Education Commons^™

Book Review: Making Media Studies By David Gauntlett, Antonio Lopez

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Making Media Studies is a collection of previously published and updated works by David Gauntlett, including his infamous essay, “Media Studies 2.0.” It explores ways in which the traditional media studies paradigm has been disrupted by prosumers and the practices of everyday people and DIY “makers” who are using the internet to learn, make things and share ideas. He argues that media studies practitioners need to learn from the makers movement to encourage more creativity, design thinking and conversation. Gauntlett positions himself as an optimist and criticizes overly negative approaches to internet culture that he sees as common among media …

Introduction, Antonio Medina-Rivera, Lee F. Wilberschied Ph.D.

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

No abstract provided.

American Muslims: How The “American Creed” Fosters Assimilation And Pluralism, James R. Moore

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

This article examines the status of American Muslims in the United States in relationship to other cultural groups and some of the widespread stereotypes that plague Muslims in contemporary society. Much has been written about the discrimination faced by Muslims, particularly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, spawned by religious, racial, and ethnic bigotry. Some polls show many Americans harbor some prejudices against Muslims, but these prejudices have not resulted in widespread violence or discrimination; although there has been some violence and discrimination experienced by some Muslims, the empirical data show that the majority of American Muslims are very successful …

Table Of Contents, Antonio Medina-Rivera, Lee F. Wilberschied Ph.D.

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

No abstract provided.

Language And The Promised Land: Passage And Migration To A Spanish-Language ‘Third Place’, Kenya C. Dworkin Y Mendez

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

The Spanish-language anthology Caminos para la paz: Literatura israelí y árabe en castellano (Buenos Aires: Corregidor, 2007) [Paths towards/for Peace: Israeli and Arab literature in Castilian], compiled by Ignacio López-Calvo and Cristián Ricci, offers us a collection of over thirty reflections—some Jewish, others Muslim—about the millennial but also contemporary situation of two literally related and historic peoples in a language—Spanish—that seemingly allows them to inhabit the same, this time uncontested, space. Despite the potentially questionable title of the work, which couches the conflict as that of a nation-state versus a nation and/or two peoples contesting rights to one same land, …

Hannah Arendt And Natives As Extras: Towards An Ontology Of Palestinian Presence?, Francesco Melfi

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

The essay grew out of Hannah Arendt’s reflection on the roles and uses of the mask, a meditation on the ontology of the transient public figure or persona vs. one that restitutes the person to the unadulterated Selbstdenken dimension of the Epicurean philosopher-in-hiding. The author individuates in the resulting caesura between the donning and the taking off of the mask the primal source of that paradox in Hanna Arendt’s political behavior that alternately compelled her to confront the ontological presence of the Palestinian people, and made her withdraw into philosophical hiding without ever really coming to terms with it. In …

Teaching Secondary Mathematics And Science Contents Embedded In Historical And Cultural Contexts: Challenges And Possibilities, Roland Pourdavood

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

Many preservice teachers come to understand that they must cross the boundaries of their own familiar cultural and historical contexts in order to meet the needs of diverse students. This qualitative and descriptive study examines the evolution of secondary preservice teachers’ views on teaching and learning mathematics and science in historical and cultural contexts. Data were collected throughout participants’ enrollment in a semester-long course entitled Perspectives on Science and Mathematics, which is taken in conjunction with student teaching. Data sources included university classroom observations, preservice teachers’ verbal and written responses to class discussions, reading assignments, and course activities. Common themes …

On Confucius’S Ideology Of Aesthetic Order, Li Wang

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

Advocating order, order for all things, and taking order as beauty is the core element of Confucius’s aesthetic ideology. Confucius’s thought of aesthetic order is different from others of the “hundred schools of thoughts” in the pre-Qin period, and is also diverse from the Western value of aesthetic order. Confucius’s thought of aesthetic order has its own unique value system, which has become the mainstream value of aesthetic order in the Chinese society for 2000 years until today, after being integrated with the Chinese feudal imperial system in early Han Dynasty. This paper illustrates Confucius’s ideology of aesthetic order from …

War Of The Worlds: Music And Cosmological Battles In The Balinese Cremation Procession, Michael B. Bakan

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Abstract

This article explores processional action as a form of cosmological intervention in Hindu-Balinese cremation processions, focusing on the multiple and intersecting functions of a particular type of Balinese instrumental music ensemble: the gamelan beleganjur. It explores the alternately “enlivening and protective aspects” (DeVale 1990, 62) that underlie the use of beleganjur music in the ngaben, or cremation ritual, showing how beleganjur’s sonic power and rhythmic drive serve to combat malevolent spirit beings, strengthen and inspire processional participants in their efforts to meet challenging ritual obligations, and grant courage to the souls of deceased individuals embarking on their …

Enhancing The Effects Of Theatre Of The Oppressed Through Systems Thinking: Reflections On An Applied Workshop, Jennifer Luong, Ross Arnold

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

In this essay, we explore the idea that the use of Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) techniques in the quest for social justice, transformation, and liberation can be enhanced through application of a skill set called systems thinking. We facilitated a workshop at the 2015 Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed conference in which we presented a brief introductory course in systems thinking, led guided practice using the method, and invited sharing and reflection about the fusion of systems thinking and TO. We explain the workshop in detail, discuss its impact on participants, and offer future directions for considering the …

Beyond The Wall In Dheisheh Camp: From Local To Transnational Image-Making, Philip Hopper

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

Murals and graffiti on the Israeli separation barrier near Bethlehem have been well documented by journalists and discussed in academic journals. Though the image and texts on the barrier may be “transnational” they are of little consequence to the local population. Murals and graffiti within the nearby Dheisheh Palestinian Refugee Camp consolidate local public opinion, generally about the occupation and dismemberment of the West Bank and specifically about individual martyrs or shaheed. The performative nature of these images goes beyond the act of painting them. Children from the Camp pose with these images, identifying with the abstraction of justice and …

Students Staging Resistance: Pedagogy/Performance/Praxis, Patrick Santoro, Uriah Berryhill, Lois Nemeth, Rebecca Townsend, Deirdre Webb

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

This essay archives and reimagines a collaborative student performance—inJUSTICE—developed as part of a performance and social change course. Working within the framework of critical pedagogy, the intents of this piece are several: to offer strategies for teaching a course on performing resistance and mentoring students in the development of original work; to provide insight into how students, primarily at the undergraduate level, process performance in the context of social change, as well as apply course concepts and practices in their own performance work; and to affirm a body-centered, performative pedagogy in the classroom. Also included is a video of the …

Imaginative Acts Of Resistance: Dramatic Storytelling In An Elementary School Classroom, Shannon K. Mcmanimon

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

This critical ethnographic project draws upon literature on imagination, critical literacy, and theatre to explore a sixth-grade class’s participation in a critical literacy and creative drama program. Through examples from the storytelling practices of the Neighborhood Bridges program, I outline how students and teachers (including a teaching artist) imagined, co-created, and revised storylines in their classroom; this collaboration provides an alternative to the common narrative of the constrained urban public school classroom. The resulting imaginative acts of resistance: 1) encourage and empower urban elementary students to enact relevant, collaborative community in their classrooms; 2) engage meaningful—not just functional—literacies; 3) ask …

Underrepresented: In The Margins Of Education, Jennifer L. Erdely

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

This poem documents and serves as a call to action to confront our perceptions in spaces of learning. The format of the poem serves as a way to “give perspective” (Faulkner 2009, 92) to those who are marginalized while contemplating voice, ownership, and responsibility. This poem’s importance lies in its margins—in those blank spaces where we as teachers, scholars, and students can write how we decide to engage our own identities, pedagogies, and performances with what is on the page. Poems allow space for other voices to be expressed—the blank space on the page is the place of freedom for …

Online Only Classes And Critical Dialogue: Toward A Faustian Bargain Ideal For Virtual Education, C. Kyle Rudick

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

As distance learning and Online Only Classes (OOCs) become more prevalent in higher education, it becomes increasingly urgent that critical-democratic educators continue to work toward a better understanding of liberatory praxis through technology. The goals of this essay are to explain why critical dialogue cannot be realized in OOCs, describe how blended brick-and-mortar/virtual classes may be advantageous for a critical agenda, and help orient future scholarship concerning critical pedagogy and technology toward a “Faustian bargain” ideal argued by Neil Postman. In order to reach these goals, I outline two types of educators that I believe have the most at stake …

Shaking The Hands Of Our Mentors: Boal And Freire And Us, Katherine Burke, Mariana K. Leal Ferreira, Mark Weinberg

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

This collection of three personal narratives documents the ways in which a radical mathematics educator, a socially conscious but disillusioned theatre-maker, and a social activist seeking tools for change discovered the techniques of Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed and met the wonderful men who developed them.

Editor’S Introduction To The Inaugural Issue Of Pto Journal, Jennifer L. Freitag

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

This brief note from the editor provides an introduction to the journal, the philosophy that has driven its development, what makes it similar to and different from other professional journals, and the individuals and organizations responsible for its inception.

Confessions Of A Media Literacy Scholar-Practitioner: Job Market Advantages, Research Agenda Challenges, And Theory-Driven Production, Christopher Boulton

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This essay explores how higher education’s move away from the liberal arts tradition of learning by thinking and towards more vocational “experiential” approaches has implications for media literacy educators’ career options, scholarly identities, and teaching strategies. Specifically, I consider my own negotiation of increasing administrative and student demands for “hands-on” production courses by confessing both my advantages on the job market and my post-hire challenges in articulating a clear research agenda. I then conclude with a case study of how I repurposed my scholar-practitioner identity and used critical theory to drive production by bringing film students into a cultural studies …

L’Écrivain Intellectuel Et Le Destin De L’Université Camerounaise, Jean Marie Wounfa

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This reflection is based on a corpus of narrative texts (novels and short stories) and on an eclectic approach which theoretical and methodological tools are borrowed from the comparatism, the institutional approach and the discourse analysis. The goal is to show that as a literary theme, the University strips off its pedestal and undergoes a more or less severe criticism under the pen of Cameroonian intellectual writers. Hence, its representation is marked with prejudgments, stereotypes and misconceptions that make the University a myth from which the writers free and engage themselves in a realistic representation of the university system. The …

The City From Above, Guadalupe Astorga Contreras

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

The city of Tijuana, Mexico has become a second home to many LMU students through programs like De Colores, which introduce students to issues of immigration, poverty, and education. The city varies from L.A.-style skyscrapers and paved roads to shacks along dirt paths. This image shows some of the diversity and growth of the city as it continues to develop, and provides a different perspective on the crowded communities that make up Tijuana.

Tourist To My Own Culture, Guadalupe Astorga Contreras

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

After nine years of living in the U.S. and staying away from her cultural homeland of Mexico, photographer Astorga returned to some of the places she remembered visiting as a child in her native country. Throughout the trip, the unthinkable change from intimacy to unfamiliarity was clear. These pictures show that progression and invite the viewer to become a tourist alongside Astorga as she visits a place she once considered home.

Only 45 Minutes Away, Guadalupe Astorga Contreras

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

Being a part of an immigrant family, photographer Astorga has not had the chance to travel much even within her home state of California. Trips through class, clubs and events sponsored by Loyola Marymount University have provided her with the opportunity to visit places like Catalina Island right off the coast of L.A. and see things she and her family had only talked and dreamed of.

Hereisthefamilymotherfatherdickandjane: An Analysis Of Parenting And The Dick And Jane Readers In Morrison’S The Bluest Eye, Rachel Roseman

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

First-generation college student Rachel Roseman has found the American educational and cultural systems to privilege the white, upper to middle classes. As Toni Morrison demonstrates in The Bluest Eye, those who do not fit this mold often lack educational support and have to learn how to navigate cultural systems on their own. Unlike the character of Pecola, who features in the following essay, Roseman had a strong community and family who supported her decision to attend college and, as a result, achieved success.

Twisted Little Braids: Rage And Resistance, Alexia F. Pineda

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

Anger, resistance, and the first-generation, Chicana experience is alive. When its speaks, it spills out truth. Higher education? It's time to make space for us.

Espacios Alternativos, Alternate Spaces, Alexia F. Pineda

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

In this essay, Pineda demonstrates that by employing Chicana spirituality and drawing from the courage it can generate, first-generation college students can deepen their political leadership and artistic liberation.

Black Lives Matter: Why Black Feminism?, Analexicis T. Bridewell

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

In this essay, the author explores the inclusive nature and focal range of the Black Lives Matter movement in an effort to demonstrate how the goals of the movement are grounded in Black feminism. Ultimately, Bridewell concludes that creating inclusive spaces for the exploration of intersectional identities can help bring justice and equality not only to the Black community, but to all lives that have be oppressed or marginalized.

Understanding School, Tiffany P. Ta

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

As a first-generation college student in the Silicon Valley, author Tiffany Ta grew up in a high-achieving academic culture that she only really began to unpack and understand in college. Upon being exposed to more diverse cultures and backgrounds, Ta began to realize that her upbringing was vastly different than many others, and that some of her classmates' behaviors were unnatural. This poem reflects how she now feels about the experience looking back.

Did You?, Tiffany P. Ta

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

This poem is a reflection on first-generation college student Tiffany Ta's family heritage. The piece focuses on the author's grandmother, who Ta never really got to know.

For The Dreamers, Mariajose Gomez

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

"For the Dreamers" reflects the author's experience on a De Colores immersion trip to Casa de Migrantes in Mexico, Tijuana. This was Gomez's first time traveling out of the country, and the experience helped her realize that no human being should be considered “illegal” simply because of man-made barriers. The piece exposes the complex social dynamics that inform the experiences of both immigrants and citizens of the United States. The purpose of the poem is to challenge readers' views on immigration and highlight the role social constructs and stereotypes play in establishing preconceived ideas about immigrants. The author hopes readers …

Sheep In A Grotto, Laken D. Brooks

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

Many first-generation college students undergo feelings of inadequacy in what is known as "impostor syndrome." This piece of fiction is born from such feelings of identity confusion and formation. The story functions as a written snapshot of an otherwise normal teenager whose life is threatened by a sexual assault; she faces and overcomes trauma at the cusp of her coming of age. Brooks' tale incorporates a raw focus upon the protagonist's ability to persevere and thrive in the face of violence. Ultimately, this text transcends a single character's journey into womanhood to reflect a message of hope and growth.