This article provides a conceptual account and empirical analyses of the development of "boundary-crossing competence"--the ability to function competently in multiple contexts--using representative cases from two after-school programs with immigrant and low-socioeconomic status students. Our findings suggest that organizational designs…

This paper traces representational strategies employed by "Hoop Dreams," the documentary for which two black teenagers and their families consented to have three white film makers follow them around in their day-to-day life for five years. Storytelling techniques, choice of narrator, and on- vs. off-screen action all reflect film maker…

The relationship between mass mediated symbol systems and the development of subculture were studied through an analysis of the "hardcore" followers of the rock group, the Grateful Dead, i.e., the "Deadheads." As a way of compiling a "thick description" of the kind proposed by Clifford Geertz (1973), several key areas…

The paper examines science fiction literature as a product and part of the social consciousness of the modern capitalist world order. This world order is seen as emphasizing science, technology, movement, growth, urbanization, industrialization, complex organization, and progress. The document is organized into two sections. The first section…

The mass culture critique of advanced industrialized society calls forth such images as an omnipresent media; demagogic politics; a bleak, standardized aesthetic landscape; routinized work; and empty leisure; but the mass culture critique suffers from conceptual ambiguity and a paucity of research. The mass culture critique, from both radical and…

Barbie is presented as the perfect cultural site for interrogating margins, borders, and contradictions in females' lives. This article illuminates such issues by interrogating the "cumulative cultural text of Barbie." Texts criticized are: Barbie collector cards; "Barbie" and "Barbie Fashion" comic books;…

Describes a classroom activity where students compare an episode of "The Simpsons" to speeches and essays of Mark Twain. Suggests it invites students to consider the categorization of texts into "high" and "low" culture, and helps students build media literacy skills by applying tools of textual analysis first to a…

In this article, the author shares how media affects her as a teenager. The author says that media has such a relationship with the world today, specifically with teenagers like her. Media gives off so much information that can be valid or invalid, positive or negative. The media can persuade anyone to do something or to think a certain way.…

In the 1960s many teachers in the British secondary schools began a major effort to redefine their attitude toward the mass media in the light of certain social and cultural pressures. Changes in students made it necessary to provide materials of a less formal academic kind and to introduce literature, music, and art that would relate more…

Discusses television's influence on today's youth culture and examines measures that may be taken to limit or change the nature of that influence. Warns that efforts to control television programing will continue to fail until educators understand that television is an integral part of the youth culture, not just an influence.(KO)

Asks how art should be taught in the postmodern world. Argues that art education must change in two ways: (1) discussions of fine art must focus on the meaning of postmodern art and concepts; and (2) incorporating postmodern concepts to address the broad range of visual culture encountered by students. (DSK)

This paper begins by discussing the difference between genre and gender, defining the former as the study of a systemic totality, and the latter as the split in the totality, reversal, upturning, and break-up of any systemic logic. Also discussed are (1) the difference between nature and culture, and the quarrel between essentialist and…

Examines consumer services delivered via the Internet. Discusses social and political factors (regulation, commercial alliances, copyright), specific applications (home banking and shopping, distance education, electronic mail, games, telecommuting), and constraints of data transmission. Since many applications are based on videoconferencing,…

Addresses issues of culture, cultural politics, social power, and television audience in cultural studies. Argues that cultural studies as a field tends to analyze all cultural interpretation in terms of struggles between dominant and subordinate groups and that the text-centered approach of cultural studies misses much of television viewing's…

This article chronicles the authors' effort to construct a pedagogical exercise to help students connect food consumption to social class membership through the analysis of restaurant menus. Similar to Albers and Bach's (2003) use of music as an element of popular culture, the authors use food to convey sociological concepts related to social…