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…

Using pop icons in the science classroom represents a creative way to engage often-distracted students in a relevant and, perhaps more importantly, fun way. When the pop icon is as universally known as Captain America, the pedagogical stage is set. However, when the movies can also be employed to link dramatic references to the science concepts at…

Building upon research exploring adolescent writing in technology-mediated contexts, this article examines writing and sharing in the online space of Fanfiction.net. Drawing on qualitative data from a longitudinal inquiry with a 16-year-old who writes in multiple contexts, this study explores the writing opportunities afforded on Fanfiction.net…

The semester-long activity described herein uses an integrated instructional approach to media studies to introduce students to the research method of qualitative content analysis and help them become more critically vigilant media consumers. The goal is to increase students' media literacy by guiding them in the design of an exploratory…

In recent years, food scholarship has extended its preoccupation with consumption to interrogating the relationship between eating, culture and waste, and their effects on the environment. Simultaneously, food-related concerns have also become a recurrent part of popular culture, where examples from children's television provide fertile ground for…

Conflicts over territory are about the power to establish dominant cultures in territories and are often accompanied by cultural claims to legitimacy by each side. The cultural claims, or ideologies, are often expressed in terms of "homeland" dwellers versus "intruders." Two recent movies, "Dawn of the Planet of the…

Children's locational knowledge is often used to clarify underlying conceptual understandings of the world in which they live. Although there has been some exploration of how European children view their world there is little recent research on Scandinavian children's knowledge and associated perceptions of the wider world, or about Australian…

This article examines an informal online community dedicated to "The Tudors," a historical television show, and the ways in which its members engaged with a variety of sources in their discussions of the drama's real-life past. Data were collected over a 5-month period. The analysis included the types of sources used in conversation;…

More than a musical genre, jazz in the 1920s was viewed by critics and supporters alike as a type of lifestyle, one that frequently led to drinking, dancing, and "petting." Much to the horror of older generations, white young people were particularly drawn to jazz and its "hot rhythms." Secondary school teachers and…

This paper investigates graffiti drawn on vehicles in Egypt as an expression of their authors' social values, religious ideologies and political affiliations. Little research has been done in Egypt on these meaning-loaded messages. This paper gives further evidence that graffiti are a very powerful mode of expression for groups that feel…

Can art be a sport? Gabriel Lacktman describes the thrill of graffiti. He notes the average artist seeks refuge in the blanket of self-expression, successfully avoiding all disconcerting competition. However, in the 1990s, Lacktman's interest in graffiti became a lifestyle, the theme was all about "the art of getting over" or "the…

Popular culture, especially movie culture, is the arena where the struggles of the diverse cultures belonging to age groups are carried out. "Moonrise Kingdom" is an unusual movie, different from the usual summer or coming of age movies. In such movies, different theories of youth are displayed, providing tools for constructing the…

In this article, I examine the role of Black Twitter as a "digital counterpublic" that enables critical pedagogy, political organizing, and both symbolic and material forms of resistance to anti-Black state violence within the United States. Focusing primarily on post-Ferguson events, I spotlight the ways that Black people have used…

In this paper we take on Green's (2017) orientation of the Australian Curriculum: English and consider what might it hold for the students of Australia. We set about analysing eighteen minutes of storytelling by a group of young 9-12 year old Kunibídji males from Maningrida in the far North of the Northern Territory in Australia, making this…

Adolescents learn sustainable production techniques, civic engagement, leadership, public speaking, food safety practices, conflict resolution, disaster preparedness, and other life skills through Extension programming. Educators can increase participant interest in such programming by applying a creative pop culture twist, such as a zombie…