Located in the suburbs of a large midwestern city, Trail Middle School serves a predominantly middle-class population. The data the authors feature in this article include group discussions and interviews with students, as well as recordings of in-class lessons, student work, and fieldnotes. The authors focus on the theme of gender as it emerged…

Using a pilot program in one Chicago elementary school as a case study, this article reports findings of an ethnographic investigation on the impact of Hiphop based music education at the elementary school level. The findings describe how this program facilitated a process by which the youth participants were empowered through (a) identity…

This paper explores the responses of nearly 1,200 children and young people in Wales who were asked to identify which three famous people they most admired and which three they most disliked. Analysis of these young people's responses reveals a number of sociological and educational issues. Their selections confirm other research which has…

This case study examined a Romanticism unit within a Year 9 English class in Sydney, Australia. It considered whether popular culture could build connections between students' lives and Romanticism, and whether the process of remixing "high" Romantic poetry with "low" popular culture could foster student engagement. Thematic…

Creating classroom book clubs with e-readers helps connect adolescent interests, digital literacies, and content area academic goals.

The theme of this year was educate to liberate. A reminder to the literacy community that education, and literacy extend beyond the content and courses we teach. As Freire puts it, "Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people--they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are…

Current scholarship suggests that many youths identify with hip-hop, especially youths of color. Study of this artistic form has been suggested as a means of helping youths acquire and become fluent in literacy practices. This article explores how the use of a hip-hop literacies curriculum addressed the literacy skills of urban ninth-grade English…

The authors share findings from a recent study of teens who freely select to read texts typically marginalized by schools (dystopia, vampire, romance, horror, fantasy), revealing the distinct functional and psychological benefits of pleasure reading. The students who participated in the study that the authors report on were eighth graders who…

The English language day by day is becoming ever increasingly important in the world. Music in foreign language education can be seen as a helpful method that spontaneously livens the learning atmosphere. In this paper, we are arguing for (the use of) songs that stir and inspire "social change" and that are an "authentic" part…

Identity formation is a critical process shaping the lives of adolescents and can present distinct challenges for Black adolescent girls who are positioned in society to negotiate ideals of self when presented with false and incomplete images representing Black girlhood. Researchers have found distorted images of Black femininity derived from…

Graffiti artist Sentrock sees his graffiti as a selfless act, a way of giving back to the community--when done legally--and inspires a group of middle school students. This is a case study of an artist and educator who teaches about graffiti art in public schools. He is unique in that he delineates between graffiti art and vandalism, and teaches…

Popular culture is a relatively new area of study in the artroom, and combining it with the demands of a rigorous curriculum requires some thought. Combining threads from several sources was the key to an exciting exploration of pattern inspired by a newspaper headline. In 2006, a landmark case was settled in Austria, which repatriated five famous…

"STEM21: Equity in Teaching and Learning to Meet Global Challenges of Standards, Engagement and Transformation" is designed to contribute to discourses about how STEM teaching and learning can become more equitable, serving the needs of readers across the STEM educational spectrum. "STEM21" is meant to problematize the status…

A significant amount of research regarding Hip-Hop Based Education (HHBE) fails to provide insight on how to incorporate elements of Hip-Hop into daily teaching practices; rather Hip-Hop based educators focus mainly on incorporating Hip-Hop culture into curricula. This study explores the benefits of using two specific Hip-Hop pedagogical practices…

This article reports on an action research project with 9 eighth-grade special education students in a self-contained classroom in an urban public school. The 1st author, in collaboration with the classroom teacher (3rd author), taught the students a critical media literacy framework to explore popular culture websites. Students learned to analyze…