Cultural Studies and Education

Cultural Studies and Education is a timely introduction to cultural studies and the ways in which it can enrich both education scholarship and practice.

An extensive field that in the last few decades has transformed many academic disciplines, cultural studies has yet to be fully considered by educators and education scholars. Cultural Studies and Education redresses this great shortcoming, bringing cultural studies and its implications for education to the fore.

The book aims to serve three main purposes. First, it is an introduction for educators and education researchers to some of the most important theoretical debates and analytic frameworks that have shaped the field of cultural studies. Second, it offers an introduction to and examples of three important areas of inquiry in which education and cultural studies overlap: gender and queer studies; postcolonial and ethnic studies; and popular culture and youth studies. Third, it illustrates how education scholars have dealt with the conceptual challenges of cultural studies and how education offers unique perspectives and contributions to the broader debates in the field."

Ruben A. Gaztambide-Fernandez is an advanced doctorial student and an instructor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he teached Curriculum theory. He is a former co-chair of the Harvard Educational Review and of the HER Special Issue on Popular Culture and Education (2003), and is co-editor of Curriculum Work as a Public Moral Enterprise (with J. T. Sears, 2004). The recipient of a Spencer Foundation Research Training Grant, Gaztambide-Fernandez's current research focuses on the construction on social indentities in elite independent schools. He lives with his wife and daughter in Cambridge, Massachusetts.Heather A. Harding is an advanced doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she is a teaching fellow for courses in educational policy, school reform, and race, and is a former co-chair of the Harvard Educational Review. She currently supervises campus leaders at Citizen Schools, an afterschool program that provides adult-led apprenticeships for middle school students. She has worked as a rural secondary teacher, a professional development coordinator, and organizational change consultant for several Boston-area education reform organizations. Harding's research uncovers the motivation and classroom practice successful White teachers of students of color.Tere Sorde-Marti is sociologist and a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her main research interests are social theory from a critical perspective, the processes of change in current society, and education as a tool for social transformation. She has been working with the Roma in Europe, and her studies are focused on the Roma Rights Movement. She has published and presented her work at national and international forums.