Pop songs have been claimed to provide a noteworthy source of second language (L2) input. While listening to songs in English is one of the most commonly reported out-of-class activities among EFL learners, little research exists as to how different teaching approaches to the use of songs in the EFL class can enhance students' vocabulary learning.…

In Western countries, music educators have made efforts to revitalise enthusiasm for music education by integrating more mainstream and culturally-relevant genres into their curriculum. Conversely, current research indicates that popular music pedagogy in mainland China is not encouraged and faces many obstacles, as school music education is used…

The present study investigated the effect of descriptive and injunctive norms of peers, parents, and favorite celebrities on adolescents' negative online behavior toward celebrities. The sample consisted of 1,255 adolescents ([X-bar][subscript age] = 14.17, SD = 0.47). Adolescents indicated what their peers, parents, and favorite celebrities think…

Media play an important role in young people's lives as an agent of socialization, both generally and with regard to mathematics. To understand the mathematics-related messages disseminated to young people via popular media, we analyzed portrayals of mathematics and mathematicians in over 40 media examples (television shows, movies, websites,…

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 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…

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…

This empirical study investigates Chinese students' popular music preferences in daily life and to what extent and in what ways they prefer learning popular music in school in Shanghai, China. Data were drawn from questionnaires completed by 1,730 secondary students (aged 12-17) and interviews with 60 students from 10 secondary schools, between…

New literacies are affecting the ways that we choose to spend our time in teaching and learning. In this article, Hagood describes the work of nine middle grades teachers' explorations of new literacies, including digital technologies and pop culture, and their implementations in their content area instruction. She also highlights some of the…

The author has been deeply committed to shaping an art curriculum that offers students a more meaningful and authentic experience. In addition, she has been interested in the notion of students as victims of their popular culture. She questioned the ways in which cultural sources might impact their aesthetic choices with regard to personal…