If America is culturally diverse by history and habit, it is religiously diverse by design and by law. Although religion may be the strongest form of shared culture, and although people refuse to have any official religious establishment, they are surprisingly reluctant to celebrate that form of diversity anymore. In this article, the author takes…

Much has been written about literacy and popular culture but less about the role, if any, of popular culture in children's play. In view of the fact that play is recognized by many as a primary mode of learning, particularly in the early years, and also as an essential process in the representation of ideas and feelings, this is something that…

Through a discussion of two videos--The Take (Naomi Klein & Avi Lewis, 2004), and a student project--I argue that media education can further the role of youth as critically engaged, democratic citizens most effectively when educators develop students' capacity for reflection and self-expression through engagement with those power structures that…

Neil Postman describes the United States in the late 20th century as the only "technopoly" (a society that has totally surrendered to technology, information, and science) in the world, and he asks educators to resist technopoly by changing curriculum. In his book "Technopoly," Postman proposes that cultures may be classified…

Recent discussions of teaching composition in the context of cultural studies have begun to consider the condition of the writing subject in society, yet these discussions construct student-writer S(s)ubject(ivitie)s at the poles of modernist-identity and postmodern-difference binary opposition that is politically problematic. The identity of the…

Despite burgeoning literature that acknowledges the importance of the principalship in achieving and maintaining school effectiveness, principals have been depicted unfavorably in film and television as insecure autocrats, petty bureaucrats, and classic buffoons. This paper presents findings of a study that not only catalogued images of principals…

In 1927 the Brazilian modernist writer, Jose Bento Monteiro Lobato, traveled to New York City with his family, where he took up a position as economic attache at the Brazilian Consulate. For 4 years he and his family lived in Jackson Heights, while he worked and observed the feverish activity that was making the United States the foremost and most…

For a researcher with a serious interest in studying popular culture, the collective negligence of the entertainment industries, the scholarly community, and the government is a given, but some action to preserve American mass media artifacts can be undertaken. Contrary to the myth of unlimited access to information, certain regions of the public…

The current Australian scene is a good example of how American culture as portrayed in the mass media is reflected by a receptor national culture. Australia, sharing a similar history and a common language with the United States, has virtually no resistance to American culture. Some differences in national characteristics, such as the Australian…

A study investigated evangelist Billy Graham's numerical success in using "the invitation" and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association's (BGEA) follow-up plan to preserve the beneficial effects of Christian commitment and to minimize commitment attrition. Statistics on audience response gathered throughout Graham's ministry attest to…

A comparison of the current television series "Miami Vice" with the "film noir" genre of American movies from the forties and fifties reveals many similar elements, such as visual style, mood, theme, and sensibility. "Miami Vice" is set in a large city whose art deco architecture provides an ironic contrast to noir's…

Journalistic practice in the United States has gone through a number of changes in recent history, much of it because of television. The significance of these changes might be better understood with a theory on the social function of news and its relationship to the postmodern culture. News is considered in some way as the ground material of…

To understand film as a form of political communication, movies must be regarded as an art form made both with commercial and aesthetic considerations and with cultural, industrial, and artistic traditions in mind. Filmmaking must also be viewed as a process or as a temporal activity of a culture. Through political mediation, or the process of…

While group singing of composed songs and the singing that takes place during circle games are the commonest forms of music instruction for young children, children should also be encouraged to engage in free musical play or spontaneous singing. In spontaneous singing, the child creates a song at a moment's notice while engaged in play. Free…

This paper considers briefly some of the changes in values over the past 50 years. It indicates that the old-fashioned values concerning thrift; the need for human community; the rewards of love, marriage, and fidelity; the spaciousness of the globe; the proper content for English; and the fitness of public education have dwindled in importance as…