Schooling in the Light of Popular Culture

Book excerpt: Annotation Explores an underexamined source of influence that affects the way schooling is experienced and understood in contemporary culture, namely the flow of symbolic forms comprising mainstream popular culture. The volume centers on the portrayal of aspects of schooling --its characteristics, participants, glories, and problems--as they are constructed and displayed in diverse forms of popular culture. The main assumption is that involvement in contemporary schooling at any level--as teacher, student, policymaker, administrator, or concerned citizen--is conditioned by the sociocultural context in which schooling is understood, a context that is in turn mediated by powerful forms of popular culture. Paper edition (1872-3), $19.95. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.