough to want to discuss them with somebody else in class;
· an idea for how you will incorporate cultural studies in your action/research project this semester;
· examples of why several of the theorists mentioned or included in these sites made you think about something surprising or important;
· at least two questions or challenges for us to consider
Sarah Zupko’s Cultural Studies Center http://www.popcultures.com/
Pop Matters – The Magazine of Global Culture http://popmatters.com/
Cultural Studies Central http://www.culturalstudies.net/
Cultural Studies and Critical Theory http://eserver.org/theory/
Voice of the Shuttle http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=2709
Douglas Kellner http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/kellner.html
2. Notice how often education is a dominant topic for people who work in the field of cultural studies? Why do you think this is the case?
3. We will be reading Consuming Children: Education-Entertainment-Advertising, by Kenway and Bullen, which is one very current example of how curriculum workers are using cultural studies to inform their practice. We will also be experiencing interactive presentations on youth and/or popular culture in our class meetings soon. To get a sense of the book, you may find the following websites interesting. Come prepared to suggest:
Jane Kenway http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/uped-oped/meetingplace/Staff/kenway.htm
What I thought: http://www.ed.asu.edu/edrev/reviews/rev193.htm