CJE Volume 29, Number 1

Canadian Journal of Education
Revue canadienne de l’éducation
Volume 29
Number / Numéro
1
2006
Editor
Sam Robinson
Rédacteur
François Larose
Production Editor
Diane Favreau
Assistant to the Editor
Diane Favreau
Editorial Advisory Board / Conseil aviseur de rédaction
Lisa Loutzenheiser, The University of British Columbia, CACS/ACÉC
Cecila Reynolds, University of Saskatchewan, ACDE/ACDÉ
Robert Sandieson, The University of Western Ontario, CAEP/ACP
Janice Wallace, University of Alberta, CASWE/ACÉFÉ
Sharon Cook, The University of Ottawa, CAFE/ACÉFÉ
Matthew Meyer, St. Francis Xavier University, CASEA/ACÉAS
Kathy Sanford, University of Victoria, CATE/ACFE
Helen Raptis, University of Victoria CERA/ ACCE
Reva Joshee, Ontario Institute for the Study of Education, CIESC/SCÉCI
Virginia Stead, Ontario Institute for the Study of Education of the
University of Toronto, CCSE/CCÉE
________________________
We gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance of the Social Sciences and Humanities
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University of Saskatchewan in the publication of this journal.
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La Revue canadienne de l’éducation est répertoriée dans /
The Canadian Journal of Education is indexed in
Répertoire canadien sur l’éducation/Canadian Education Index, Canadian Magazine Index, Index
des périodiques canadiens/Canadian Periodical Index, Canadian Women’s Periodicals Index,
Contents Pages in Education, Current Index to Journals in Education, Education Index,
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Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l’éducation
VOLUME 29
NUMBER / NUMÉRO 1
2006
Theme Issue / Numéro thématique
THE POPULAR MEDIA, EDUCATION, AND RESISTANCE /
LES MASS-MÉDIA POPULAIRES, L’ÉDUCATION ET LA RÉSISTANCE
Michelle Stack & Deirdre M. Kelly, Guest Editors / Rédacteurs invités
Contents / Table des matières
Articles
1
Introduction
Michelle Stack & Deirdre M. Kelly
5
Popular Media, Education, and Resistance
Michelle Stack & Deirdre M. Kelly
27
Frame Work: Helping Youth Counter Their Misrepresentation in
Media
Deirdre M. Kelly
49
Testing, Testing, Read All About It: Canadian Press Coverage of
the PISA Results
Michelle Stack
70
Government, Neo-liberal Media and Education in Canada
Charles Ungerleider
91
Discours sur l’école en crise en France: Entre médiatisation et
résistance
Nassira Hedjerassi & Alexia Stumpf Djerassi
109
The Public Sphere and Online, Independent Journalism
David Beers
131
Media Literacy in the Risk Society: Toward a Risk Reduction
Strategy
Stephen Kline, Kym Stewart, & David Murphy
— iii —
154
Independent Media, Youth Agency and the Promise of Media
Education
Stuart R. Poyntz
176
Educating in an Era of Orwellian Spin: Critical Media Literacy in
the Classroom
Paul Orlowski
199
Three Portraits of Resistance: The (Un)Making of Canadian
Students
Marcia McKenzie
223
Revisting Pearl Harbor: Resistance to Reel and Real Events in an
English Language Classroom
Ardiss Mackie & Bonny Norton
244
Popular Media, Critical Pedagogy, and Inner City Youth
Diane Wishart Leard & Brett Lashua
265
Resistance through Re-presenting Culture: Aboriginal Student
Filmmakers and a Participatory Action Research Project on Health
and Wellness
Ted Riecken, Frank Conibear, Corrine Michel, John Lyall, Tish Scott, Michele
Tanaka, Suzanne Batten, Janet Riecken, & Teresa Strong-Wilson
287
Resistance through Video Game Play: It’s a Boy Thing
Kathy Sanford & Leanna Madill
307
Ethnography, the Internet, and Youth Culture: Strategies for
Examining Social Resistance and “Online-Offline” Relationships
Brian Wilson
CJE On-line / La RCE en-ligne
329
Art Teacher Barbie: Friend or Foe?
Lorrie Blair
Book Reviews / Recensions
330
Michael Welton. (2005). Designing the Just Learning Society: A Critical
Inquiry
by Mia Perry
— iv —
333
R. P. Solomon & C. Levine-Rasky. (2003). Teaching for Equity and
Diversity: Research to Practice
by Darren E. Lund
336
Ratna Ghosh & Ali A. Abdi. (2004). Education and the Politics of
Difference: Canadian Perspectives
by Lisa Comeau
340
Michael W. Apple. (2004). Ideology and Curriculum
by Christine Giese
344
Authors / Auteurs
The opinions and findings expressed in the Canadian Journal of
Education are not necessarily those of the Canadian Society for
the Study of Education or their respective Directors and Officers.
Les opinions exprimées et les résultats de recherche transmis dans
la Revue canadienne de l’éducation n’engagent pas la Société
canadienne pour l’étude de l’éducation, les membres de leur Bureau
de direction et les membres de leur Conseil d’administration.
—v—
THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
— vi—
INTRODUCTION Michelle Stack & Deirdre M. Kelly Recently the topic of the media and education has received a surge of interest (e.g., Thomson, 2004; Stack & Boler, in press). For example, academics and K‐12 teachers have implemented and studied projects that engage children and youth in discussing mainstream media as well as creating their own meaning through media production (Buckingham, 2003). Scholars have also begun to look at the relationship between journalists and policymakers in the educational policy‐making process (Levin, 2004). And, with the rise of neoliberal discourse, educational institutions face pressure either to defend or promote themselves through the media. Public schools, for example, are called upon to defend themselves against stories of their lack in accountability or relevance. Simultaneously, resistance to dominant narratives takes place through challenging mainstream media and through the creation of alternative media. In this special issue, we have examined the intersections between media, education, and resistance. It is unusual because it features the work of university‐based researchers; a former provincial deputy minister of education; educators practicing in schools, a postsecondary English language classroom, teacher education, and community‐based or informal settings; and a working journalist. We have organized this special issue into four parts. The first set of articles, by Kelly, Stack, Ungerleider, Hedjerassi and Stumpf, and Beers, focuses on mainstream news. The six authors take diverse approaches to examining how the media represent children, youth, and schools and how educators might intervene to improve and diversify representations. The second set, by Kline, Stewart, and Murphy; Poytnz; Orlowski; McKenzie; and Mackie and Norton, explores critical media education, articles that help students examine what they find pleasurable about media as well as to critique it and explore how they might create alternative representations. In the third set of articles by Leard and CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 29, 1 (2006): 1‐4 2 INTRODUCTION Lashua and Riecken and colleagues, the authors focus on media production with youth who are marginalized. The final set of articles, by Sanford and Madill, Wilson, and Blair, looks at how children and youth as well as teachers engage and resist popular culture. We have produced this issue for students, educators, administrators, and policymakers. We see it as a useful for classes in media education, educational policy, cultural studies, social foundations of education, and curriculum. Administrators, policymakers, and educators will find the articles useful to understand how the media frame schooling, how educators can use popular culture as a pedagogical resource, and how they might engage with media more productively. REFERENCES Buckingham, D. (2003). Media education: Literacy, learning and contemporary culture. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Levin, B. (2004). Media‐government relations in education. Journal of Educational Policy. 19(3), 271‐283. Stack, M., & Boler, M. (in press). Special issue: Media, policymaking and resistance. Policy Futures in Education. Thomson, P. (2004). Introduction: Special issue on education policy and the media. Journal of Education Policy, 19(3), 251‐253. __________________________________ Depuis quelque temps, le thème des médias et de l’éducation suscite un intérêt accru (Thomson, 2004 ; Stack et Boler, sous presse). Chercheurs et enseignants de la maternelle à la fin du secondaire mettent sur pied et étudient des projets qui amènent les enfants et les jeunes à discuter des médias traditionnels et à exprimer leurs idées en faisant appel aux médias dans leurs propres créations (Buckingham, 2003). Des chercheurs ont également commencé à analyser la relation entre les journalistes et les décideurs dans le processus d’élaboration des politiques en éducation (Levin, 2004). Avec l’essor du discours néolibéral, les établissements d’enseignement font face à des pressions soit pour se défendre, soit pour se promouvoir à travers les médias. Les écoles publiques, par exemple, sont amenées à la suite de reportages à s’expliquer sur leurs lacunes POPULAR MEDIA, EDUCATION, AND RESISTANCE 3 quant à leur obligation de rendre des comptes ou sur leur manque de pertinence au regard de leur mission. Parallèlement, une résistance aux discours dominants se manifeste dans les remises en question des médias traditionnels et dans la création de médias alternatifs. Dans ce numéro thématique, nous examinons les liens entre médias, éducation et résistance. Dans cet esprit, nous faisons place au travail de chercheurs universitaires, à un ancien sous‐ministre provincial de l’éducation, à des enseignants du secondaire, à une classe d’anglais au postsecondaire, aux acteurs de la formation à l’enseignement, à des initiatives communautaires ou spontanées ainsi qu’au point de vue d’un journaliste. Ce numéro spécial se subdivise en quatre parties. La première série d’articles, rédigés par Kelly, Stack, Ungerleider, Hedjerassi et Stumpf ainsi que Beers, porte sur les médias d’information traditionnels. Les six auteurs adoptent diverses approches pour examiner comment les médias représentent les enfants, les jeunes et les écoles et comment les éducateurs peuvent intervenir pour en améliorer et en diversifier les représentations. La deuxième série, regroupant les articles de Kline, Stewart et Murphy, Poytnz, Orlowski, McKenzie ainsi que Mackie et Norton, explore l’initiation aux médias et la promotion de l’esprit critique ainsi que des façons d’aider les élèves à analyser ce qu’ils trouvent agréable dans les médias, à en formuler la critique et à voir comment ils peuvent créer des représentations alternatives. Dans la troisième série, les auteurs, Leard et Lashua et Riecken et ses collègues, s’intéressent à la création à l’aide des médias chez des jeunes marginalisés. La dernière série, réunissant les articles de Sanford et Madill, de Wilson et de Blair, examine comment les enfants et les jeunes ainsi que les enseignants s’impliquent et résistent à la culture populaire. Nous avons préparé ce numéro pour les étudiants, les éducateurs, les administrateurs et les décideurs. Nous croyons qu’il sera utile pour des cours dans de multiples domaines : initiation aux médias, politiques en matière d’éducation, études culturelles, fondements sociaux de l’éducation et programmes d’études. Ces articles aideront les administrateurs, les décideurs et les éducateurs à comprendre comment les médias façonnent l’éducation, comment les éducateurs peuvent 4 INTRODUCTION utiliser la culture populaire comme ressource pédagogique et comment ils peuvent se servir des médias d’une manière plus productive. RÉFÉRENCES Buckingham, D. (2003). Media education: Literacy, learning and contemporary culture. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Levin, B. (2004). Media‐government relations in education. Journal of Educational Policy. 19(3), 271‐283. Stack, M., & Boler, M. (in press). Special issue: Media, policymaking and resistance. Policy Futures in Education. Thomson, P. (2004). Introduction: Special issue on education policy and the media. Journal of Education Policy, 19(3), 251‐253. Michelle Stack Deirdre M. Kelly Popular Media, Education, and Resistance Michelle Stack & Deirdre M. Kelly Although the mainstream media and education systems are key institutions that perpetuate various social inequalities, spaces exist—both within and beyond these institutions—where adults and youth resist dominant, damaging representations and improvise new images. In this article, we address why educational researchers and educators should attend closely to popular media and democratizing media production. We analyze and illustrate strategies for engaging with and critiquing corporate news media and creating counter‐narratives. We explore media education as a key process for engaging people in dialogue and action as well as present examples of how popular culture texts can be excavated as rich pedagogical resources. Key words: media literacy, cultural studies, participatory democracy, popular culture, news, youth, schooling, public sphere, media education, educational policy Bien que les médias et systèmes d’éducation traditionnels soient des institutions clés qui perpétuent divers types d’inégalités sociales, il existe des espaces – à l’intérieur comme à l’extérieur de ces institutions – où les adultes et les jeunes opposent une résistance aux représentations dominantes préjudiciables et improvisent de nouvelles images. Dans cet article, les auteures expliquent pourquoi les chercheurs en éducation et les enseignants devraient porter une attention spéciale aux médias populaires et à la démocratisation de la production dans le domaine des médias. Elles analysent et illustrent des stratégies favorisant l’implication dans les médias d’information, la critique de ces médias et la création de discours variés apportant un contrepoids au discours dominant. Les auteures explorent l’initiation aux médias comme un outil‐clé pour inciter les gens au dialogue et à l’action et montrent, à partir d’exemples, comment le dépouillement de textes tirés de la culture populaire peut constituer une méthode pédagogique fructueuse. Mots clés : initiation aux médias, études culturelles, démocratie participative, culture populaire, informations relatives à l’éducation, jeunes, éducation, sphère publique _________________ CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 29, 1 (2006): 5‐26 6 MICHELLE STACK & DEIRDRE M. KELLY In this article, we have addressed the question why educational researchers and educators should attend closely to popular media and democratizing media production. To unpack this question, we have discussed key terms and introduced relevant literatures and debates: media, popular culture, democracy, resistance, and media education. We take a critical stance in our focus on three facets of media—mainstream news, popular culture, and knowledge production—to argue that they be explored as public pedagogies (texts and cultural practices of everyday life) linked to democratic possibilities. FROM “KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY” TO “BILLBOARD SOCIETY”? What are media? The media system, like the education system, is “one of society’s key set of institutions, industries, and cultural practices” (Masterman, 2001, p. 16). The term media is commonly invoked to mean both the mediums of communication (radio, recorded music, Internet, television, print, film, video) as well as the products or texts of these mediums (journalistic accounts, television shows and film productions, video games, web sites). The central media—print, radio, and television—are the ways we “imagine ourselves to be connected to the social world” (Couldry, 2003, p. 7). The media are a central, if not primary, pedagogue. Children and youth spend more time with media than any other institution, including schools (Buckingham, 2003, p. 5). Three‐quarters of children from grade 3 to grade 10 watch television daily (Canadian Teachers’ Federation, 2003, p. ii). During an average week Canadian children and youth watch 14 to 15 hours of TV, adult men watch about 21 hours, and adult women about 26 hours (Statistics Canada, 2005b). Meanwhile, youth (aged 12 to 17) listen to 8.5 hours of radio each week, compared to 19.5 hours for Canadians of all ages taken as a whole (Statistics Canada, 2005c). Young adults, teens, and children are offsetting the time they used to spend viewing television and (especially) listening to radio with Internet activities (Avery, 2005; Statistics Canada, 2005a), including computer games (Canadian Teachers’ Federation, 2003, p. iii). A massive increase has occurred in the amount of media directed at children. Carlsson (2002) has found that, in the latter part of the 1990s, over 50 television channels were geared towards children—many of POPULAR MEDIA, EDUCATION, AND RESISTANCE 7 them owned by media conglomerates (p. 9). Advertisers have taken a keen interest in the child and youth market. In the United States, advertising aimed at children has gone from $100 million in 1983 to 1997, when the total spent on advertising and marketing towards children topped at $12.7 billion (McChesney, 2002, p. 28). Advertisers have increasingly segmented the market aimed at children based on age and gender (Kenway & Bullen, 2001; Kline, 1993). Children are inundated with advertising through TV shows that are full‐length commercials and through marketing at schools. Jhally (1990, p. 89) has noted that opportunities for advertisers have increased, given the interconnections that have emerged between entertainment and advertising. For example, with the rise of the Internet, corporations have created game characters for the purpose of selling products (Montgomery, 2002). Cash‐strapped schools increasingly agree to advertising in return for equipment and sometimes curriculum (see Blair, this issue). The first national survey of commercial activities in Canadian schools, done in 2004‐2005 (Canadian Teachers’ Federation, 2005), found that the majority of elementary and secondary schools advertised or promoted commercial products from companies in exchange for money, materials, or classroom equipment. For example, 54 per cent of secondary schools surveyed reported the presence of advertising; soft drink corporations (Coke and Pepsi) had the most prominent logos. In addition to beverage machines, ads appear on scoreboards, clocks, banners, school signs, and gym equipment. As Kenway and Bullen (2001, p. 99) have noted, poor areas have Burger King “academies” where children learn how to flip burgers, while districts save money by partnering with Burger King. Rich areas have Microsoft “academies” where children are prepared for postsecondary education. As a consequence of this kind of school advertising, children, inundated with thousands of messages at school and home, learn that belonging is not rooted in concepts of democratic citizenship but in consumerism. Computer and video games sales topped $10 billion in the United States in 2004 (Secko, 2005, para. 5). “‘For people under 30, they [digital games] are almost an indigenous cultural form,’ says Jim Gee, Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin and a leading 8 MICHELLE STACK & DEIRDRE M. KELLY researcher on the role video games can play in learning” (cited in Secko, 2005, para. 13). Rarely are Canadians not engaged with the corporate media. Hamelink (2002) argues that, given the power of global conglomerates around the world, we should think of ourselves as the “billboard society” rather than the “knowledge society” (p. 37). The majority of what we read, listen to, and watch is owned by a cartel of five giant media conglomerates: Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch’s News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) (Bagdikian, 2004). Increases in commercialization, concentration in media ownership, and mega‐mergers under the banner of convergence have occurred at the same time that local and national control over media has been threatened and public funding for noncommercial media has been cut (see Beers, this issue). While highlighting the increasing barrage of media and consumption, we acknowledge that the media are not monolithic and that viewers can interpret any media text in a number of ways. An ample number of audience studies (e.g., Brooker & Jermyn, 2002) demonstrate that people do resist the meanings intended by media producers and that media do not present only one viewpoint at all times. This special issue contributes to this growing literature by spotlighting the pedagogical complexities that occur when educators provide space for learners to critique and resist popular media (Mackie & Norton, this issue). The focus of public debates about the effects of media revolves around children and youth. Left largely unexplored is the way media influence how adults come to understand children and youth (but see Gilliam & Bales, 2001). For example, youth crime dominates the mainstream news media, especially crime committed by racialized minorities (e.g., Henry & Tator, 2002). Missing from much of the news coverage is the participation of youth in civil society, the reasons for their cynicism towards politics, and the social policies that affect the everyday lives of children and youth. A large literature on “third‐person effects” (Henriksen & Flora, 1999; Hoffner et al., 2001) looks at how children and adults think others are influenced while they are immune. Older children think younger POPULAR MEDIA, EDUCATION, AND RESISTANCE 9 children should be protected, and young children think those even younger than they are should be protected from the influence of media. For example, a recent national survey of over 5,700 students in grades 3 to 10 in Canada found that their favourite TV show was the animated situation comedy, The Simpsons, yet they were also most likely to name The Simpsons (along with South Park) as the television program that “kids a few years younger than them should not watch” (Canadian Teachers’ Federation, 2003, p. vi). For the most part, it appears most of us do not want to admit that media influence the way we come to know ourselves and others. Of course, we have the ability to think critically about what we see and hear, and institutions other than the media have an influence on how we come to know the world. But the media are a pivotal vehicle through which the social is continually recreated, maintained, and sometimes challenged. Simultaneously, we can be both “vulnerable and savvy” to the “empire of images” (Bordo, 2003, p. B7). DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP AND EDUCATION Given the pervasiveness and influence of media in our daily lives, the informal public pedagogies of popular (news and entertainment) media may be surpassing the formal public pedagogies of schooling and postsecondary education in terms of where and how we form citizens. Yet with the largely for‐profit, advertising‐supported media system in fewer and fewer corporate hands, it has become more difficult for the press to hold people in power to public account, to present a wide range of informed views on the important issues facing the citizenry, and to promote democracy defined as widespread, meaningful participation in decision making or the rule of the many (McChesney, 2000). Citizenship is at risk of being reduced to consumerism. The need to strengthen public education’s responsibility to prepare people to participate in a democratic public sphere has rarely been so urgent. Educators must model and offer rigorous media critique and opportunities for media production, not only in media literacy classes but across the curriculum and at the school level and beyond (see Beers; Orlowski; and Poyntz, this issue). Young people need opportunities to inquire into, and debate, who controls the media system and whether a 10 MICHELLE STACK & DEIRDRE M. KELLY predominantly corporate commercial media system is compatible with democracy. The meanings of democracy, of course, are multiple and contested. Many Canadians associate democracy narrowly with representative government. In theory, we vote for people who presumably will represent our interests, and yet many of us are aware of how money and power can manipulate representative institutions to the benefit of elite groups. Our actually existing democracy engenders widespread disconnection and de‐politicization and is compatible with today’s media landscape. Some critics of liberal or republican democracy have put participation, dialogue across differences, and egalitarianism at the center of an alternative vision of democracy. John Dewey (1954/1927) espoused an expansive and communicative understanding of democracy, arguing, for example, that “The essential need, in other words, is the improvement of the methods and conditions of debate, discussion and persuasion” (p. 207). Political philosopher Nancy Fraser (1997) defines democracy as “a process of communication across differences, where citizens participate together in discussion and decision making to determine collectively the conditions of their lives” (p. 173). Importantly, Fraser notes that in our stratified society, multiple publics exist, albeit with unequally valued cultural styles and unequal access to the material means of disseminating their ideas.1 Members “of subordinated social groups —women, workers, peoples of color, and gays and lesbians—have repeatedly found it advantageous to constitute alternative publics” (p. 81). In these alternative publics (what Fraser calls subaltern counterpublics), marginalized groups invent and circulate oppositional interpretations of their needs and interests, in strategic resistance to the power of dominant groups and institutions whose ideologies are accepted as common sense in wider public spheres. EVERYDAY ACTS OF RESISTANCE Understand that the major media will not tell you of all the acts of resistance taking place every day in the society, the strikes, the protests, the individual acts of courage in the face of authority. Look around (and you will certainly find it) for the evidence of these unreported acts. And for the little you find, extrapolate POPULAR MEDIA, EDUCATION, AND RESISTANCE 11 from that and assume there must be a thousand times as much as what you’ve found. (Howard Zinn, 1999, para. 4) Although we are far from living in a truly participatory democracy, many everyday acts of resistance go unnoticed and unreported by mainstream media. For example, a group of self‐described marginalized youth constructed and sustained anti‐jock websites (most notably SpoilSports and High School Underground), where they articulated “dissatisfaction with and anger toward institutions that uncritically adulate hyper‐masculine/high contact sport culture and the athletes who are part of this culture (i.e., the ‘jocks’)” (Wilson, 2002, p. 206). Even in a stratified society such as ours, classrooms and even whole schools operate where teachers aim to help students articulate their interests and learn analytic, communicative, and strategic skills required in more participatory models of democracy. School‐sponsored programs and extracurricular activities and community‐based programs sometimes create a relatively safe and private discursive arena where members of subordinated groups can explore who they are and want to become and prepare to voice their needs, concerns, and issues in wider public realms. In and out of school, youth have produced their own media that articulate or participate in resistant discourses (we explore the issue of youth media production later in this essay). In this issue, Kelly examines how adults can engage with youth to challenge media representations that present them in a stereotypically negative fashion. T. Riecken, Conibear, Michel, Lyall, Scott, Tanaka, Batten, J. Riecken, and Strong‐Wilson explore how involving Aboriginal youth in video production can serve to challenge mainstream media representations. And Leard and Lashua look at how Aboriginal youth use rap and popular theatre to create new self‐representations that counter corporate media images of the rapper as criminal. The contributors to this special issue draw from a variety of theories—critical and neo‐Marxist, poststructuralist, feminist, post‐
colonialist, and anti‐racist—and hence invoke plural meanings of the word resistance. They are united, however, by a critique of neoliberalism, a political‐economic framework that extols the virtues of the marketplace, largely unfettered by government control, and that 12 MICHELLE STACK & DEIRDRE M. KELLY promotes policies of deregulation and privatization. Adherents of neoliberalism prefer to treat both education and communication as commodities, subject to trade on the global market. By contrast, the contributors to this special issue believe education and communication are public goods and the forces of commercialization and privatization need to be resisted. By resistance, we mean “opposition with a social and political purpose” (Knight Abowitz, 2000, p. 878). Given our focus on the intersection of education and popular media in this special issue, we find Kathleen Knight Abowitz’s definition of resistance as communication attractive: “As an impetus of social and political transformation in a school, resistance communicates; that is, it is a means of signaling, generating, and building dialogue around particular power imbalances and inequalities” (p. 878). Although the mainstream media and education systems are key institutions that perpetuate various social inequalities, spaces exist—both within and beyond these institutions—
where adults and youth resist dominant, damaging representations and improvise new images. Although some critical scholars have acknowledged this resistance, they have focused, for example, on resistant peer cultures that end up unwittingly contributing to their own subordination (e.g., Willis, 1977). More recently, progressive scholars have spotlighted micro‐level resistance to material inequalities and injustices to argue that schools, peer groups, and newsrooms do not always and inevitably reproduce the status quo (e.g., Carlson, 2005; Kelly, 2003; Kelly & Brandes, 2001; Weis & Fine, 2001). Without romanticizing this resistance, this special issue contributes to the growing literature that explores moments when educators, young people, and others seize or create possibilities for democratic change. MEDIA EDUCATION Barry Duncan (2005), a leading Canadian media educator, identifies the civil rights movement, the media coverage of the Vietnam War, feminism, as well the development of a Canadian film and television industry as catalysts for the media education movement in Canada. The Association for Media Literacy, a group of Canadian media educators, parents, media professionals, and cultural workers, created key concepts POPULAR MEDIA, EDUCATION, AND RESISTANCE 13 for media literacy which are used by schools across Canada. The AML’s principles included the following: media are constructions, an analysis of the media industry and media audiences, codes and conventions, and values and ideology in media. Ontario was the first to make media education compulsory (in 1986) and by 1997 media education was part of provincial policy guidelines across Canada and soon after was also part of the curriculum in the territories. Many educators see Canada as a leader in media education; however, there is still a lack of preservice and in‐service education around issues of media education. Furthermore, critical media education requires not just content knowledge but a shift to a democratic pedagogy. Critical media education is sometimes represented as the land of the hand wringers who decry pleasure and insist on somber meditations on the ideological workings of consumer media. We believe this is simplistic, and instead position ourselves as taking a political economy perspective in which pleasure and analysis are seen as equally important. In this time of media conglomeration, we cannot afford to be merely playful. Educators need to engage students by analyzing that which is playful as well as engaging in an ideological analysis of that which is serious. In other words educators need to give students the tools to understand both how and why the media reports on issues such as war and curtailment of civil liberties, as well as how to foster discussion about what makes the latest shows, Internet sites, and computer games pleasurable. Thus, critical media education, broadly defined (e.g., Kellner & Share, 2005), provides one important means of “signaling, generating, and building dialogue around particular power imbalances and inequalities” (Knight‐Abowitz, 2000, p. 878). Critical media education engages educators in a search (with their students) for pedagogical strategies aimed at promoting the democratizing of interpretation as well as the production of media. A crucial issue for critical educators is how to promote learning about the political economy of the media as well as the social construction of media texts while also focusing on strategies for democratizing media through creating media. Lewis and Jhally (1998) suggest that “Media literacy should be about helping people to become sophisticated citizens rather than sophisticated consumers” (p. 109). This 14 MICHELLE STACK & DEIRDRE M. KELLY position requires educators to shed the façade of neutrality and instead to see their role as providing a greater diversity of symbolic resources for students, who are inundated by messages from a few massive conglomerates. By shedding this façade, we do not mean that critical media educators should abrogate their authority, particularly in the case where educators encourage young people to create their own media and discover the challenges and problems with this approach (see, e.g., Buckingham, 2003, esp. chap. 8). With Carmen Luke (1999), we believe that: It is therefore important that media studies pedagogy be guided by social justice or equity principles that will enable students to come to their own realisations that, quite simply, racist, sexist, ageist, or homophobic language and imagery oppress and subordinate others. If students begin from a theoretically grounded understanding that inequalities and oppressive discourses (including mass cultural texts) are always socially constructed, then they will have the analytic tools to reconstruct in their own productions more inclusive, less denigrating meaning systems. (p. 625) On the other hand, educators need to be skeptical of some critical pedagogy theorists who forget that teachers need to interrogate their own practices and that students sometimes play a role in challenging their teachers’ oppressive worldviews (Ellsworth, 1989). In this special issue, Kline, Stewart, and Murphy argue that media education is crucial to fighting what is often seen as an epidemic of childhood obesity. Through a pedagogical approach they call “cultural judo” (p. 141), they believe media education can encourage youth to tune out of media and engage in more physically active forms of play, as well as providing the skills to critique media. Poyntz (this issue) argues that media education should go beyond the dichotomy of protection from potential negative media influences versus preparation for understanding and participation in the media culture, and instead pursue both aims. He argues youth need to be deeply engaged in the process of media education and that teachers need to take an active role in pointing them towards making space for collective and critical change. Orlowski (this issue) maintains that media education ought not throw away the concept POPULAR MEDIA, EDUCATION, AND RESISTANCE 15 of ideology but, instead, use it as a tool to analyze media messages and their influence on the quality of public discourse. Mackenzie (this issue) explores what media educators in three contrasting high school settings set as curricular objectives as compared to how students take up what is intended to be taught. In the remainder of this essay, we take up two key aspects of media education in more depth: the analysis of socially constructed pop culture and mass media texts (highlighting their potential as pedagogical resources) and the production of multi‐media texts, particularly by youth. “NEWS IS NEUTRAL, POP CULTURE IS EVIL” In everyday conversations, we often get the sense that people discuss the news as though it were facts, neutrally transmitted by the mainstream media (or else disregarded as propaganda), while pop culture gets singled out either for derision or as something evil that must be guarded against. Indeed, since the 1900s people have decried the negative influence of pop culture on children and youth (for a recent review, see Dolby, 2003). For example, educators often peg discussions of current events on newspaper articles—accepted largely at face value as fact based—while viewing Pokémon cards and Beyblades as a nuisance or the animated TV show The Simpsons as encouraging everything from foul language and disrespect to nihilism. The premise of this special issue, by contrast, is that journalistic news accounts and pop culture are both highly socially constructed. The news is constructed by journalists and other professionals for particular reasons, to inform people about what is happening in various communities (local, regional, national, global) with respect to political, economic, and socio‐cultural issues—but with commercial interests also in mind. The news is selected and shaped to fit a particular format, framed within a particular perspective, and designed to appeal to particular audiences. Increasingly, the ratio of information to entertainment has been shifting and the lines between them blurring (Gans, 2003). News outlets are experimenting with formats and modes of address that de‐centre authority from the traditional news anchor and experts whose sources and viewpoints previously went unquestioned, 16 MICHELLE STACK & DEIRDRE M. KELLY thus positioning viewers as less deferential and more active meaning makers (e.g., on alternative formats in children’s news, see Buckingham, 2000). Whether in a news format or an entertainment format, pressing social and political issues can be spotlighted for audience reflection. News and pop culture are both infused with possibilities for resistance as well as conformity and accommodation. Critically Engaging, But Not Celebrating, Pop Culture Pop culture exists today as “a kind of bizarre alternative curriculum” (Masterman, 2001, p. 55), and educators who refuse to consider it as a resource in their official or established curriculum miss opportunities to connect with young people’s lives and enhance critical literacy. Pop culture can be mined for critical reading even when it is being cross‐
marketed to sell products. Because it is a prime arena where “ideas circulate and identities are produced” (Dimitriadis & McCarthy, 1999, p. 3), it should be an object of critical engagement but not valorization (see also Buckingham, 2003; Dimitriadis, 2004; Dolby, 2003; Dyson, 2003; Luke, 1996, 1999; Willis, 2003). To take the example of The Simpsons again: the show offers ironic social critique as part of the entertainment, even as the characters of Bart and Homer are used to sell everything from ice cream to t‐shirts. A recurring theme of the show is the satire of top‐down authority relations that prevail between school adults and children in conventional schooling (for examples and detailed discussion, see Reeves, 2000).2 To raise questions about such issues as power and control, including the possibility of student participation in decision making, may seem counterproductive to educators. As Schutz (2004) reminds us, “The primary institution in most children’s lives is the school, and schools have little incentive to encourage their charges to resist them” (p. 20). Yet if we want schools to prepare young people for participatory democracy, raising such questions seems highly appropriate. And The Simpsons provides rich fodder for other relevant topics as well, such as power dynamics based on gender, race, class, age, religion, sexuality; corporate ethics; family life; nuclear energy; government corruption; and workplace democracy, to name just some of the most obvious. POPULAR MEDIA, EDUCATION, AND RESISTANCE 17 To cite another example: Catherine Ashcraft (2003) critically analyzes the popular teen‐cult movie American Pie, both for its re‐inscription of dominant discourses of sexuality but also its possibilities for alternative identities and transformative discourses. She argues the film offers educators and youth a valuable resource for sexuality education. In this special issue, various contributors demonstrate how popular culture texts (and the cultural practices of youth that are linked to pop culture) can be excavated as rich pedagogical resources. For example, Mackie and Norton examine the conflicting readings of race and national histories prompted by the viewing of the popular film Pearl Harbor (2001) in Mackie’s postsecondary English language classroom, while Poyntz explores the documentary film The Take (2004) as an example of critical media praxis. Sanford and Madill demonstrate how boys use video games to take on new identities that can sometimes challenge stereotypes and at other times entrench them. This points to how video games might be examined in classrooms to explore and critique the construction of virtual identities. Blair’s analysis of Mattel’s Art Teacher Barbie points to how educators might engage students in exploring how corporate monies are used to support the arts in schools while simultaneously constraining imagination about who teaches art and what it is. Indeed, the media texts of popular culture that people are exposed to daily, year after year, are the very texts that help shape their understandings of social inequalities and equalities, differentially valued cultural resources and identities, and differential access to various forms of social power. Everyday media texts are therefore eminently suitable for teaching about social justice in contemporary cultural contexts. (Luke, 1999, p. 624) Challenging Corporate News Media, Muscling into the Mainstream Just as popular culture representations are socially constructed and thus open to critique and reappropriation, so, too, are journalistic news accounts, as mentioned earlier. Yet in contrast to pop culture, the news is considered nonfiction, and in theory the best news journalists strive to enhance political understanding by providing readers with “reliable reporting that tells them what is true when that is knowable, and pushes as close to truth as possible when it is not” (Cunningham, 2003, para. 9). 18 MICHELLE STACK & DEIRDRE M. KELLY In an era where spin doctors, media advisors, pollsters, and public relation experts are prevalent and on the increase, we need journalists with expertise who can sort through competing (albeit socially contextualized) truth claims, weigh evidence, make informed judgments, and “adjudicate factual disputes” (Jamieson & Waldman, 2003, p. 165). This is crucial because, despite its faults, “news journalism remains the primary means of access to the public sphere of political debate and activity” (Buckingham, 2000, p. 218). All the more worrisome, then, to consider how dramatically news has changed over the last decade (Beers, this issue; Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2005). Since the arrival of satellite and digital communications technologies and CNN’s 24‐hour news, the news cycle has become shorter and shorter. Generalist opinion rather than investigative journalism (which is more time consuming, expensive, and likely to focus on a more sustained critique of the powerful in society) or what Gans (2003) calls “explanatory journalism” (p. 99) takes up the bulk of space. Frequently the same company owns TV, radio, newspapers, and portals (Bagdikian, 2004). Corporate offices decide that newsrooms can be cut back because one reporter can cover, say, the education beat for all the company’s various outlets. Media corporations market the news as a neutral vehicle of updated information and pursue stories about celebrities in an effort to increase their market share. Given the current media landscape, therefore, it is imperative that educational researchers, media educators, independent media producers, and others challenge corporate news media as well as strategize about how to get multiple resistant analyses and viewpoints into mainstream circulation. In this special issue, Ungerleider analyzes the potential of government influencing the corporate media by providing education‐
related news in a timely manner in the format needed. He acknowledges this strategy is limited, given the neoliberal bias of the media, but that it can still result in the media altering frames—or at least providing an additional frame to the dominant one. Kelly, too, argues it can be worthwhile to engage with the mainstream news media, but she also demonstrates how engagement can unwittingly serve to reinforce harmful representations of youth. Stack looks at how the mainstream media coverage of the results of the OECD’s Programme in International POPULAR MEDIA, EDUCATION, AND RESISTANCE 19 Student Assessment privileges elite views, entrenches regional stereotypes, and minimizes issues of racism and poverty. In addition to challenging the mainstream, therefore, we need to look at alternative media outlets, which can provide counter‐narratives and (with a substantial enough audience base) can put pressure on mainstream, corporate media to diversify their content. Supporting independent media production—by children and youth as well as by adults—requires not just the traditional mainstays of video and newsletters, but the integration of new information computer technologies (ICTs). We ignore these new forms of communicating at our peril, given their growing importance in society (see Beers, this issue; Luke, 2002). YOUTH MEDIA PRODUCTION Although still controversial (see Hobbs, 1998, pp. 20‐21), youth media production has become another mainstay of media education programs and media literacy more generally (for examples in this issue, see Leard & Lashua; Poyntz; Riecken & colleagues). Video production started in the 1960s as a tool of political activism. In the late 1970s media activism and education converged with the aim of the “cultural undoping” of students (Goldfarb, 2002, p. 68). These programs mainly ran out of video and community centres and were affiliated with left‐wing social movements. The 1990s saw video production used for everything from political activism to improving the self‐esteem of at‐risk students. The new millennium has seen a rapid increase in access to digital technologies; children and youth are the most prolific users of new media, notwithstanding legitimate concern about the “digital divide” (e.g., Kline, 2003, pp. 183‐186). Similar to other eras where new technologies have been introduced (Postman, 1995), this development has provoked alarm among some adults who fear that the time youth spend with computers is isolating, anti‐social, and—to quote the title of a recent Maclean’s magazine story—making “our kids stupid” (Ferguson, 2005). Youth, however, also spend time creating media and sharing media texts with each other. Niesyto, Buckingham, and Fisherkeller (2003) found that youth are keenly interested to share their work and have a conversation about it with their peers. Kelly, Pomerantz, and 20 MICHELLE STACK & DEIRDRE M. KELLY Currie (in press) found that youth make plans online as part of socializing offline. Wilson (this issue) argues that online communication can lead to or facilitate activism on and offline. A central question in developing healthy, democratic counterpublics is how to produce the next generation of independent media producers who are guided by a desire to work in the public interest. Beers (this issue) points to the need to facilitate the ability of youth to have a conversation about what they produce. Goldfarb (2002) argues that creating youth countercultures requires institutional support in terms of space, equipment, and human support. There is much hope for the increase in youth productions and how this could promote social change. We agree the increase is positive, but we also need to explore how youth and adults could build movements for social change by creating media together. How might schools and communities be positively influenced—even transformed—if youth and adults together created media aimed at social change (Stack, 2005)? CONCLUSION Never before has so much power to tell stories from the local to the international level been vested in so few hands. Simultaneously, there have never been so many opportunities for people to engage in creating their own digital media. Nevertheless, opportunities to share and disseminate viewpoints alternative to dominant narratives are unequally distributed, and for this reason educators and their students ought to engage and challenge mainstream media as well as pursue opportunities to create alternative stories. The media are the primary vehicle through which we come to know ourselves and others. They are so embedded in our daily lives that their power is naturalized. We can be skeptical, but even in our skepticism we are engaging in a process of comparing media narratives rather than being independent of them. Education plays a central role in providing people with the ability to denaturalize everyday media narratives. This special issue illuminates the ways in which media narratives about schools, young people, teachers, and educational problems are socially constructed as well as analyzes and illustrates strategies for engaging with the media system, critiquing it, and creating counter‐narratives. POPULAR MEDIA, EDUCATION, AND RESISTANCE 21 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT We thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for providing support for this research. Thanks to Sarah Anne Mills for providing excellent library and clerical assistance. NOTES Some look to the Internet and new information computer technologies as forces enabling greater democracy or transforming democracy (for a discussion, see Bohman, 2004). But others say the new technologies are going the way of other media, becoming quickly commercialized, with corporate‐owned portals receiving the most traffic (McChesney, 2000, chap. 3). As Beers (this issue) argues, both arguments have merit, but the nature of the Internet does offer specific advantages to people wanting to create, disseminate, or interact with independent media aimed at democratizing public discourse. Wilson (this issue) discusses how educational researchers might examine collective resistance by youth in the context of online and offline relationships. 2 To be sure, as Kenway and Bullen (2001) argue, entertainment (and advertising) aimed at children often constructs teachers (and other adults, such as parents) as “dull or too earnest, usually disapproving, slightly ridiculous, unworthy of emulation and as being subjected to well‐justified rebellion and rejection” (p. 73). 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03/mar7_1999.htm. Frame Work: Helping Youth Counter Their Misrepresentations in Media Deirdre M. Kelly Drawing on several ethnographies with youth participants, I identified and critiqued three frames that help to comprise the mainstream media’s larger framework of troubled and troubling youth: inner‐city youth as “gang bangers”; teen mothers as “children having children” and “welfare bums”; and girls as fashion obsessed and impressionable. I considered the relationship between news coverage of youth and educational programs and curriculum and explored the possibilities and limits of various strategies aimed at producing and circulating diverse youth self‐
representations in the mainstream and alternative media, including involving youth as co‐researchers. Key words: youth cultural studies, high school, participatory democracy En puisant dans plusieurs études ethnographiques faisant appel à la participation de jeunes, l’auteure fait l’analyse critique de trois volets qui aident à comprendre le cadre plus vaste utilisé par les médias grand public relativement aux jeunes en difficulté : les jeunes des quartiers défavorisés ou les membres des « gangs de rue », les mères adolescentes décrites comme « des enfants qui ont des enfants » et des bénéficiaires de l’aide sociale ainsi que les jeunes filles vues comme des obsédées de la mode et des personnes impressionnables. L’auteure étudie le lien entre la représentation des jeunes dans les médias et les programmes d’éducation tout en explorant les possibilités et les limites de quelques stratégies visant à favoriser la création et la diffusion de diverses autoreprésentations des jeunes dans les médias grand public et alternatifs, y compris celles associant les jeunes aux processus de définition et d’opérationalisation des recherches. Mots clés : études culturelles sur les jeunes, école secondaire, démocratie participative. _________________ CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 29, 1 (2006): 27‐48 28 DEIRDRE M. KELLY For 15 years, my ethnographic research has spotlighted the perspectives and experiences of youth, many of whom have been marginalized by the practices of traditional schooling. In each of my major research studies, I have been struck again and again by the role that mainstream media have played in helping to construct these groups of youth as deviant or problematic within society. The youth groups include early school leavers (so‐called “dropouts” and “pushouts”), teen mothers, youth attending alternative or inner‐city schools, and, most recently, girl skateboarders. A common theme emerges among the youth from all the studies. Repeatedly they say they have been misrepresented and placed in a bad light in the media coverage that supposedly reflects their lives. Of course, complaints by any group about being misrepresented in the media, even those with power and privilege in society, are not uncommon. But, because of the age of these youth groups and other aspects of their lives or social locations, they have very little pull with the media or access to the media production process. These studies raise questions for researchers and educators alike: Beyond studying or teaching these youths, should we be helping them to insert their self‐
representations into the mass media and to create their own media? Do we listen to the youth’s discourses rather than continue to discount their perceptions? The need for youth self‐representations is particularly pressing in this period of standardization and conformity, as evidenced in the increasing use of large‐scale provincial, national, and international testing (e.g., Moll, 2003; Stack, this issue). In this article, I have shared the youth research participants’ perceptions about their portrayals in the media; drawn connections between the assumptions and images underlying both media representations of youth and punitive policies of schooling, an institution that is supposed to serve young people and improve their lives; and raised a few possibilities for how we might, directly and indirectly, increase the presence and diversity of youth self‐
representations in the mainstream and alternative media. I aim to illuminate both the rhetorical and ideological work that media frames do as well as the activist work that youth could be, and in some cases, are already doing to counter these dominant frames. FRAME WORK: HELPING YOUTH COUNTER THEIR MISREPRESENTATION 29 MEDIA MISREPRESENTATIONS OF YOUTH A few examples drawn from my research over the years will demonstrate that youth serve as a discursive domain through which a variety of social anxieties or “crises” can be read.1 Media writers (as well as, of course, social activists, professionals, politicians, and researchers) frame youth in various ways to help their audiences make sense of the phenomena or events. “Frames and frameworks are ‘schemata of interpretation that enable individuals to locate, perceive, identify, and label’ events they have experienced directly or indirectly” (Binder, 1993, p. 754). These frames, composed of arguments, images, and metaphors, are selected and constructed from larger sets of cultural beliefs; they serve “an ideological function when the frames reinforce unequal social relations by those institutionally empowered to do so” (p. 755; cf. Edley, 2001). The ideological frames are reproduced in the news media through a mentality and media practice that if a story “bleeds, it leads.” The editorial writers of the Vancouver Sun newspaper made this explicit to their readers in an editorial to explain why the news media dwell so much on “bad kids.” Prompting the need for this explanation was a McCreary Centre survey of British Columbia students in grades 7‐12, which had shown the percentage of young people engaged in risky behaviours (having sex, not using contraception, smoking cigarettes, doing drugs, drinking and driving) had declined significantly over the past number of years. According to the Vancouver Sun (2004): The news is about conflict and conflict requires that people break the rules, so we hear, perhaps too often, about teenagers being killed in car accidents, through bullying or through drug abuse. The news is also about what’s new, what’s exceptional, and the survey confirms that troubled kids are the exception. (p. A22) Unwilling to trouble its own “kids”‐as‐“trouble/d” frame any further, however, the rest of the editorial raised the specter of “our risk‐averse teens . . . afraid to take chances”: “No one ever developed a thriving business, or made a groundbreaking scientific discovery, or wrote great music, without going out on a limb and, in some cases, without risking 30 DEIRDRE M. KELLY everything” (p. A22). Stories perpetuating negative images of youth apparently appeal to many adults and sell newspapers (Males, 1999; cf. Schissel, 1997), or at least many journalists believe that crime and sensationalism sell newspapers and act on that belief (Young, 2005). A growing body of literature, dating to when critical sociologist Stanley Cohen (2002/1972) first launched the concept of moral panic, has documented the role of mass media in helping to incite public concerns about various youth (and other) issues. Recent studies have examined “new” youth crimes such as “wilding” (Welch, Price, & Yankey, 2002) and “schoolyard shootings” (Aitken & Marchant, 2003), “underachieving boys” (Griffin, 2000; Titus, 2004), and “runaways” (Staller, 2003). Most studies that I am aware of have been better at analyzing media representations and rhetorical framing and documenting concern and consensus among media producers than they have been at assessing various audience responses to the news (beyond opinion polls; but see Gilliam & Bales, 2001); illuminating causality (e.g., whether news media coverage reflects public concern or incites it); exploring the consequences of the expansion and diversification of media producers through the Internet at the same time that large corporations are consolidating ownership of traditional (TV, radio, newspapers), mainstream media; or linking moral panics to the working of our political economy and other material conditions (for further discussion, see Cohen, 2002, esp. pp. xxvi‐xxxv; McRobbie & Thornton, 2000; Stabile, 2001). It is beyond the scope of this article to fill these gaps in the literature on moral panics over youth. Rather, I have identified how news reporters and editors have framed issues around youth with whom I have done research in ways that marginalize explanations and information that might contradict the mainstream media’s larger framework of troubled and troubling youth. Critical media studies alert us to the heterogeneity of audiences and how the meanings of media texts are “negotiated in relation to viewers’ cultural and class background, gender, and the situational contexts of decoding and encoding” (Luke, 1999, p. 623). Here, I briefly highlight some young audience members’ responses to media coverage of youth; the “folk devils” (Cohen, 2002) of various moral panics talk back, as it were, to media representations. FRAME WORK: HELPING YOUTH COUNTER THEIR MISREPRESENTATION 31 Frame 1: Inner‐City Youth as “Gang Bangers” During 1993‐1994, a team of graduate students and I did a case study of Vancouver Technical Secondary School, one of 21 schools across Canada comprising the Exemplary Schools Project and one of the few high schools in British Columbia to be officially designated as “inner city.” Although the school was selected as exemplary because of its turnaround success in improving exam scores, participation rates, and withdrawal rates as well as its schools‐within‐a‐school approach, my research team and I heard students and teachers alike complain about the mainstream media’s continued stereotyping of inner‐city youth (nonwhite, working class, and immigrant) and tarnishing of the school’s reputation. In an incident that had occurred two years earlier, a Van Tech student was stabbed on the school grounds by a group of other youth. Although the popular perception was that this incident was related to immigrant gangs, in reality it had evolved from a small student getting picked on by other youth in a restaurant. A larger student stood up and told the other students to leave the smaller student alone. A few days later, this larger student was slashed with knives by the youth who were in the restaurant, ostensibly because he had embarrassed them in front of their girlfriends, and this retaliation was an effort to save face. This incident set off a chain of inflammatory broadcasts and articles in the local media linking Van Tech with the supposed rise in teen violence. According to a teacher, the stabbing incident was a “horrific, one‐of‐
a‐kind event that hardly typifies what life at Van Tech is like.ʺ A grade‐
12 student perceived a social class bias (and I would add racial bias) at work in the mainstream media’s portrayal of Van Tech students as “gang bangers”: Nobody talks about the drug problem in the [upper‐income] West End, yet the moment a couple of grade 9 kids have a scrap at Van Tech, the cameramen and media rush over and talk about the gang problems at our school. East Van has always had a bad reputation, as far back as I can remember, that comes from I think the “higher class” West End. (Kelly, 1995, p. 12) 32 DEIRDRE M. KELLY Not all Van Tech students felt victimized, however, by the negative media coverage. A member of the boys’ basketball team, for example, noted: “The tough image gives us the chance to think of ourselves as stronger and tougher than the opposition. This, of course, might not be true.” Frame 2: Teen Mothers as “Children Having Children” and “Welfare Bums” In Pregnant with Meaning (Kelly, 2000), an ethnographic study of teen mothers and the politics of inclusive schooling, I analyzed print media representations of teen mothers and discerned two dominant frames. The “wrong‐girl” frame of the bureaucratic experts suggested that girls from flawed backgrounds (poor and abusive) were making tragic mistakes and wrong choices. The “wrong‐family” frame of the social and economic conservatives propounded the idea that unmarried teen mothers on social assistance were immoral, promiscuous, and a drain on taxpayers. The 50 young women whom I got to know during my multi‐year studies of both City and Town Schools in the mid‐1990s challenged these stereotypes directly and indirectly. Anna, age 17 and on the honour roll at Town School, noted that talk shows (like “Oprah”) “never show someone like me whoʹs actually doing their school and wants to do something with their life. They show the teen moms who have ten kids.” Were they to attempt to counter the stigmatizing representations of teen mothers (and single mothers generally) that were circulating in the media, the teen mothers I got to know felt that, by virtue of their age, those in power would not take them seriously. Anna, for example, told me that as a researcher, I was ideally located to go on television “as a spokesperson . . . and say, ‘Iʹve talked to all these girls,’ and have the actual facts instead of just us going [affecting a repentant tone], ‘We didnʹt mean to get pregnant’ʺ (Kelly, 2000, p. 206). During my fieldwork at City School, Mina (age 18) was featured in a news article in which the teen‐mother‐as‐victim‐of‐sexual‐abuse theme was prominent and a pull‐quote by the teacher in Mina’s Teen‐Age Parents Program read, “The fastest way from slut to angelhood is becoming a madonna.” The reporter, citing academic work by Debra Boyer, posited that young women who have been sexually abused may FRAME WORK: HELPING YOUTH COUNTER THEIR MISREPRESENTATION 33 later engage in behavior that others see as promiscuous; then, in a subconscious effort to move out of the bad girl category, they become pregnant and mothers. Mina (who came from a stable, working‐class home and claimed she had a good relationship with her parents) objected to how the reporter implied that she was “looking for something other than a boyfriend” (i.e., a “father figure”) and that “I was abused and looking for a dad who wasnʹt abusive, and I mean it wasnʹt that way” (Kelly, 2000, p. 208). Frame 3: Girls as Fashion Obsessed and Impressionable Mass media pundits would have us believe that girls today are fashion obsessed and acting sexy at too young an age (crop tops, thongs, low‐
rider jeans). By contrast, the 20 girls who comprised the skater sample in the “Girl Power” study (Kelly, Pomerantz, & Currie, 2005) said that, by and large, they liked the casual, comfortable (baggy) look of skater clothes. Many were quick to contrast skater style with what they disliked: “revealing,” brand‐name attire that they associated with a certain type of popular “boy‐hunting” girl. As Zoey (age 15) explained, “A lot of the skater clothes aren’t slutty, so that’s really cool. . . . That really tight stuff—those can get really annoying after awhile, and you can’t do anything on a board in it.” According to Grover (age 15), “bun girls” (her group’s name for girls who displayed an emphasized femininity) wear “tank tops four seasons a year. . . . They base a lot upon their looks and what they think the guys will like.” “They’re not really their own person,” added Onyx (age 14, almost 15). When the Vancouver Sun (Richmond, 2004) recently published an article about girls at Van Tech subtitled “Tight, Belly‐Baring Clothes Make the Grade,” a student there was quick to write the editor to protest that “not everybody dresses like that” (Jung, 2004, p. A13). This student went on to note: “A good number of students express themselves through the way they dress. If everybody dresses the same, they lose their individuality.” This was a theme expressed by many girls in the “Girl Power” study, skaters and non‐skaters alike. Vanessa (age 13, going on 14) said she liked “some of the ways that people look and how they dress in [popular] magazines. But . . . I don’t really copy any of that exactly, ‘cause that just wouldn’t be me.”2 34 DEIRDRE M. KELLY Of course, youth are as vulnerable as adults to the marketing strategies of the publishing and broadcast industries, which appeal to media‐savvy consumers’ sense of individuality. Douglas Rushkoff (2001), for example, has documented how corporations hire those familiar with youth culture to hunt for the styles of “cool” youth and turn these styles into products to be sold to “mainstream” young people (cf. McRobbie & Thornton, 2000, p. 187). SCORING IDEOLOGICAL POINTS IN THE CONTESTED ARENA OF SCHOOLING Mass media’s representations of youth—particularly those marginalized by virtue of their poverty or immigrant status, race, gender, ability, or sexuality—are frequently distorted and negative.3 Drawing from survey and focus‐group interview research conducted in the United States, Gilliam and Bales (2001) have shown that the dominant content on television news presents a negative picture of youth, altering adult perceptions. In fact, this negative view becomes so ingrained in the minds of adult audiences that they overlook or discount data highlighting positive trends among teenagers and explain away their own positive experiences with young people as aberrations. The stigmatized media images serve diverse ideological interests, although rarely the interests of youth themselves.4 Stereotypes of youth as violent or members of criminal gangs justify policies that treat schools as prisons and staff as prison guards, where students now encounter surveillance cameras, electronic access devices, bar‐coded ID tags, and (in the United States) metal detectors and scanner wands (Schmidt, 2004b). Students, particularly those categorized as racial minorities (e.g., Hall, Critcher, Jefferson, Clarke, & Roberts, 1978; Males, 1999), are treated as potential criminals and automatically suspected of concealing weapons or drugs. In the United States, African American and Latino students are more likely to be disciplined at school than White students (e.g., Noguera, 1995, p. 201), and in a Canadian study, Ruck and Wortley (2002) found that “racial/ethnic minority” students were much more likely than White students to perceive school disciplinary practices as discriminatory. FRAME WORK: HELPING YOUTH COUNTER THEIR MISREPRESENTATION 35 Stereotypes of teen mothers as “children having children” (when nearly two thirds of births to teenagers are to women aged 18 or 19 years old, that is legal adults, entitled to vote as citizens) cast them as needing lots of help from adults (Kelly, 2000, p. 32). Defining teen mothers “immature” inevitably shapes the programs and policies established to address their needs; thus, supervision, monitoring, and surveillance become the resulting watchwords of such programs. One can see how this frame, working in tandem with the “welfare bum” frame, helped to pave the way for a 1999 policy in Ontario mandating that teen mothers enroll in school or lose their welfare benefits (Southam Newspapers, 1999). Stereotypes of girls as impressionable and fashion obsessed (and, by extension, boys as collections of uncontrollable hormones) justify everything from single‐sex classes and schools within the public school system (e.g., Vancouver Sun, 2003) to dress codes (e.g., Alphonso, 2004). Constituted as both vulnerable to the lustful attentions of boys and men and not fully aware of their sexual power, girls are then said to require protection through various institutional means. I interviewed a principal in British Columbia, for example, shortly after he garnered media attention for banning girls from wearing sports bras to school. He explained that, through music videos Girls learn that what they are is sexual, and they know that if they wear the sports bra, they’ll get more attention. So I don’t know if the school system can allow young women to simply sell themselves as provocateurs and not have them understand that. If you talk to the boys, they love these girls who are coming to class without bras and really short shorts, so that when they sit down, the guys can check them out. (personal communication, September 23, 1993) Ironically, adults seek to protect youth from being negatively influenced by the media (e.g., through the content‐blocking V‐chip device for TVs) yet fail to notice how media imagery and rhetoric influence how they view youth and the policies they then enact to control them. Young people do not participate equally in the making of culture in the everyday world or in public spheres, which contributes to their subordination. With few youth‐generated self‐representations to counter dominant images of children as violent and irresponsible—as brainless 36 DEIRDRE M. KELLY consumers of fashion but not as thinking, contributing citizens—coercive measures aimed at youth are easier to enact. Thus, high school seniors in one California school district are required to sign up for postsecondary education before they can participate in their high school graduation ceremony (Brown, 2002). Students deemed to be making inadequate academic progress or to have left school without graduating are not allowed to obtain or hold a driver’s permit or license in North Carolina—the so‐called “Lose Control/Lose Your License” legislation. Similar legislation, which connects to images of violent or criminal youth, exists in the states of Florida and Kentucky and has been proposed in Ontario (Greenberg, 2005). YOUTH SELF‐REPRESENTATIONS Youth self‐representations are integral to their effective participation in democracy, including self‐representations that would critically question the meaning and value of that participation in conventional terms (Harris, 2001). In the next section, I explore how educational researchers, policymakers, and teachers might support youth in their efforts at self‐
definition and resistance to misrepresentation by powerful others. But before I discuss strategies for producing and circulating youth self‐
representations, a few cautions are in order. Speaking directly to mainstream news reporters, particularly as individuals, is likely to result in painful distortions of young people’s intended messages. Molly, a 17‐
year‐old mother, spoke for a number of her peers when she complained to me of the selective editing done by a local columnist. That [newspaper] lady totally twisted what we said because she wanted it to sound worse. I wrote her a letter and said, “If you werenʹt going to write what we said, why did you waste your time and our time? You might as well just have sat home, made up the story yourself—not even bother us if you werenʹt going to use the facts.” (Kelly, 2000, p. 67) Even educational researchers equipped with well‐rehearsed and well‐documented arguments may find that the corporate‐dominated, mainstream media filter out or distort their attempts to publicize alternative discourses. I spent considerable time with an education reporter for the Vancouver Sun, for example, when she was preparing a FRAME WORK: HELPING YOUTH COUNTER THEIR MISREPRESENTATION 37 front‐page, back‐to‐school feature story entitled “High School Dropouts” (see Steffenhagen, 2001). During our interview, she cited the 1999‐2000 statistics for British Columbia that only 39 per cent of Aboriginal students completed high school within six years compared to 75 per cent of all students. I put forward various explanations for this, including the devastating legacy of residential schooling, persistent poverty, Eurocentric curricula, and lack of access to a critical history of First Nations peoples to provide a form of protection against the destructive stereotypes that many First Nations youth must endure in school. I described a local program that I had studied, Tumanos, which introduced urban Aboriginal youth to First Nations art, literature, history, sport, and spiritual ceremonies and had met with some success (see Kelly, 1995, pp. 64‐68). Thus, when I read the resulting article, which described the low Aboriginal completion rates as a “real shocker,” I myself was shocked to see that nothing I had said about this topic had made its way into the article. I was quoted on other aspects of the “dropout” issue. Although another university professor, a researcher with the right‐
wing Fraser Institute, the president of the B.C. School Trustees Association, the head of a nonprofit “rescue program,” and numerous early school leavers were interviewed, no Aboriginal scholars, experts, spokespeople, teachers, or students were quoted. The reporter mentioned that the B.C. Human Rights Commission had “announced its intention to conduct an inquiry into why aboriginal students aren’t generally successful in the public school system” (Steffenhagen, 2001 p. A9), but ignored the release just a few months earlier of the Commission’s review of the literature on “barriers to equal education for Aboriginal learners” (see British Columbia Human Rights Commission, 2001, p. 1). Even when reporters are open to marginalized discourses, the alternative messages may get lost because they have little control over the spin that editors put on an article. A beat reporter for the Province (the tabloid newspaper in Vancouver) explained to me that an article gets sensationalized based on 38 DEIRDRE M. KELLY where it is in the paper, how big the headline is, what the headline says, what the picture is, how big the picture is, how it’s laid out on the page, how long the story is—and those are things the reporters donʹt have any control over. Not an ounce. (L. Grindlay, personal communication, August 30, 1993) Another consideration is the nature of the mainstream media’s audience vis‐à‐vis youth, particularly from oppressed groups. bell hooks (1989) explains: If the identified audience, those spoken to, is determined solely by ruling groups who control production and distribution, then it is easy for the marginal voice striving for a hearing to allow what is said to be overdetermined by the needs of that majority group who appears to be listening, to be tuned in. It becomes easy to speak about what that group wants to hear, to describe and define experience in a language compatible with existing images and ways of knowing, constructed within social frameworks that reinforce domination. (pp. 14‐15) One can hear Fran (age 18), for instance, struggling with how to speak publicly about why having a baby as a teenager was for her so positive: “What I tell people, Iʹm not saying itʹs a good idea to have a baby young. Iʹm not saying that. But itʹs right for me now.” Almost as soon as she expressed her view to me in an informal interview, Fran silenced herself. Rather than develop her counter‐story that becoming a young mother might, under certain circumstances, make sense, she instead elected to underscore the applicability of conventional wisdom to others. Clearly, she did not perceive her story as “compatible with the socially organized ideology” (Anderson, 1989, p. 261, referencing Bakhtin; for more on the idea of counter‐story, see Harris, Carney, & Fine, 2001). Certainly, when youth, particularly marginalized youth, write letters to the editor (or, more rarely, full opinion‐editorials or op‐eds) and publish them in mainstream newspapers, they have more control over their message. Because they speak from the margin, however, a defensive tone is almost inevitable. Because they speak as individuals without institutional affiliation or backing, they presumably speak with less power and authority. One participant in the Pregnant with Meaning study quoted above, Anna, wrote a letter to the Midland Daily News contrasting “middle‐class families” with two incomes to “single parents” FRAME WORK: HELPING YOUTH COUNTER THEIR MISREPRESENTATION 39 who are “the sole support of their families” and whose “children lack any extras” (Anna, 1997, pp. 8‐9). Defending herself and other single mothers on social assistance against the “welfare bum” stereotype, Anna articulated a “twist on the dominant discourse by repositioning social assistance as a short‐term, quasi‐bursary for low‐income, single mothers” (Kelly, 2003, p. 137). (As a relevant aside, according to the Young Parents Program administrator, Anna eventually graduated from high school, was receiving straight A’s in her second year of sciences at university, and was still pursuing her goal of medical school [field notes, April 6, 1998].) STRATEGIES FOR PRODUCING AND CIRCULATING YOUTH SELF‐
REPRESENTATIONS Strategy: Adults can support youth participation in zines (self‐published, do‐it‐yourself alternatives to commercial magazines), websites, and other alternative media sources.5 Already, these “media forms have been embraced by youth seeking like‐minded others beyond the local community” (Bucholtz, 2002, p. 542; cf. Guzzetti, Campbell, Duke, & Irving, 2003; Guzzetti & Gamboa, 2004; Harris, 2003; McRobbie & Thornton, 2000; Sacino, 2003‐2004; Schilt, 2003). A pioneer in this area is YO! (Youth Outlook), a project of Pacific News Service (itself an alternative American print and electronic media news service) started in 1991 and designed to serve youth ages 15 to 21. Many of the youth who work at this bimonthly newspaper come from “disadvantaged families; some are living on their own because of problems at home” (Pacific News Service, 2004). Youth new to the program meet with writers and editors from the Pacific News Service to develop story ideas based on their own life experiences. With a core group of teen staff writers and a larger group of freelance writers, youth meet weekly to determine the paper’s content, make assignments and get updates on stories in progress. Writers are paid for their stories, and program participation includes lunches and workshops with working print and radio journalists, Freedom Forum representatives and peers in local high schools. (Pacific News Service, 2004) 40 DEIRDRE M. KELLY Other examples include WireTap (a project of AlterNet.org and the Independent Media Institute), which describes itself as “the independent information source by and for socially conscious youth”. We showcase investigative news articles, personal essays and opinions, artwork and activism resources that challenge stereotypes, inspire creativity, foster dialogue and give young people a voice in the media. The WireTap Web portal provides a new generation of writers, artists and activists a space to network, organize and mobilize. (WireTap, 2004) Through organizations like YO! and WireTap, youth cultivate media production skills and attempt to get youth self‐representations into the alternative and wider media6. Youth also need opportunities and organizational backing to help and encourage them to talk directly to the mass media. It is fairly common for lobbyists representing various marginalized groups to attempt to intervene with counter analysis and alternative sets of facts when the mass media (or politicians and others using the media) attempt to negatively stereotype a group. But youth groups, by virtue of age and lack of resources, are less equipped to do lobbying. An exception to this is the Canadian Federation of Students, although it serves older and perhaps more privileged youth. Founded in 1981 and funded though student tuition fees, the CFS “currently unites more than 450,000 college and university students across Canada through a cooperative alliance of over 70 students’ unions” (Canadian Federation of Students, 2004). CFS has both newswire and communications staff members who write press releases and organize lobbying. It has been relatively successful in getting sympathetic media coverage (e.g., Konieczna, 2004; Newman, 2004; Schmidt, 2004a) in its fight against tuition fee increases and for increased federal funding for post‐secondary education. Strategy: A direct way that educational researchers can be a part of preparing youth to participate in producing alternative media and lobbying mainstream media is to involve youth as co‐researchers (Cook‐
Sather, 2002; Kelly, 1993; SooHoo, 1993). Researchers begin from the perspective of youth as knowers, guided by a methodology, such as participatory research, that encourages reducing the hierarchy between FRAME WORK: HELPING YOUTH COUNTER THEIR MISREPRESENTATION 41 researchers and researched as well as taking their problems as a starting point for reflective action. In working with youth, whether in school or other settings, adult researchers should not simply cede their authority to students. In a participatory research project I did with young people attending a “last chance” high school, I found that “Student researchers sometimes used racial, gender, and social class differences to gain power and display undemocratic behavior within the group” (Kelly, 1993, p. 8). I concluded, in a vein similar to Carmen Luke writing about media studies teachers, that adult researchers “need not abrogate their pedagogical authority to take a stand on what constitutes racist, sexist, homophobia, or just plain offensive texts” (Luke, 1999, p. 625). Adult researchers can and should, through their leadership and guided by social justice or anti‐oppression principles, create moments where their authority is shared with students by temporarily placing young people in research roles and then reflecting with them on what they learned. Cook‐Sather (2002) describes some recent examples of projects that included “middle or high school students as primary authors writing with the support of teachers or researchers with whom they worked” (p. 7). Strategy: Adults can nurture what I have called (following Fraser, 1997) “subaltern counterpublics” (Kelly, 2003, p. 125) or what Michelle Fine and colleagues have referred to as “safe spaces” (Fine, Weis, Weseen, & Wong, 2003, pp. 193‐195; cf. Weis & Centrie, 2002). Occasionally, school‐sponsored programs and extracurricular activities create a relatively safe and private discursive arena, linked to networks outside the school, where members of subordinated groups can explore who they are and what they want to become and prepare to voice their needs, concerns, and issues in wider public realms. Groups initiated and run at least partially by youth have been invited, or have sometimes intervened, into schools, with the result that they sustain counterpublics. One example from Vancouver is Check Your Head: The Youth Global Education Network (n.d.), which was founded by and for youth and organized workshops for youth in schools and elsewhere on such topics as media awareness and sweatshops. Another is The Coalition for Positive Sexuality, which was formed in part by high‐school students in the United States (Coalition for Positive Sexuality, 2004; Murdy, Mendel, 42 DEIRDRE M. KELLY & Freemen, 1994). The Coalition for Positive Sexuality distributes its Just Say Yes pamphlet directly to teenagers with the aim “to transgress the homophobia, misogyny, and erotophobia that these institutions [of the classrooms and the school board] perpetuate. Nobody asked our permission to keep teenagers so ignorant in the midst of a health crisis” (Murdy, Mendel, & Freemen, 1994, p. 45, emphasis in original). Strategy: Finally, educational researchers who are sought out by the news media to offer their views would do well to be wary of merely being edited to fit the youth‐stigmatizing themes too often favored by mainstream media. I would suggest that it is not enough for us to “sound bite” the abstracts of our latest research projects and consider our work done. We should also challenge the shapers of public understanding about the very framing of their stories. Ask the reporter or editor if they are truly interested in an alternative point of view and whether they have seriously sought out the voices of their subjects. Have they taken seriously even those youth who might provide a counter‐
intuitively affirming explanation of the youths’ values, thinking, and behavior? Of course, there are limits to this last strategy. Although there may be room to modify the media’s framing of youth, reporters and editors still exist within a corporate media structure that largely dictates news values (e.g., that overall, market‐led capitalism is the best system and that those who fail within it are “others” to be blamed and controlled). Progressive educators and researchers may succeed in helping to change one portrayal, but other portrayals will always need challenging. We will continually be confronted with what sociologist Howard Becker (1966‐
67) called the “hierarchy of credibility,” in which “credibility and the right to be heard are differentially distributed through the ranks of the [hierarchical] system” (p. 241). ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to Michelle Stack and Barbara Guzzetti for their comments on an earlier draft. NOTES The social crisis, or at least the rhetoric of crisis, or “moral panics” (Cohen, 2002) over youth have tended to divide along gender lines, with the media 1
FRAME WORK: HELPING YOUTH COUNTER THEIR MISREPRESENTATION 43 spotlighting young (often racial minority and working‐class) men’s violence and young (often racial minority and working‐class) women’s “out‐of‐control” sexuality. Of course, the claims to individuality through dress are not without tensions and contradictions. Skater girls in the “Girl Power” study, for example, emphasized their unique personal style while adhering to particular group norms; they disavowed fashion even as skateboarding itself was becoming more expensive and trendy (Kelly, Pomerantz, & Currie, 2005). Youth displaying distinctive sub‐cultural styles deliberately conform in their dress to express their nonconformity with the mainstream. 2
3 I am not claiming that the mainstream media never presents positive images of youth. Indeed, in my analysis of print media coverage of teen mothers in Canada, I noted that because “the media like endings that affirm personal triumph, a few of the stories fall into a category I call the ‘Saga of the Teenage Supermother’” (Kelly, 2000, p. 85). People like to root for the underdog, the inner‐city youth who becomes valedictorian despite the odds. Yet this type of storytelling plays down structural constraints and the benefits of institutional support, sending instead a signal that all young people, given enough individual determination, talent, and character, can succeed equally well. 4 Liberals are likely to interpret teen mothers and early school leavers, for example, as symptoms of poverty and other systemic ills that must be addressed, while conservatives are prone to see them as resulting from a breakdown of traditional lines of authority. People across a range of ideological positions cite youth violence to marshal support for various reforms, some at direct odds with each other. Producing zines is fun, and part of the fun for youth no doubt stems from writing and creating images that are done largely outside of adult monitoring and censorship. Thus, my suggestion that adults can support youth participation in zines is made advisedly. 5
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Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Toronto. Testing, Testing, Read All About It: Canadian Press Coverage of the PISA Results Michelle Stack This article is a critical discourse analysis of coverage in the National Post and the Globe and Mail concerning the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development’s 2000 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). In this article, I have shown how numbers are interpreted through statistics to create a reality and analyzed the mechanisms used, through which information is constructed and reconstructed by and for the media. I have also explored how diverse voices are represented. The discourses of neoliberalism were embedded in the coverage of the PISA results and discourses that accentuated regional stereotypes were in use. Key words: policy, media education, neoliberalism L’analyse du discours critique présentée dans cet article porte sur la couverture dont a fait l’objet le Programme international pour le suivi des acquis des élèves (PISA) 2002 de l’Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques dans le National Post et le Globe and Mail L’auteure étudie comment les chiffres sont interprétés à travers des statistiques en vue de créer une réalité et quels sont les mécanismes utilisés pour construire et reconstruire l’information par et pour les médias. Elle explore en outre comment les diverses voix sont représentées. Les discours du néolibéralisme faisaient partie intégrante de la couverture des résultats du PISA ; des discours accentuant les stéréotypes régionaux y étaient utilisés. Mots clés : politiques, médias éducation, néolibéralisme _________________ People “know,” that is, whether and which schools are good or effective irrespective of any authentic knowledge of actualized teaching practices, curricula, student needs, and so on according principally to representations –
images — reported in the press. Hence, the relationship between school and society — teachers and students and the larger public — is in fact mediated, at least in part, by images, by test scores which may or may not indicate anything at all about the day‐to‐day workings of contemporary classroom and school‐based life (or even student achievement for that matter). (Vinson & Ross, 2003, p. 55) CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 29, 1 (2006): 49‐69 50 MICHELLE STACK The media are a central source of information about so‐called good and bad schools for both the public and policymakers, yet literature about the power of the media has only recently been published. There is a small but growing body of research examining the role of the media in the policy‐making process (Blackmore & Thorpe, 2003; Franklin, 2004; Levin, 2004; Lingard & Rawolle , 2004; Wallace, 1993). Ungerleider’s (2003) analysis of public opinion about education in Canada points to the power of media in creating a sense of panic about public education. Guppy and Davies (1999) note that government sometimes reacts to negative media‐reported poll data about education with new policy. Ironically, constant change in reaction to media charges of crisis in the education system creates more instability and might actually increase perceptions of chaos and crisis. Blackmore and Thorpe (2003) document how the Kennett state government in Australia effectively used the media to create policy problems and to recommend advice as to their logical solutions (p. 583). The government stated that the system was in crisis and, as it had been in the USA, the solution was to provide parents with choice and to institute more standardized testing. Blackmore and Thorpe (2003) argue, The media is critical in the (re)production of policy as discourse, in that it becomes both the medium and the message for what policy is read to mean. The media simultaneously creates and taps into educational discourses (popular, professional and academic) that take on particular dominant readings in specific contexts, and is in this sense critical to the popular readings and meanings of certain key words, such as “standards.” (p. 580) SALIENCY, SELECTION, AND SOURCING Emphasis on timeliness in the news means that news reports are usually episodic rather than analytical. Wallace (1993), in analyzing educational coverage, suggests that Bowe, Ball and Gold’s (1992) three contexts — the context of influence, the context of text production, and the context of practice — are useful to theorizing the policy process. However, Wallace argues that the media should become a fourth context. Within this latter context, myths and counter‐myths are produced, news values are selected, and information is conveyed to actors in the first three contexts, TESTING, TESTING, READ ALL ABOUT IT 51 and to the larger public. Entman (1993) explains that framing involves selection and salience. To frame is to select some aspects of perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation. (p. 52) Entman further argues that what issues get discussed depends on the framing the media uses. In other words, if schooling is primarily framed as the key to global competitiveness, how testing and achievement are discussed will be different than if schooling is framed as an institution that promotes equity and citizenship. Tuchman (1983) found that the news media rely on framing from government and other influential actors and that news is often based on official press releases. Schudson (1991) states, “It matters not whether the study is at the national, state or local level — the story of journalism, on a day‐to‐day basis, is the story of the interaction of reporters and officials” (p. 148). It is important, as Warmington and Murphy (2004) argue, to recognize that the media may serve dominant interests but “that these dominant ideologies remain contested in specific, localized contexts…” (p. 287). Davis (2002) reports that in the United Kingdom, media convergence has led to fewer reporters and greater use of information subsidies (p. 27). Government is a key information subsidy, given that through ministry and centralized communications shops, it provides media with a constant source of stories packaged in the format desired by the media. Fishman’s (1980) study of Canadian newsrooms points to how institutions that are accessible and well resourced provide predictable information subsidies. Bennett’s (1990) index model is helpful to understand coverage of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). He postulates that the variety of views reported, whether in news or editorials, depends largely on views expressed in government debates. Therefore, if there were debate about the usefulness of the PISA or questions about what it means or should mean to classrooms, there would be a wide range of opinions in the media. If, however, there is agreement among government officials, there is also agreement in the 52 MICHELLE STACK media, thereby supporting a commonsense notion of what the results mean. METHOD: CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS Throughout this article, I draw on critical discourse analysis. Discourse in the Foucaultian sense refers to a world that is not simply present to be talked about. Instead it is through discourse that the world is brought into existence. Unspoken rules exist about what can be spoken and what cannot. Discourse connects knowledge and power by demonstrating that those who have power control what is known and how it is known. Critical discourse analysis assumes that discourse practices mediate the connection between texts and society or culture (Fairclough, 1995). Critical discourse analysts attempt to make the implicit explicit and, in so doing, to uncover how discourse makes that which is based in ideology appear neutral and commonsensical. Part of this process is an examination of intertexuality. As Phillips and Jorgensen (2002) point out, “Through analysis of intertextuality, one can investigate both the reproduction of discourses whereby no new elements are introduced and discursive change through new combinations of discourse” (p. 7). The media coverage about the PISA provides an opportunity to examine interdiscursivity, which “occurs when different discourses and genres are articulated together in a communicative event” (Phillips & Jorgenson, 2002, p. 73). Examining media alongside press statements from governments and unions provided materials to look at intertextuality and interdiscursivity. Critical discourse analysis examines how discourse is involved in creating and recreating social structures as well as reflecting them. It sees discourse not as something that is merely in people’s minds but embedded in social practice that is part of the real, material world. I am exploring the way the media use numbers to problematise the foundation through which the objectification and construction of reality and its manipulation are undertaken. NATIONAL PRESS COVERAGE OF THE 2000 PISA In this article, I analyze Canadian media surrounding the 2000 PISA, focusing on coverage by the two national Canadian papers: the Globe and Mail and the National Post.1 I have analyzed all the articles about the TESTING, TESTING, READ ALL ABOUT IT 53 PISA 2000 that I could find in these two papers (13 in total, seven news articles, four columns, and two editorials). My research assistant, Sarah Mills, checked for articles through various databases and reading the respective papers’ microfiches from December 4, 2001 (the day the PISA results were announced by the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC), to December 31, 2001. I consulted a number of websites to place the PISA results in the larger context of education, including websites for Ministries of Education in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Ontario, and Alberta. I was able to locate government press releases from Ontario, Alberta, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. Throughout the the newspaper coverage that I looked at Alberta and Ontario are represented as separate entitities; whereas, the Atlantic provinces are represented as one entity. I chose these regions to examine how the media relies on entrenched narratives around Western, Central, and Eastern Canada and because the National Post and Globe and Mail articles discussed these regions. Yet I also looked at press statements from teachers’ federations from Alberta, Ontario, and Atlantic Canada. My research assistant contacted the Assembly of First Nations and Campaign 2000, a coalition of over 85 groups dealing with child poverty, to explore whether these organizations put out statements about the PISA. Neither of these groups released statements about the PISA; however, they disseminated reports that are relevant to the analysis of the PISA, which I have discussed later in this article. I developed a thematic analysis that allowed me to look at frames used in explaining the PISA results. I analyzed the articles by first looking at the headlines. I concur with van Dijk (1988) who argues that headlines operate as retrieval cues by activating culturally shared stories and dominant ideological positions. They provide readers framing for a story. I also looked for correspondence between press releases and other government and organizational statements and media coverage. I examined these dimensions alongside a regional analysis in which I explored the variations in framing relative to Alberta, Ontario, and Atlantic Canada. 54 MICHELLE STACK SCHOOLS AS INDICATORS OF GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS OR GLOBAL FAILURE The newspaper articles in my sample followed press releases from most of the provinces reviewed as well as the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC), a pan‐Canadian organization in which press releases are negotiated among the various provincial jurisdictions. The releases, not surprisingly, focus on the jurisdiction’s ranking in comparison to other jurisdictions. For example, the CMEC (December 4, 2001, p. 1) press release states, “Canada ranks in top six countries in reading, mathematics and science, major OECD study concludes.” The Ontario Ministry of Learning release reads, “International test results show Ontario near the top” (Ontario Ministry of Education, December 4, 2001, p.1) and the Alberta Learning release tells readers, “Alberta students achieve top marks on international testing” (Alberta Learning, December 4, 2001, p. 1). The press release from Prince Edward Island is less celebratory and focuses on Canada, rather than mentioning it was an international test: “Major Study of Canadian Student Performance Reports on Performance of 15‐year‐old Students” (Prince Edward Island, Island Information Service, December 4, 2001, p. 1). Five articles in the Globe and Mail and eight from the National Post, that followed these press releases, drew on information from them, although three of the column headlines, unlike the government press releases, negatively cast what the results meant. For example: “Our schools: The best of a bad bunch” (Orwin, December 6, 2001, p. A20). Individual schools are reduced to being part of a bad system; therefore, their excellence is merely a sign of their mediocrity. A National Post headline might be construed as neutral or even positive by someone who did not have the social knowledge to understand the hierarchy of provinces and territories within Canada in which Atlantic Canada is frequently portrayed as a burden and is often the butt of humour: “Ontario lags Quebec, West in school test—Landmark OECD study: Ontario does exceed Atlantic Canada” (Sokoloff, December 5, 2001b, p. A1). Ontario is treated as a separate entity, whereas Atlantic Canada is a monolithic failure. Seven headlines are celebratory; for example, a news item tells readers that “Alberta teens top worldwide literacy test—Excellent TESTING, TESTING, READ ALL ABOUT IT 55 reading skills of Canadian students could give them the edge in the global economy” (Honey, December 5, 2001). The micro‐story in this headline is that students from different jurisdictions can be ranked, and the ranking can tell readers something about the quality of education in various places. The context of education is absent; it is a universal commodity that can be ranked within definitive measures of success and failure. One article activates a concern that has reached hysterical proportions in subsequent years: “Test shows boys trail in reading ability — parents, educators urged to take action” (Sokoloff, December 6, 2001d. p. A1). This micro‐story activates the knowledge of other stories about feminized classrooms, the lack of role models for boys, and the failing achievement of boys versus girls. This article ignores how class and race factor into opportunities for achievement and relevance of schooling: the issue is boys versus girls. Some headlines draw on meta‐narratives about children (“Why Johnny Can Read”; Fine, December 6, 2001), or on children’s stories (“A Happy Time for Public Education”; Kingwell, December 5, 2001). With the exception of one column entitled, “Lies, Damned Lies and Test Results” (Coyne, December 7, 2001, p. A17), the headlines tell readers that the results convey something valid and meaningful about the Canadian education system. POVERTY DOES NOT MATTER IN CANADA The central theme from the press releases and subsequent news stories was that Canada is doing well compared to the rest of the world, but that regional differences exist. Eight articles mentioned socio‐economic status and stated that the gap between rich and poor is less in Canada than in other countries. Dianne Cunningham, chair of the Canadian Council of Minister of Education and Ontario’s Minister of Colleges and Universities, was quoted in five articles. She explained to the Globe and Mail that “Our children understand what they read. This is good.” She goes on to say that, “Teachers, students and parents, they are to be congratulated” and that “Income matters, but it doesn’t matter that much in Canada” (Honey, December 5, 2001, p. A3). Cunningham was referring to data that lower‐income children did less well than rich children, but in comparison to other nations the gap was considered 56 MICHELLE STACK small. How increasing or decreasing support might affect the gap between the rich and the poor was not part of the media coverage. Instead, mysteriously poverty mattered in other countries, but not so much in Canada, although the scores in the poorest parts of Canada were low. The dominant framing was that poverty was less important in Canada than other places. Peter Gzowski (December 8, 2001) celebrated the high test results, but he also stated his fear that Canada was moving towards a two‐tiered education system. His was the only article that connected the test results with current policies around literacy that might increase disparity. For example, there was no analysis of massive changes that Ontario had or was about to introduce at the time the 2000 PISA results were released, including a high‐stakes grade‐10 literacy test. A plethora of research has demonstrated the negative effect of high‐
stakes testing on poor students and racialized minorities (Aronowitz, 2004; Bracey, 2000; Madaus & Clarke, 2001). Campaign 2000, a coalition of 85 groups concerned with child poverty, released a report that stated 18.5 per cent of children in Canada lived in poverty and that the social safety net was becoming weaker (Campaign 2000, 2001, p. 1). This report is not referenced in media coverage about the PISA; instead, overall the media coverage follows the government press releases in celebrating an apparently decreasing gap between the rich and the poor in Canada. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION: CANADA AND ITS REGIONS The newspaper articles contained the same points as these press releases, but they regionalized the news into the “good” Alberta, the “so‐so” Ontario, and the “bad” Atlantic Canada. The press release from the Alberta Ministry of Learning declared that the test showed that Alberta has one of the best education systems in the world because of the high quality of teaching and curriculum (Alberta Learning, 2001). In a Globe and Mail article, “What Is One Province’s Secret to Top‐Notch Academe?” readers are told that, “The secret behind Alberta students’ top grade in the Canadian section of an international study released yesterday likely is more than one factor, including the province’s standardized curriculum and highly educated population” (Mahoney, December 5, 2001, p. A3). TESTING, TESTING, READ ALL ABOUT IT 57 Mahoney’s article quoted Scott Murray from Statistics Canada who explained that high achievement is related to regular testing, a standardized curriculum, highly trained teachers, parental involvement, and high parental education. He is quoted, stating “There hasn’t really been enough analysis done to identify specifically what Alberta is doing right, but it has most of those things and has had them longer than several provinces” (Mahoney, December 5, 2001, p. A3). It is interesting to note how factors are made into physical things that can be broken down to explain differences. But do we know if Alberta has them in greater supply or if one is more important than another? Do we know that standardized testing leads to greater learning? Indeed, one study found that for the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) eight of the top ten scoring countries had a standardized curriculum but so too did the bottom eight out of ten (Atkin & Black, 1997). The article went on to say that Alberta has a highly educated population and teachers, financial prosperity, an open‐boundary system, and low taxes. It is unclear how the author determined these factors are in greater supply in Alberta and more importantly how they connect to the test results. The article is imbued with neoliberal assumptions that the marketization of education is a positive direction for schools. A National Post article declared that, At a press conference yesterday, Alberta’s success was lauded by education experts who commended the province’s formula of frequent testing, standardized curriculum and high expectations from parents and teachers, and financial support for disadvantaged schools. (Sokoloff, December 5, 2001b, pp. A1 and A20) Sokoloff seemed to take the press conference as the only reality. Who are the “experts”? Do parents and teachers in other jurisdictions have low expectations? How is this measured? There are educational experts (Kachur & Harrison, 1999; Taylor, Neu, & Peters, 2002) who do not applaud the Alberta education system; yet it appears that educational experts are unanimous in declaring the success of the Alberta system. In an article titled “Why Johnny Can Read,” Fine (2001) of the Globe and Mail, congratulated Alberta. Fine explained that Premier Klein had cut back on education, but now a multimillion‐dollar innovation fund 58 MICHELLE STACK was making programs such as “Galileo, a program focused on using computers as part of learning, possible” (p. A23). Again, there is a correlation made between the program and the test scores but no evidence given to verify any causal connection, or that increased test results would equate to schools being what Fine refers to as less “stodgy places” (December 6, 2001, p. A23). What is, perhaps, more interesting is how Fine’s emotional testimonial comes to stand for Alberta’s education system. I was moved to tears in an Alberta classroom. A school I visited last year had discovered the secret to engagement, and the results were astonishing. In retrospect, it’s no surprise that Alberta’s pupils should be at the top of the heap in Canada, and in the world’s upper echelon, in reading, science and math scores made public by the OECD this week. (p. A23) Fine took his experience at one school as a sign of the entire system’s success. The dominant frame is that Alberta has a superior education system and that the test proves this. Alberta appears to be both innovative, yet is focused on standardized tests and curriculum. However, one Globe and Mail article ends with citing a professor of educational policy from the University of Alberta, Jerry Kachur, who stated: “What the tests show is that Alberta students are able to write those tests….It’s very difficult to say more than that” (Honey, December 5, 2001, p. A3). The journalists for all thirteen articles relied on government sources to contexualize the PISA results. Indeed, they might have referenced many possible sources, such as the Alberta Teachers’ Federation (ATF). For example, the day before the release of the 2000 PISA, the Alberta Teachers’ Federation published its monthly ATA Magazine in which the president detailed his concern about the increased use of testing in Alberta as a “new improved sorting machine” (Booi, December 4, 2001). Booi made a compelling argument for how the system is focused on the test and the large amount of time getting kids “in the range” to perform better. He challenged the assumptions made that 15 per cent of children will not meet acceptable standards and that this sorts them into successes and failures and does not provide adequate support to allow all students to succeed. Nevertheless, I happened upon an article in the Calgary TESTING, TESTING, READ ALL ABOUT IT 59 Herald in which Booi (Derworiz, December 5, 2001, p. A1) declared that the PISA test results prove Alberta has a high quality education system. Like the Alberta government, Booi made strategic use of the test results. The government used the results to show that their school system, with its regular testing and standardized curriculum, was excellent. Booi used the results to show that educators were excellent. The ATF was not cited in any of the Globe and Mail or National Post articles. Ontario: Reporting the Government Line An Ontario Ministry of Education’s press release headlined with “International Test Results Show Ontario Near the Top” (2001, December 4). The article focused on how Ontario beat the United States and Germany in science and math and how it was improving. It made no mention of Ontario’s score in relation to other provinces in Canada, but did stress the importance of education to the global economy. It assured readers that the new rigorous curriculum would raise student achievement. The release also implied that the test results were used to inform policy: “The international tests and province‐wide standardized tests in Ontario help to set strategies to improve learning and achievement for all Ontario students” (p. 1). This press release lauded the results as demonstrating that Ontario’s system was exemplary. Simultaneously the Ontario government was carrying out a campaign to gain support for a program that would test teachers, based on the assumption that many teachers did not have the basic literacy skills needed to teach. Also at this time the government introduced strict‐
discipline schools for students expelled from mainstream schools as well as a grade‐10 literacy test (Ontario Human Rights Commission, 2006: Robertson, 2004). Arguably such measures will serve to increase the gap between already marginalized (read – economically disadvantaged and racialized minorities) and less marginalized students. The Minister of Education, Janet Ecker, spoke to the Ontario Teachers’ Federation in August 2000. There was overwhelming evidence – in report after report – that public education in this province was in serious need of renewal. Parents and taxpayers kept calling for fair and equitable funding, for up‐to‐date and challenging curricula with more rigorous standards, and for regular assessments of students’ 60 MICHELLE STACK basic skills. That may explain why there is strong support for initiatives such as the teacher testing program, so that we can ensure that teachers are up to date and doing the best job possible. (Ontario Ministry of Education, August 22, 2000, p. 2) Ecker’s speech differed considerably from the press release concerning the PISA results. The initiatives outlined in Ecker’s speech were portrayed as moving a system from bad to good, rather than a system that was excellent but in need of further improvement. Teachers were congratulated in the PISA press release, but clearly seen as weak in Ecker’s speech. A press release from the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) headlined, “Ontario Government Myths About Public Education Shattered by Results of International Test” (December 4, 2001), was not picked up by the Globe and Mail or the National Post. This release stated that the PISA test demonstrated that the old curriculum was effective and preparing students for work and that private education was not better than public education. The Government used the test results to show the system was good but could be improved. The OSSTF used the results to show educators excelling and that the system was good as is. There is a gap between the reality put forward by the Conservative government and the Teachers’ Federation, with the Globe and Mail and National Post favouring the government perspective. The gap points to how the framing of statistics links with broader issues of political power and the way it is reproduced. Ontario is represented as a space where resources are rich, there is conflict, but that overall the system is strong, although not as strong as Alberta’s. There are no references to weak families. There is some surprise that the most powerful province in Canada did not manage to get a top score on the test, but that instead the cowboys and cowgirls of the country —the Albertans —won the show. Atlantic Canada: The Pathological Family The press releases from Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island focused on how well they did in comparison to the rest of the world but also mentioned that Atlantic Canada scored below the Canadian average. The Minister in Nova Scotia stated, “We know that Nova Scotia students can TESTING, TESTING, READ ALL ABOUT IT 61 perform better…and we’re looking at ways to help them do that” (Government of Nova Scotia, December 4, 2001, p. 1). The PEI Minister stated that the results were acceptable. He also explained, “I am confident that PEI will improve its standing in future assessments” (Government of Prince Edward Island, December 4, 2001, p. 1). Unlike Ontario, neither referred to introducing a different curriculum or other changes. The PEI ministry press release acknowledged the Atlantic provinces’ standing in comparison to other provinces, but added that they were above the national average on the Science Achievement Indicators Program. Coverage from the two national papers painted a very different picture. Four articles stated that Atlantic Canada did the worst on the test. There was description but not an explanation for why the scores would be so low for Atlantic Canada. A front‐page article in the National Post, however, did provide explicit and implicit explanations for the difference in scores. “Children from advantaged backgrounds do just about the same in every country,” said Scott Murray, of Statistics Canada, adding that the success of a country’s education system depends largely on the performance of its poorest students. Poverty in Atlantic Canada contributed to the low performance of students there, although socioeconomic status is not the only factor in student achievement. Family structure, for example can play a role. Students from two‐parent families did better than those from single‐parent families in seven out of 14 countries surveyed by the OECD, including Canada. Students in Atlantic Canada whose parents, particularly mothers, did not complete high school or go on to college could end up with lower expectations of their own achievement. “We need to focus on parents reading with their families,” said Dianne Cunningham, Ontario’s Minister of Colleges and Universities. “That old kitchen table is still an important opportunity to ask questions, to have discussion and to read together.” (Sokoloff, December 5, 2001b, pp. A1 and A20) Here, a number of issues occur in which Atlantic Canada is represented as deviant. It is not clear if Atlantic Canada has fewer parents reading to their children or more single‐parent families. Furthermore, factors are treated in isolation from each other. Single‐
62 MICHELLE STACK parent families, for example, are more frequently economically disadvantaged than two‐parent families. How does poverty factor in? We are told that in 7 out of 14 countries, children from two‐parent families did better. How about the other 7 countries? Did success on the test have anything to do with resources afforded to families whether there were one or two parents? There is a focus on the seemingly pathological Atlantic family rather than on the larger issues of poverty that influence Atlantic Canada. The “old kitchen table” invokes a Waltons‐like family where men work and women stay home with the children. The single mother who is working minimum‐wage jobs to make ends meet and consequently has little time to sit around the kitchen table is not part of the picture, except perhaps as a pathological mother who failed to complete high school. There is no room to examine what does happen in schools in the four Atlantic provinces. The test results want to prove they are failures in comparison to the rest of the country. The framing of statistics shifts the problems from that of material infrastructure (poverty) to the pathological tendencies of a group of people. This displacement is a building block through which realities are de‐politicised from their sociopolitical and economic foundations and normalized or otherwise canonized in the form of pathologies. Richard Foot of the National Post (December 11, 2001) starts his article with the following: The wretched showing by Atlantic Canada in an international education study released last week sparked a round of recrimination in the region’s newspapers. Many demanded answers from provincial education ministers…. Although Canada fared well globally, the East Coast provinces scored the lowest results within Canada. (p. A19) The article goes on to quote regional papers that decry the failure of Atlantic Canada. The truth of the test is not questioned. It definitively proves that Canada is divided into distinct spaces of success and failure. A Globe and Mail editorial warns readers, In particular, Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec are strong performers — so strong that, nearly across the board, they are the only provinces above the TESTING, TESTING, READ ALL ABOUT IT 63 Canadian average. (Class, this means averages can mislead. They can hide weak performers, such as the Atlantic Provinces, which are at the bottom of most categories in Canada and thus are in the middle rank in the world. Or Ontario which struggles to reach the national average). (Editorial, 2001, p. A18) Here again Atlantic Canada is a failing space. Ontario is a struggling one, but not so low that its students’ scores negatively affect the Canadian average. MORE THAN ONE STORYLINE Heather Sokoloff, who wrote four pieces for the National Post about the PISA results, included information unique to her articles and not gleaned from the government press releases. In an article entitled “Canada in Top 5 in Schools Study,” she mentioned that 37 per cent of “Canadian students said school is not a place they like to go” (Sokoloff, December 4, 2001a, pp. A1 and A18). This rather startling statistic, however, is not explored. How is it that Canada can be in the top, yet have over one‐
third of its students disliking school? Why do they dislike school? Will they continue to engage in formal learning given they would rather not be at school? How many of these students do not finish high school? In two articles Dianne Cunningham was quoted on the topic of parental involvement. But Sokoloff (December 5, 2001b, p. A20) challenged the assumption of parents being the cause of success or failure: “Parents in Alberta lead the country in involvement, but P.E.I. parents — where scores were much lower — were just as involved. In Quebec, parents’ interest in their children’s academic and social life was low” (p. A20). How it is determined that Quebec parents care less is not explained; instead it is stated as a most certain fact. Again, issues such as parental involvement are treated as separate from economic issues. No connection is made, for example, to the increased resources of parents in richer provinces to pay for private tutoring and lessons that might improve their children’s test scores. Counterintuitively, the National Post—known for its conservative, market‐based leanings—also included an article written by Sokoloff (December 5, 2001c, p. 20) quoting experts who state that Canadian public schools are as good as private schools. Sokoloff went on to explain that private schools score higher on tests, but this is an indication of the 64 MICHELLE STACK students’ socio‐economic status, rather than better instruction. The article states that “’They [private schools] do better because private school attendees tend to have parents who have more education and higher incomes and that has a positive influence on outcomes’ said Scott Murray, director‐general of social sciences and institutions in Statistics Canada” (p. A20). It appears income in and of itself makes for better parents. Sokoloff’s articles stand out because of their depth, but also because she presented the narratives around the PISA as somewhat contested, albeit the central narrative—that the test tells us something significant about education in Canada—remains entrenched. CONCLUSION Bracey (2004) has noted how nations that do well on the test are more likely to accept the results on face value than those that do not do well (p. 477). This observation is certainly evident in the Canadian coverage. The PISA results were transformed into statistics that came to stand for the success or failure of the education system. The use of statistics is a powerful tool, used by both media and government. As Hacking (1981) argues, social statistics are a relatively new technology of power. Statistics are presented as an objective measure of progress; yet who decides whether it is important that a child learns marketable skills, or that a child is accepting of diverse ways of being and knowing, is based in power relations. So, too, are the statistics that become the common‐
sense framework of how policymakers discuss the various and competing purposes of education as well as the performance of the education system. The issue is not statistics or testing but the interpretation of them. The issue is that statistics provide the media with a simple mechanism of appearing to report reality, which is made into a story with the use of emotional anecdotes and/or expert quotes that lend verisimilitude to the numbers. As Ball (1990) argues, “Meanings thus arise not from language but from institutional practices, from power relations, from social position. Words and concepts change their meaning and their effects as they are deployed within different discourses” (p. 18). Therefore, how tests are interpreted and the solutions TESTING, TESTING, READ ALL ABOUT IT 65 proposed based on these interpretations are dependent on which institutions and power relations are given primacy in this process. The media play a central role in determining the issues that are debated and ultimately how policymakers and the public interpret these issues. Similar to other news stories, the PISA results and their interpretations are isolated from policies that could influence how the PISA results came to be and what the results might be in the future. The statements of ministers of education were not contextualized or connected to policies being enacted in their respective provinces. There are power struggles for media attention. However, around the results of the PISA, government sources dominated. For the most part the interpretations of the test results treated students as one group. Andrew Coyne (December 7, 2001) (National Post) mentioned that the test was not given on reserves. There is no other mention of inequality among groups. Inclusion is a form of symbolic power that communicates one is part of the collectivity that is Canada. Conversely exclusion from the test also represents exclusion from the collectivity, for example, reports from the perspective of First Nations who might provide a counter‐narrative in terms of educational resource allocation around the extreme disparity between Aboriginal people and non‐Aboriginal people. In the articles I reviewed, only one educational researcher was given space to query how the test results do, or should, influence policy. Voices of parents, students, and teachers were absent. As my analysis has shown, spatial context is crucial to understanding the heterogeneous manner in which media operate across locality and how this serves to entrench regional stereotypes. And, the focus on elite sources decreases the ability to have a discussion about the meaning of test results for different groups, how or if tests should be used in policy, the ideological underpinnings of testing and the sociopolitical interests involved in declaring an educational system a success or failure, and the stereotypical regional narratives that are invoked. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to Deirdre Kelly and Andre Mazawi for reviewing an earlier draft of this paper and to Sarah Mills for assistance in locating articles. 66 MICHELLE STACK NOTES The PISA was first administered in 2000 to students in 43 countries. It is a standardized test, administered to 15‐year‐olds, and focuses on math, science, and reading. 1
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299. Government, Neo‐liberal Media, and Education in Canada Charles Ungerleider Despite the differences in their purposes and orientations, governments and the media typically forge uneasy but mutually advantageous relationships. This article describes the relationship between the media and one provincial government, focusing on education. It devotes specific attention to the practices used by both media and government to achieve their respective ends. Key words: media, government, educational policy, neo‐liberalism En dépit du fait que leurs buts et orientations diffèrent, les gouvernements et les médias tissent des relations à la fois difficiles mais mutuellement avantageuses. Dans son article, l’auteur décrit les liens entre les médias et un gouvernement provincial en mettant en relief le discours sur l’éducation. Il décrit notamment les méthodes utilisées à la fois par les médias et le gouvernement pour atteindre leurs objectifs respectifs. Mots clés : médias, gouvernement, politique en matière d’éducation, néolibéralisme. _________________ Governments, teacher organizations, parents, and other interest groups use print and electronic media to initiate, frame, and respond to educational policies.1 In this article, I have described the relationship between the media and provincial governments in education, paying specific attention to the practices used by both media and government to achieve their respective ends. This article complements Levin’s2 insightful examination of the relations between government and the media. Like Levin, I base many of my comments on my experience as deputy minister (chief civil servant) in a Canadian provincial ministry of education.3 Given some overlap between our tenures in those positions, a comparison between CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 29, 1 (2006): 70‐90 GOVERNMENT, NEO‐LIBERAL MEDIA, AND EDUCATION IN CANADA 71 this article and Levin’s should reveal interesting similarities and differences. Some of the differences arise naturally from the different provincial contexts in which we worked. Others arise as a consequence of the different phenomena that we describe, the emphasis we ascribe to particular impressions, differences in purpose, and differences in interpretation. Levin describes the means that governments employ to address the media and discusses three of the complaints frequently levelled at them: the limited range of their temporal interest, their tendency to simplify issues, and their proclivity for assigning blame. He appreciates the inextricable relations between government and the media, but stops short of describing the strategies and tactics the government he served used to influence the media’s treatment of educational issues. It is these dimensions that I emphasize in this article. THE NEO‐LIBERAL CANADIAN MEDIA CONTEXT Governments and the media frame the information they present in accordance with their ideological inclinations. Provincial communications staff members often talk about the message box, referring to communicating messages consistent with government’s position on the issue or topic at hand. Staying within the box means communicating clearly the main message and avoiding comments that deviate or distract from the message government wishes to convey. As is the case with political parties, the various media have message boxes as well. Although there are notable exceptions, commercial Canadian media express predominantly neo‐liberal values. •
The economic interests of individuals should not be fettered by considerations of social equity. •
Choice, as a manifestation of freedom, is a virtue in its own right and the means by which individuals are able to express approval or disapproval in the market. •
People are better served through private entrepreneurialism than by public regulation or provision of services. 72 •
CHARLES UNGERLEIDER Productive efficiency is the primary – perhaps singular – criterion by which any public policy should be judged. This list is not surprising. A substantial number of Canadians subscribe to neo‐liberal values, at least in the abstract. Commercial media are themselves beneficiaries of neo‐liberal messages. Narratives that depart from neo‐liberal interpretations occur in the media, but their occurrence is less frequent and their presentation more muted than ones that fit the dominant interpretive and ideological framework. It is largely unnecessary to use heavy‐handed editorial regulation to ensure that the media use a neo‐liberal interpretive framework, although such regulation is not completely absent. The media achieve control through recruitment and retention practices. Those who own and manage commercial media employ and promote persons with values similar to their own. During the past decade of funding freezes and reductions, commercial Canadian media have featured stories implying that the Canadian public school system has sufficient resources. According to the message box, if these resources were better used they might be sufficient to meet the demands that Canadians have for their public schools. The problem is not so much one of adequate resources as the need for fiscal and educational accountability. And, if audits and testing will not by themselves improve public schools, increased choice and competition will.4 “Providing parents with standardized test scores and more information about school performance is useful only if it is accompanied by an ability to choose schools.” National Post writer, Anne Marie Owens, was quoting British Columbia school trustee, Katherine Wagner. Ms. Wagner is a board member of the Society for the Advancement of Excellence in Education, an organization founded by opponents to teachers being able to organize under the labour code. The article quotes Wagner as saying: Choice can be used to determine best practices, meet parental preference, provide services for children who are not well served by their neighbourhood school, provide a better match between student/programs/teachers and make more efficient use of dwindling resources.5 GOVERNMENT, NEO‐LIBERAL MEDIA, AND EDUCATION IN CANADA 73 Canadian media have successfully identified the anxieties that many have about Canada’s economic future. Many politicians have successfully mined this same vein of anxiety for political and ideological advantage. Such messages have misrepresented data that indicate that public education is actually doing quite well and gradually improving; fed the media’s voracious appetite for comparisons; and used anxiety to fuel the desire for choice and competition within the public school system and between the public system and private alternatives.6 In 1980s and 1990s when the Canadian economy was in recession and the economies of Germany and Japan were ascendant, the message boxes of business leaders and politicians who knew better, or should have known better, blamed the failings of the Canadian economy on public schools – especially poor preparation for work and illiteracy—
instead of poor economic management, low levels of research and development, and the failure to provide sufficient workplace training. Comparisons were made between Canadian workers and the workers in Japan and Germany. These business leaders and politicians averred that Canadian workers were less productive than their counterparts in other countries because they lacked the skills and knowledge of the German and Japanese workers by virtue of their education. Canadian political and business leaders visited schools in Germany and Japan, sometimes accompanied by the media. Certain that the Germans and Japanese had much to teach Canadians about education, they returned with ideas they thought would improve public schooling and, in turn, Canada’s economy. For example, those enamoured of the performance of the Japanese economy attempted to connect its success to the fact that Japanese students spent more days in school, received tutoring in after‐school classes, wrote standardized tests, wore uniforms, participated more in group activities than individual pursuits, attended schools with large classes in which group recitation was common, had relatively modest classroom and school libraries, and were streamed in schools that were rigidly ranked. By the mid‐1990s, the German economy had slowed, and the Japanese economy bordered on collapse. Both were experiencing the vicissitudes of a market economy. In addition, Japan was suffering the 74 CHARLES UNGERLEIDER consequences of fiscal mismanagement so large that, for a while at least, it threatened economies around the world. The media became silent about applying the lessons learned from Germany’s and Japan’s educational systems to Canada’s public schools. Politicians and media do not readily acknowledge that Canadian public schools perform well on international comparisons, that the number of graduates has increased and school leavers decreased by more than ten per cent in the past fifteen years, and that the post secondary participation rate in Canada is roughly twice the average of the countries that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. “There is little disagreement that Canadian public schools are in serious need of improvement,” proclaimed a Calgary Herald editorial responding to my suggestion that Canada establish a federal department of education. The editorial averred that there was a crisis of quality in Canadian public schooling. Like many such articles, public schools were regarded as productively inefficient because they were allegedly bureaucratic, monopolistic, and unresponsive to parental and public interests. The absence of federal involvement is not causing the crisis of underperformance and underachievement in public schools. The real problem is the public school monopolies, which are shielded from competition and resistant to change. Charter schools, tax credits, home schooling, private schools, virtual learning and vouchers are whatʹs needed to create the dynamism that will improve the education system. Itʹs far better to have 10 provincial education ministries, which can innovate freely, observe and copy each othersʹ best practices, than an Ottawa‐run, top‐down experiment.7 Schools were encouraged to raise money through what was euphemistically called charitable gaming. In what might appear to be a contradiction, our “unresponsive, bureaucratic, monopolistic, and productively inefficient,” public schools have been encouraged to market Canadian education to international students or establish schools overseas. GOVERNMENT, NEO‐LIBERAL MEDIA, AND EDUCATION IN CANADA 75 In the August 2002 on‐line version of the Globe and Mail, journalist Margaret Wente devoted an entire column to a parent who had decided to move her child from a Toronto public school to a private school. Wente quoted the parent as saying, “I truly believe in public education, but everyone’s brought their politics into the school. They’re turning my kid’s education into a three‐ring circus.”8 Wente catalogued a series of events that, cumulatively, forced this parent’s decision: that her son would be in a class of thirty‐six students; that a group of parents had taken a kindergarten class to the office of their member of the provincial assembly to protest the funding cuts in Toronto; that her son had allegedly spent three afternoons as part of a school project drawing a picture of an unmarried couple living together. The column also listed other events that contributed to the parent’s decision to leave the public system, including a two‐month social studies unit devoted to “children’s rights” and conflict resolution training. Canadians have a strong appetite for news about their public schools, and the drama – yes drama – provided by the conflicts about public schooling help to feed that appetite. Canadian media attempt to satisfy the public appetite for news about schooling with a diet of bad news stories supplemented by the occasional good news story celebrating the home team or athlete. The media often use the image of a glass half empty to create conflict that appeals to and builds an audience. Improving graduation rates and test results become stories about “not improving enough” or “not doing as well as” (pick one) the district, province, or country next door, or all of the above. In Canadian society, information that counts as news is typically constructed into a narrative or story structure. The narrative structure of the news casts people as heroes, villains, or victims; issues are framed as conflicts between opposing forces with one of the forces often cast in the role of hero and the other of villain. Sometimes the story involves one or more victims. The media have featured articles and columns like Wente’s to imply the school system has resources that, if not devoted to frivolous activities, should be sufficient to do the job. They have suggested that the problem is not so much one of adequate resources as the need for 76 CHARLES UNGERLEIDER accountability, fiscal and educational, as well as the need for more competition and school choice. A narrative structure creates unity among events separated by time and space, implies intentionality to the actions of the participants involved in the events beyond that which they may have had, and creates the impression that the separate events share a common meaning—thus providing a single interpretation to the many events.9 Interpretations that are repeated with frequency become accepted understandings among those for whom alternative interpretations are not evident.10 It is easy to cast children as victims in stories about public schooling. Children are inherently vulnerable. It is equally easy to find villains in the conflicts affecting public schooling. Self‐interested or negligent teachers or teacher unions fit the bill as do parsimonious and uncaring governments. It is easy to create a dramatic story by pitting defenceless parents and their children against the monolithic educational bureaucracy or self‐interested teacher unions. MAKING THE NEWS News, to paraphrase Trina McQueen, a former executive producer of The National, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s English Language nightly news program, is where you have a crew and equipment. What gets counted as news in Canadian society is information and events that are accessible to the apparatus of news gathering and dissemination. Most news media deploy their personnel to locations where they anticipate news will be made. Among the most prominent locations are the centres of political and economic power. Governments are the main purveyors of news. That is, not only do governments figure prominently in the news, they are also the major producers and distributors of information that gets codified as news. Because investigative techniques are costly and the possibilities for error and misjudgement increase in ambiguous situations—especially when the clock is ticking—most major news media rely heavily on the information made available by and attributable to government sources. Government provides a steady flow of information that can be attributed to people in positions of authority. GOVERNMENT, NEO‐LIBERAL MEDIA, AND EDUCATION IN CANADA 77 Two assumptions reinforce the mediaʹs dependence upon government and governmental sources for news. The first is the assumption that those who exercise authority in political, economic, or social institutions may speak authoritatively about issues and events. The second is the related assumption that people who occupy the topmost positions in the institution are more authoritative than those below them.11 Governments reinforce this assumption. A civil servant’s well‐
informed account might provide more information, but such occurrences are comparatively rare for two reasons. First, it is not appropriate for civil servants to offer their opinions about the policies of the governments they serve. Second, elected officials would not look favourably upon a civil servant who usurped their public profile. In decisions about which issues will and will not be addressed by the media, the media themselves figure prominently. Most newsrooms monitor closely what issues other electronic and print media agencies are addressing. The media often choose to disseminate information gathered by other news sources. Although they have diminished over the past 20 years as a consequence of increasing concentration of ownership and convergence,12 to secure themselves from failing to report an important story covered by a media rival, those who gather the news travel in packs, following those whom they regard as major newsmakers.13 Government communications departments monitor the media. The way in which communications departments are organized varies from government to government and from administration to administration, providing an indication of the relative autonomy accorded ministries and ministers. Some governments centralize the function as an adjunct to the premier’s office. When I was deputy minister, communication was primarily decentralized, although a central agency with its own deputy minister (who reported directly to the premier) attempted to ensure coordination and message consistency, and arranged that certain functions such as polling would be performed centrally. Whether managed centrally or dispersed to individual ministries or departments, governments monitor the media vigilantly as barometers of public sentiment. They try to anticipate issues to which they might be required to respond, and to assert tactical advantage in the provision of 78 CHARLES UNGERLEIDER information to influence perception and understanding, what some call spin. The Director of Communication in the Ministry of Education presided over a staff of 18 communications officers. Roughly half of them were responsible for “good news” and the others for “issues management,” an apt description of their responsibilities. Each morning a communications staff member would arrive at work at 6:30 or 7:00 to assemble the material that had been broadcast or published by local and national media during the previous 24 hours on matters pertinent to the Ministry’s jurisdiction. The staff member would disseminate an electronic copy of the clippings to senior ministry staff and political officials. Communications staff would decide which of the issues receiving the media’s attention required the preparation of a document containing a précis of the issue, the media outlets in which the issue had been addressed, relevant background material, and talking points that the Minister might wish to make should she or he be approached by the media. The preparation of “points to note” or “minister’s position notes” was relatively easy for issues for which policy was clearly established. Complex issues sometimes required that program personnel from the sector be consulted or enlisted in developing appropriate responses. The points‐to‐note were expected in the Minister’s office by 10:00 a.m. To meet the deadline, staff had to obtain information and secure approvals from program area representatives, from the assistant deputy minister responsible for the program area, and from the deputy minister in less than two hours. Such material is essential support for a minister on a daily basis. It is used to prepare a minister to respond to the various media and to the opposition’s questions during question period when the legislature is in session. Possession of the “points to note” for issues likely to arise is particularly important on those days when cabinet would meet because on those days reporters gathered to await the conclusion of the cabinet meeting to scrum ministers returning to their offices. “Points to note” are also indispensable to the Minister during estimates, the questioning to which ministers are subjected when the legislature considers the budgets of their ministries. Politically sensitive GOVERNMENT, NEO‐LIBERAL MEDIA, AND EDUCATION IN CANADA 79 issues or issues bearing upon matters of policy are the source of many of the questions put to a minister in defending the ministry’s spending priorities for the coming year. The “points to note” were carefully indexed and accompanied the minister into the legislature so that, should a question be asked about an issue addressed by the media, the relevant note could be handed to the minister as she or he rose to respond to the question. Governments use a variety of vehicles to advance their own agendas, including the preparation of letters from a minister to an editor, recorded commentaries, or articles for the “op‐ed” page. The preparation of these items is also the responsibility of communications officers, although they less often use these vehicles. The “good news” side of the communication shop in the Ministry of Education was responsible for initiating communication with the various media. Their responsibilities included preparing press releases and arranging ministerial announcements. An important dimension of such events was arranging for significant stakeholders to express approval of the minister’s action(s) in the press release. They sometimes made arrangements for these stakeholders to be present at the minister’s announcement so that they were available to the media. Communications officers are also responsible for identifying and making arrangements for a suitable venue for an announcement and for preparing and disseminating “media advisories” alerting the media to the timing, location, and nature of the impending announcement. As mentioned earlier, news media anticipate locations where news is likely to happen. Assignment editors maintain records of upcoming and regularly occurring events so that they can deploy their news‐gathering resources efficiently. Thus, representatives of the media are more in evidence at the ceremony where cabinet members are sworn to their responsibilities, when budgets are released, or on the day of the week when cabinet meets than they are on other days or on days when there are no regularly scheduled events. Most people want to make a good impression, a reality especially true of governments that depend on the electorate for their legitimacy and support. As is true of many people, governments attempt to exercise control over how they are perceived. When governments 80 CHARLES UNGERLEIDER attempt to do this in response to situations, their efforts earn the pejorative label spin – often deservedly so.14 Spin is impression management. Governments do a wide range of things under the ambit of impression management, including the deliberate distortion of information and the derogation of opposing points of view as special interests and worse. Governments can use the timing of a news release strategically. Forced to make unpleasant announcements or to release reports with damaging information, governments will on occasion time the release when other events are likely to draw attention away from the unpleasant or unwanted information. A good time is late on Friday afternoons when media representatives are less in evidence. In 1985, the Vancouver School Board led a media campaign against limits that the provincial government had imposed on school board spending. As a consequence of its proximity to major media outlets and the possession of specialized communications staff, the Vancouver School Board became increasingly successful in mobilizing public attention and opposing the Social Credit Government’s restraint program in education. As the School Board’s campaign gained momentum, the Social Credit Government decided to push back, using the media to deliver a message to both the Vancouver School Board and the general public. The government decided to exercise its jurisdiction to dismiss the Vancouver School Board trustees and appoint an official trustee to administer the affairs of the School Board and to use the media to give prominence to these actions. The strategy worked well. Dismissing the Vancouver School Board and appointing an official trustee deflected attention from the adequacy of school funding to a discussion of the propriety of a senior level of government removing a democratically elected subordinate body. Borrowed from the language of electronic warfare, jamming refers to communications techniques that will limit the effectiveness of an opponent’s communication. In 1998, influenced by opinion polls, government had made the decision to respond to the public demand for greater accountability by embarking upon annual testing of students in grades 4, 7, and 10. The British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) opposed the testing and, in April 1998, issued a staff alert to its GOVERNMENT, NEO‐LIBERAL MEDIA, AND EDUCATION IN CANADA 81 members about the impending tests and about its demands that the Ministry of Education. •
Change the purpose of the Provincial Learning Assessment Program (PLAP) from individual student assessment and program review back to program review only; •
Administer PLAP on a sample, not a census, basis; •
Not use coding methods that identify individual students and not produce individual student scores in provincial learning assessments. (Retrieved February 14, 2006, from http://www.bctf.ca/ SchoolStaffAlert/archive/1998‐99/1998‐04‐27.html) Government did not respond favourably to the BCTF’s demands and proceeded with the testing program. Although the BCTF was well aware of the public appetite for testing of the type the government pursued, it had not been aware of the extent to which equity groups – especially the Aboriginal community – were in support of such a regime. The effectiveness of the Federation to mount a public campaign against annual testing was jammed in part by the fact that Aboriginal leaders – and especially Aboriginal educators (e.g., members of the First Nations Education Steering Committee) – were willing to validate the government’s initiative. The Federation, which had a long history of social justice activism, found it difficult to mount an effective response to the government’s initiative. Journalists do not always possess sufficient background or acumen to exercise critical judgment about the issue on which they are reporting. For example, in 2002, the Globe and Mail ran a story under the headline “Funds Fail to Fuel Higher Test Scores: A Boost in Marks Not Guaranteed.”15 The story reported the results of an analysis of the relationship between school board spending and student achievement as measured by the School Achievement Indicators Program (SAIP). The report said that the provinces and territories with the four highest operating expenditures per pupil were not among the top performers on the SAIP achievement tests in mathematics and science. Education reporter Kim Honey said the research also “showed that the more school 82 CHARLES UNGERLEIDER districts spent in British Columbia, the worse their students fared on B.C.’s Foundation Skills Assessment.” The Globe and Mail article concluded with the statement that, “Despite a 23‐per‐cent increase in expenditures per pupil in the past 20 years, standardized test scores have remained relatively stagnant.” The article wanted the reader to connect increased expenditures with better results in science and mathematics. Although it may seem plausible, there is no necessary reason why expenditures and achievement should be related. A more critical examination would have identified the reasons why they are not related. School board expenditures are based on the cost of many factors. Some school districts spend more on heating and light, more to attract teachers and administrators, more for transportation, or to replace or repair aging schools. Teachers are compensated for the number of years of teaching experience. School boards that have a larger number of experienced teachers have higher salary bills than ones with less experienced teachers. Urban districts such as Vancouver and Toronto have large populations of immigrant students requiring additional assistance to learn English. Other districts have no ESL students. Spending more money for heat, light, transportation, ESL classes, refurbishing schools, and teacher salaries cannot directly translate into better student achievement scores in mathematics and science. The lack of information or the absence of critical insight about issues allows misinformation to circulate more freely than it should. Knowing that, I embarked on a number of initiatives to attempt to create conditions to counter disinformation and enable greater critical insight about educational issues. With the support of the ministers with whom I worked, the strategy had four components: • Making certain that all ministry staff were aware of the importance of good media relations and the different needs of various media; • Ensuring that the media had easy access to the information it wanted; • Creating a climate in which facts about the province’s education system were made available on a regular basis; and GOVERNMENT, NEO‐LIBERAL MEDIA, AND EDUCATION IN CANADA •
83 Preparing the media for understanding information about the education system. When people are frustrated in getting information or comments about issues they regard as important, they are not likely to look favourably upon the object of their frustration. Making newsworthy information readily available in a timely fashion is insurance against frustrating the media. Open lines of communication also help prevent miscommunication. When I arrived in government, the Ministry of Education was dispersed over several locations. I learned that space had become available in the building in which most of the ministry staff worked; I decided to move the executive there as well. Shortly after the move, a television reporter called the communications unit asking about “costly renovations to the deputy minister’s office.” Alert to the potential for embarrassment, the communications staff—which had been relocated on the same floor—
immediately contacted my office. I asked for the name of the reporter and called him immediately. The reporter, who was about a block away outside of the legislature, took the call on his cell phone. I invited him to come over and told him that I would meet him at the elevator. In the meantime, I retrieved the plans for the move together with the cost of the move from our files and went to the elevator. When the reporter arrived, I handed him the plans and costs, and asked if he wanted to photograph the area. Without waiting for direction from the reporter, the camera operator with him switched on the camera and began taping. I explained my reasons for making the move from one location to the other and invited the reporter and camera operator to come to my office, which had been rumoured to have been renovated at some expense. As we walked from the elevator to the other end of the corridor, I explained whose offices we were passing. When we arrived at my office, I invited them in. When he noticed my rather modest space, the reporter asked, “This is your office?” “Yes,” I replied. “And this is my new conference table and chairs,” referring to the eight new office chairs surrounding a new table. Pointing to well 84 CHARLES UNGERLEIDER worn, but serviceable desk that had been used by seven or eight of my predecessors, I said, “And this is my desk.” Not finding what he had expected, the reporter asked to see the “Executive Board Room.” “Sure,” I replied. “It’s that room we passed on our left as we entered,” referring to a narrow windowless room. The camera operator switched off his camera and light and said, “I’m going.” He was making his way to the elevator as I invited the reporter to see the remaining offices on the floor. “We’re short of time,” the reporter said, declining my invitation. The news of taxpayer victimization at the hands of a free‐spending civil servant they had come to document never made it to air. From numerous meetings and correspondence with individuals and groups, I knew that the public was hungry for information about elementary and secondary schooling. I also knew that in the absence of government information, the Fraser Institute (a neo‐liberal think tank based in British Columbia) or some other group would feed that appetite with their own information and interpretation.16 In a very modest way, I hoped to be able to combat their actions with the other components in my strategy. The second component in my approach to creating an environment more receptive to information was something we called “Facts at a Glance.” I borrowed the idea from The Daily, Statistics Canada’s daily release of information on various topics. The Ministry of Education did not have the staff or resources to produce a statistical report on a daily basis. Instead we embarked on a more modest schedule of a monthly release of “Facts at a Glance.” My thinking was that, if we could get the media and the public accustomed to receiving regular data about elementary and secondary education in BC, their understanding would become more sophisticated. “Facts at a Glance” was less successful than I had hoped because it appeared too infrequently. If we had been able to increase the frequency with which we made the facts available with a consistent release date, I believe that reporters and the public would have come to anticipate the release. I had hoped that, by routinely providing such information, two things might happen. First, I hoped that the publication of information such as the Fraser Institute’s ranking of schools or the release of test data GOVERNMENT, NEO‐LIBERAL MEDIA, AND EDUCATION IN CANADA 85 would become just another in a series of stories rather than attract as much attention as they do. Second, although I did not expect the basic neo‐liberal interpretive framework to disappear, I hoped that regular release of information would generate issue frames more favourable to public education. We contextualized information about student progress and school operations in a temporal perspective that allowed a reader to see and appreciate trends in the data and the improvements that had occurred. We also supplemented the data with commentary about both strengths and weaknesses to provide a more complex and balanced presentation. We prepared letters‐to‐the editor to provide counter‐
argument about issues in the press (school board funding, for example) and articles for op‐ed pages about ministry initiatives (class size reduction, for example) to provide counter narrative to the dominant neo‐liberal discourses. If we had continued the practice for several years, the strategy might have been more successful than it was in accomplishing these purposes. The third component of the strategy was to prepare the media for understanding information about the education system—especially complex information about the province’s testing program—by conducting technical briefings.17 Government had embarked upon a program of annual tests in reading, writing, and mathematics, as mentioned earlier. I knew that such tests were not well understood and that groups such as the Fraser Institute would misuse the information to discredit the education system and its employees. Therefore, I proposed, and my minister accepted, that I would conduct a technical briefing of the media prior to the release of the data and the minister would be available for interviews following that briefing. Communications staff would arrange for a convenient site for the briefing and invite the media to attend. Ministry staff would help me to prepare for the briefing by assembling packages with interpretation guides and results, and preparing a slide set of the information we wished to convey. We began the briefing by giving the media representatives an item similar to the ones to which the students had responded. We chose a mathematics problem at the grade‐7 level, knowing that mathematics would be less familiar to the media than, say, an item from the reading 86 CHARLES UNGERLEIDER or writing assessments. Prior to providing the answer, I joked that we would not score their attempts to answer the item. We included information about confidence intervals, explained measurement error, talked about looking for trends over time, and summarized results. The briefings were well attended by the media. But, because we only conducted two such briefings in advance of the release of the annual testing data, I cannot say whether the technical briefings were successful in promoting greater understanding of provincial assessment practices or story framing more favourable to the education system. My impression was that media representatives were somewhat more appreciative of the complexity of the issues than they had been. Although it is dangerous to show favouritism in the provision of information to the media, governments will sometimes advance a story to a particular reporter. The motivations for such practices vary. Sometimes it is the desire to ensure that the first report is a fair representation of the issue. Other times it is to take advantage of a reporter’s strengths, relative independence of editorial control, or some other strategic consideration. Advancing stories is not something one does frequently because the risk of alienating other news outlets is significant and can have unknown consequences. I won’t say that stories were not advanced during my tenure as deputy minister, but the instances were relatively infrequent. A problem affecting Canada with which all Canadian politicians must cope is Canada’s proximity to the United States and the influence that information from US media exerts on Canadians. In the education domain, the most pernicious problem is the rhetorical spill‐over of the dominant media messages about US education in the post WWII period: “America’s schools are failing.” When the Soviet Union surprised the world by launching Sputnik before the Americans, pundits and politicians in the United States framed the issue as failure of America’s schools. According to the framing, the Soviet Union had won round one in the space race because US public schools had failed to prepare a sufficient number of graduates with knowledge of mathematics and science. America’s public schools had made the United States a nation at risk, to use a current description of American education. Like the Cold War, Hollywood, McDonald’s, and countless other things American, the GOVERNMENT, NEO‐LIBERAL MEDIA, AND EDUCATION IN CANADA 87 rhetoric of a nation at risk because of school failure overflowed into Canada. Although that shoe does not fit Canada well – indeed it does not even fit the US comfortably – it is dangerous for Canadian politicians to question the applicability of such a claim to Canadian schools. After all, there is always room for “educational improvement,” by “raising the achievement bar,” and “promoting school success.” A politician who argues, “Our schools are doing just fine, thank you” is begging for negative attention by the media and heading for electoral trouble. In political life, episodic urgent events can easily draw attention from more important and enduring issues. The temporal horizon of some politicians hardly extends beyond the daily six o’clock news. To make matters worse, as far as policy is concerned, there are no rewards for foresight or long‐range thinking in political or bureaucratic life. As Hogwood and Gunn make clear: There is a temptation for government to concentrate on current problems requiring action now rather than hypothetical problems where any adverse political effects of not taking action now will not occur until the future, and perhaps affect a different political party… because of the frequent reshuffling of ministerial posts, an individual minister also faces the temptation to concentrate on issues with an immediate impact, since “he knows that he will probably not be in the same post long and therefore not be held responsible for consequences of his policies’ (Headley, 1974, 99). Similarly, civil servants are likely to have moved on before any hypothetical crisis actually materializes… [T]he rewards for foresight for both politicians and civil servants are negligible and are just as likely to be reaped by others as by those actually responsible for the anticipatory action.18 (p. 69) Ever mindful of the electoral horizon, provincial politicians pursue educational agendas designed to give them visibility and produce few, if any, issues to be managed. The rhythm of electoral politics is not compatible with the need for sustained, systematic improvement and capacity building in education. This mismatch results in complicated education issues being ignored in favour of high‐profile initiatives packaged to attract immediate attention. 88 CHARLES UNGERLEIDER CONCLUSION Provincial governments and Canadian commercial media have capitalized on the predominant neo‐liberal value matrix to construct mutually advantageous messages. Such messages fuel anxieties about the future, foster distrust of public schooling, and extol the virtues of individualism, choice, competition, productive efficiency, and private enterprise. The public’s need to know about their schools is not well served by either governments or media that pander to anxieties and allow the urgent to obscure the important. REFERENCES Blackmore, J. and S. Thorpe (2003) Media/ting change: the print media’s role in mediating education policy in a period of radical reform in Victoria, Australia. Journal of Education Policy 18(6) 577‐595; Gerstl‐Pepin, C. I. (2002) Media (Mis)Representation of Education in the 2000 Presidential Election. Educational policy 16(1) 37‐55; Wallace, M. (1993) Discourse of derision: the role of the mass media within the educational policy process. Journal of Education Policy 8(4) 321‐337. 2 Levin, B. (2004) Media‐government relations in education. Journal of Educational Policy, 19(3) 271‐283. 3 I was appointed Deputy Minister of Education for British Columbia in November 1998 by a government that, two‐years into its 5 year mandate, had become unpopular and was unlikely to be re‐elected. I was fortunate, however, to be working in the only sector, education, that the public regarded as important and for which the government’s approval rating was high. 4 Smyth, J. (September 10, 2003) Choice makes best scholars, study finds: Alberta diversity pays off. National Post. A8 5 Owens, Anne Marie (November 20, 2002) ʹCreating a demand for school choiceʹ: Effect of accountability: Students in Alberta, Manitoba and B.C. can pick and choose among schools. National Post. A8. 6 See, for example, OECD (2001) Knowledge and Skills for Life: First Results from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2000. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development: Paris; OECD (2004) Learning for Tomorrow’s World – First Results from PISA 2003 7 Calgary Herald (April 30, 2003) A Lesson Worth Learning. A12. 8 Wente, M. (August 29, 2002) ʹTheyʹre turning my kidsʹ education into a three‐ring circusʹ Globeandmail.com (retrieved August 30, 2002) 1
GOVERNMENT, NEO‐LIBERAL MEDIA, AND EDUCATION IN CANADA 89 Manoff, R. K. (1986) Writing the news (by telling the ʺstoryʺ). In Manoff, R. K. and M. Schudson (Eds.) Reading the news. New York: Pantheon Books. 197‐229. 10 Hallin, D.C. (1988) Cartography, community, and the cold war. In Manoff, R. K. and M. Schudson (Eds.) Reading the news. New York: Pantheon Books. 11 Sigel, L.V. (1986) Sources make the news. In Manoff, R. K. and M. Schudson (Eds.) Reading the news. New York: Pantheon Books 9‐37. 12 Concentration of media ownership in Canada has increased since the Davey Commission was empanelled to explore what, at the time, was averred to be the highest concentration of ownership of any democratic nation. The concentration of media ownership is complemented by homogeneity of editorial opinion that celebrates entrepreneurial capitalism, individual effort, and private philanthropy, and derogates those who seek a balance between individual and group rights, and accommodation between private enterprise and the public good. There are, of course, exceptions to what has been referred to as a neo‐
liberal friendly media, including internet‐based political commentary that appeals to and reflects a different and, arguably, broader spectrum of political opinion. Special Senate Committee on Mass Media. Chaired by the Honourable Keith Davey. Report, Ottawa, 1970. Volume 1: ʺThe Uncertain Mirror.ʺ (see also, Royal Commission on Newspapers, Report, Ottawa, Minister of Supply and Services Canada, 1981; Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage: Our Cultural Sovereignty: The Second Century of Canadian Broadcasting. Ottawa: House of Commons 2003). 13 Sigel, L.V. (1986) Sources make the news. In Manoff, R. K. and M. Schudson (Eds.) Reading the news. New York: Pantheon Books 9‐37. 14 Franklin, B. (2004) Education, education and indoctrination! Packaging politics and the three ‘Rs’. Journal of Education Policy, 19(3), 255‐274; Gewirtz, S, Dickson, M. and S. Power (2004) Unraveling a ‘spun’ policy: a case study of the constitutive role of ‘spin’ in the education policy process. Journal of Education Policy, 19(3), 321‐343. 15 Funds fail to fuel higher test scores, The Globe and Mail. August 30, 2002 A6 16 For example, the Fraser Institute argues that “the Canadian system of public education is inefficient and inadequate.... Over the past 30 years, our Ministries of Education have tinkered with a variety of reforms, including smaller classes and higher salaries, in an effort to improve the public education system. In doing so, they have tripled the real cost of education.” The Fraser Institute would like the reader to infer that the cost of education has risen primarily as a consequence of higher salaries and smaller class sizes rather than 9
90 CHARLES UNGERLEIDER as a consequence of dramatic increases in the school‐age population. The Fraser Institute hopes readers won’t notice that Canada’s fifteen year olds perform at the top of the industrialized countries that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Note, too, the use of the pejorative “tinkered” to describe the work of ministries of education. 17 Technical briefings are just one of a number of techniques that some deputies use to help the media understand issues; others include the provision of background documentation, meetings with editorial boards, and establishing confidential relationships with reporters, columnists, and editorial board writers. 18 Hogwood, B.W. and Lewis A. Gunn (1984) Policy Analysis for the Real World. Oxford University Press. 69. Discours sur l’école en crise en France : Entre médiatisation et résistance Nassira Hedjerassi & Alexia Stumpf Cet article interroge les discours sur la crise de l’école en France à partir d’une analyse d’articles issus du quotidien français Le Monde, puis d’un examen des discours médiatisés sur l’école par des chercheurs et penseurs de l’école, et les défenseurs de l’école républicaine, et enfin la présentation critique du débat sur l’école organisé en 2003‐2004. Cette recherche visait à examiner la part de construction médiatique et politique qui entre dans cette expression, aussi souvent convoquée que peu définie. Il s’agissait donc de mesurer l’effet de contamination de cette thématique de crise de l’école dans l’opinion et les discours communs. Mots‐clés : crise de l’école, France, médiatisation This article deals with discourses about “crisis” in France based on analysis of articles written in the French daily newspaper Le Monde, and from an investigation of speeches given publicity in the media about the school system by researchers and thinkers, and by the defenders of the republican school. Finally, we will discuss the critical presentation of a public debate on schools organized during the 2003/2004 schoolyear in France. This research aimed at examining the construction process of the concept ʺschool crisisʺ by the media and politicians, a concept that is often mentioned and less defined. It sought to measure the effect of the contamination of the issue of school crisis on public opinion and in common. Key words: school crisis, France, media _________________ « En Amérique, un de ses aspects les plus caractéristiques et les plus révélateurs est la crise périodique de l’éducation qui, au moins pendant ces dix dernières années, est devenue un problème politique de première grandeur dont les journaux parlent presque chaque jour (…). Une crise nous force à revenir aux questions elles‐mêmes et requiert de nous des réponses, nouvelles ou anciennes, mais en tous cas des jugements directs. Une crise ne devient catastrophique que si nous y répondons par des idées toutes faites, c’est‐à‐dire par des préjugés. Non CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 29, 1 (2006): 91‐108 92 NASSIRA HEDJERASSI & ALEXIA STUMPF seulement une telle attitude rend la crise plus aiguë mais encore elle nous fait passer à côté de cette expérience de la réalité et de cette occasion de réfléchir qu’elle fournit. » (Arendt, 1972 ; pp. 223, 225) Si nous avons choisi de citer ces propos de Hannah Arendt en exergue, c’est qu’ils contiennent de manière assez frappante dans leur concision cette permanence et récurrence de la thématique de la crise de l’éducation et les exigences doublées des difficultés à la penser. Ce sont les discours de crise, appliqués à l’école, mais pas exclusivement, puisqu’on les retrouve pour l’ensemble des contextes, politiques, économiques, sociaux, culturels, que la recherche présentée dans ce texte se propose de questionner. Pour autant, s’interroger sur la crise de l’école ne serait‐ce pas céder à l’air du temps, à un simple effet de mode ? Ce premier soupçon est à lever, car ces temps jugés « sombres » depuis déjà bien des années et toujours davantage assombris en ce nouveau millénaire, moment propice au déferlement des doutes, des affolements de tous ordres, il semble que tout ait été dit et même ressassé sur les thèmes des crises, du délitement des valeurs et de la perte des repères qui traverseraient notre monde, l’emportant, selon Lipovetsky, dans une immense et triste « ère du vide ». A côté des rumeurs d’apocalypse qui frôlent souvent le délire, des tentatives de réflexion plus sérieuses sont multiples. A titre d’exemple, mentionnons un colloque qui s’est tenu à Rio sous l’égide de l’Unesco, du 10 au 12 mai 1999, avec pour objet la crise de l’avenir et du temps. Dans cette sorte de « festival » de l’inquiétude « postmoderne »1, c’est bien autour de la difficulté à trouver du sens, en « une époque désaccordée où l’intelligibilité des phénomènes sociaux et historiques se disperse dans le temps et l’espace » que les exposés et débats ont tourné. C’est dans la mesure même où cette expression nous semblait relever d’un usage assez flou parce que vague, que l’invocation de la crise de l’école tourne souvent à l’incantation justement vide de sens, que nous avons entrepris d’examiner ce que cette expression met en jeu dans les discours sur l’école. De fait, il peut sembler difficile, pour qui est de près ou de loin concerné par l’école sans être au cœur de la recherche théorique ‐ parents d’élèves, jeunes eux‐mêmes, enseignants (expérimentés, débutants ou se DISCOURS SUR L’ÉCOLE EN CRISE EN FRANCE 93 destinant à ce métier), éducateurs en général ...‐, de se repérer dans un ensemble de discours touffus mais aux ramifications disparates, tantôt croisées, tantôt divergentes. S’il y a donc nécessité à revenir à la question des discours sur la crise de l’école, c’est parce que la nébuleuse qu’ils forment aujourd’hui appelle œuvre de clarification. Mais à cette orientation s’ajoute une démarche d’interrogation et de discussion, car pour avoir été déjà traitée ou abordée, la thématique de la crise de l’école est maintenant en quelque sorte à la fois trop soulevée pour aller de soi et trop peu inédite pour empêcher l’installation de certains allants de soi, effets de glissements plus ou moins subreptices, de réduction et/ou de globalisations. Nous pensons qu’il y a là autant d’évidences non interrogées qui requièrent un regard critique. Serait à retenir la leçon d’Adorno (1984 ; p.190) attentif à déterrer et remuer tabous et présupposés sédimentés dans les pensées et pratiques enseignantes, pour la transposer, la mettre à nouveau en œuvre du côté cette fois des discours sur l’école et ses publics. Nous pointerons au moins quelques problèmes et apories auxquels certains d’entre eux nous semblent mener, quelle que soit par ailleurs l’acuité de bien des analyses et même si les limites du cadre qui nous est imparti ne permettent pas d’approfondir outre mesure cet examen. Ce dernier vise à susciter questions et débats, car l’enjeu crucial attaché au “défi du sens” à relever par la société, par l’école ou dans l’école, n’est autre que celui de la démocratisation de l’école, finalité à la fois sociale, politique, culturelle et éthique, et non simplement scolaire. Nous déclarons, dès à présent, faire nôtre cette finalité, partageant à cet égard l’idéal de ceux qui la posent comme une « utopie de référence absolument nécessaire » (Mérieu et Develay, 1992 ; p. 23), aussi prudents qu’il convienne de rester pour échapper aux illusions et naïvetés vers quoi toute utopie tend à égarer. Si « la crise périodique de l’éducation » n’est certes pas, comme le souligne l’analyse arendtienne, une particularité française, la réalité de celle‐ci a été réactivée en France à l’occasion du Grand Débat sur l’Ecole. C’est la réalité de cette crise en effet que cet article interroge, selon trois axes : d’une part, une analyse des discours médiatiques, au travers d’articles de presse issus du quotidien français Le Monde, d’autre part, un examen des discours médiatisés sur l’école par des chercheurs et penseurs de l’école, et les défenseurs de l’école républicaine, et enfin la 94 NASSIRA HEDJERASSI & ALEXIA STUMPF présentation critique du débat sur l’école. Quelle part de construction médiatique et politique entre dans ces discours ? Telle était notre question de départ. Il s’agissait donc dans cette recherche de mesurer l’effet de contamination de cette thématique de crise de l’école dans l’opinion et les discours communs. MÉTHODE Si nous avons choisi un quotidien national comme support pour constituer notre corpus de textes pour approcher la nature de la crise , c’est tout d’abord parce que la presse véhicule des lieux communs et discours que peut produire la société, la sociologie du Café du commerce ou la sphère socio‐politique sur des sujets d’actualité ou sur des sujets qui constituent, telle l’Ecole, de réels enjeux politiques voire de pouvoir. S’appuyer sur des journaux locaux, porteurs d’informations réduites sur un champ géographique circonscrit, ou sur des journaux nationaux, réputés pour leurs moindres neutralité et objectivité, nous aurait conduit d’emblée à faire l’amalgame entre presse et construction socio‐
médiatique de la crise. Le quotidien national Le Monde, quant à lui, est intéressant car sans être un média de masse, il ne s’agit pas non plus d’une revue spécialisée, ouverte aux seuls initiés. L’objectif de cette analyse des discours médiatiques consistait à déterminer si la « crise » était majoritairement une notion non définie ou, au contraire, si l’expression était employée sans relation d’objet, lui conférant, le cas échéant, une valeur intrinsèque. A partir d’une navigation sur le CD Rom Le Monde sur internet, nous avons eu accès aux archives en ligne, depuis 1987, de ce quotidien. Une recherche à partir des notions isolées, dans un premier temps, d’« école » et de « crise » ‐en France‐, nous a permis de lister le nombre d’articles parus annuellement correspondant à ces deux entrées. Dans un second temps, ces deux notions ont été croisées, par le biais de l’entrée « crise de l’école en France », afin de mesurer l’impact éventuel de la « crise » sur la sphère « école ». Nous avons ensuite procédé à une analyse de contenu de ce corpus. L’analyse thématique de ce corpus a consisté à repérer, dans ces articles, des noyaux de sens dont la présence, et a fortiori la fréquence, ont pertinence pour l’objet analytique choisi. Les passages qui ont servi de DISCOURS SUR L’ÉCOLE EN CRISE EN FRANCE 95 support à l’analyse (phrases isolées ou succession de plusieurs phrases) ont été répertoriés ensuite dans des grilles. Nous avons ainsi pu mesurer la fréquence des articles qui incluent les différents thèmes. RÉSULTATS 4000
3000
2000
1000
0
ECOLE
19
87
19 198
90 8
19 199
93 1
19 199
96 4
19 199
99 7
20 200
02 0
-2
00
3
Nombre d'articles
parus annuellement
La fréquence maximale conjointe d’articles qui comprennent ces mots‐
clefs se situe sur les périodes 1993‐1995 et 1998‐1999, comme le montre le graphique ci‐dessous : CRISE EN
FRANCE
Années
Cependant, si l’on croise, dans un second temps, ces deux notions en formulant l’entrée suivante : « la crise de l’école en France », c’est‐à‐dire si l’on attribue l’objet « école » à la « crise », 1993‐1995 est la période saillante que nous retenons pour notre analyse, comme on peut le voir ci‐
après. Au total, 20 articles, parus sous la rubrique « école et crise en France », constituent notre corpus pour la période retenue. Parmi les articles publiés, le thème de « la crise » est émergeant puisque 14 articles sur les 20 constitutifs du corpus y font en effet référence. Mais que recouvre ce terme de crise ? De quelle(s) nature(s) est la crise ? NASSIRA HEDJERASSI & ALEXIA STUMPF CRISE EN
FRANCE
2000
1500
1000
CRISE DE
L'ECOLE
EN France
500
1999-
1995-
1991-
0
1987-
Nombre d'articles parus
annuellement
96 Années
Cette analyse fait ressortir que « la crise » est un groupe nominal majoritairement non défini puisque 14 articles du corpus n’attribuent pas d’objet à « la crise ». Ce groupe nominal reste en effet dépourvu de tout complément du nom et ce, tout au long de l’article. Seules des informations ponctuelles, d’ordre contextuel, nous sont livrées sur la crise. Ainsi, le fait que la crise a une durée déterminée, connaissant logiquement un début et une fin : « Nous pourrons sortir de cette crise (…)», « pendant les années de crise (…)», qu’elle revient cependant de manière cyclique : « (…) on ne peut pas se laisser arrêter par ce type de crise qui revient de manière cyclique» (Le Monde, 05/02/1994). A contrario, la « crise » est définie par ce qu’elle n’est pas, à savoir, le chômage. Si celui‐ci n’est pas lui‐même synonyme de crise, il est toutefois une porte ouverte sur la crise : « Le plein emploi mis à mal, la crise a fait son œuvre » (Le Monde, 18/12/1993). Le substantif de « crise » va parfois même jusqu’à constituer le titre d’un article ; citons ainsi, à titre d’exemple La crise et ses effets (Le Monde, 11/05/1994). Cela ne présuppose‐t‐il pas que la personne lectrice sache précisément ce que recouvre cette expression ? On peut faire l’hypothèse soit que, pour les auteurs de ces articles, le sens de ce terme est connu et partagé par toutes et tous, soit que les auteurs, comme leurs futurs lecteurs, font un usage vague de cette expression. On pourrait même admettre là un réel consensus dans la non définition. La « crise » DISCOURS SUR L’ÉCOLE EN CRISE EN FRANCE 97 serait‐elle alors le simple fruit d’un ressenti, d’un sentiment de malaise que transpire la vie du pays, dont on ignore précisément toutes les raisons ? Au total, seuls 6 articles attribuent un objet à la crise. Il est alors question de crise de l’éducation, de crise de la société, de crise de la gauche enseignante, de crise de la famille, de crise de l’institution scolaire et universitaire et enfin de crise économique. La crise apparaît alors comme une crise plurielle puisqu’elle est à la fois « crise de la société », appelée encore « crise sociale », « crise de la famille », qualifiée encore de « crise de l’éducation parentale » et « crise de l’éducation » ou encore « crise de l’institution ». La lecture de ces 6 articles permet d’affirmer, qu’en France, l’Ecole est un enjeu important, capable comme nulle autre institution de mobiliser le peuple : « Aujourd’hui encore, l’école prouve qu’elle seule, (…), sait cristalliser la grogne et le mécontentement. Cela tient sûrement à ce que, pendant deux siècles, l’école a été et reste dans les têtes un enjeu de pouvoir » effets (Le Monde, 16/01/1994). L’Ecole, au fil du temps, a été et continue d’être un enjeu d’intérêt et parvient même à devenir un enjeu prioritaire. Mais si les un(e)s et les autres se saisissent de la question de l’Ecole, « Le débat sur l’école, en France, est passionnel » (Le Monde, 18/03/1993). On peut donc légitimement se demander si le tableau qui est dépeint de l’Ecole est objectif car passion et raison sont deux forces antagonistes. L’un des articles évoque qu’en France, on noircirait « à l’envi la situation de notre système éducatif ». A l’image du tableau de l’Ecole, noir (ou noirci ?), se transpose le questionnement sur la « crise » de l’Ecole : quelle part de construction entre dans cette dernière ? DISCUSSION La « crise de l’école» : une construction socio‐médiatique ? Un travail d’analyse énonciatif, sur la crise définie et la crise non définie, montre que les auteurs des articles sur « la crise » sont pour la majorité des journalistes. Ils représentent 62,5% des auteurs lorsqu’est évoquée une « crise » définie et sont à 75% à l’origine des textes sur la « crise » non définie. Mais au‐delà du fait que l’expression demeure largement employée par les journalistes, ne pas trouver, pour la majorité des articles, d’objet à « la crise » signifie que l’expression est floue et 98 NASSIRA HEDJERASSI & ALEXIA STUMPF indéterminée. Ceci nous amène à nous interroger sur la réalité de la crise que nous venons précédemment d’évoquer. Ne pourrait‐on, dès lors, la considérer comme une notion construite voire rapportée par les journalistes qui se feraient alors le relais des différents acteurs de la société, de la sphère socio‐politique ? Pourrait‐on envisager la crise comme le fruit d’une construction médiatique, non étayée par un travail d’analyse de la part de la sphère médiatique, et nourrie en amont par la sphère socio‐politique ? Il y aurait lieu de compléter cette analyse des discours médiatiques par l’analyse d’autres média, mais aussi par celle des discours politiques, pour apprécier les effets de contamination, d’emprunts sans réflexivité des uns par les autres. Cette notion, véritable leitmotiv, reste indéfinie au fil du temps, indéterminée mais pourtant largement employée par les journalistes puisque huit ans plus tard, en 2003, le monde de l’école est à nouveau étiqueté comme étant « en crise ». On parle en effet de « la crise », « la crise à l’éducation nationale », « la crise de l’éducation ». Pourtant, si l’on considère le nombre d’articles parus sous l’entrée « crise de l’école en France » pour l’année 2003 sur Le monde sur Internet, les chiffres n’indiquent en rien que l’année en question constituerait un pic de publication d’articles sur la crise de l’école. Ces textes sur « la crise » prolifèrent pourtant lors de mouvements de grève et d’autres turbulences sociales ; le terme de « conflit » est utilisé comme synonyme dans l’un de ces articles. On peut dès lors considérer que l’expression « la crise » est souvent mal employée et ne renvoie pas pour autant, même si elle est largement usitée, à une réalité. « La crise » serait le fruit d’une construction médiatique et/ou politique. De ce fait, la presse et l’espace publique, de manière réciproque et renforcée, véhiculent cette idée que l’école est en crise. Qui pourrait aller contre une telle affirmation, dès lors que tout concourt à la fonder : un contexte de crise économique, des desseins antinomiques pour l’école de la part des différents partenaires sociaux et des acteurs de l’école elle‐même qui créent un malaise, voire une nostalgie de l’école républicaine ? La télévision française a d’ailleurs pris le relais de cette nostalgie en proposant, courant 2004, à son public, aux heures de grande écoute, de revivre, avec ses acteurs, un « reality show » sur l’école d’antan, Le pensionnat de Chavagnes, sentant l’encre et la craie, les pupitres de bois, les uniformes, dans un cadre où l’autorité DISCOURS SUR L’ÉCOLE EN CRISE EN FRANCE 99 n’est plus à légitimer. Si la littérature spécialisée fait ressortir que ni la crise de l’école, ni l’image idyllique de l’école d’autrefois n’ont consistance ou raison d’être, ces propos s’avèrent difficilement réfutables dès lors que certains professionnels de l’éducation emploient eux aussi l’expression « en crise » sans précaution aucune. Il semble nécessaire d’informer les différents partenaires de l’école sur l’état de santé de cette dernière avant de vouloir penser ou panser l’école. Il s’agirait avant tout de résister à ces discours médiatique et politique si l’on veut s’engager dans le travail du sens, qu’il s’agisse de le construire ou de le restaurer, qui donnera consistance à l’acte d’enseigner comme d’apprendre. De l’ancienneté à la normalité de la crise de l’école en France « L’école apparaît comme une institution en crise dans une société en crise. Lorsque la société s’enrhume, l’Ecole tousse » (Develay, 1996 ; p.8) Cet effort pour « résister à l’image obsédante d’une crise » (Dubet et Martuccelli, 1996 ; p. 46), telle qu’elle s’exprime dans la citation mise en exergue, s’impose pour plusieurs raisons. Un premier écueil, à « faire le pari d’une « crise » générale du système scolaire » français (Dubet, 1991 ; p. 15), est justement qu’un tel postulat procède de vues trop « générales » et homogénéisantes pour être éclairantes. Elles donnent lieu à des métaphores assez vagues, telles l’alerte à « la marée noire de l’ignorance » (De Romilly, 1984 ; p.71) ou à des stigmatisations à la limite caricaturales. De fait, qui est au juste ce jeune blasé qui circule dans le supermarché scolaire ? La diversité des élèves et des jeunes peut‐elle ainsi se laisser enfermer sous un générique ? Or, toutes ces représentations ne semblent pas exemptes d’un certain mépris, quand on pense à ces «nouveaux barbares », incultes ou idiots culturels et fiers de l’être qui désolent sans doute plus qu’ils n’effraient ceux à qui il conviendrait peut‐être de rappeler ce propos de Lévi‐Strauss que « le barbare, c’est d’abord l’homme qui croit à la barbarie » (1987 ; p.22). Ces surenchères se développent assurément au mépris de toute attention un peu fine et rigoureuse à la diversité et à la complexité des situations, des expériences et des problèmes nombreux et croissants qui se rencontrent aujourd’hui dans les classes des écoles. Il y aurait lieu d’interroger notamment tout ce qui entre en jeu et participe des différences dans les 100 NASSIRA HEDJERASSI & ALEXIA STUMPF modes d’investissement du travail scolaire, dans les horizons d’attentes et d’interprétations des situations, dans les histoires familiales et sociales ... et de réfléchir et d’agir, en conséquence, sur le plan des pratiques enseignantes et des représentations, elles‐mêmes diverses, qui les sous‐
tendent. De telles positions, qui forcent le trait sans mesure, qui assènent plus qu’elles ne démontrent, sont plutôt propres, selon nous, à entretenir stérilement les malentendus et les crispations, en confortant les lieux communs, déversés dans les salles de professeurs aussi bien que dans les cafés de commerce, en affolant ou en figeant préjugés et amalgames par ailleurs ou par avance complaisamment véhiculés par les grands canaux médiatiques. Une contradiction est bien à pointer, dans ce type de propos, qui, quoique signés par des spécialistes de l’école, ne parviennent guère, parfois, à se démarquer de l’opinion commune, en retombant dans l’ornière du sensationnalisme et du catastrophisme. S’il faut résister à l’image de la crise, sortir enfin de cette galerie de tableaux aux teintes uniformément sombres, c’est aussi, parce qu’un regard un tant soit peu attentif à l’ensemble des discours portés sur et générés par l’institution scolaire tout au long de son histoire révèle que les chantres de la désolation ont pour ainsi dire toujours existé. La réitération du discours de la « crise » suffit dès lors à le décrédibiliser ; elle atténue voire invalide la pertinence de cette catégorie pour juger du sens des évolutions récentes de l’enseignement, au point qu’il faudrait même plutôt admettre que cette sorte de crise est si « ancienne maintenant qu’elle est devenue la nature normale de l’école » (Dubet, 1991 ; p. 14). Déjà, en 1987, Bernard Charlot, chercheur en sciences de l’éducation, exprimait son irritation devant ces ressassements qu’il fait remonter aux années 1960 ‐ époque des secousses frappant le collège : « Cela fait vingt ans que l’on parle en France de crise de l’école et tout semble avoir déjà été dit sur la question. Tout et son inverse ! » (p. 9). Et l’on pourrait en fait procéder à un retour en arrière bien plus important. Le thème de la chute du niveau des élèves, la déploration de leur inappétence culturelle, les symptômes d’un malaise enseignant , encore sourds et diffus et néanmoins présents, surgissent en France dès la seconde moitié du XIX è siècle. Les indices sont assez nombreux, recensés par plusieurs auteurs appliqués à décoller le vernis brillant qui recouvre trop d’histoires DISCOURS SUR L’ÉCOLE EN CRISE EN FRANCE 101 officielles de l’école de la troisième République2, pour autoriser à considérablement relativiser l’idée de la crise actuelle : le terme devient récurrent à partir de 1872, rapporté à l’enseignement en son entier, ce qui ne manque pas de surprendre quand on sait la composition sociale et culturelle de son public. La tentation “nostalgique” d’une “restauration” de l’école ‐ l’idéologie républicaine Perçus comme facteurs d’une complète dérégulation de l’école, les bouleversements liés à la massification ont ravivé en France un discours de défense de l’école républicaine traditionnelle, à forte teneur nostalgique puisque c’est souvent sous un jour idéalisé que le passé est invoqué. Dix ans plus tard, cette nostalgie de l’ère républicaine est toujours d’actualité en France lorsque le ministre de l’Education lui‐
même, M. Fillon, en visite au Musée de l’école du Grand Meaulnes, déclare: « venir en ʺpèlerinageʺdans cette école légendaire et dit se souvenir avec émotion de sa propre salle de classe, des ʺtables de boisʺ, du ʺtableau noirʺ, des ʺmarronniersʺ (…) » (Le Monde, 15/09/2004). Cette perspective nous intéresse par les enjeux de sens qui s’y cristallisent, dans la mesure où : « Cette nostalgie‐là n’est pas seulement l’amour du passé, elle est appel à un moment, fût‐il imaginaire, où la fonction éducative de l’école était explicite, où, comme le disent les enseignants, l’école avait un sens parce qu’elle s’identifiait à la fois à la nation, au progrès et à la liberté » (Dubet et Martuccelli, 1996 ; p. 30). Et nous lui donnons la première place pour deux raisons. D’une part, les sectateurs de ces positions tendent à occuper de fait une place dominante sur la scène médiatique. D’autre part, les positions qui s’expriment ici ont effectivement le « mérite », au moins apparent, d’une extrême netteté, s’avérant souvent des plus tranchées en donnant à penser que la situation actuelle, en sa nouveauté radicale, représenterait un effondrement tel, par rapport à la donne antérieure, que tout sens de l’école se serait perdu, avec l’effacement ou le craquement des structures et principes fondateurs du sens, réel ou mythifié, de l’École de la troisième République. La crise à laquelle on assisterait l’aurait basculé vers le non‐sens. Aucun terme ne paraît trop fort pour illustrer cette extinction du sens. Le diagnostic établi est celui d’une crise aiguë, avec la conséquence 102 NASSIRA HEDJERASSI & ALEXIA STUMPF que « Si l’on ne réagit pas, l’ignorance continuera de monter, noyant tout sous son flot, qu’on le veuille ou non » (De Romilly, 1984 ; p. 10). En s’arc‐boutant sur l’exigence de qualité, ces discours placent les savoirs et le processus de l’instruction au centre de la définition de la mission de l’école. C’est plus précisément dans une articulation entre savoir, raison et liberté que se forge la clé de voûte de la philosophie éducative républicaine, et que se découvre le sens de l’école, dans la mesure où sont ici à la fois délimitée une direction, et fondées des valeurs, des fins. La principale condition de promotion des savoirs et, à travers eux, d’assomption du sens de l’école comme lieu d’actualisation de la raison et de l’autonomie, est le tracé d’une distance stricte, véritable coupure, vis‐à‐vis du monde extérieur. La crise de l’école, la crise de son sens, coïncident donc pour les Républicains avec la fin de la séparation entre école et société, entre savoirs académiques et savoirs techniciens sur l’éducation, la pédagogie ... Resterait à interroger ce qui, sous et malgré la nostalgie et la dimension mythique qui imprègne ces positions, pourrait encore faire sens pour l’école aujourd’hui ‐ ce qui, en d’autres termes, resterait actualisable, dans le cadre d’un projet démocratique, des principes fondateurs ou régulateurs de l’idée républicaine de l’école. Crise de l’Ecole et démocratisation scolaire Se déprendre de l’illusion qui consiste à croire que la crise et la question du sens de l’école n’auraient émergé qu’avec la massification des dernières décennies ne revient pas pour autant à nier ni même à minorer l’existence et la spécificité des problèmes actuels. Il ne s’agit pas de tomber dans un relativisme flou, qui permet certes d’éviter les césures trop brutales et schématisantes, mais seulement au prix d’un alignement sur le même registre, de tous les discours, situations et époques. Il convient plutôt de reconnaître que, si la question de la crise de l’école et de son sens est devenue plus pressante au fil des années, c’est parce que des problèmes nouveaux sont apparus (ou ont éclaté au grand jour, rendus visibles, explicites, par les nouvelles configurations), liés au fait que s’est opéré un bouleversement complet des structures du système (Lelièvre, 1990). Ce dernier s’est opéré sans que pour autant tout soit changé en son sein (sur le plan des curricula, des programmes, des DISCOURS SUR L’ÉCOLE EN CRISE EN FRANCE 103 pratiques d’enseignement ..., du moins pas au même rythme ni à la même ampleur), cependant que l’environnement même de l’école ne cesse de se transformer, indépendamment d’elle mais aussi par son impact propre, par l’élargissement et la complexification de ce qui se joue dans le temps de la scolarisation lui‐même, allongé désormais pour tous les jeunes dans le corps social. Pour panser ces maux, les réformes se multiplient, les responsables politiques, même s’ils ne savent y répondre, tentent de s’impliquer dans les problématiques de l’école car cette dernière est un enjeu de premier plan pour la société. En amont d’un nouveau projet de loi sur l’école était organisé, courant 2003 en France, « Un grand débat pour refonder l’Ecole ». Un grand débat pour refonder l’Ecole (en crise) « Il n’y a rien à faire pour résoudre la crise de l’école dans la société actuelle car cette “crise“ n’est pas un déséquilibre passager mais la forme d’existence du système scolaire dans la société bourgeoise moderne » (Charlot, 1987 ; p.171.) Puisque, à suivre les analyses de Bernard Charlot, vouloir sortir de la crise n’a aucun sens dans la mesure où l’école est en crise structurelle, améliorer le mal‐être qui émane de la sphère scolaire conduit à entreprendre de refonder l’école. C’est dans une telle entreprise que se sont inscrits le président français Jacques Chirac et son premier ministre Jean‐Pierre Raffarin en lançant en 2003 un débat national, par le biais de questionnaires administrés aux participants, qui, comme l’indique la brochure distribuée aux différents partenaires et acteurs de l’Ecole, visait à « conduire à un diagnostic partagé et contribuer à construire l’Ecole de demain. Il aboutira à un projet de loi transmis par le gouvernement au parlement, fin 2004, ainsi qu’à une série de mesure concrètes » (Ministère de l’éducation nationale, 2003 ; p.4). Dans un second temps, des débats publics ont été organisés, de l’hiver 2003 à l’automne 2004, dans toute la France, à l’attention des professionnels de l’éducation comme des profanes, c’est‐à‐dire tous les acteurs concernés d’une manière ou d’une autre par la chose scolaire (parents d’élèves, élèves, monde associatif, élus politiques …). Après la synthèse des débats par une Commission, le Gouvernement a travaillé à un projet de loi d’orientation du système éducatif, en réforme de la loi 104 NASSIRA HEDJERASSI & ALEXIA STUMPF d’orientation de Jospin de 1989. Dans un troisième temps enfin, le Ministère de l’Education a proposé cette loi qui sera présentée et débattue au parlement début 2005. Quels étaient les objectifs d’un tel débat ? Pour les gouvernants, l’objectif annoncé était d’« (…) inciter la nation à s’exprimer sur son Ecole et par là, aboutir à un diagnostic partagé et à une refondation de notre système éducatif »3. Pour le ministre de l’Education Nationale de l’époque, Luc Ferry, il s’agissait de « s’interroger sur les valeurs et les finalités de l’Ecole » (Extrait du discours de Luc Ferry, ministre de la recherche et de la jeunesse, 15/09/2003). Des objectifs de départ à leur réalisation Le premier objectif, celui d’ouvrir le débat à l’ensemble de la société semble avoir échoué : si cette dernière a été conviée, les débats en région se sont déroulés avec peu de participants et les non‐professionnels n’ont que faiblement répondu à l’appel et ont été de ce fait peu représentatifs. Le second objectif non atteint est celui qui consistait à définir les missions et finalités de l’école. Ferry met en effet en exergue, dans ses allocutions, l’importance conférée à une meilleure connaissance de l’Ecole par les membres de la société française. Cette dernière priorité ne rime aucunement avec une quelconque refondation de l’école. S’il y a effectivement volonté de refonder l’école, il y a nécessité, et les apports théoriques de la littérature spécialisée le mettent bien en avant, de redéfinir le contenu de la culture scolaire ainsi que les modes efficaces de transmission de celle‐ci. Comment expliquer ces écarts par rapport au projet initial de refonder l’Ecole ? Un débat politique et médiatique Par une sorte de contagion, Le grand débat sur l’Ecole a entraîné dans son sillage d’autres débats. En effet, l’Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (U.M.P.), parti politique de droite, a lancé à son tour une large consultation sur l’école, complémentaire à l’initiative gouvernementale. « Pour l’école que nous voulons» a constitué le thème fédérateur de la cinquième édition du Salon de l’Education, organisé par la Ligue de l’Enseignement, les 19‐23 novembre 2003. Le Mouvement Des Entreprises de France (MEDEF), quant à lui, a souhaité « mettre en place DISCOURS SUR L’ÉCOLE EN CRISE EN FRANCE 105 une meilleure approche, voire une meilleure doctrine » des relations école‐
entreprise (Le Monde de l’éducation, novembre 2003, n°319, p.27). Enfin, le Parti Socialiste (P.S.) a lancé également une initiative concurrente à celle du gouvernement, qui place l’éducation au centre de son projet national, comme c’était déjà le cas lors de la campagne électorale du futur président de la République François Mitterrand en 1981 : les Assises Nationales de l’Education qui doivent avoir lieu au printemps 2005. Ainsi, en écho à l’analyse des discours, l’Ecole apparaît, aujourd’hui comme hier, lorsque l’on songe aux débats des Révolutionnaires sur l’école, être un enjeu politique. Elle est relative à l’organisation du pouvoir dans une société donnée. Il est également ressorti de l’analyse des discours que l’école représente un enjeu de pouvoir. Or, on peut s’interroger : si l’école est un enjeu politique, voire un enjeu de pouvoir, est‐elle réellement au cœur du débat, pour elle‐même ? Lorsqu’on constate que tous les grands partis politiques s’agrippent à elle, que le débat qui la concerne est illusoirement démocratique, on peut avancer que l’école est “un enjeu de prétexte“. Parler d’elle permettrait de se détourner des mécontentements de la société, de fuir les problèmes et les questions qui dérangent. De l’enjeu politique à l’enjeu médiatique, et vice versa, il n’y a qu’un pas. Médiatiser à outrance un débat illusoirement démocratique, n’est‐ce pas là viser à augmenter l’enjeu politique de celui‐ci par le biais d’une pseudo consultation nationale et populaire ? Cette consultation, en effet, appuyée sur une large médiatisation, a joué le jeu de l’écoute populaire et renforcé par là même l’illusion que le questionnement sur l’école est au cœur du débat. De ce fait, l’école apparaîtrait représenter un enjeu pour elle‐même. Si, en réalité, le questionnement sur l’école n’est pas l’enjeu premier de cette consultation, c’est qu’il y a risque, une fois de plus, de se détourner des vrais problèmes qui concernent l’école, de faire un déballage plutôt qu’un réel débat. Hannah Arendt avait mis en garde contre le danger dʹune politisation de l’éducation qui la fait virer à l’endoctrinement dès lors que sʹopère un glissement entre les sphères politique et prépolitique, la première faisant dangereusement intrusion dans la seconde. Aussi, si le tableau qu’on dessine de l’école est monochrome et si la société perçoit celle‐ci à travers un prisme déformant, c’est le fruit d’une construction 106 NASSIRA HEDJERASSI & ALEXIA STUMPF sociopolitique et sociomédiatique, comme l’analyse des discours et du Grand Débat l’a fait ressortir. EN GUISE DE CONCLUSION : INACTUALITÉ DES DISCOURS SUR LA CRISE DE L’ÉCOLE ? Dans la recherche que nous avons menée, les acteurs du système éducatif n’ont pas été directement interrogés, puisqu’il nous intéressait de questionner la part de construction médiatique et politique qui entrait dans cette thématique de « crise de l’école ». Pour prolonger ce travail, il serait particulièrement heuristique d’interroger les enseignants, acteurs principaux du système éducatif, afin de faire émerger le portrait qu’ils dresseraient de l’école, et le confronter à cette image de l’école en crise ravivée à loisir dans les discours médiatiques et politiques. Si les enseignants se montraient perméables à cette image et à ces discours, on pourrait avancer qu’un malaise, un mal‐être, un ressenti prendrait faussement l’appellation de crise. Pour finir, notons que cette pénétration et prégnance de cette thématique ne semblent guère démenties par les récentes publications en sciences humaines. Ainsi Guy Coq (2003), en quatrième de couverture de son essai, affirme que « Le monde de l’éducation est en crise ». Comment, dans ces conditions, déconstruire les représentations erronées, qui sont véhiculées par le public, lorsque, nous l’avons vu, les média, les acteurs politiques voire les spécialistes de l’éducation eux‐mêmes, source d’informations pour un public ignorant des apports de la recherche en éducation, érigent des lieux communs en réalité ? La communication des résultats de recherche, voire leur vulgarisation dans des publications à large audience, semble un pare‐feu contre cette information qui se révèle en fait être de la non information, et un sérieux outil de résistance pour donner sens à l’entreprise éducative. In fine, l’enjeu est bien universel, et dépasse largement le contexte local de la France, puisqu’il renvoie à la question du sens du monde commun et du vivre ensemble comme le fait remarquer si justement Hannah Arendt (1972 ; p.229‐230), dans cette citation par laquelle nous allons fermer ce texte : « Quand dans les questions politiques, la vaine raison humaine achoppe et ne permet plus de fournir de réponses, on se trouve confronté à une crise. Car cette sorte de raison n’est que ce sens commun qui nous permet, nous et nos cinq sens individuels, DISCOURS SUR L’ÉCOLE EN CRISE EN FRANCE 107 d’être adaptés à un unique monde commun à tous et d’y vivre. La disparition de ce sens commun aujourd’hui est le signe le plus sûr de la crise actuelle. A chaque crise, c’est un pan du monde, quelque chose de commun à tous, qui s’écroule ». NOTES Pour reprendre les termes d’un hebdomadaire, Marianne, qui en rend compte dans son numéro du 21‐27 juin 1999, pp. 66‐69. 2 Voir, pour une perspective d’ensemble, Isambert‐Jamati, V. (1970), Crises de la société, crises de l’enseignement, Paris : P.U.F. 3 www.debatnational.education.fr. RÉFÉRENCES BIBLIOGRAPHIQUES Adorno, T. (1984). Modèles critiques. Interventions – Répliques. Paris : Payot. 1
Arendt, H. (1972). La crise de la culture. Paris : Gallimard. Arendt, H. (1974). Vies politiques. Paris : Gallimard. Charlot, B. (1987). L’école en mutation : crise de l’école et mutations sociales. Paris : Payot. Coq, G. (2003). Eloge de la culture scolaire. Paris : Kiron, éd. du félin. De Romilly, J. (1984). L’enseignement en détresse. Paris : France Loisirs. Develay, M. (1996). Donner du sens à l’école. Paris : ESF. Dubet, F. (1991). Les lycéens. Paris : Seuil. Dubet, F. (2002). Le déclin des institutions. Paris : Seuil. Dubet, F. et Duru‐Bellat, M. (2000). L’hypocrisie scolaire. Pour un collège enfin démocratique. Paris : Seuil. Dubet, F. et Martuccelli, D. (1996). A l’école, Sociologie de l’expérience scolaire. Paris : Seuil. Dubet, F. et Martuccelli, D. (1998). Dans quelle société vivons‐nous ?. Paris : Seuil. Joshua, S. (1999). L’école entre crise et refondation. Paris : La Dispute. Kerlan, A. (1998). L’école à venir. Paris : ESF. Lelievre, C. (1990). Histoire des institutions scolaires. Paris : Nathan. 108 NASSIRA HEDJERASSI & ALEXIA STUMPF Levi‐Strauss, C. (1952, rééd.1987). Race et Histoire. Paris, Unesco ; rééd. Paris : Gallimard, Folio‐Essais. Meirieu, P. et Develay, M. (1992). Emile reviens … ils sont devenus fous. Paris : ESF. Ministère de l’éducation nationale (2003). Ouvrir le débat national sur l’avenir de l’Ecole. Paris : Ministère de l’éducation nationale. Stumpf, A. (2004). L’inactualité de la crise de l’école. Strasbourg : Université Louis Pasteur. Thelot, C., (dir.) (2004). Pour la réussite de tous les élèves, Rapport de la commission sur le débat sur l’avenir de l’école. Paris : La Documentation française. The Public Sphere and Online, Independent Journalism David Beers The rapid evolution of online, independent journalism affords educators an opportunity to increase students’ understanding of the nature and power of the news media. Drawing from Habermas’s theories of the role of the public sphere in democratic discourse, the author, as founder of an online news publication, traces trends in concentrated corporate ownership of Canadian media, new forms of online journalism and their democratic potential and limitations, and ways in which educators can help students deconstruct and participate in traditional and newer forms of news media. Key words: media democracy, Habermas, Internet, blogosphere, citizenship L’évolution rapide du journalisme indépendant en ligne fournit aux enseignants une occasion de mieux faire comprendre aux élèves la nature et le pouvoir des médias d’information. S’inspirant des théories de Habermas sur le rôle de la sphère publique dans le discours démocratique, l’auteur, qui a créé un bulletin en ligne, retrace les tendances quant à la concentration des médias au Canada, les nouvelles formes de journalisme en ligne, leur potentiel et leurs limites pour la démocratie ainsi que les façons dont les éducateurs peuvent aider les élèves à développer un esprit critique et à utiliser les médias, traditionnels ou nouveaux. Mots clés : médias, démocratie, Habermas, Internet, blogosphère, conscience citoyenne. _________________ News media matter to educators in two ways. As a space in which citizens learn, discern, debate, and judge to formulate action, news media can be imagined as an extension of the classroom. And, as a powerful force in democratic society for or against change, the news media as subject warrants critical focus in classroom education. CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 29, 1 (2006): 109‐130 110 DAVID BEERS This article is intended to encourage educators to go beyond the common newspaper‐in‐the‐classroom approach to curriculum. Opportunities for a deeper and more interactive approach to media education arise from the quickly evolving world of online, independent news media, a world that in some important, if limited, respects brings us closer to Jürgen Habermas’s ideal of the public sphere. Habermas (1989) posits that early modern capitalism created the conditions for the ʺbourgeois public sphereʺ—an area for public debate. He cites a number of conditions that allowed this sphere to operate: the rise of private property, literary influences, coffee houses and salons, and —primarily—the independent, market‐based press. After the mid‐1800s, the public sphere was taken over by an expanded state and increasingly powerful corporate interests. Instead of allowing a sphere for debate that could shape the direction of the state, the increasingly commodified media became a force for manipulating the public and manufacturing consent (Curran, 1991, p. 83; Habermas, 1989;). Even at its height, the bourgeois public sphere excluded women and those who did not own property. But as Kellner (2004) points out, Habermasʹs arguments serve, if nothing else, as an ideal of what the media should be. As I will elaborate later, many people think the Internet will create the conditions for a public sphere that lives up to Habermas’s ideal. If one accepts Habermas’s view that concentrated corporate ownership of news media undermines the public sphere, then Canada would be a prime example. Canada’s mainstream news media is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few very large corporations. Indeed, as one media scholar notes, “Canada tolerates a degree of concentration in media ownership that is unequalled in any country of comparable social, political and economic standing” (Raboy, 2005, para. 72). In the United States, a grassroots rebellion aided by online activists (Moveon.org) convinced legislators to kill a bill backed by President George W. Bush that would have further accelerated concentration. That victory in 2003 has spurred a media reform movement in the U.S.A. (McChesney, 2004). In Canada, although the issue has not yet produced the same level of activism, awareness is building. Prodded by citizens’ THE PUBLIC SPHERE AND ONLINE, INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM 111 dissatisfaction, the Senate Committee on Transport and Communications has conducted hearings into the state of Canada’s media and issued an interim report in 2004. The committee is particularly concerned with the effects of so‐called convergence, the push by corporations to reap more revenues by buying up and integrating television, print, Internet, and other advertising platforms (Government of Canada, 2004). At hearings held in Vancouver, the committee heard critics of convergence, including myself, describe how this conglomeration trend was causing owners to take on huge debt, slash staff and resources, homogenize news content, and shift editorial decision making to distant headquarters (Beers, 2005). Vancouver’s media market (where I have practised journalism for over a decade inside and outside the corporate newsroom) has, according to one academic expert, “the dubious honour of being Canada’s media concentration capital” (Gutstein, 2005). One company, CanWest Global, owns the two major local daily papers as well as one of the two national dailies, giving CanWest Global 90 per cent of paid daily circulation in Vancouver. As well, CanWest Global owns the television station that commands a 70 per cent share for its supper time news broadcasts. “Add CanWest’s chain of 12 community papers which blanket the Lower Mainland and you have a news hegemony unrivalled in Canadian history. And it’s all controlled by one Winnipeg family, with 89 percent of the company” (Gutstein, 2005). That family, the Aspers, already owned a chain of stations reaching 94 per cent of Canada’s television audience when, in 2000, it bought 136 daily and weekly Canadian newspapers, including Vancouver’s two dailies, from Conrad Black’s Hollinger Inc. (CBC, 2000). The deal added billions in debt to CanWest Global’s books. As an editor at the Vancouver Sun at the time, I observed firsthand the near immediate financial repercussions: slashed reporting, money shifted into advertorial pages (Beers, 2002a), and veteran journalists given buyouts or laid off to save money (Beers, 2002b). CanWest’s convergers proceeded to consolidate the conservative, pro‐business, pro‐Israel editorial perspective of their new media empire—a bias “so slanted that Vancouver’s daily papers should be read at a 45‐degree angle,” according to a columnist for the Seattle Post‐
Intelligencer (Connelly, 2005). Columnists and reporters at various 112 DAVID BEERS CanWest Global papers were censored or purged. Reporters at the Montreal Gazette pulled bylines to protest the erosion of their independence (Brown, 2002; Winter, 2002). The publisher of the CanWest Global‐owned Ottawa Citizen was fired for refusing to obey a decree that editorials penned at the Winnipeg headquarters would appear in and speak for all CanWest papers (CBC, 2002b). For some, CanWest’s power play merely threw into sharper focus a deeper problem. Observed Vince Carlin, chair of the School of Journalism at Ryerson University in Toronto: ʺYou can fit everyone who controls significant Canadian media in my office. This is not a healthy situationʺ (quoted in Brown, 2002). Canada’s negative experience with concentrated, converged ownership reflects that in other countries, including the United States (Cooper, 2002; Gans 2003; McChesney, 2000; Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2005). Most American journalists rue the resulting ascendance of corporate culture in the newsroom. According to a study by Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi, and Damon (2001), 51 per cent of the journalists they interviewed perceived recent news media changes as negative; 24 per cent—who tended to be higher up the management chain—believed the changes positive (p. 128). At the same time, the corporate ethos is taking deeper root in the publicly funded news media of both the United States and Canada. In the U.S.A, pro‐business conservatives have been given the reins of the Public Broadcasting Service and, while seeking more financial sponsorships from large corporations, are devoting more air time to pro‐
business and conservative perspectives (Labatan, Manly, & Jensen, 2005). The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Fall 2005 endured a seven‐
week lockout when employees took a stand against further contracting out and other cost‐cutting measures. CanWest’s owners, meanwhile, regularly drum beat for the de‐funding of the CBC, which is perceived as an unfairly subsidized competitor to the corporate news media (CBC, 2002a). The debate over who may own news media under what terms breaks into sharply different camps. Those defending the prerogative of corporations to buy up and consolidate news media tend to argue that journalism is first and foremost a business driven by the bottom line. Thus, firms must be free to pursue economies of scale to turn a good THE PUBLIC SPHERE AND ONLINE, INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM 113 profit, even if it means fewer organizations produce most “news” and skew it towards the interests of their advertisers. CanWest founder Izzy Asper famously told his journalist employees they were “in the business of selling soap” (CBC, 2003). Regulators must not interfere, as a CanWest executive explained to the Senate committee: “There is no ‘appropriate’ level of profit for a daily newspaper just as there is no ‘appropriate’ profit level for any industry operating in a market economy in which every company competes for investment capital” (Camilleri, 2005). Those wanting policies that might restrict concentration or foster different ownership models tend to argue, as has Habermas (1989), that a diverse news media is an essential component of democracy. The news media provide citizens the information and ideas they need to make political decisions. Thus, democracy is eroded whenever citizens are limited in their choice of quality news media free to present diverse viewpoints (Gore, 2005). This second camp recognizes the news media as public educators. Indeed, this analysis of what makes for good news media has its corollary in the classroom. As one educator wrote after the attacks of September 11, 2001, “Questioning, exploring, stating the unpopular, challenging poorly reasoned theories, wrestling with convoluted and contradictory positions—this is what liberal education asks us to do. And it is exactly what is needed in the present environment, as we struggle with competing and complex ideas” (Marcy, 2002). “Questioning, exploring, stating the unpopular” so as to promote a more vibrant democracy – this same civic ideal motivates many journalists to enter their chosen field. But as noted, American news editors and reporters have detailed their deep dissatisfaction with life in today’s converged corporate media workplaces. Most perceived their autonomy diminishing as newsroom standards of ethics, rigour, and balance lost out to management goals of saving money and trivializing the news (Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi, & Damon, 2001). The most pessimistic feared for democracy itself, its citizenry indoctrinated rather than informed by corporate media’s agenda. A citizenry “locked in a closet of misinformation, unaware of alternatives, manipulated by powerful forces that control the memes [transmitted ideas] – this is the ultimate nightmare that men and women of the future face in the 114 DAVID BEERS absence of independent media sources” (Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi, & Damon, 2001, p. 127). Against this grim prospect some see hope in a counter‐trend: The flourishing of independent news media through the use of new and evolving radio, television, and Internet technologies. This is where I have invested my energies for two years, having founded in November 2003 an independent online source of news and views. As I’ve indicated, the dismaying experience of Gardener and colleagues’ subjects reflected my own. In an attempt to create a positive alternative, I have sought and received funding from labour unions, philanthropists, and socially responsible venture capitalists in British Columbia and launched The Tyee (www.thetyee.ca). The goal is to fold in revenue from select advertising and readers’ contributions to develop a long‐term sustainable future for The Tyee. The website offers an outlet to civic‐
minded journalists – many of them refugees from CanWest publications – while providing an interactive forum to its readers. The Tyee exists to serve as a counter‐balance to corporate media’s biases in British Columbia. Focused on but not limited to B.C. issues, The Tyee breaks news stories sometimes taken up by the wider media, publishes viewpoints marginalized in the local corporate media, and allows visitors to the site to register and make comments after any article. The Tyee “repeatedly scooped Vancouverʹs two daily newspapers in the provincial election campaign [while] providing a very different model of feisty, independent and broad‐scale Web journalism” (Connelly, 2005). Twenty six months into its existence The Tyee gets more than 180,000 unique visitors viewing more than a million pages per month; emails its stories weekly to more than 12,000 free subscribers; has more than 2,500 registered commentors who have posted more than 50,000 comments; and has published more than 1300 articles, at least 90 per cent of which are original material. In short, for this public‐minded journalist, The Tyee, has provided an education about what can be done in the era of the Internet. What follows are some observations about the role independent media plays in broadening the public sphere, the promise and limitations of the Internet THE PUBLIC SPHERE AND ONLINE, INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM 115 in fostering independent media, and ways to use independent media to promote media literacy and citizen education. A DEFINITION OF INDEPENDENT Though I may be accused of using the term too loosely, I will define independent news media as news media not subject to the most common pressures associated with the dominant, corporate form of ownership. Those rising pressures, as reflected in content, include conforming with the perceived status quo, so as not to upset corporate advertisers and the mass audience delivered to those advertisers; and devoting resources to creating “advertising environments” (focusing on themes to attract advertisers who provide the bulk of revenues for large newspapers and virtually all revenues for television and radio). These pressures skew corporate media’s content towards the interests of its corporate owners, tending to position citizens as consumers and to portray neo‐conservative policies as inevitable developments. Canadians seem to be aware of those pressures. Three out of four surveyed by the Canadian Media Research Consortium (2004) said news organizations are not independent and are often influenced by powerful groups and individuals, including business, money interests, and government. Does this mean independent news media are without bias? Clearly no. One of the luxuries of independence, however, can be the power to be selective in the issues and points of view one transmits. In describing “alternative media,” Skinner (in press) notes, “They are guided by a purpose or mandate other than the profit motive and they are often organized to facilitate a broader range of input into production than their corporate cousins” and “provide ways of seeing and understanding events that are marginalized or not available there” (p. 24) Non‐corporate news sources with fewer resources and smaller target audiences than the CBC’s may exist to critique and correct more mainstream news media. Still other independent news sources may exist to speak to subcultures whose members share certain assumptions or values, and so their news and opinion pieces begin with a biased set of concerns tailored to that audience. And some online news sources are forums where anyone can post stories or pictures or discuss what others 116 DAVID BEERS have posted; thus bias is not located in any conscious editorial decision‐
making authority. This definition of independent news media, then, includes a host of different media forms, including print ‘zines, co‐op radio, community cable television, and various kinds of Internet sites. What makes any news media independent is that it is owned, operated, and structured to allow reporting and commentary that compensates for and counters the corporate media consensus. The Tyee, for example, does not seek to replicate in a more impartial way all the coverage supplied by corporate media available to British Columbians; rather, the aim is to expand the range of that coverage. We are, in other words, attempting to expand and loosen restraints upon the democratic ideal of a public sphere, which Habermas (1989) has described as a space that permits citizens to interact, study, and debate on the public issues of the day without fear of immediate reprisal from the political and economic powers. In a similar vein, former U.S. vice president Al Gore stated that democracy works best when its media provide an unfettered “marketplace of ideas” based on reason (Gore, 2005). The purely technological potential of the Internet to extend the public sphere or marketplace of ideas is undeniable. The amount of time Canadians spend actively using the web, according to an Ipsos Reid survey, is up 46 per cent since 2002 and now averages 12.7 hours a week. The Internet is the favourite medium for younger Canadians (ages 18 to 35), who spend more time visiting websites (14.7 hours per week) than listening to the radio (11.7 hours), watching television (11.6 hours), and reading newspapers (2.5 hours) (CTV, 2005). Internet usage is likely to accelerate as wireless computers become more cheap and portable. Already, Google is pushing free wireless access for entire U.S. cities (Associated Press, 2005), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers predict crank‐powered laptop computers will soon cost so little they could be handed out for free in developing countries (Bray, 2005). Internet news media are able to be interactive, “viral” in distribution, immediately global in reach, and relatively inexpensive to produce. THE PUBLIC SPHERE AND ONLINE, INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM 117 These traits make the Web seem a natural host for the public sphere that Habermas defines thus: A network for communicating information and points of view (i.e., opinions expressing affirmative or negative attitudes); the streams of communication are, in the process, filtered and synthesized in such a way as they coalesce into bundles of topically specified public opinions. Like the lifeworld as a whole, so, too, the public sphere is reproduced through communicative action. (1992/1996, p. 360). (quoted in Coulter, 1997, p. 37) Many critics of corporate media therefore celebrate the Internet as a naturally fertile ground for independent media—as the basis, in fact, of a new mediasphere that can compete with corporate media and undermine its influence and authority. Such optimism must be tempered by realizations of how corporations are already exploiting the Internet to their own ends, as well as the challenges independent sites face in gathering resources, establishing credibility, and finding audiences. I will touch on these issues again later in this article. THREE TYPES OF INTERNET INDEPENDENT MEDIA The unique technology of the Internet has allowed many types of websites to evolve. E‐zine news media These websites develop and present original content using traditional journalism approaches. Staff editors create some of the core content by assigning fresh news stories or analysis pieces to paid contributors with journalistic training and experience. E‐zines may salt this core content with links to other media, streamed audio and video segments, discussion forums, blogs, and so on. Other e‐zine news media besides The Tyee include Rabble in Canada, Open Democracy in the UK, and Alternet and Grist in the United States. To enhance their credibility, e‐
zine news media aim to produce original investigation and analysis that prove substantive under broad public scrutiny. Such credibility with the mainstream allows these sites to help citizens to hold powerful institutions accountable. 118 DAVID BEERS The blogosphere A weblog or blog is an electronic notebook kept and updated by one or more persons. The sheer number of blogs – at least 18 million by one digital count—should not be mistaken for a massive infrastructure of independent news sources. Many blogs are eclectic, personal diaries recounting vacations, pet behaviour, and favourite books read. Others convey the blogger’s expertise in some field of endeavor, offering, say, tech tips or consumer advice. A small subset of bloggers assign themselves the role of news source, analyst, and interpreter. They are electronic pamphleteers, self‐appointed editor/commentators who use their own highly selective filter to note, deconstruct, annotate, and re‐
spin news items produced elsewhere. Most blogs allow readers to post comments. Open publishing sites These are sites where users provide the content. The most noted is OhmyNews.com in Korea, which claims two million visits a day, “tends to be anticorporate, antigovernment and anti‐American,” and has affected an election outcome, according to Wired.com. Anyone can submit stories to OhmyNews, whose editors decide what to publish and how much to pay, the rate ranging from zero to $16 (Kahney, 2003). An even more open model is Indymedia.org, which grew out of the Seattle anti‐WTO demonstrations, and is now a network of websites around the world where visitors may post content without editing and “all content is copyleft, meaning that anyone is free to take and use it for non‐profit purposes so long as they give credit to the original author” (Langlois, 2005, p. 48). Still more open is the wiki model, a collaborative workspace where anyone can post, edit, or add text. The visitor traffic for Wikipedia.org, an online, collaborative encyclopedia, now rivals the electronic New York Times (Sterling, 2005). The open publishing concept continues to evolve. The Flikr.com site, developed in Vancouver, lets users post and comment upon each others’ photographs. Another Vancouver‐based open publishing effort is NowPublic.com, where visitors may post text, video, and photos of their own or from other media. NowPublic visitors not only can comment on posted information but may vote on what news coverage they would THE PUBLIC SPHERE AND ONLINE, INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM 119 like to see increased. NowPublic’s slogan: “Don’t like the news? Then change it.” All three categories – e‐zine, blog, open publishing—have online functions that allow them to be democratically interactive in ways unlike radio, television, or the highly edited letters pages of newspapers and magazines. The Internet also enables users to bookmark favourite sites, saving and passing on news and views to a “viral” network of fellow citizens. The culture of citizenry modeled online, therefore, is one where news is not passively received, but is challenged, corrected, embroidered and, through individual agency, rippled outwards into the society. At the same moment, the Internet is fast eroding assumptions about who may publish and report news. Although e‐zine news publications like The Tyee are relatively rare compared to bloggers, they are becoming cheaper and easier to produce given ever improving open‐source content management software. Meanwhile, a burgeoning new breed of “citizen journalists” populating blogs and open publishing sites are shifting assumptions about authority and influence in news media culture. Joichi Ito (2003) and other thinkers see in this the flowering of a new form of democracy, an “emergent democracy” that changes the flow of power in the media landscape, and therefore in society. The driving dynamic, they argue, is the shift away from expert journalists speaking as “one to many.” Instead, citizen journalists share information “many to many” within the horizontal, interlinked world of the Internet. Ito and others claim the power of emergent democracy was evidenced by the toppling of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Speaker Trent Lott when his racist comments and anti‐civil rights record, largely ignored by corporate media, received harsh scrutiny in the blogosphere. Others have expressed skepticism that democratic deliberation is best served by a beehive of bloggers. They are concerned that Habermas’s ideal of public sphere as broad public commons will be lost to a fragmented “public of publics” on the Internet. It is now commonplace to say that the Internet rids communication of intermediaries, of those professional communicators whose mass‐mediated communication is the focus of much public debate, and discussion and political information. Dewey lauded such a division of labour to the extent to which it can improve deliberation, not merely in creating a public sphere but also “in the 120 DAVID BEERS subtle, delicate, vivid and responsive art of communication.” This task is, at least in part, best fulfilled by professional communicators who disseminate the best available information and technologies to large audiences of citizens. (Bohman, 2004, pp. 141‐142) Still others have raised concerns about the credibility of news gathered by citizen journalists. The 26,000 registered citizen journalists who contribute to OhmyNews produce a “wild, inconsistent, unpredictable blend” of articles including some hoaxes, and, according to Wired.com, “there are ongoing problems with reporters’ undisclosed conflicts of interest” (Kahney, 2003). As a journalist schooled in traditional approaches, I share these concerns about the insularity and unreliability of these new news media forms, even as I enjoy the populist spirit animating Ito’s optimism. That is why The Tyee’s core content is made up of well‐sourced articles by seasoned journalists while also offering some open publishing interactivity, such as comment threads after those articles. And yet The Tyee could only be a creature of the web, exploiting as it does the relatively inexpensive reach of the Internet to create a new space within BC’s public culture. In that space the audience we particularly seek to serve—and develop—might be described as “justice oriented citizens.” The term is coined by Westheimer and Kahne (2004) in their study of citizenship education. The scholars described three different varieties of citizenship: the ‘personally responsible citizen,’ the ‘participatory citizen,’ and the ‘justice‐oriented citizen.’ To make clear the differences, they described sample actions for each: the first ‘contributes food to a food drive,’ the second ‘helps to organize a food drive,’ while the third ‘explores why people are hungry and acts to solve root causes.’ So writes Evan Cornog in the Columbia Journalism Review. “While each kind of action might be covered in the pages of a local newspaper, clearly it is the world of the justice‐oriented citizen that intersects most clearly with the world of journalism, since ‘root causes’ of problems are what journalists seek to identify, and uncovering injustices is one of the raisons d’être of reporters” (Cornog, 2005). THE PUBLIC SPHERE AND ONLINE, INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM 121 Of course, Cornog harkens to high ideals of journalism, even if much of what citizens are actually offered by corporate media is sensationalistic and without context. FUTURE‐FOCUSED JOURNALISM This description of the justice‐oriented citizen resonates with Hannah Arendt’s ideas about the responsibilities of citizenship in a healthy democracy. After the Holocaust, Arendt was trying to make sense of how that horror unfolded with so little effective opposition and what might make a society more immune to such flights of collective madness. She writes of the citizen’s need to connect thought and action (e.g., Arendt, 1978). She wants every citizen to form deeper powers of ethical, moral, and practical judgment, certainly, but go further. Here she draws a bright contrast between the person with informed judgment who is merely a spectator and one who is an actor (Coulter & Wiens, 2002). For democracy to thrive, citizens must be more than merely informed by their news media; they must be equipped and willing to intervene in the flow of events to either head off injustice or create a more just society. With that aim in mind, The Tyee publishes investigative reports intended to shed light on injustices caused by government or corporate actions – a form of journalism some call muckraking. However, we also devote a significant portion of our editorial resources and focus to what I term “future‐focused journalism.” If muckraking asks “what went wrong yesterday, and who is to blame?” then future‐focused journalism asks “what might go right tomorrow and who is showing the way?” Going back to Habermas’s ideal, democracy is best served by a public sphere where competing visions of the future can be expressed and subjected to debate without skewing or censorship to fit the agendas of capitalist media owners or government officialdom. Rarely, however, are truly experimental, much less radical, visions of social change given in‐depth exploration by corporate media. In those forums, the ones given space to frame our collective future tend to be denizens of corporate‐
funded think tanks, public relations experts paid by corporations, advertising experts selling us the shape of the new, and government officials beholden to corporate lobbyists. 122 DAVID BEERS In 1990 I was assigned by a junior editor at Vogue magazine to report on a different approach to drug policy, called “harm reduction,” being tried in Liverpool, England, and in the Netherlands. My report on the measurable health and public safety gains achieved by needle exchanges, prescribed heroin, safety‐patrolled prostitution zones, and similar European measures contrasted sharply with the U.S.‐style war on drugs approach. My article was well enough written that Vogue’s editor‐in‐chief paid me in full – but then killed the piece as too controversial. Yet the independent magazine Mother Jones was pleased to run an expanded version of the piece (Beers, 1991), which became part of a textbook on comparative approaches to social policy (Eitzen & Leedham, 2000). And the European experiments I reported on then were, as it turns out, versions of Vancouver’s future a dozen years hence. The city today leads North America in experimenting with harm‐reduction drug policies. Future‐focused journalism, then, is different from the blue‐sky scenarios spun by so‐called futurists. The journalist investigates a possible alternative future by reporting firsthand on experiments, whether local and small scale, or large and even society‐wide in other nations. The result gives citizens data and real life experiences from which to make judgments about how to respond to injustices and, collectively, choose a different path. Future‐focused independent media go beyond informing the individual citizen by bonding and catalyzing communities of citizens who share a vision for change. “Communities of struggle and transformation are . . . communicative phenomena. Social movements are dependent upon the establishment and maintenance of local spaces and diffuse networks of communication through which communities are imagined, developed, and mobilized for action” (Uzelman, 2005, p. 18). The Tyee has run many future‐focused articles and series of articles reporting on alternative approaches to schooling, energy production, fish farming, timber harvesting, campaign financing, political organizing, and so on. WHERE EDUCATORS INTERSECT AND INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM Here I would like to discuss how educators might contextualize and draw from independent media in the education of citizens. That THE PUBLIC SPHERE AND ONLINE, INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM 123 discussion must begin with an acknowledgment of the weak signal independent media contribute within the loud, ubiquitous buzz of today’s corporate media. The Internet may allow cheap and infinite space for independent journalism, but that does not guarantee large audiences for any one source. “Most likely, the Internet will continue to provide a humungous amount of news and news‐related websites of varying degrees of accuracy and reliability, but the news audience can – and will – pay attention to only a handful of outlets across all the news media” (Gans, 2003, p. 30). Likely, those outlets will be corporate in nature and points of view. “[W]hile the Internet has opened possibilities for new avenues of civic discourse, it has not yet even begun to dislodge the commercial mass media from their overwhelmingly dominant role. There is also a strong trend of commercialization and centralization of control over the Internet that may restrict its ultimate impact on civic discourse” (Cooper, 2002, p. 34). Changing this picture would require government policies regulating corporate media and offering incentives and resources to other ownership models for media (Beers, 2005; Cooper, 2002). In the current realm, therefore, exposure to independent media requires the citizen to be a proactive seeker. Educators may enhance their students’ motivations to do so by explaining the structural and financial advantages corporate media enjoy, examining the biases inherent in corporate (and all) media, and discussing the value to the person, and society, of seeking out more diverse information and views. Having done so, the educator then is afforded many opportunities to deepen media literacy because independent online media not only expand the definition of what is news but directly violate commonly held assumptions about how journalism should be practised. Exploring and evaluating independent media begin with so basic a question as this: What is news? How does one judge news to be legitimate? New York Times editor‐in‐chief Bill Keller recently provided his definition, while defending the news culture of his organization. He declared that his paper epitomizes the journalism of “verification” rather than “assertion,” its trained expert reporters suppressing their biases by obeying “a rigorous set of standards.” Reporting on the world this way is essential “civic labor,” but the expense can only be borne by large 124 DAVID BEERS organizations with much capital, said Keller, citing the $1.5 million dollars a year it cost to maintain a bureau in Baghdad. ʺBloggers recycle and chew on the news. That’s not bad. But it’s not enoughʺ (quoted in Fine, 2005). Keller proudly stated that his news organization presents journalism that is “transparent” because “we show our work” (quoted in Fine, 2005). Checking that work (while assuming New York Times stories are anything but transparent) is exactly what many bloggers do with zeal, often from more clearly transparent ideological starting points. Indeed, much independent online media, particularly blogs, are deliberately personal or idiosyncratic in perspective. Or, in open publishing settings, content is assembled in a seemingly randomly aggregate way, as various people contribute what they can to the commons, unfiltered. Therefore, a virtue or vice (depending on your point of view) of much independent news media on the Internet is its postmodern shift away from the omniscient official and expert voice adopted in the news pages or broadcasts of most corporate media in North America. In much independent media, the audience instead is either more explicitly cued to the biases of the voice, or else a caveat emptor spirit prevails, in which the audience is expected to graze the information without assuming credibility of the source. As previously discussed, this presents problems for conducting a civic conversation in which members may broadly agree at least on the legitimacy of facts presented. However, in its defense, the irreverent personal voice that tends to thrive on the Internet is well suited to puncturing claims of authority designed to suppress debate. It probably is no coincidence that at the same moment Internet usage is fast rising among the young, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 21 per cent of people aged 18 to 29 turns to a television satire of news media, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, for its understanding of world events (Bauder, 2004, para. 2). In skewering official hypocrisy, Stewart’s “fake news” employs techniques similar to those used by bloggers: gathering, cutting, pasting, and juxtaposing recently recorded events and official statements so as to show up contradictions and outright lies. This ridicule is not to be confused with detached sarcasm. A better descriptor would be “engaged irony” – irony used to deepen THE PUBLIC SPHERE AND ONLINE, INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM 125 and further awareness and discussion among justice‐oriented citizens (Beers, 2001). In fact, Stewart, on his show and in other settings, has argued for more probing journalism and sophisticated analysis from corporate news media, slamming CNN and others for instead serving up warring sound bites (Hines, 2004). All this presents a rich opportunity for the educator of citizens to examine questions about how we come to know, trust, and exchange news, and what communicative techniques are appropriate for widening and deepening public discourse. The interactive nature of the Internet is further grist for that discussion about democracy, citizenship, and the potential nature of the public sphere. In comment threads like those found on The Tyee, visitors are able to share their insights and critique the assumptions inherent in our articles, as well as the thoroughness with which our reporters present the facts. But given the relative unaccountability that anonymity affords our comment posters, the derisive tenor of “flame wars” (Dery, 1994) easily takes hold; the civic space The Tyee provides is quickly occupied by the most assertive and harshly judgmental citizens. Acknowledging and examining this dynamic offers an opportunity to move students towards a refined understanding of how democratic discourse is affected by the structure within which it is conducted. Compare the opportunity to bully that arises in an online comment thread, for example, with the far more intimate, accountable, and regulated environment of the classroom. And then ask: Should online discussants be encouraged, or policed, to avoid flame culture, and if so, how? LEARNING CITIZENSHIP BY DOING MEDIA In conclusion, here are some ways I would suggest educators of citizens can draw from and work with independent media: • Critique corporate media, using independent media sources like e‐
zines, blogs, and open publishing to highlight and sharpen competing definitions of democratic discourse. • Critique independent media, focusing on aspects problematic for democratic deliberation, including credibility and flame culture. • Draw on independent media to spark conversations about justice issues and alternative visions of the good society of the future. 126 •
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DAVID BEERS Feed independent media: Encourage students to check media reports or conduct original research, then post their own related articles or comments to sites and see how the democratic conversation modeled there evolves. Create independent news media: Supply students with online tools and train them to create blogs or other media, allowing them a taste of the invigorating opportunities and challenges this era presents the engaged citizen journalist. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the crafting of this article, I am deeply indebted to the insights, expertise and editing suggestions of Tom Barrett, David Coulter, Deirdre Kelly, David Skinner, Michelle Stack, and John Willinsky. REFERENCES Arendt, H. (1978). The life of the mind: One volume edition. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company. Associated Press. (2005). Google offers free Wi‐Fi for San Francisco. MSNBC. Retrieved October 20, 2005, from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ id/9551548/ Bauder, D. (2004, March 1). Young get news from Comedy Central. CBS News. Retrieved October 20, 2005, from http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/ 2004/03/01/entertainment/main603270.shtml Beers, D. (1991, July/August). Just say whoa! Mother Jones, pp. 38‐56. Beers, D. (2001, September 25). Irony is dead! Long live irony! Salon. Retrieved October 18, 2005, from http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/ 2001/09/25/irony_lives/ Beers, D. (2002a, April). Why ʺBelieve BCʺ makes the Sun harder to believe. Thunderbird Online Magazine: UBC Journalism Review, 4. Retrieved October 20, 2005, from http://www.journalism.ubc.ca/thunderbird/ archives/2002.04/condo.html Beers, D. (2002b, June). Caught in the sun. Vancouver Magazine. Retrieved October 20, 2005, from http://www.vanmag.com/0206/sun.html Beers, D. (2005, February 2). Mediacheck: Creating counterweights to big media. Retrieved October 18, 2005, from http://www.thetyee.ca/ Mediacheck/2005/02/02/CreatingCounterweightsBigMedia THE PUBLIC SPHERE AND ONLINE, INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM 127 Bohman, J. (2004). Expanding dialogue: The Internet, the public sphere and prospects for transnational democracy. In N. Crossley & J. M. Roberts (Eds.), After Habermas: New perspectives on the public sphere (pp. 131‐155). Oxford: Blackwell. Bray, H. (2005, September 28). For each poor child in world: A laptop. Boston.com News [Boston Globe]. Retrieved October 20, 2005, from http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/09/28/for_
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Retrieved October 18, 2005, from http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1106 Media Literacy in the Risk Society: Toward a Risk Reduction Strategy Stephen Kline, Kym Stewart, & David Murphy The idea of media literacy prompts an increasingly divisive debate between educators who wish to protect children from the commercialization of global markets and those who challenge critical media studies as misguided, outdated, and ineffective. We have provided a historical overview of changing conceptions of media literacy as preparation and protection in market society, arguing that contemporary concerns about children’s fast food marketing and sedentary lifestyles call for new approaches to the education of citizen‐consumers in a risk society. Our case study demonstrates that a media education programme can provide scaffolding for children’s critical thinking about their sedentary lifestyles and media consumption. Key words: sedentary lifestyles, advertising literacy, media consumption, displacement effects. La notion d’initiation aux médias suscite un débat de plus en plus animé entre, d’une part, les intervenants éducatifs qui désirent protéger les enfants contre la mondialisation de la culture commerciale et, d’autre part, ceux pour qui les études critiques des médias sont peu judicieuses, périmées et inefficaces. Les auteurs présentent un survol historique de l’évolution des façons de voir l’initiation aux médias comme outil de préparation et de protection dans une société marchande et soutiennent que les inquiétudes actuelles au sujet du marketing des repas‐minute auprès des enfants et des modes de vie sédentaire requièrent de nouvelles approches de l’éducation des consommateurs‐citoyens dans une société à risque. L’étude de cas présentée ici démontre qu’un programme d’initiation aux médias peut permettre de charpenter l’esprit critique des enfants au sujet de leur mode de vie sédentaire et de leur consommation des médias. Mots clés : mode de vie sédentaire, littératie en matière de publicité, consommation des médias, effets de déplacement. _________________ CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 29, 1 (2006): 131‐153 132 STEPHEN KLINE, KYM STEWART, & DAVID MURPHY Since mass literacy was first established as one of the cornerstones of democratic society, reading and writing have been the undisputed core competences taught in primary classes, where the book is the privileged medium of mass education. Yet during the twentieth century, the invention of mass media such as films and comics has provoked widening debate about the role of electronic media in mass education as researchers documented that children spent as much time watching TV at home as they did in classrooms of formal learning. Because in a commercial media system, most programming was produced with the size of the audience rather than children’s education in mind, television was the source of anxious discourses about mesmerized children entranced by mindless cartoons, punctuated by messages from paying sponsors (Kline, 1993). However visually attractive and engaging, teachers instilled with the ideals of progressive education found it ever more difficult to see the banal cartoons and crime dramas as scaffolding children’s intellectual development. Researchers discovered that new media had a paradoxical impact on children’s socialization: television could both support learning and school achievement among brighter middle‐class students who were intellectually prepared, but also distract poorer students from reading and homework, leading to a downward spiral of academic achievement. Critics began to fear that mass media were having a greater detrimental impact outside the classroom. During the 1960s, Marshall McLuhan provoked a broad debate about the new forms of literacy forged in electronically mediated cultures. Cook (2000) has documented the public debate about this first television generation as “electronic media together with the flow and forces of capital” began “fomenting a post‐modern childhood inseparable from media use” (p. 82). TV became the contested cultural zone, as North American educators realized that the vast wasteland of mass broadcasting might be cultivating a spoiled generation of aggressive couch potatoes. On one side, the progressives were optimistic about this technological modernization of mass education because TV made knowledge accessible and engaging. On the other, the defenders of traditional literate sensibilities wanted to inoculate children by teaching them to critique the crass and reductive tendencies of a commercialized mass culture. Over the years, the terms used in this debate have MEDIA LITERACY IN THE RISK SOCIETY 133 changed, but the central problem has remained the same: media are associated with both positive and negative aspects of socialization. Recognizing the limitations of commercial TV, American progressives rallied public support in the USA, helping to launch the Public Broadcast System as a counterweight to mass ignorance. Sesame Street, the PBS’s flagship programme, specifically set out to give ghetto kids a head start in acquiring literacy and numeracy skills by adapting the techniques of commercial media—popular music, animation, dynamic formats of advertising, and clever puppetry—to deliver mass literacy into the home. The commercial formats proved enormously attractive to children all around the world, confirming that commercial TV can be educational. Yet assessments of this pedagogical innovation indicated the limits of TV as a mass educator. Families who already supported their children’s education confirmed that pre‐school TV programmes could provide a boost to literacy skills (Anderson, Huston, Wright, & Collins, 1998). But without parental support and encouragement, children received few positive benefits from watching Sesame Street, particularly among the most deprived families (Lesser, 1974). The findings suggested that those who watched commercial TV most did poorly at school. Researchers found no easy technological fixes for the problems of mass education. PEDAGOGIES OF RESISTANCE British educators were more wary of the rise of mass mediated culture than those in North America (Alvermann & Hagood, 2000). Pointing to the enormous popularity of the cinema and comics, Leavis and Thomson (1933) proposed a prophylactic cultural pedagogy that would teach the masses to better discriminate cultural tastes and resist the commercial rhetoric of popular culture. Inspired by Leavis, many British educators believed that cultural literacy was the best defence against the incursions of commercialized culture. Although commercial television expanded rapidly in the 1950s in the UK, British policy makers established quality standards in the public interest and mandated the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) as an educational broadcaster to prevent a cultural wasteland. British educator Richard Hoggart (1959) argued that defending literacy called 134 STEPHEN KLINE, KYM STEWART, & DAVID MURPHY for a broader rethinking of public education. He recognized that many highbrow works of poetry and prose on the curriculum served only to marginalize and demean working class students. Because the levelling aspirations of the mass literacy movement required a broader cultural pedagogy to “replace the snobbishness of traditional educators” he argued for a critical cultural pedagogy that strongly opposed the trivialization, the fragmentation and the opinionation encouraged by popular providers” (p. 321). Hoggart’s (1959) advocacy for critical cultural studies provided the impetus for media literacy pedagogy in Britain. The idea of a democratizing potential for critical cultural studies inspired many teachers who practised analyzing popular music, movies, and television with students to teach them to understand differences between the progressive and regressive dimensions of cultural ideology. British media studies advocate Len Masterman consolidated these ideas into a formal critical pedagogy which taught “ideological deconstruction” to protect younger students from commercial manipulation (Masterman, 1985). His critical media education curriculum called for the empowerment of students through a demystification of popular texts, especially news and advertising. His pedagogy used literary, ideological, and semiotic analysis to encourage a reflective questioning stance towards the forms and contents of print and electronic media. Masterman’s critical pedagogy has influenced teachers around the world, but especially in Canada where this pedagogy helped launch media education among Ontario and British Columbia teachers (Anderson, Duncan, & Pungente, 2004). Many teachers found that media studies provided excellent leverage for broadening the scope of the English curriculum beyond the great works. The British Film Institute (BFI) took the lead in a broader view of cultural criticism, promoting film studies through a schools outreach initiative that taught film as parallel cultural text. They developed course materials focused on the appreciation of filmic language to promote visual literacy skills. Recognizing the importance of film and television as building blocks of youth, these initiatives engaged through desire rather than condemn children’s taste as vulgar and unsophisticated. Rather than condemning rock videos, advertising, and sitcoms as MEDIA LITERACY IN THE RISK SOCIETY 135 debased forms, they used them to engage students with learning the visual grammars of media. PRAGMATIC PEDAGOGIES AND DIGITAL PANICS The critical pedagogy of media studies gained acceptance in North America, where the limitations of the PBS as an educational force were becoming apparent. The Parent‐Teachers Association, who lobbied for a school‐based initiative to countermand the effects of commercial television on children, persuaded the US Office of Education to launch a research and development initiative in 1978. This initiative supported the idea of teaching critical television viewing skills in the schools, enabling students to make judicious use of their viewing time. The US Office of Education recommended a national curriculum to enhance students’ understanding of commercials, their ability to distinguish fact from fiction, the recognition of competing points of view in programmes, an understanding of the style and formats in public affairs programming, and the ability to understand the relationship between television and printed materials (Lloyd‐Kolkin, Wheeler, & Strand, 1980). In the early 1980s, however, President Reagan’s deregulation of communications put a halt to media education efforts in the USA. Ironically, the deregulation of children’s TV also intensified anxieties about the widening gulf between the civilizing values fostered in schools and the self‐indulgence and aggression promoted by the mass entertainment. Deregulation, therefore, intensified public anxieties about children’s vulnerability in an increasingly unregulated commercial world. Declaring that the cultural epistemology created by mass media is “not only inferior to print based epistemology but is dangerous and absurdist,” Neil Postman warned “that the uncontrolled growth of technology destroys the vital sources of our humanity. It creates a culture without a moral foundation. It undermines certain mental processes and social relations that make human life worth living” (Postman, 1993, p. xiii). He remained fundamentally opposed to educators making any accommodation with TV or computers, or accepting the implicit cultural values that advocates of popular culture brought into the classroom. 136 STEPHEN KLINE, KYM STEWART, & DAVID MURPHY Not everyone drew their lines in the sand around the traditional literacy curriculum. During the 1990s on a state‐by‐state basis (Scharrer, 2002, p. 354) North American media educators began reviving earlier media literacy precepts by updating their pedagogies beyond deconstruction skills (McCannon, 2002). Media literacy, defined as critical analysis, proved a remarkably “big tent,” encompassing different interests including religious groups, left‐wing scholars, popular culture educators, computer technology advocates, health promoters, and social marketers and advertisers. In the early 1980s, the progressives’ hopes for media education rallied around children’s growing fascination with a new medium: computers. Enthusiasts proclaimed that even while playing computer games, children were solving problems, gaining control over their lives, and feeling good about themselves, while acquiring operational skills for the automated and computerized workplaces of the future. Many teachers welcomed the computerization of the classroom, believing this technology cultivated active engagement in learning. In 1994, Vice‐
President Gore sketched out the US government’s plans to make computer literacy a national goal (Tapscott, 1998). Digital gurus foresaw an enlightenment revival programmed into the computer chips, promising that interactive technology would enhance young people’s ability to learn. Cultural studies scholars like Henry Jenkins (2004) became enthusiastic advocates for this pragmatic perspective on the newly wired school, arguing that computers laid the foundation for digital media literacies that fostered skills and competencies needed in the current media environment. The scope of the debates about multiple critical literacies has broadened (Warnick, 2002). Over the last decade, schools across North America were wired into the commercialized backbone of the networked society. The hope that this new technology would better prepare students for the information age propelled this frenzied upgrading of classroom technologies. Media education came to be associated with competences and skills of media use, rather than the critical awareness of communicated values (Jenkins, 2004). The digital revolution renewed the progressives’ hopes for democratic education by making training in operational competences MEDIA LITERACY IN THE RISK SOCIETY 137 and multi‐literacies the rite of passage into future labour markets (New London Group, 1996). However, children need more than operational skills to survive in today’s unregulated on‐line environments where viral marketing, cyber‐stalkers, spammers, hackers, and pornographers rub shoulders with children (Media Awareness Network, 2001). Like TV, commercial web sites and video games are not designed as educational, but rather entertainment sources (Kline, 2003). Many teachers sympathized with Postman’s hope of buffering students against the more dehumanizing aspects of our culture, driven by technology, mass media, and consumer capitalism, and now believe that media literacy initiatives can provide an intellectual prophylactic against the overwhelming encroachment of commercial values and sensibilities. Most contemporary media educators have responded to this challenge, committed to the idea that preparation for citizenship in an information society can no longer be “viewed exclusively in terms of keeping children away from certain content, or vice versa, but is also a question of ‘strengthening children in their role as critical consumers (and producers) of the multiple media’” (Carlsson, 2003, p. 8). A PEDAGOGY DIVIDED Noting a widening rift between the preparationist progressives and protectionist critics within the media literacy movement, Renee Hobbs (1998) chastises this fractious coalition for being incapable of defining, let alone agreeing to, a unified approach to media pedagogy. Rather than resolving their differences or establishing shared goals, she notes a tendency to circle the wagons and shoot inwards. David Buckingham’s (2003) recent book is a prime example, launching a scathing attack on the protectionist ideology and their rhetoric of democratic citizenship upon which applications in the classroom are often based and which many critical media educators espouse. Buckingham dismissed the critical literacies approach as nothing more than a moral panic that wrongly sees media as having an enormously powerful (and almost entirely negative) influence and which therefore censors children’s taste and preferences because children are vulnerable to manipulation. He goes on to characterize the work of these critical media educators as a type of ideological manipulation that submits media “to a form of ‘critical 138 STEPHEN KLINE, KYM STEWART, & DAVID MURPHY analysis’ which does little more than command obedience and assent” (p. 171). He concludes by claiming that such a heavy‐handed approach must inevitably fail because it condemns what children love. He advocates the cultural studies alternative that stresses readerly competences and creative self‐expression as the preferred learning outcomes of the media studies curriculum. Although Buckingham offers some useful observations about how a Vygotskian approach can guide media educators to scaffold active learning through “creative engagements” in the classroom, his sweeping dismissal of critical pedagogy may seem odd to educators in the Canadian media literacy movement. To narrow the preparationist agenda from informed and responsible choices to operational competences accepts a highly reductive view of the goals of media education. Many teachers will be unhappy with this neo‐liberal view of their role in promoting democratic citizenship because job training has triumphed over critical judgement as the core learning objectives. More problematically, Buckingham’s dismissal of critical pedagogies as a form of ideological indoctrination totally misrepresents contemporary Canadian practice where many thoughtful teachers provoke self‐
reflection and foster informed judgments in their students. As Brown (1998) points out, media teachers around the world (except perhaps in the UK) “avoid indoctrinating with their own opinions and conclusions, but rather, train students in the process of selective discrimination, analytical observation and reasoned assessment based on factual data judged according to meaningful criteria” (p. 49). Perhaps most troubling is Buckingham’s insistence that critical media education has been largely motivated by an unwarranted belief in the corrupting influence of media and a correlative desire to police children’s taste and morality. Although the public often overstates or misunderstands the media’s effects, educators cannot conclude that children’s lives remain untouched by the commercialized world. If media were only a matter of taste—and children were already competent users of media (particularly compared with their parents), there would be little justification for educating about media. Teachers could all get on with teaching history as suggested by Postman. What Buckingham refuses to acknowledge is that a growing body of evidence suggests MEDIA LITERACY IN THE RISK SOCIETY 139 important lifestyle risks are associated with heavy media consumption: aggressive and anti‐social behavior, obesity and eating disorders, depression and low self‐esteem, or lower educational achievement (Kline, 2005a). Because of these concerns, Canadian media education efforts have largely re‐focused on providing information and skills that help students make healthy and socially responsible lifestyle choices, including media use. TOWARDS A LIFESTYLE RISK PEDAGOGY We think Buckingham’s sweeping claim must be challenged, his assertion that the “missionary rhetoric of public schooling – its claim to ‘emancipate’ students from power, and transform them into autonomous social agents by making them into critical viewers has not worked” (Buckingham, 2003, p. 16). Recent evaluative studies of media education researchers addressing the admittedly complex tasks of assessing the learning outcomes of media literacy programmes have found important benefits from media literacy interventions (Emery & McCabe, 2003; Hobbs, 1999; Scharrer, 2002). Moreover an encouraging body of evidence indicates that media literacy initiatives to help students make informed and responsible lifestyle choices about risky products such as cigarettes and alcohol are also highly effective (Bradford, 2001; Pechmann, 1997; Verkaik & Gathercoal, 2001). Half as many Canadian youth smoke as British youth, perhaps prompted by the proactive use of media to educate young people about the health risks of tobacco. Although no definitive solution exists, a growing body of evidence also shows that critical media education can scaffold students to make critical judgements of promotional material and consumption choices and provoke better management of their leisure time. For example in a recent study in Britain, health educators demonstrated that a media education programme could “inoculate” children against the marketing of “fizzy drinks” (James, Thomas, Cavan, & Kerr, 2004). A considerable body of research in Canada (Andersen, 2000; Tremblay & Willms, 2003) and the USA (Gortmaker et al., 1996; Tucker, 1986; Vanderwater, Shim, & Caplovitz, 2004) shows that heavy media consumption is associated not only with obesity in children, but with lower activity levels and greater intake of energy dense foods. 140 STEPHEN KLINE, KYM STEWART, & DAVID MURPHY Recognizing the pivotal role that television and video games play in childrenʹs lives, Robinson (2000) and Robinson, Wilde, Navracruz, Haydel, and Varady (2001) noted how little health education effort has been directed at reducing the known risks associated with media use compared with drugs, alcohol, and smoking risks. Robinson and colleagues reasoned that if heavy media consumption has been shown to increase the risks of obesity and anti‐social behaviour in some children, then interventions that reduced media consumption should lessen those risks. His team developed an in‐school intervention for young children in grades 3 and 4, which communicated, over 18 weeks, about various health risks, promoted students’ time budgeting and selective viewing, and restricting their total use of technology (films, TV, and video games). The research compared students in experimental and control schools, finding that at the end of this eight‐month study, children who received the media education programme had reduced their TV viewing by about one‐third (Robinson et al., 2001). The experimental school experienced a 25 per cent reduction in aggressive behaviours and half as much verbally aggressive behaviour such as teasing, threatening, or taunting peers on the playground when compared with students at the control school. Both boys and girls benefited from the intervention curriculum, and the most aggressive students, according to the study, experienced the greatest drop in combativeness. Students in the treatment school also showed reduced risk of obesity (measured by BMI and skin fold) when compared with those in the control, although no evidence occurred of greater active leisure. The controlled experiment revealed not only that the media education significantly reduced media consumption, but that rates of weight gain were significantly slower when compared to control schools. Robinson and colleagues suggest that lower rates of BMI growth are associated mostly with the lower number of meals eaten in front of the television set in the treatment school. Robinson and colleagues confirmed that reduced television viewing could be an important part of a school‐based prevention strategy for counteracting obesity in children. In short, this study demonstrated that targeting media use in the primary classroom provided a viable way of intervening in the cluster of MEDIA LITERACY IN THE RISK SOCIETY 141 interrelated developmental media‐risk factors associated with a sedentary lifestyle and fast food culture. MEDIA LITERACY IN THE RISK SOCIETY Robinson and colleagues suggest that in a commercialized marketplace, media literacy programmes can reduce risks associated with children’s media use and bolster healthier lifestyle choices. We strongly disagree with Postman, therefore, that media educators should counter the impacts of commercialized popular culture by barricading the doors of the schools. We also agree with Buckingham that children are dynamic cultural agents. An ideological deconstructionist pedagogy, therefore, will be of little use in counteracting the constant informal learning that takes place outside schools. However, young people’s growing engagement with media does not warrant a retreat from critical pedagogy, but rather a reworking of it in the context of a risk society. Youth are highly engaged in constructing their own identities and asserting their own tastes. They do so, not in contexts of their own making, but rather in a highly commercialized global marketplace that produces systemic environmental and lifestyle risks (Kline, 2005b). As the obesity epidemic has recently made abundantly clear, media use itself is not simply a matter of identity construction and taste, but rather one of promoting unhealthy food choices and consolidating sedentary lifestyles (Kline, 2005b). From the point of view of schools, students are active agents in a process of gaining both power and responsibility for their own well being in a democratic society. The objective of media literacy, therefore, must now include the goal of preparing students for citizenship in a risky consumer society. In Western culture, children and adolescents clearly enjoy greater scope to actively construct their identities both by choosing their pleasures and experiencing risks. But this does not mean they are uncritical. In response, we developed our risk communication strategy as a kind of cultural judo that recognized that children come into classrooms not only immersed in media culture but also exposed to the critical concepts that circulate through media (including advertising is deceptive, play should be fair, junk food is bad for you, and TV can be a waste of time). Because children and youth learn much of this critical 142 STEPHEN KLINE, KYM STEWART, & DAVID MURPHY repertoire in the family and peer groups, our risk reduction pedagogy built on the frail scaffolding of their own critical reflections by engaging them in discussions of the role media played in their lives. Rather than condemn matters of personal taste and preference, our critical literacy approach engaged students in discussing their lifestyles, asking them to reflect on their media use habits, helping them create alternative opportunities for leisure, and challenging them to take responsibility for their lifestyle choices. CASE STUDY: A CANADIAN MEDIA RISK REDUCTION STRATEGY In what follows, we outline research that demonstrates that media literacy intervention can effectively promote children’s skills and knowledge to cope with the lifestyle risks associated with media consumption. Our project transposed Robinson et al’s (2001) risk reduction logic into a pedagogy we call cultural judo. Whereas Robinson and colleagues relied on a time‐limiting technology to reduce children’s media consumption, we designed a series of classroom exercises to support voluntary reduction of media use through critical reflection. Where Robinson used a standard health information model, we reinforced the scaffolding that supports and consolidates young people’s critical thinking about their own lifestyle choices. Where Robinson’s programme focused on classroom lectures, we emphasized a community‐based approach that involved families, peers, and teachers as protective factors in the child’s lifestyle decisionmaking. Method In the spring of 2003, we undertook a formative case study evaluation of our community‐based, media, risk‐reduction strategy in four North Vancouver primary schools. The Media Analysis Laboratory at Simon Fraser University developed and delivered this media pedagogy focused on improving school safety for elementary students. Our overall objective was to design, conduct, and evaluate a media education programme to make primary school children (and their parents) more aware of the risk factors associated with heavy media consumption and more willing to participate in a media reduction week challenge. We based our evaluation on comparing media use, activity levels, and MEDIA LITERACY IN THE RISK SOCIETY 143 attitudes of children before and after the six‐week media risk reduction intervention. There were no control groups and all children in the chosen classes participated in the media literacy exercises. Participants Participants in this case study consisted of a total of 178 elementary students, 91 male students and 87 female students. We selected the students from eight classes in four different schools in North Vancouver, involving eight classes ranging from grade 2 to grade 6. Although sampling was somewhat random, the participating schools were varied in their socio‐economic status. We chose young children for this study for the following reasons: ability of parents to monitor home media, parental involvement in school‐based projects tends to be high, and research has shown that early sedentary lifestyle patterns may lead to life‐long health problems (Dietz & Gortmaker, 2001). Because we wanted to support, and not bully, children into making informed lifestyle choices, and to see what happened to their leisure when they voluntarily reduced their dependency on media entertainment, we coached teachers not to blame children for whatever choices they made. We developed and implemented our critical media literacy programme with the classroom teachers to weave the discussion of lifestyle risks into normal class activities. Applying our cultural judo approach, we augmented each classroom lesson with creative activities focused on making the three moments of critical learning more accessible: reflection focusing on students’ examination of the risks associated with their own media use and preferences; deconstruction based on exercises to expose the critical concepts that children use in understanding both the benefits and risks of media (junk food, couch potatoes, fair play, addiction); and reconstruction based on creative engagement in strategies for changing lifestyles through designing and articulating alternatives. The Curriculum Reflection. Our research showed that many children freely admit that they have developed patterns of dependence on media. We also showed that these activities were not always the most preferred leisure choices 144 STEPHEN KLINE, KYM STEWART, & DAVID MURPHY available to children. Rather, we found that complex circumstances in young people’s lives make media consumption the easy solution to boredom and loneliness, e.g., reporting that TV and video games are preferred solitary activities, but played only when social activities like friends and play are not readily at hand. Because the children watched TV and played video games when they had time to kill and when they had little supervision, we identified and talked about the development of patterns of media use, including preferred genre and programme preferences. Deconstruction. Future citizens need to know not only how to read and write in various media, but also to understand the contextual factors that influence how information becomes distorted or biased. Many media educators working with teens, therefore, focus on news and public affairs discourses as the pillars of critical literacy programmes, helping them understand the ways political information gets constructed and used in the contemporary world. But consumer socialization research reveals that, although young children (6‐11 years) have acquired financial power, they have rather limited knowledge of the mediated marketplace. Although industry advocates portray them as possessing advertising savvy, many children neither understand the intent of advertising nor the institutions that shape commercialized programming (Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2000). Although they can say if they like an ad or not, few adolescents fully comprehend the complexly layered irony designed into marketing messages (O’Donahue & Tynan, 1998). Even marketers admit that kids are “clearly influenced, absorbing detail to use in persuading their parents to buy” (Duff, 2004, p. 49) without evaluating the products. With synergistic cross marketing, product placements, web marketing, and programme length commercials, it is hardly surprising that few young children can explain the difference between programming and advertising content (Livingstone, 2003). We see a need, therefore, to develop children’s understanding of the commercialized world in ways that would not deny their pleasure in watching cartoons or playing with toys and video games. We created a number of playful learning experiences through which students became acquainted with basic marketing and advertising techniques such as branding, product placements, and celebrity MEDIA LITERACY IN THE RISK SOCIETY 145 endorsements. Additionally, we used role‐play scenarios and blue screen special effects to engage them in critical thinking about media creation. This supported classroom discussion of heroes and heroines and bully‐victim scenarios with a comparison of on‐screen and off‐screen conflict and the resolutions most often employed. Reconstruction. Because media are an important focal point in children’s culture, we decided not to deny their pleasure in watching TV, computer messaging, or playing computer games, or to condemn media without reason. Children’s decisions to alter lifestyles must be voluntary. Based on experience with smoking reduction, we also suspected that if adults condemn children’s pleasures out of hand, children would perceive them as prohibiting something that is fun. To change peer interactions, therefore, we needed not only to make the risks known but also to make the alternatives, if not cool, then at least acceptable choices within peer relations. To change peer interactions, we set out to explore why and when children are dissatisfied with media, encouraging them to imagine alternatives collectively that are equally enjoyable and satisfying. The project also set out to challenge children to take more control of their free time by asking the question, “What would you do if you turned off TV, video games, and PCs for a whole week?” We followed these sessions with a week‐long preparation for the “Tune Out the Screen Challenge” in which students worked on ways of encouraging other students to take part in the Tune Out Challenge, without asking them to give up those activities that they truly valued or chose not to change. Their creative productions included posters, video commercials, skits, songs, and stories. Most importantly, the students were given a choice as to the level of participation in Tune Out Challenge: cold turkey (no media use for one week), controlled use (decrease media time), or not participating. Study Procedures and Measures The research project began and ended with the in‐class measurement of students’ media use, leisure habits, and preferences. After the initial data gathering, the project team1 delivered the media risk education lessons over a six‐week period in one to two hour sessions that teachers followed with subsequent lessons. Each week’s data were collected, recorded, then 146 STEPHEN KLINE, KYM STEWART, & DAVID MURPHY returned to the students. Following the sixth lesson, we distributed media and leisure surveys and students signed the Tune Out the Screen contract where they explained why they opted for a cold turkey, controlled use, or no change approach. We conducted follow‐up parent‐
child interviews in the families’ homes, asking about successes and failures during tune out week. Using a statistical program, SPSS, we entered and analyzed time spent before and during tune out week. Because of the extent of the project, we provide only a summary of results in the following section.2 RESULTS Access and Parental Concerns From prior research, it was clear that children developed their media consumption habits within a family power dynamic, in which parents model and negotiate limits to media consumption as part of the family solution to a busy life. For example, parents often resolve conflicts over what to watch by giving children access to their own TV in their bedrooms. This study showed that 25 per cent of the students had their own TV or computer. Many parents did not know what or how long their children were watching and playing, and children revealed they had already developed strategies for avoiding and deceiving parents about their media use; 48 per cent of the boys and 25 per cent of the girls admitted that they sometimes cheat and watch television when they are not permitted to do so—a practice, which for the boys, increases with age. Although the majority of parents had concerns about their children’s excessive media use, fewer than 40 per cent of children said their parents established rules concerning the time they could watch or play video games. They also reported fewer rules and regulations for video game playing with 93 per cent of boys and 88 per cent of girls reporting they did not have rules relating to the content of their video game play. Tune Out the Screen Challenge We found that both parents and children enthusiastically accepted the Tune Out Challenge as a workable alternative within the family. Further evidence gathered from the families revealed that the contract process MEDIA LITERACY IN THE RISK SOCIETY 147 was important for the success of the challenge. Analysis showed that the controlled use3 strategy was far more popular among the younger students, whereas the cold turkey strategy was chosen by 82 per cent of the older students who seemed to take up the challenge more enthusiastically. We noted that those refusing to take the Tune Out Challenge were disproportionately boys (83%) and also were far more likely to be from grade 2 and 3. Of the 121 students who kept a record of tune out week activities, 60 per cent reported getting through the whole week without using screen entertainment4. Girls were slightly more enthusiastic (62% vs. 54% for boys), and older boys (grades 4‐6) were far more successful than younger boys (63% compared with 41% of younger boys). The opposite was true for younger girls, with 65 per cent (grades 2‐3) remaining media free compared with 59 per cent of older girls. The net effect was that students gained 100 minutes a day of leisure time from reducing their dependency on screen entertainment during tune out week5 (see Table 1). Table 1. Minutes spent with media and leisure activities during Tune Out Week Cold turkey group Controlled use group Time spent with 5 minutes media Time spent in 109 minutes leisure activities 22 minutes Opt out Group 27 minutes 90 minutes 97 minutes Based on their weeklong activity diaries, the evidence showed that students compensated the 80 per cent reduction in screen use by spending more time reading and engaging in active play rather than passive leisure (see Table 2.). Table 2. Summaries of Tune Out Week Diaries Activities Results from 65 Tune out week diaries* Sports/outdoor play 34% Indoor play/hobbies 19% 148 STEPHEN KLINE, KYM STEWART, & DAVID MURPHY Eating Homework Media Reading Resting/vegging out 15% 14% 8% 6% 2% *Sleeping, travel and self‐maintenance time were excluded from this analysis. CONCLUSION “The purpose of public education is to give every child in the province such knowledge as will fit him [or her] to become a useful and intelligent citizen.” The School Act of British Columbia of 1872 We have argued that lifestyle risk education should be part of students’ media education if they are “to become a useful and intelligent citizen.” To make responsible consumer choices, today’s citizens‐in‐training need to be aware of the benefits and the risks associated with all consumption practices, including the use of media. Currently, neither the commercialized media system nor the schools provides such information. How then can children be expected to act as rational and responsible consumers if they do not have the information or the cognitive skills to make responsible and healthy lifestyle choices? We think that the results of this study are encouraging. Students supported in the development of critical skills and knowledge decided on their own to make healthy and responsible decisions about their media‐dependent leisure. This project suggests that consumer literacy can counteract the promotional context of unhealthy lifestyles where billions of dollars are spent promoting energy‐dense foods to children and very little is spent with equal vigour to communicate the risks associated with sedentary lifestyles. This pilot study suggests that a school‐based risk communication initiative that focuses on media education can effectively supplement public health policies directed at forestalling the obesity epidemic. Furthermore, it can focus attention on consumer and media education as a vital part of citizenship training by ensuring that all MEDIA LITERACY IN THE RISK SOCIETY 149 children grow up knowing the long‐term health risks in our risk society: whether it is media use, smoking, drug taking, or dietary choices. We believe a creative critical media pedagogy can also provide an appropriate and effective way of responding to the widening gulf between home and school micro‐cultures. As we have argued in this article, even if children are media savvy, the bias of commercial broadcasting leaves them little informed about the long‐term risks associated with their lifestyle choices. The state needs to reconsider its approach to preparing young consumers to be risk literate in the mediated marketplace, not because they are manipulated, but because they are inadequately informed of the risks. Not only should media literacy inform children about the risks associated with their daily leisure choices, but it should also help them become more aware of the role that promotional media play in their lives. Media literacy can be the beginning of talking more productively about the problems of the postmodern child caught between expanding zones of leisure and the impending expectations of responsibility. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Crime Prevention Community Mobilization Fund of Canada provided funding for this research. NOTES 1 Research team included SFU researchers and the classroom teachers. A full report of the research results is available online at http://www.sfu.ca/media‐lab/risk. 2
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economic collapse that came to a head in December 2001. What resulted from this crisis wasn’t just another poor country, but, as the narration continues, “a rich country made poor.” Undone by a remarkable failure in the International Monetary Fund’s neo‐liberal development policies, Argentina’s catastrophe has waned, but not before extraordinary new developments have taken shape. From a system in ruins, where 50 per cent of the people fell below the poverty line, a new optimism and sense of promise has arisen. Driven in part by the National Movement of Recovered Factories, a network of worker cooperative organizations, the success of this body is at the centre of a story mindful of possibilities for social, political, and economic change, even when faced with dire and overwhelming obstacles. In relation to recent debates in media education, the importance of The Take derives from the lesson it offers about the potential of critical media pedagogy. Since the onset of “the second phase of media literacy” (Bazalgette, 1997, p. 72) in the early 1990s, there has been a tendency to see practices in the field in terms of a dichotomy between models of protectionism and of preparation (Buckingham, 2003; Hobbs, 1998; von Feilitzen, 2000, 2004). Among other elements, these models are distinguished by the way they envision media literacy’s potential as a democratic discourse, and the relationship of this potential to pedagogy and young people’s own media production work. Of late, the less ambitious and more modest goals of preparation models have held sway, yet I think films like The Take force us to question these 156 STUART R. POYNTZ developments. It is an independent media production that engages young people while offering a sustained critique of globalization. As such, it demonstrates what a more radical vision can look like and why such a vision points to the real promise of media literacy. Currently, this promise is in doubt, not least because the relationship between protectionism and models of preparation are hamstrung by the troubled history of inoculation within media education. Early writings in the field – as exemplified by the work of F. R. Leavis and Denys Thompson (1933; republished in 1960) in the UK, or the early work of Marshall McLuhan (1951) in Canada – rejected the mainstream media and argued that young people should be protected from pop culture’s pernicious effects. Today, the defensiveness in this position resonates with practices in certain American media literacy circles (Kubey, 2003). If this is less true in the rest of the Western world – in the UK, Australia, Canada, and the Scandinavian countries, young people’s engagements with pop culture are thought to be the starting point for media education (Buckingham & Domaille, 2004; Kubey, 2003; von Feilitzen, 2000) – the legacy of inoculation continues to haunt certain media education objectives. This legacy casts a spell, for instance, over classroom practices that critically address how the popular media reproduce inequitable, hegemonic forms of power. Although such work is successful only when part of a “lively, democratic, … action‐oriented” pedagogy, the value of these practices is called into doubt because it is thought they mask a paternalism that seeks to protect youth (Masterman, 1985, p. 27). The spectre of inoculation thus surfaces and casts a shadow of uncertainty around how educators engage young people in “analyzing media culture as products of social production and struggle” (Kellner, 1998, p. 113). Some (Buckingham, 2003; Hobbs, 1998) argue that the only way to overcome this problem and respect young people’s engagements with the media is by ensuring teachers focus on preparing students to operate in a media saturated world. Educators are not to play a leadership role in alerting children and youth to the risks citizens face in media culture, nor should educators focus on developing young people as critical, sophisticated, and active citizens. Rather, their intentions should be to develop young people’s competencies with the media they already use. INDEPENDENT MEDIA, YOUTH AGENCY, AND THE PROMISE OF MEDIA EDUCATION 157 But pursuing this direction means the second phase of media literacy has forsaken an orientation toward the kind of radical democratic projects that try to imagine, if not easily achieve, more autonomous conditions and equitable ways of life. Such developments weaken media education and so in response I want to draw from The Take to explore two productive tensions in the relationship between protectionism and preparation. In considering the democratic potential of media education in this way, I draw on writers like Carmen Luke (2002), Douglas Kellner (1998, 2002), Justin Lewis, and Sut Jhally (1998). They also envision media education as a project of social justice that addresses how the media situate and define students’ options for democratic change. Len Masterman and David Buckingham are crucial foils in this discussion because Masterman has recently been associated with protectionist tendencies in the field. He continues to argue for a media pedagogy that draws on the traditions of critical theory and because of this, his work (1983, 1985, 1993, 1997) has been distinguished from Buckingham’s preparation‐oriented project, a project media educators might situate as a form of liberal education1. Divisions between these scholars can be used fruitfully to suggest promise and possibility within media literacy. Central to my purpose is exploring two areas of tension that indicate what this promise might be. The first tension has to do with the role of deconstruction in media literacy. In isolation from other critical strategies, deconstruction is less effective today as a tool for identifying and contesting the work of economic and ideological forces in the media (Buckingham, 2003; Luke, 2002). If the effectiveness of deconstruction has waned, however, this should not discourage media educators from searching out additional helpful strategies to reveal counter‐hegemonic forms of media agency. This is what The Take offers. It includes a critique of how power is exercised in an age of globalization and showcases a hopeful and successful challenge to that power. The film is not naïve about the difficulties of social, political, or economic change, but, importantly, it documents possibilities for such change in a way that speaks to young people. Thereby, The Take points toward the kind of radical democratic ambitions I believe represent the outside limits and promise of critical media literacy. 158 STUART R. POYNTZ The second tension I work through surfaces when I address critical moments in student production work. Here, I turn from The Take to draw lessons from younger media producers and a video I was involved with while working at Pacific Cinémathèque, a film institute in Vancouver. Produced at an inner‐city high school, the video suggests how youth develop important forms of self‐expression through digital media production. It also highlights how such self‐expressions often involve social and political power formations. When educators address the presence of such formations in students’ work, Buckingham (2003) cautions, they risk censoring student work by “subjecting [it] to … ‘critical analysis’” (p. 171). I argue, however, that ignoring such analysis significantly limits the potential for democratic leadership among both educators and critically engaged young people who see their peers’ work. As a result, opportunities for furthering a sense of agency and reflexivity among youth are missed. The critical value of competency building with students must always be conceived in relation to those social, political, or cultural power structures that limit how these competencies take shape. This means the limits of media education are neither located solely in attempts to prepare young people to operate in a media saturated culture, nor in attempts to protect them from this culture. Rather, the promise of media education is realized as young people’s capacities for reflection and self‐
expression are enabled through engagement with the power structures that limit such acts (Goldfarb, 2002; Luke, 2002). Only then can students and educators envision the kind of media representations that will be part of a more autonomous and equitable future. PROTECTION/PREPARATION Critics have been known to characterize protectionism as the pedagogical equivalent of a “tetanus shot” (Bazalgette, 1997, p. 72). In its worst incarnations, this refers to that old inoculationist impulse; but protectionism has also meant teaching young people to deconstruct media texts so they aren’t “taken in by fantasy, seduced by … violence, or manipulated by commercial ploys” (Bazalgette, 1997, p. 72). Conceived in this way, media is seen to pose risks to young people, especially in relation to “problem areas like … materialism, nutrition and INDEPENDENT MEDIA, YOUTH AGENCY, AND THE PROMISE OF MEDIA EDUCATION 159 body images, … distortion and bias in reporting, and racial, class, gender, or sexual identity stereotyping” (Hobbs 1998, p. 19). Masterman’s seminal work, Teaching the Media (1985), has ironically come to represent the last wave of a protectionist fold. In this work, Masterman challenges simplistic efforts to protect or inoculate young people against the media, and yet Buckingham (2003) argues that here and in subsequent work Masterman (1993, 1997) produces just the kind of protectionist, rational, semiotics‐informed analysis that alienates educators and students. Moreover, Buckingham (1992, 1998, 2003) tells educators, because this work does not account for the contradictory ways media representations operate today, it largely underestimates how viewers invest legitimate forms of pleasure in mainstream texts. These shortcomings are also part of a much larger problem: Masterman and the protectionist camp do not take seriously the need to address how young people learn, or if this is done, protectionists are accused of relying on a top‐down, teacher‐to‐student model that posits the right way for children and young people to understand media representations (Buckingham, 2003, pp. 108‐09). Models of preparation thus come to be seen as a means of overcoming the weaknesses of an older, more naïve version of media education. With this move, however, the nature and intentions of critical practice in the field are also reconfigured, in less radical terms. Preparation models in fact develop as a critical literacy for a postmodern age. They teach young people to develop playful, competent relationships with the media, but always in ways limited by what young people discover on their own terms. Youth are asked to analyze, evaluate, and reflect on the mainstream media, but because student‐
centred interests drive the analysis, any concerns educators might have about the risks posed by pop culture become less relevant. The goal, then, is to develop critical thinking – “the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality” – but without a critical activism informed by alternative media practices developing either inside or on the margins of mainstream culture (von Feilitzen, 2000, p. 24). Media education thus becomes a competency building project, one that equips children and youth with skills in using and evaluating media but not an understanding of why it is necessary to change media. As a result, 160 STUART R. POYNTZ preparation models abandon the idea that classroom media education practices develop best when these models are attentive to a tension between the goals of competency building and the impact of counter‐
hegemonic media work being produced in the culture at large (Lewis & Jhally, 1998). When this happens, however, the impact of media education as a set of discourses that fully mobilize young people’s “critical capacities” is lessened (Fraser, 1997, p. 214). Do media educators need to follow this direction? I think not, and it is helpful to use Masterman and Buckingham as foils for exploring what the limits and promise of media pedagogy might be. Two important areas where educators can unpack tensions that inform this question have to do with the way deconstruction relates to critical acts in media education and with the way they conceive critical moments in student production work. DECONSTRUCTION AND NEW CRITICAL ACTS The role of deconstruction in relation to the critical potential in media education can be helpfully located through Masterman’s work (1983, 1985, 1997). His project has long taken shape through a constructive engagement with structuralist semiotics and the tradition of 1970s and 80s British cultural studies. Central to this approach, he considers mainstream media a hegemonic apparatus that organizes and produces power in Western culture. Seen from this perspective, the media are narrative machines that construct reality by naturalizing various codes that produce a series of ideological effects. Such effects sustain values (which many often consensually agree to) that largely represent the interests of dominant classes and power formations in society (Masterman, 1993). Importantly, Masterman has always argued that if these values represent the preferred meanings in texts, their impact is dependent on the work of audiences to make sense of movies, TV shows, video games, and so forth. He suggests, in other words, that there is always room for audiences to decode and initiate their own alternative or oppositional readings of media representations (Masterman, 1985; Hall, 1980). Critical practice in this tradition in fact encourages precisely this sort of work by audiences. By decoding and initiating alternative and INDEPENDENT MEDIA, YOUTH AGENCY, AND THE PROMISE OF MEDIA EDUCATION 161 oppositional interpretations of media, audiences reverse “the process through which a medium selects and edits material into a polished, continuous and seamless flow” (Masterman, 1983, p. 10). By this, powerful forms of “semiological guerilla warfare” (Derry, 1993) can develop, as exemplified by the work of Adbusters and documented in Jill Sharpe’s 2001 movie, Culture Jam: Hijacking Commercial Culture. Here, creative and critical media practice is expressed through conscious, ironic, and strategic work with the media’s own modes of representation. Deconstruction thus breaks through textual surfaces “to reveal the techniques through which meanings are produced,” with the result that critical terms are generated for viewing various forms of moving images (Masterman, 1983, p. 10). This, in turn, helps to feed “a more totally liberating curriculum for schools” because young people are enabled to engage with issues of social justice and critical citizenship through struggles over how dominant kinds of information and practices of representation become part of their lives (Masterman, 1983, p. 10). Now, as Buckingham (2000a, 2003) has pointed out, where there are significant difficulties with this critical strategy, they have to do with changes in the way texts operate. Deconstruction privileges two critical moments in analyzing media texts. First, if children and youth are enabled to understand how visual codes like lighting, camera angles, or character types naturalize meaning, the suggestion is they are less likely to be swayed by messages in texts. Once this happens, a second critical moment opens itself up as young people extend their new found ability to analyze how media construct meaning by employing a set of oppositional production techniques – such as montage editing or elliptical forms of storytelling – to challenge power‐laden media representations. The difficulty with this trajectory, however, is it works best when each medium operates primarily with its own language of representation and when these languages are deployed without irony. But neither of these characteristics is true of contemporary media. Many TV shows, advertisements, movies, and computer games targeted at children and youth, for instance, are no longer produced as discrete products with specific media languages (Buckingham & Sefton‐
Green, 2003) today. Rather, as Marsha Kinder (1991) argues, they are created as marketing platforms based on a model of ‘trans‐media 162 STUART R. POYNTZ intertextuality.’ Profit certainly drives this process because the more value media conglomerates can yoke out of their brands – through brand extensions across different media products, for example – the better. The point, then, is texts are no longer characteristically discrete. Instead, they include an easy intertextuality and often visible markings (e.g., a self‐
conscious irony) of the media languages used in their production (Buckingham, 2000a, pp. 88‐92; Buckingham & Sefton‐Green, 2003; Luke, 2002). As but two examples, most young people are far more likely today to see the disruption of a seamless and continuous flow in media languages in terms of the irony in Wes Craven’s Scream (1996,1997, 2000) franchise or TV programs like That 70s Show. And because neither of these programs, or their like, has much to do with producing a critical consciousness, it is more difficult today to understand how revealing the techniques through which meaning is produced in media actually supports young people’s ability to critically engage with their lives. This situation is complicated further because clear distinctions between dominant and oppositional media languages are disappearing in mainstream pop culture as advertising and mainstream music videos (as but two examples) become more visually complex. The incorporation of independent film production companies as niche studios within larger media conglomerates adds another layer of complexity to these developments. “The notion that there are fixed professional ‘norms’ that should be contested and deconstructed, [in other words,] has become highly questionable” (Buckingham, 2000a, p. 222). The upshot of this development is that deconstructive critiques that play one media language off against another or that posit an inherently oppositional language against the mainstream do not affect audiences in quite the same way educators imagined two decades ago. These shifts in mainstream culture in fact highlight the historicization of deconstruction as a mode of critical practice.2 They also suggest the complexity in the representational language young people encounter today. As a result, if deconstruction remains a valuable technique for media educators, it can no longer be the dominant critical lens for engaging with the media system. This is a problem for Masterman and for those concerned with the risks posed by the media. The question educators need to ask, however, is: does this mean the INDEPENDENT MEDIA, YOUTH AGENCY, AND THE PROMISE OF MEDIA EDUCATION 163 critique of central power formations within mainstream media culture is no longer effective? Such work is a touchstone in an activist, democratically oriented, media education project. In response to this question, then, I want to argue the answer here must be no. Deconstruction has long aimed to identify the boundaries and limits within which meaning is produced in society. It develops counter narratives that map inequitable forms of power (often having to do with issues of race, class, gender, or sexuality) as practices of hope. Deconstruction thus attempts to suggest a sense of the possible that promises a time – yet‐to‐come – when inequities and injustices will no longer exist. No one today wants to be caste as naïve about opportunities for achieving such objectives. Yet to hold forth to these dreams, without falling prey to a Pollyanna‐ish view of the future, is possible if educators can locate examples of such transformative acts in the culture at large. Here, then, is where I shall return to The Take because it is just this kind of lesson the film offers, not only because of the story it tells about meaningful systemic change taking place in Argentina, but, just as importantly, because of the way this story is told. At the centre of The Take is the recovered factories movement, a loosely networked association that has sustained more than 200 factories and 15,000 jobs set to disappear in Argentina’s post‐2001 nightmare. Driving the movement’s development are workers who refused to accept “the corroding machinery of … empty factories and the deteriorating health of their children” (Magnani, 2003 para. 6). Against such a future, workers formed legally recognized co‐ops and used expropriation measures, granted by the national government, and other financial tools, including leveraging salaries owed to them to buy out former companies, to take control of their workplaces and communities. Not all these efforts went uncontested, but The Take makes clear that the recovered factories network has spawned real success and promise for those thrown into chaos by a policy regime drunk on the illusions of unregulated globalization. At the same time, I note that The Take is not naïve about the possibilities for structural, systematic change in complex personal, historical, and political‐economic situations. Directors Klein and Lewis clearly choose to portray the contradictions such change brings about. 164 STUART R. POYNTZ For instance, they seem to ask: does the cooperative structure of the recovered factories movement really amount to a step beyond a market‐
based model of economic development, or, is this simply a more humane, community‐friendly form of capitalism? They also draw particular attention to families and the ways historical transformation gets caught up in the allegiances of some to past political formations (for instance, the optimism and nostalgia embodied in Argentina’s Peronist history), while providing others (such as Matté, the new Zanon Ceramics factory worker in the video) with novel conceptions of a political future. This is to say that critical acts are never simple or uncontested. But they can be and, in the case of Argentina, are possible. By the end of The Take, viewers are left wondering whether a cooperative movement largely organized around industrial factories (but not only – it also involves formerly privately run schools and health clinics) has the economic staying power to survive in an age of “flexible production” (Harvey, 1989). Whether it does or not, the film gives reason to believe that the movement’s counter‐hegemonic network includes the kind of flexible organization that gives cause for hope. Just as importantly for my purposes, this story is also not just a sign of protest, an ironic culture jam against globalization. It is instead a story about what is being done to reconfigure the socio‐economic order of globalization to ensure this order serves people, rather than just profits. In telling this story, the film is playful (e.g., an election ad announcing the return of former president, Carlos Menem, who presided over the country’s economic collapse, is especially sharp), driven by a narrative and historical conflict (in particular, the election battle between the President, Nestor Kirshner, and Menem), and anchored around compelling, genuinely emotional characters (e.g., the soft spoken Freddy and his young family). It includes a sound‐scape that is metaphorically interesting without being emotionally pandering, and visually, the camera is used to highlight the devastation of closed factories, while also providing striking images that offer levity in an otherwise serious story. For all these reasons, I suggest this is a film that young people can engage with. This is the hope of the filmmakers and the film’s distributor (Canada’s National Film Board), and after spending a decade working as a media educator, I believe it can succeed (personal communication, Al INDEPENDENT MEDIA, YOUTH AGENCY, AND THE PROMISE OF MEDIA EDUCATION 165 Parsons, December 15, 2004). The Take is not protective in a paternalistic way, but it does highlight the risks and dangers unregulated policies and practices of globalization pose for families, communities, and nations. It offers a sense of romanticism about the possibilities for social, political, and economic change, but it also speaks with a note of skepticism about the difficulties in bringing about such change. In this way, it represents a resource for a more totally liberating media education curriculum; not a curriculum beholden to a modernist and now unrealistic view of revolutionary change, but one that envisions democratic activism as part of the work of media educators. Such a curriculum is likely to alienate some students because it challenges how many of them engage with the media. Yet, as a set of counter narratives, media education really only begins a meaningful collaborative learning process by disorienting students’ typical media engagements. Succeeding in this work requires that media educators pay heed to what Masterman (1985) long ago noted is “[t]he acid test of any media education program: [it must ensure students] are critical in their own use and understanding of the media when the teacher is not there” (pp. 24‐25). Working toward such goals, however, need not constrain educators’ desire to map how domination operates through media representations, nor their need to find media practices intent on furthering new democratic possibilities. It just means doing this work in a way that ensures young people are part of and sometimes leaders in the project. ENCOUNTERING DOMINANT POWER FORMATIONS THROUGH PRODUCTION On this final point, there is a powerful slogan in The Take – OCCUPY, RESIST, PRODUCE – that refers to the way worker cooperatives have taken charge of dilapidated factories in Argentina in the post‐2001 era. In a sense, Klein and Lewis’s film is an example of this strategy. The directors themselves were broadcasters – in Lewis’s case on CBC Newsworld’s CounterSpin – and media critics – most famously in Klein’s book, No Logo (2000) – before traveling to Argentina to produce a film about the possibilities for social, political, and economic change. Where I have used The Take thus far to locate a productive tension that is part of media literacy’s critical potential, it is fitting that I extend this discussion 166 STUART R. POYNTZ a step further by unpacking a related tension in student production work. Such work is where young people most clearly express their active agency, so if educators are to imagine media education’s potential, understanding how critical moments surface in student‐made media is central to the promise and possibilities of the field. Importantly, questions on this are central to divisions between protectionism and models of preparation. Those concerned with the risks the mainstream media poses to young people, for instance, are often thought to see student‐made media as merely imitative of an industrial Hollywood form. Buckingham (2000b) has accused Masterman of this,3 and yet if Masterman notes the way early production work can reproduce the pop cultural forms children and young people regularly see, he has always measured these concerns against a larger conception of the way student‐made media enables youthful voices and confidence to flourish.4 More recently, Carmen Luke (2002) has articulated a similar view, the gist of which is that student productions must always be conceived in relation to dominant practices of media representation. Developing competencies with new media forms promotes self‐
expression while preparing young people to operate in the current media environment (Buckingham 2003; von Feilitzen, 2000, 2004). It empowers and strengthens youth to use and listen to each other’s voices, and it also encourages educators to turn to students when producing media about risk behaviours for young people5 (Buckingham & Harvey, 2001; Buckingham, Niesyto & Fisherkeller, 2003; Goldfarb, 2002). Through these developments student production work fuels a bond between youth and their communities by allowing them to investigate and engage more fully with the lives of those who matter to them. Importantly, when this happens, however, it becomes clear that the critical potential in student videos surfaces inside a tension between the value of this work as self‐expression and its meaning in relation to dominant social and political formations. This is so because when anyone represents and articulates visions about his or her community, this process necessarily brings them into relationships with power dynamics that organize and limit those communities. To conclude I want to highlight this point in relation to student‐made media by discussing a video produced by a group of high school students I worked with while INDEPENDENT MEDIA, YOUTH AGENCY, AND THE PROMISE OF MEDIA EDUCATION 167 Education Director at Pacific Cinémathèque. YOUTH MEDIA PRODUCTION Meg’s Father is a short, ten‐minute project that testifies to the impact video production can generate as a form of self‐expression for the video maker, her production colleagues, and youth audiences. It also demonstrates how projects seemingly about self‐expression bring young people into relationships with power formations that students need to theorize and understand. In these instances, two analytical moments – one about the development of competencies in telling stories, and a second about the relation of these stories to hegemonic formations – come together. When this happens productive opportunities surface that allow media educators to orient young people toward the larger democratic possibilities within critical media literacy. Aiming toward these objectives defines what I see as the purpose of media education. Meg’s Father began as the student producer/narrator sat in her English class. As the narration explains, the teacher asked the students to write a story from what at first sight appears a “seemingly unremarkable image or scene.” To make the idea clear, by sheer coincidence, the teacher told the story of a man known to the producer/narrator. The teacher had observed this figure on occasion “riding or pushing a bike on Vancouver’s cannery row,” near the railway tracks in the north east side of town. The area is part of what’s known as “Canada’s poorest postal code.” As the narrator reveals, the man removed himself from the mainstream of society as a protest against the overwhelming materialism of day‐to‐day life. He lives in a self‐built shelter in the bush surrounding the waterfront and has so for three years. This man is also the video maker’s father. What the rest of the story manages to capture is the unique closeness and inevitable divide that characterizes their relationship. It does this with a remarkable degree of strength and openness, which in part explains why the video has been screened before hundreds of people since 2002. To be clear, during these screenings, it is not the father’s arguments against materialism and consumer culture that succeed. The video instead strikes a chord with audiences because it reveals certain boundaries in society. These boundaries become visible when the 168 STUART R. POYNTZ daughter’s mainstream life and her father’s alternative life are shown to be both intimately connected and unavoidably separate. In the video, the father’s world has contiguity with a more ordinary life, it remains alongside that life, but it is also forever outside that life. Given this, it is probably no surprise that when young people watch Meg’s Father, they are often left silent. They are not bored or uninterested; rather, they talk about being confused (personal communication, Patti Fraser, December 15, 2004). They are uncertain about how to react to a man many teenagers usually ignore or disparage. Meg’s Father makes this difficult to do, and because of this, I think what audiences experience in their responses is the difficulty young people encounter when asked to confront dominant social and political power formations. Such a confrontation was not the intention of the filmmaker; she simply wanted to tell a story about her family. In doing so, however, she addressed and employed power relations that mark boundaries in society, boundaries having to do with hegemonic and counter‐hegemonic notions of subjectivity, agency, and difference. On the one hand, Meg’s Father engages with these notions by challenging and refusing the ways our culture pathologizes those who reject a mainstream, middle‐class life. The video does not propose young people or adults emulate this life, but it refuses to slight or dismiss those who do. The story, instead, traces the divisions that are irrevocably a part of how two lives are tied together. These divisions are manageable for father and daughter, and because of this, the video confuses young audiences who are so used to seeing marginal people as pathologically weak, pitiful, or irrelevant. Society often represents those who reject or are unable to participate in a middle‐class life of bourgeois accumulation as failures. Here, the father is not a failure. Instead, he is an active subject of tremendous intelligence and endurance, one who lives in touch with his daughter’s life, just not inside that life. In this way, Meg’s Father challenges how audiences engage with people who live without material abundance. Society rarely recognizes and respects such non‐conforming, alternative experiences, and because Meg’s Father does, it transgresses the boundaries of what subjectivity and agency are understood to mean in our society. When young audiences respond with degrees of confusion to the INDEPENDENT MEDIA, YOUTH AGENCY, AND THE PROMISE OF MEDIA EDUCATION 169 video, it is essential that educators use this uncertainty to frame critically how Meg’s Father contests dominant conceptions of a full and vital life. In doing this they productively work that tension I spoke of earlier between student self‐expression and the relationship of this expression to hegemonic forms of power. Thereby, they expand young people’s agency. One way to do this is by using videos like Meg’s Father to challenge how youth create meaningful and memorable characters in their productions. When used in this way, young audiences begin to consider how the father and the father/daughter relationship defy stereotypes. Asking students to explain what is unique about these two people, why they stand out in their minds, and how this relates to the way social “outcasts” are understood, gives young people a way to unpack the confusion they feel after watching the video (personal communication, Patti Fraser, December 15, 2004). Students’ responses to these questions can then feed into how young people generate new characters in their own work. Of course not all these future videos will follow the challenging path exemplified by Meg’s Father; but the more young people watch original work by their peers, the more they aim toward similar kinds of creative expression. As students reconsider their own uncertain responses to the people in Meg’s Father, in other words, they reflect on and begin to see how social stereotypes structure their understanding of what it means to live a meaningful life. By this, one peer‐produced documentary acts as a catalyst that can expand how young people understand possibilities for their own and other’s agency and engagement with the world. To be sure, Meg’s Father also inadvertently reproduces an exclusion that reinforces power relations currently alive in society. It does this by foregrounding the power of individual agency while omitting the social frameworks through which that agency is made possible. This is a problem in a hyper‐capitalist, consumer‐driven culture where individualism is privileged as the locus of action to the exclusion of the network of social relationships that make any sort of agency possible. Educators know that the actions of young people never exist in a social vacuum, and yet, unintentionally, this is precisely the notion present in Meg’s Father. Although the video traces the remarkable relationship between a daughter and her father, educators will recognize that the 170 STUART R. POYNTZ daughter’s experience depends on the support of other social networks – including family members, teachers, community members and institutions, and friends – that are part of her life. Evidence of these networks is not obviously apparent on screen. Instead, these networks are an absence in the story, an absence that nonetheless remains evident in the markings of happiness visible in the lives of those the audience sees. This takes nothing away from the video maker’s clear vitality and ability; yet such strength and competence are surely conceivable only in combination with a resourceful and dynamic community of support. Such a community is crucial to the video maker’s experience; by excluding this element, the video inadvertently focuses the viewer’s attention on individual agency – that of the daughter and her father – to the exclusion of the social networks essential for feeding the agency that exists in any young person’s life. By this, the video reinforces an ideological bias in society, a bias that excludes recognition of the larger social and political frameworks that make all lives possible. An effective way to move young people toward this analysis is by having them imagine the back‐story of the people we meet in Meg’s Father. The back‐story is a character’s history prior to the point where audiences meet him or her in a film. By having students write or role‐
play this history in relation to Meg’s Father, media educators encourage students to understand the larger social networks central to “Meg’s” life. Patti Fraser (former Script Supervisor, Pacific Cinémathèque) and I have had students produce such back‐stories when using the video as a tool to teach script development. This is an especially useful context because when young people do this work in preparation for writing and producing their own videos, they often (but not always) approach their documentary subjects with a different degree of attention and respect. Youth are better able to map the resources and people lying behind the lives they will eventually present on screen. They consider the kinds of support structures a young person might need to be a courageous and active agent in the world. Most importantly, they become aware that such agency rarely happens of its own accord; rather, it is facilitated through the community of support teenagers draw on to become confident, vital actors. Through a non‐patronizing process, in other words, young people come to recognize what and who is excluded from INDEPENDENT MEDIA, YOUTH AGENCY, AND THE PROMISE OF MEDIA EDUCATION 171 the story; by this, media educators are able to locate the social networks everyone relies on to be effective and in control of their lives. These examples from Meg’s Father exemplify how the critical possibilities of young people’s work exists at the point of a productive tension; a tension between self‐expression and the way this self‐
expression brings young people into relationships with dominant social and political formations. It is not enough, in other words, to suggest that the critical moment in youth produced work is registered in the ways these productions allow new, young voices to flourish. This is of course vital; but if media educators are to take full advantage of the opportunities this work affords for developing young people as critical, sophisticated and active citizens, it is also crucial that students learn to identify how their productions inadvertently challenge and engage with power. By doing this, media educators work with the tensions in youth media as part of a pedagogy of hope. Such a pedagogy is not naïve; rather it locates the promise of classroom‐based media education in the critical voices and practices alive throughout society. Dominant and formative media practices limit what is possible in society. These practices are certainly more complex than in the past, and so if teaching young people how to deconstruct media remains important, educators know this is insufficient as a critical media literacy strategy. In part, the institution of the protection/preparation divide is driven by these developments. I argue, however, that both The Take and Meg’s Father are but two examples suggestive of how the democratic potential of critical media education can still develop by working the productive tensions arising when educators protect and prepare students. When this happens, a much more compelling and effective understanding of critical practice inserts itself into the field. And so it becomes possible again to envision how media pedagogy addresses society’s promise of democratic citizenship and change. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank Deirdre Kelly and Michelle Stack for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. I also want to acknowledge two educators – Jim Crescenzo and Corin Browne – whose work with young people continues to inform my own understanding of what the promise of media education can be. 172 STUART R. POYNTZ NOTES Buckingham is of course hesitant about abandoning “the ʹmodernistʹ project of cultural criticismʺ and yet he remains equally cautious about theorizing the place of normative claims in the work media educators do with young people (Buckingham, 2003, p. 171). Because of this, I suggest his project fits within a tradition of liberal education that also draws widely on the influences of postmodernism. 2 In the field of visual culture, others (Rogoff, 1998) have addressed this problem from a different perspective, suggesting that our “field of vision” now increasingly replicates an experience alike what Derrida described through his notion of différance. “Derrida’s conceptualization of différance takes the form of a critique of the binary logic in which every element of meaning constitution is locked into signification in relation to the other…” (p. 25). But today the visual life of the mainstream media articulates “the continuous displacement of meaning in the field of vision and the visible” (p. 25). Which is to say, we no longer see media as distinct languages or forms and so, in this sense, the media operationalizes the logic within Derrida’s critical methodology. 3 Buckingham (2000b) suggests, for instance, that Masterman understands student production work as imitative and imitation is “seen to be an inherently unthinking process … through which the ‘dominant ideologies’ of media products [are] simply internalized and reproduced. An emphasis on student production [is] therefore seen to be at odds with the radical political mission of media education, and its struggle against the ideological hegemony of capitalism” (p. 221). 4 For instance, more than two decades ago Masterman (1983) argued his notion of critical reading “needs to be complemented by practical video work, the production of media materials for students themselves, and by the use of simulations through which a range of alternative codings can be explored” (pp. 11‐12). 5 Many organizations are involved in this work in both Canada and the US, but, in particular, see the work of Pacific Cinémathèque’s Education Department (www.cinematheque.bc.ca/education) and the Access to Media Education Society (www.accesstomedia.org), both located in Vancouver. REFERENCES 1
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Miroeff (Ed.), The visual culture reader (pp. 24‐36). New York, NY: Routledge. von Feilitzen, C. (2000). Media education, childrenʹs participation and democracy. In C. von Feilitzen & U. Carlsson (Eds.), Children and the media: Image, education, participation (Yearbook 1999, pp. 15‐29). Goteborg, Sweden: UNESCO International Clearinghouse on Children and Violence on Screen. von Feilitzen, C. (2004). Promote or protect? Perspectives on media literacy and media regulation. In C. von Feilitzen & U. Carlsson (Eds.), Promote or protect? Perspectives on media literacy and media regulation (Yearbook 2003, pp. 9‐21). Goteborg: International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media. Educating in an Era of Orwellian Spin: Critical Media Literacy in the Classroom Paul Orlowski Canadians live in a world of mega‐spin where public relations corporate lobbyists play an increasingly larger role in news‐making. To resist this trend, I have studied political ideology to understand the relationship between corporate media and systems of social, economic, and political power, and their hegemonic function, and indicate the bias inherent in the media, a contention that assumes the epistemological position that all knowledge is socially constructed. I demonstrate how preservice education students can acquire this understanding by reframing political discourse from different ideological perspectives, and how teachers can integrate critical media literacy into high‐school social studies courses. Key words: social studies, teacher education, ideology critique Les Canadiens vivent dans un monde où lobbyistes et spécialistes des relations publiques d’entreprises jouent un rôle de plus en plus prépondérant dans les nouvelles qui leur sont présentées. Soucieux de résister à cette tendance, l’auteur analyse l’idéologie politique en vue de mettre en lumière la relation entre les médias et les systèmes de pouvoir sociopolitique et économique et leur rôle hégémonique. Il fait en outre ressortir la partialité des médias, une affirmation qui repose sur le principe épistémologique selon lequel le développement de toute connaissance est de nature sociale. L’auteur montre comment des étudiants en sciences de l’éducation peuvent se sensibiliser à cette réalité en resituant le discours politique au sein de diverses perspectives idéologiques et comment les enseignants peuvent intégrer l’initiation aux médias et la promotion de l’esprit critique dans les cours de sciences humaines au secondaire. Mots clés : sciences humaines, formation à l’enseignement, critique des idéologies _________________ CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 29, 1 (2006): 176‐198 EDUCATING IN AN ERA OF ORWELLIAN SPIN 177 Teaching by its very nature is a political act, and teaching media literacy is especially so. Knowledge is socially constructed, of course, including what is in the curriculum (Apple, 1990). The issues the media focus on, the language used to frame the debates, and what is omitted from these debates are also socially constructed. It is my contention that the general public in Canada has a limited understanding of the role of the media in influencing and controlling discourse, particularly around important social, political, and economic issues. The changing North American political climate, particularly with the rise of a corporate conservatism in the United States, presses upon me the urgency for educators to help students understand powerful social forces and the role that the media play in all of this. Through my experience as a teacher of high‐school and teacher‐education social studies courses, I have found that ideology critique has been a most useful concept to illuminate the media’s hegemonic function. For 18 of the past 20 years, I have taught in primarily working‐class schools in rural British Columbia and Vancouver’s multicultural east end. I am currently teaching social studies in a high school made up of mostly privileged middle‐class students, a school that Jean Anyon (1981) would characterize as “affluent professional,” located in Vancouver’s west side. As well, for the past six years I have been an instructor of social studies methods in the Teacher Education Program at the University of British Columbia. Six of the courses I have taught there have been to preservice social studies teachers. A BRIEF DISCUSSION ON CRITICAL MEDIA LITERACY In Media Education, Buckingham (2003) has mapped out the evolution of the field in the British context. He stated that the starting point for media education began with Culture and Environment: The Training of Critical Awareness (Leavis & Thompson, 1933), which made a case to resist popular cultural forms emanating from the United States and the British working class. In other words, their project was to protect the literary heritage of British high culture. Cultural studies came to the fore in the 1950s, challenging this elitist view, positing that culture was much more inclusive and central to everyday life. By the 1980s, the central tenet of media education had evolved into what Buckingham refers to as 178 PAUL ORLOWSKI “demystification,” in which the “fundamental aim … was to reveal the constructed nature of media texts, and thereby show how media representations reinforced the ideologies of dominant groups within society” (p. 8). Buckingham further argued that teaching students to become critical of media messages is flawed unless they are also taught to be creative and engage in media production (p. 122). Although I agree with this assertion, I am not able to include student participation in media production where I teach. My conception of media literacy (linked as it is to social studies and its purpose to foster critical thinking, resistance, and action) solely focuses on the hegemonic role of corporate media. In News, Public Relations and Power, Cottle (2003) mapped the media education field somewhat differently than Buckingham. He noted that much of media education is concerned with traditional liberal democratic concerns of diversity and voices of dissent. Once again, I agree with such concerns. Yet, I consider the major goals of media literacy to be focused on what Cottle calls critical “media‐source interaction and participation” approaches (p. 7). One approach, the sociological paradigm, is concerned with how various sources consciously strive for a “definitional advantage” by utilizing media access, a point that is crucial for students to comprehend how dominant groups control discourse. By comparison, the cultural paradigm is focused on issues of representation and “symbolic power” (p. 7). Both of these critical paradigms assume the social construction of knowledge and the media’s relationship to “wider structures and systems of power” (p. 3). In this article, I make a case for the importance of educators to step up efforts of teaching for critical media literacy in the social studies classroom, particularly at this juncture in sociopolitical relations, a period that Cottle (2003) describes as “increasingly promotional times” (p. 3). Many of the examples I use are American, an obvious result of living in a country inundated with American sociopolitical news and viewpoints. A focus on political ideology is essential pedagogy for students to gain an understanding of the hegemonic function of corporate media. I am part of a significant number of educators who believe in the EDUCATING IN AN ERA OF ORWELLIAN SPIN 179 capacity of public education to help make a better world for everyone, a source of hope, a site where it is possible for the seeds of positive transformation to take root (Dewey, 1916; Freire, 1973; Sleeter & Grant, 1994). Critical media literacy fosters the transformative potential of public education; yet, many remain unconvinced that this is a role for the school. THE CASE FOR CRITICAL MEDIA LITERACY The two main sources of information in society are the mainstream corporate media and the public education system. Because Canadian corporate media have moved to the right, as some have suggested (e.g., Martin, 2003), I believe it is the responsibility of educators to provide a counterbalance by providing a venue for counter‐hegemonic discourses to take root and develop. It is imperative that, as a society, we support the Deweyian notion of developing a critically thinking citizenry capable of understanding what is in the best interests of everybody. Feinberg (1990) explains this “moral responsibility”: There is another important role that teachers need to play in helping to constitute a public; this involves their collective ability to identify conditions that inhibit children from developing the skills needed to become participants in a self‐
forming public. This role involves the recognition that as important as the school may be in helping some youngsters enter the public conversation, ultimately it is but one agent in the process of public renewal. The quality of other institutions, such as the media, the courts, and the instruments of income distribution, have much to do with the quality of public discussion. Thus, the responsibility of teachers must extend beyond the school to a collective critique of the institutions that contribute to the quality of the public‐forming process. (p. 83, my emphasis) Feinberg is calling for teachers to develop students’ analytical skills around the ways the media influences the quality of public discourse and, in many cases, controls it. He is taking sides in the old debate around the role of the school: to maintain the status quo or to transform it? The current situation with the Canadian corporate media provides a great sense of urgency to Feinberg’s appeal. In Media Think, Winter (2002) makes a powerful case that the concentration of Canadian media ownership to a shrinking group of 180 PAUL ORLOWSKI powerful corporate entities has resulted in a blatant shift of the media toward championing the interests of the elite by a consistent and constant repetition of hegemonic discourses. In fact, the concentration of media ownership so easily marginalizes counter‐hegemonic discourses. Winter bases his notion of media think on what George Orwell, writing in the 1940s, referred to as the prevailing orthodoxy. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right‐thinking people will accept without question … . Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals. (Orwell, cited in Winter, 2002, p. xxvi) According to Winter, Orwell made it clear that hegemonic discourses were entrenched because of the concentration of media ownership. Winter claims that the corporate media have applied this Orwellian orthodoxy to a massive list of topics pertinent to Canadian social relations: free trade, feminism, national debt, tax cuts, various wars, First Nations issues, labour unions, poverty, and protesters (p. xxvii). Buckingham (2003) contended that the media have overcome the family, church, and school to become the dominant socializing influence in society. In other words, the “media are embedded in the textures and routines of everyday life” (p. 5). Vancouver is home to the most concentrated newspaper ownership in the country. The Winnipeg‐based CanWest Global Corporation owns both the Vancouver Sun and Province newspapers, as well as one of two national newspapers, and several local papers. In fact, CanWest Global owns 11 of the 20 largest papers in Greater Vancouver (www.ccna.ca/ ownership), and television and radio outlets in the region. CanWest Global trumpets the interests of big business, Israel, Christianity, and a socially conservative United States. Identical editorials with this conservative bias often appear in many CanWest newspapers across the country. In comparison to its overt ideology, CanWest Global includes progressive journalism to an increasingly miniscule degree. In Rich Media, Poor Democracy, McChesney (1999) argued that the media have become a powerful anti‐democratic force in the United States and in EDUCATING IN AN ERA OF ORWELLIAN SPIN 181 other Western nations, an assertion that is becoming true of Canada. In addition, and mirroring developments in the United States (see Lakoff, 2004; Mahoney, 2005) Canadian “think tanks” like the Fraser Institute and the C. D. Howe Institute, which exist primarily through corporate and wealthy individual support, promote neoliberal and conservative discourses through their publications and through the CanWest Global media empire. In fact, the corporate backers of the Fraser Institute include the ownership of the media giant in Canada, CanWest Global, which sometimes hires Fraser Institute staff to write for its newspapers (Winter, 1997). A few examples of how the Fraser Institute influences the public discourse on social issues illuminates this process. Communications professor Donald Gutstein (2005) exposed a Fraser Institute division, known as CanStats, as another pro‐industry lobby group that purports to serve the public good. Even the moniker CanStats is an Orwellian twist on the much‐respected StatsCan organization. Whereas StatsCan is a long‐standing federal government initiative, Gutstein asserts that CanStats “is an American‐inspired organization with an American director, an American agenda, advisors from the [arch‐conservative] American Enterprise Institute and a Canadian target audience.” Gutstein further contended that CanStats uses pseudo‐science to twist findings in favour of industry. Their position on the contentious debate in support of B.C. fish farms demonstrates their anti‐environmental agenda. The Fraser Institute has also been engaged in neoliberal attacks on the public education system for close to 30 years. They routinely publish their Report Card on BC Schools in the CanWest Global newspapers. These report cards tend to pit one school against another in competition based on academic performance on standardized tests. Critics of the Fraser Institute’s work claim that “the Fraser Institute thinks that public schools should be rewarded because they happen to be in an affluent neighbourhood” (Repo 2005, p. 24). The Fraser Institute highlights the merit of the private school system over the public system, a smokescreen for what Repo says boils down to the measure of the “socioeconomic intake of the school” (p. 24). Although this program might be beneficial to these students, Repo states that “purpose [of this report] is to act as propaganda for spending public money to send students to private 182 PAUL ORLOWSKI schools” (p. 25). Indeed, this situation serves to at least partially explain why Canadians have witnessed the significant swing to the right in press coverage that Martin (2003) described. It also points to the oft‐repeated conservative claim that the media is too liberal to be nothing but a myth. A recall of the dominant discourses that we have all been subjected to in recent years because of the media’s practice of manufacturing consent should be enough to dispel any notions of media objectivity. Winter (2002) stated that during the 1980s, the media supported the Progressive Conservative government’s drive and corporate desire for free trade; in the early 1990s, once free trade was secured, a deficit hysteria appeared. Winter contended that this manufactured fear of government spending provided the impetus for “reducing the role of government in society, increasing unemployment, driving down wages, emasculating welfare programs, undermining public healthcare and public education, and otherwise attacking the young, poor, and downtrodden” (p. xxvii). Winter argued that the media conspired to manufacture consent around the next issue: globalization, which has provided the green light to lower the corporate tax rates. Laxer (1998) has pointed out that working‐class people across the country have had their lives significantly disrupted by this agenda of free trade, debt reduction, cuts to social programs, and globalization. THE MEDIA IN AN ERA OF MEGA‐SPIN We need to understand our particular historical moment as one of what I will call mega‐spin. Spin is one of the most effective mystifying hegemonic strategies in society. A group of British scholars explains spin as the power of persuasion coupled with some combination of rhetoric and propaganda. The term ‘spin’ is conventionally used to refer to the process and products of purposively managing information in order to present institutions, individuals, policies, practices and/or ideas in a favourable light and thereby mobilize support for them. Attempts to manage news and political communications are not new. (Gewirtz, Dickson, & Power, 2004, p. 321) Much has been written about bias and propaganda in both state‐owned EDUCATING IN AN ERA OF ORWELLIAN SPIN 183 and corporate‐owned media sources for well over a century. (George Orwell’s prevailing orthodoxy, mentioned earlier, is a sophisticated conceptual framework that encompasses media bias and its function as a tool for propaganda.) So why have spin and its derivative term, spin doctor, become so contentious in recent decades? Part of the reason lies in what spin doctors actually are: “Political advisors responsible for policy presentation and information management” (Gewirtz, Dickson, & Power, 2004, p. 324); they are political ideologues. Moreover, for the past two decades or so we have been witnessing the “rise of the ‘public relations state’” (Deacon & Golding, 1994, cited in Cottle, 2003, p. 6). In fact, according to Davis (2003), “[p]rofessional public relations has been a developing profession for most of the twentieth century” (p. 28). In fact its growth has been exponential since the 1970s. According to the industry’s figures, worldwide revenues of the top 50 public relations firms tripled between 1990 and 2001, rising from $1.1 billion to $3.7 billion (Council of Public Relations Firms, 2005). We are living in a time in which bias, or spin, in its commonly understood form has been hyperbolized to grotesque proportions. Lakoff (2004) points out recent legislation that the first George W. Bush administration passed. He has claimed that The Clear Skies Act, despite its name, enables polluting corporations to increase the amount of toxins they produce. Likewise, The Healthy Forests Act allows for more forests to be clear cut, some within formerly protected parklands. As a further example of current spin, numerous educators have criticized President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act for leaving behind too many marginalized, underprivileged children (Meier & Wood, 2004). Large segments of the American public, at least in the short term, have acceded to these regressive pieces of Republican legislation because of the power of language. In recent decades, American conservatives have come to exploit their understanding of the power of language to their benefit, beginning in 1980 with the presidency of Ronald Reagan to the second term of George W. Bush. The success of strategic conservative use of language and framing of social and economic issues in the corporate media has caught liberals and radicals off‐guard. The billions of dollars emanating from ultra‐wealthy American conservatives to their 184 PAUL ORLOWSKI think tanks have given them a considerable advantage in these ideological struggles (Lakoff, 2004). The shift to mega spin has reached new heights (or lows) with the recent finding that the Bush administration has been engaged in a “political payola scandal” in which the U.S. Department of Education paid influential journalist Armstrong Williams $240,000 to write columns in support of the controversial No Child Left Behind Act (Goldenberg, 2005). No evidence that I am aware of suggests Canadian politicians actually pay journalists to write articles in support of certain policies. Yet, Canadian conservatives are using a few other bold mega‐spin strategies to affect social relations (see Gutstein, 2005; Repo, 2005). As a case in point, the 2005 throne speech from Victoria, contained the phrase that the current Liberal neoconservative provincial government will work “to lead the world in sustainable environmental management, with the best air and water quality, and the best fisheries management, bar none” (Tieleman, 2005, p. 14). Yet, for the past three years, this same government has promoted the use of coal‐fired electricity plants, increased the number of polluting fish farms, and pushed to end the moratorium on off‐shore oil drilling. It is clear that the mega‐spin strategy has appeared in Canada. CRITICAL MEDIA LITERACY AND TEACHING ABOUT IDEOLOGY In teaching about ideology and media, educators need to be acutely aware of the heterogeneity of values within their classrooms. What makes classrooms particularly difficult terrain for progressive educators is that many people consider conservative values and beliefs as common sense precisely because they figure so prominently in the discourses that mainstream media use. Anyone seen as challenging those values is vulnerable to the charge of having an agenda. From my experience, however, teaching about the concepts of positionality and political ideology can offer protection from these charges. The first stage in the process of teaching media literacy is to help students become aware of their own social location or positionality. My use of the term positionality involves the idea that people from differing social backgrounds often have different ways of perceiving the world, constructing knowledge, and making meaning. In other words, each EDUCATING IN AN ERA OF ORWELLIAN SPIN 185 individual’s social positionality is influenced by the social groups to which they belong, either by birth or by choice. A person’s experience is central to their positionality. As well, one’s positionality is always in relation to others. A person’s experience combines with other attributes, either ascribed or socially constructed, to create their shifting positionality. Their positionality, in turn, often influences the political ideologies that filter their ways of seeing. I make students in both my high‐school classroom and teacher‐education classrooms well aware of the ideologies that influence me. They understand why, as the child of working‐class immigrant parents who benefited from growing up in a relatively strong social‐welfare state, I am concerned with the current trend toward privatization. I am upfront with them because I feel it important that students should understand the importance of taking a stance on complex social issues, rather than attempting to appear neutral. In my classrooms, I expect each student to have some understanding of the three main political ideologies that emanated out of modernity: liberalism, socialism, and conservatism. I make students aware that radical ideology in Canada today has evolved from its socialist roots to social democracy. That said, the NDP has members who ascribe to both of these ideologies (Whitehorn, 1992). Students are expected to understand the ideological positions on both the social scale and the economic scale posited by conservatives, liberals, and the radical left. The distinction between the economic and social spectrum around political ideology arose after a conversation I had with a teaching colleague almost 20 years ago. After I mentioned that I considered the Vancouver Sun to be too right wing, he responded, “Well, lots of other people say it is much too left wing. So they must be doing their job in a fairly balanced way.” The subsequent discussion made it clear to me that although I was lamenting the newspaper’s position around the economy and distribution of wealth, my teacher colleague was commenting only on social issues. This realization led me to develop unit plans based on distinguishing between the ideological differences on both the economic and the social scales. The two social cornerstones of liberalism are democracy and the emancipation of the individual. Inclusion is at the core of what drives 186 PAUL ORLOWSKI liberalism socially. Over time, liberalism has been successful at developing civil, political, and consumer rights for more and more groups of people. Laxer (1998) argued that many current liberal governments are increasingly adopting neoliberal, laissez faire economic policies of reduced government intervention. On the social scale, socialists agree with the liberal drive for inclusivity. Even in its original form, socialism articulated a vision for a socially just world in the same vein as its liberal predecessor. Yet, as Marx (1867) pointed out in the first volume of Capital, from a broader, historical perspective, the liberal idea of freedom is unattainable for most people within capitalism because of the basic contradiction that workers cannot be free when they are vulnerable to the capitalist tendency to exploit them and sell products at exorbitant prices. For Karl Marx, liberalism’s major flaw was its emphasis on the individual as the most important unit in society. In the Marxist interpretation of the social relations of the mid‐nineteenth century, social class was the crucial aspect of a person’s identity because of the great disparities in wealth and opportunities with which the working classes had to contend. Over the course of the twentieth century, a colour‐blind racial discourse became part of liberalism (Frankenberg, 1993; Lewis, 2001), and with this appeared another cornerstone of the ideology, namely, meritocracy. Meritocracy refers to the social system whereby individuals reach a social and economic status commensurate with their individual talents and their hard work. This term also explains why some individuals “excel and others flounder” (Lewis, 2001, p. 799). Although the concept of meritocracy reinforces the inequalities in society, its existence makes people unconscious of any notion of privilege. In other words, meritocracy works as a hegemonic device. In Canada and in much of Western Europe today, socialism and liberalism have spawned ideological progeny of their own, namely, social democracy. Social democrats espouse liberal values on the social spectrum. In economics, they accept capitalism but support much stronger laws to help those who are falling through its cracks than their liberal colleagues. Conservatives believe in “the idea of an organic and hierarchical society, in which people knew their place yet are related to each other as part of a totality” (Schwarzmantel, 1998, p. 110). In other words, tradition EDUCATING IN AN ERA OF ORWELLIAN SPIN 187 and progress are directly at odds with one another; conservatives cherish the former while fearing the latter. Kincheloe (1999) has pointed out that conservatives want schools to promote “the uncritical acquisition of a neutral body of knowledge” (p. 79). Thus, conservatives are more likely to support the positivist notion of school knowledge being produced in a value‐free, objective manner. Throughout the history of liberalism, socialism, and social democracy, conservative ideologues have fought against every progressive social and economic breakthrough (Lakoff, 2004; McGovern, 2002). It is important for students to understand that progressive transformations in western society have appeared not accidentally but as the result of intense struggles. On the economic scale, conservatives have accepted the meritocratic principle from liberalism. This strategy makes sense today because support for meritocracy enables racial and class hierarchies to remain intact, without facing the charge of racism or economic privilege. As a corollary, most conservatives support the pull‐yourself‐up‐by‐the‐
bootstraps philosophy. In other words, they do not believe in government aid in the form of social programs, believing that such programs lead to dependence, lack of self‐esteem, and lack of morality. Lakoff (2004) has explored the logic that links conservative positions on the social and economic scales. Conservatives believe that “a good person, a moral person, is someone who is disciplined enough to be obedient, to learn what is right, do what is right and not do what is wrong, and to pursue her self‐interest to prosper and become self‐
reliant” (p. 8). In other words, children who learn internal discipline, best learned from a strict father figure are better able to pursue their self‐
interest and become both prosperous and independent. Such a philosophy has a clear connection between patriarchy and issues of wealth distribution. It goes a long way in explaining what has been a perplexing problem for progressives for several decades: that working‐
class people often vote against their own best interests (Frank, 2004). These somewhat brief descriptions comprise the basic tenets of each of the major political ideologies in Canada. I expect my students, then, to determine how ideology influences the work of journalists. Luke (1999) explains one premise of my approach to teaching media literacy: “[W]e need to evaluate narrative structures, language, and images in use across 188 PAUL ORLOWSKI media; to interpret meaning for different purposes; and to evaluate what is trustworthy and reliable information” (p. 622). In other words, students need to comprehend the bias or spin that is inherent in all forms of media, a contention that assumes the epistemological position that all knowledge is socially constructed. By corollary, all knowledge serves the interests of some groups of people, often to the disadvantage of other groups of people. Put succinctly, all knowledge is ideological and, therefore, has political implications. They come to understand how the media has a hegemonic function. IDEOLOGY AS AN ANALYTICAL TOOL FOR MEDIA LITERACY The way in which I help students understand how ideology affects the media and, by corollary, social relations, differs somewhat depending on the classroom level. The preservice teachers get a more in‐depth grounding in political ideology; the high‐school students get a slow methodical approach that takes most of the school year. For several years, I taught about political ideology in Vancouver’s predominantly working‐class, multicultural, east end high schools by using the binary of the social and economic value system. I listed on the blackboard the spectrum for both social issues and economic issues of conservative, liberal, and radical positions. The list remained on the black board and, as they read an article, students placed the position advocated by an individual or group on the appropriate spectrum. Eventually, students learned to talk about political elections, parties and value systems in a more sophisticated manner. Throughout the year, they had to analyze current newspaper articles of their choosing and present their analysis to the class. During a class discussion last year about media coverage of federal parties and platforms, I recall a 17‐year old Filipino student pointing to the spectrums while explaining, “My mother is a right‐wing conservative on the social scale – she’s pro‐life. But she’s left‐wing on the economic scale – she thinks the government should help out poor people. But there is no party that represents my mother’s views.” As an educator, I found success in the fact that this student diagnosed and articulated his mother’s political frustrations. Students demonstrate the degree to which they have become adept at explaining cultural struggles in ideological terms in their current EDUCATING IN AN ERA OF ORWELLIAN SPIN 189 events presentations. Each chooses an article from one of the mainstream newspapers or from an alternative news source, most of which come from the internet. The chosen article must address a cultural issue, namely, race, class, gender, sexuality, or war. Each student provides a one‐page written analysis to address issues of bias, ideology to show which groups benefit and which ones lose from the given perspective, as well as their thoughts about who was quoted and which excluded groups should have been quoted. Each student must also present his or her findings to the class with a four‐to‐five minute presentation. I provide the classes with the names and websites of the mainstream newspapers and of the alternative news sources. Some students choose only articles from mainstream sources, while others willingly, even enthusiastically, search the alternative sources. This has worked well, pedagogically speaking, because students often choose articles on similar topics – federal and provincial elections and American Middle East policy have been favourites – and the ideologies emanating from mainstream and alternative sources are not difficult to discern. These assignments offer students a framework in which to critique the article in terms of the ideological influences on the journalist, and in the process, allows them to develop an awareness of the ideologies influencing their own thinking, as well as how mainstream media often reflects the views of powerful interests. One example of a student deconstructing a Vancouver Sun article on panhandling demonstrated that she could connect the media to outside economic and political interests. The article, entitled “Aggressive beggars back off: Panhandling complaints are down since new law was passed; street people say the situation has improved,” was clearly supportive of the right‐wing B.C. government’s recent Safe Streets legislation (Ward, 2005, p. B1). This law allowed aggressive panhandlers and squeegee kids to be “handed fines ranging from $86 to $115.” After presenting a summary of the article, the student mentioned that all the people quoted supported this contentious law, including a “polite panhandler.” She also made reference to CanWest support for the economic and social agenda of the current neoconservative government, including its assault on welfare recipients and cuts to social programs. At the end of the presentation, a classmate added, “This [newspaper] chain 190 PAUL ORLOWSKI actually gave money to the Liberals for the last election.” This student analysis is precisely what Cottle (2003) argued for in media literacy classes (p. 3) – to have students make connections between the media and outside political and economic interests. During the ensuing class discussion, the student presenter and some of her classmates exhibited a critical analysis of the media by stressing how this article presents “panhandlers [only] from a business point of view,” with no mention of how “desperate homeless people are these days, especially after the cuts” to welfare. According to Cottle, these students were demonstrating an awareness of “how the news media … access and privilege elite ‘definitions of reality’ … [that] serve ruling hegemonic interests, legitimize social inequality and/or thwart moves to participatory democracy” (p. 5).1 Students have become quite adept at understanding the Orwellian spin inherent in commonly used media terms like labour flexibility (code for union‐busting and downsizing) and President Bush’s Right to Work legislation, which virtually allows for the elimination of the minimum wage (Winter, 2002, p. xvii). Indeed, when students challenge the language and the assumptions that many journalists use, they see how the hegemonic function of the media works in the interests of large corporations and other privileged groups. The recent anti‐feminism backlash has also been at the centre of the way I use the media in both educational settings. The lesson plans on ideology are successful in helping students understand conservative support for patriarchy, as well as the different kinds of feminism – liberal, socialist, and radical – supported by progressives. Female conservative journalists are becoming a ubiquitous entity in North American newspapers. To demonstrate media backlash against feminism in my high‐school classroom, I have used several articles by National Post columnist Donna Laframboise. A few examples are “Domestic violence isn’t a gender issue” (July 18th, 2001); “End the breast cancer hype” (June 27th, 2001); and an earlier one she wrote for the Globe & Mail, “FEMINISM: You’ve come a long way, baby … And for what? Most women love their husbands, fathers, brothers and sons. No wonder they feel little attachment to a women’s movement that is plagued by anti‐
male hostility, intolerance and extremism” (July 26, 1997). Laframboise’s EDUCATING IN AN ERA OF ORWELLIAN SPIN 191 article about breast cancer hype has always garnered the most student outrage, from both female and male students. When I asked why there were so many anti‐feminist articles written by female journalists, one grade‐11 female student answered: “It’s easy – because the papers are owned by conservative rich guys who hate feminists!” I also use film as part of the resources for teaching for media literacy. I recently used Bread & Roses in my west side high‐school classroom, a 1999 fictional release about actual union‐organizing activities among immigrant Los Angeles janitors. I had two objectives for showing this film: it clearly explains the risks to working‐class people of organizing, as well as the benefits of belonging to a union. Moreover, it addresses the issue of media access for marginalized groups – the organizing drive was successful only after the janitors hijacked a celebrity media event. The subsequent written assignments and discussions indicated to me that the students, most of whom will never need to belong to a union, understood the plight of workers who have little in the way of human rights. I have also brought in guest speakers to augment media literacy lessons on important, current social issues. For example, in the run‐up to the signing of the historic 1998 Nisga’a Treaty, the first treaty between a First Nations people, the federal government, and the B.C. provincial government, I organized a presentation by Premier Glen Clark in our high school. There were over a hundred students in the packed room, as well as several media outlets. Clark’s reasons for negotiating the treaty were placed against the corporate media’s very negative coverage of it that we had examined the previous week. One front‐page Vancouver Sun headline screamed, “BC Indian chiefs lay claim to entire province, resources” (Ouston, February 2nd, 1998). (For other Vancouver Sun articles I used, see “How to make Indian land claims go away,” by T. Lautens, February 28, 1998; “Native leaders reject public referendum on Nisga’a deal,” by D. Rinehart, July 23rd, 1998; “Cost of the Nisga’a deal: $490 million and counting,” by V. Palmer, July 23rd, 1998; and “What you get from behind closed doors,” by B. Yaffe, November 10th, 1998.) By comparing the content of these articles to Premier Clark’s position, the students in my Social Studies 11 and First Nations Studies 12 courses clearly understood how difficult it was for supporters of the Nisgaa’a 192 PAUL ORLOWSKI treaty, including the (NDP) premier, to get their voices heard in the corporate media. In the Teacher Education Program, I also bring in guest speakers to help the preservice teachers understand the relationship between the corporate media and outside powerful interest groups. During this 2004 winter semester, after an ideological discussion about Canadian tax rates and competing visions of the good society, I brought in two speakers with opposing views on taxes. The first speaker was economist Marc Lee from the progressive Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. On the next night, these preservice teachers listened to a presentation by Sara McIntyre, the B.C. director for the libertarian Canadian Taxpayers Federation. I was impressed with the quality of questioning the students posed to the speakers, as well as the high level of discussion after the presentations. For example, student questions focused on funding for each organization, indicating their awareness of the possibility that these speakers were public relations spokespeople for particular political agendas. In this contextual approach to media literacy, the students came to comprehend the “media text [as] a stage in a process of ideological production” (Lewis & Jhally, 1998, p. 2). In the lead‐up to the 2001 provincial election in British Columbia, another guest speaker appeared in one of my teacher‐ education classes, a right‐wing columnist with the CanWest‐owned Province newspaper, who covers B.C. politics. After an e‐mail exchange over clarification of one of his columns, he surprised me by offering to present his philosophy around political issues to the preservice teachers. I situated his presentation by suggesting to the class that this columnist’s agenda is to have the Liberals form government, to which there was much skepticism among the group as a whole about my pronouncement. During the 90‐minute presentation, the journalist accepted numerous questions from the group. One yielded this answer, “Hey, I am writing my columns to get the NDP out of government. I think they tax and spend way too much.” Later on, he answered a question about Liberal educational policy by stating, “You are all going to be teachers. I suggest that you vote in your own best interests, which means: Don’t vote Liberal.” When he eventually left, the group was remarkably quiet until one of them said, “You were right, Paul. He sure is biased.” EDUCATING IN AN ERA OF ORWELLIAN SPIN 193 IDEOLOGY AND REFRAMING MEDIA DISCOURSE In the Teacher Education program, I have been experimenting with a more sophisticated kind of media literacy, one based on reframing political discourse from different ideological perspectives. Reframing techniques have come from the work of linguist George Lakoff (2004) and the Rockridge Institute (www.rockridgeinstitute.org). The basic theory behind reframing is to address the observation that people who are strongly influenced by one ideology cannot hear certain facts that might shake their beliefs. The facts do not seem to matter; they seem to bounce off the intended listener. Rather than go on the defensive, progressive ideologues need to use positive discourses on policy that rely on progressive values and language. In other words, rather than using the frames of the conservatives, they use ones based on progressive values. An example of this that the class attempted in the 2004 winter semester was around the current debate about why boys are falling behind girls in high‐school academic achievement. The first article the students read was a Fraser Institute publication entitled Boys, Girls, & Grades (Cowley & Easton, 2002) in which the journalist largely blames the feminist influence on teachers. The follow‐up discussion of the article led me to believe that this article resonated with about a quarter of the class. The following week, the same students read an academic article entitled “Boy trouble: Rhetorical framing of boysʹ underachievement” (Titus, 2004) in which the main points were the pro‐patriarchal backlash that is part of the resurgence of social conservatism and connections between academic performance and outside social forces. In other words, it seemed to me to be a perfect counterbalance to the Fraser Institute article. I assigned these teachers the task of reframing the gender gap in academic achievement from a progressive standpoint and a conservative one as if they were journalists. One female student, who earlier had thought there to be something to the Fraser Institute’s reasoning, posed a satirical headline that particularly drew my attention: “Girls too successful in school: Send them back to the kitchen.” She, as well as most of her classmates, became acutely aware of the power of language, and consequently, the power of the media. Another experience from my teacher‐education course may help to 194 PAUL ORLOWSKI explain the value in reframing. For corporate conservatism to continue, it requires that significant numbers of poor and working‐class people vote against their own best interests—or stay away from the polls. The necessary reframing efforts on the part of conservatives were successful because a commonly held belief today is that conservative ideas are populist, while liberal or progressive ideas are elitist. Part of the media literacy strategies I use with the preservice teachers is to have them reframe conservative arguments using progressive values. Instead of defending an increase in the B.C. minimum wage, one student focused on the value of “prosperity for all who work hard.” Another student took on the current conservative slogan of “small government is best” by distinguishing between the role that government should have in society. Conservatives do not necessarily desire small government. They want government for the military, for CSIS, for the Ministries of Justice, Revenue, and Finances. Left liberals and social democrats, on the other hand, want government to focus on caring, nurturing aspects of people’s lives like education, health care, social programs for those in need, and a healthy environment. In other words, a progressive response to the matter of government is to present a more humane role for government, rather than the tough‐minded one that conservatives assign it. On the related issue of tax reform, one student produced a defense of taxes not by buying into the conservative frame as “taxes as burden,” but by reframing them as an investment for future prosperity for everybody. Of course, media access and media compliance are important obstacles to these progressive frames becoming commonly accepted. For now, however, if teachers can comprehend what is happening with current media concerns, they should be better able to help their students deconstruct the Orwellian spin that they are being inundated with. CONCLUSION My experiences as a veteran high‐school social studies teacher have led me to develop what I consider to be an effective way to teach a more critical media literacy. Students must understand that knowledge is socially constructed and therefore political. They must understand that certain groups benefit from the way that knowledge is organized and presented, often at the expense of other groups. In short, they must EDUCATING IN AN ERA OF ORWELLIAN SPIN 195 understand how political ideology is at the root of these struggles. There are tensions and dilemmas with my approach to media literacy. An obvious one is the debate around teachers pushing a particular agenda. I do not see what I do as brain‐washing; rather, I contend that media literacy, as part of critical thinking in general, is a necessary component in a student’s education toward becoming an informed citizen. Moreover, epistemological concerns about the social construction of knowledge assume that a teacher who follows the formal curriculum is also engaged in pushing a particular political agenda, an insight that has particularly important implications for progressive educators. For example, on a rare occasion a preservice teacher has indicated on an end‐of‐term evaluation sheet that they found me to be insufficiently supportive of the conservative agenda. This is a charge I accept. After all, progressive people have also had to endure relentless attacks by social conservatives and economic neoliberals that fill corporate‐owned media stories. I believe that it is impossible for any social studies educator to be neutral in their teaching. Indeed, I agree with the contention of Kelly and Minnes Brandes (2001) that teachers who consider their teaching to be apolitical or objective because they rigidly follow the prescribed curriculum to be naïve. After all, as Apple (1990) points out, the curriculum is not an apolitical document. Neither is the news in the media. NOTE 1 During parent/teacher interviews in recent years, I have been taken by how many parents express gratitude that their children had become interested in local, national, and international news since the start of the school year. REFERENCES Anyon, J. (1981). Social class and school knowledge. Curriculum Inquiry, 11(1), 3‐
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83). New York: Teachers College Press. Laframboise, D. (1997, July 26). FEMINISM: You’ve come a long way, baby … And for what? Globe & Mail, A12. EDUCATING IN AN ERA OF ORWELLIAN SPIN 197 Laframboise, D. (2001, June 27). End the breast cancer hype. National Post, A7. Laframboise, D. (2001, July 18). Domestic violence isn’t a gender issue. National Post, A7. Lakoff, G. (2004). Don’t think of an elephant! Know your values and frame the debate. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing. Lautens, T. (1998, February 28). How to make Indian land claims go away. Vancouver Sun, A23. Laxer, J. (1998). The undeclared war: Class conflict in the age of cyber capitalism. Toronto: Penguin Books Canada, Ltd. Leavis, F., & Thompson, D. (1933). Culture and environment: The training of critical awareness. London, UK: Chatto and Windus. Lewis, A. (2001). There is no “race” in the schoolyard: Color‐blind ideology in an (almost) all‐white school. 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Boston, Ma: Beacon Press. Ouston, R. (1998, February 2). BC Indian chiefs lay claim to entire province, resources. Vancouver Sun, A1. 198 PAUL ORLOWSKI Palmer, V. (1998, July 23). Cost of the Nisga’a deal: $490 million and counting. Vancouver Sun, A14. Repo, S. (2005, winter). The Fraser Institute vs. educators. Our Schools/Our Selves. 23‐26. Rinehart, D. (1998, July 23). Native leaders reject public referendum on Nisga’a deal. Vancouver Sun, A1. Schwarzmantel, J. (1998). The age of ideology: Political ideologies from the American revolution to postmodern times. New York: New York University Press. Sleeter, C. E., & Grant, C. A. (1994). Making choices for multicultural education: Approaches to race, class, and gender,(2nd ed.). New York: MacMillan Publishing Company. Tieleman, B. (2005, February 17) Curmudgeon explains the throne speech, Georgia Straight, 14. Titus, J. J. (2004). Boy trouble: Rhetorical framing of boysʹ underachievement. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 25(2), 145‐169. Ward, D. (2005, February 19). Aggressive beggars back off: Panhandling complaints are down since new law was passed; street people say the situation has improved. Vancouver Sun, B1. Whitehorn, A. (1992). Canadian socialism: Essays on the CCF‐NDP. Toronto: Oxford University Press. Winter, J. (1997). Democracy’s oxygen: How corporations control the news. Montreal: Black Rose Books. Winter, J. (2002). Media think. Montreal: Black Rose Books. Yaffe, B. (1998, November 10). What you get from behind closed doors. Vancouver Sun, A19. Three Portraits of Resistance: The (Un)making of Canadian Students Marcia McKenzie In this article I have outlined several modes of resistance to popular media and dominant cultural narratives suggested in three Canadian educational programs with a focus on social and environmental change. Exploring discourses of awareness, inactive caring, thinking differently, lifestyle activism, impacting the world, and contingent agency, I propose that program characteristics and issues of class may affect students’ abilities to (un)make themselves as media consumers and producers—as ethical and political global citizens. Key words: social justice and education, environmental education, global education, discourse analysis, agency L’auteure présente plusieurs modes de résistance aux médias populaires et aux discours culturels dominants ressortant de trois programmes scolaires canadiens portant sur les changements sociaux et environnementaux en insistant sur l’évolution de la société et du milieu environnant. Explorant les discours axés sur la conscientisation, la bienveillance passive, la pensée distincte et autonome, l’activisme quant au mode de vie, l’impact sur le monde et l’intervention conditionnelle, l’auteure fait valoir que des caractéristiques des programmes et des questions de classe peuvent avoir une incidence sur l’aptitude des élèves à devenir ou non des consommateurs de médias et des producteurs – en tant que citoyens éthiques et politiques dans le village planétaire. Mots clés : justice sociale et éducation en matière d’environnement, éducation planétaire, analyse de discours, intervention _________________ I mean the media, obviously, we bash the hell out of the media, or the heck out of the media, in terms of popular media. (Heidi, Lawson student, 17) CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 29, 1 (2006): 199‐222 200 MARCIA MCKENZIE As the student interview excerpt that leads this article hints, the education of Canadian students is a complex mix of instances of contestation and more subtle norming. In a nation built on contradictory discourses of neoliberalism, cultural and ecological loss, postmodern contingency, critical thought, and religious fundamentalisms, many educators seek to engage students in exploring the ways in which we live. Asking how resistance is understood and enacted by students and educators in three Canadian educational programs with a focus on social and environmental change, I explore in this article how program characteristics and issues of class may affect students’ abilities to (un)make themselves as media consumers and producers, as ethical and political global citizens. AN ANALYSIS OF DISCOURSE In both theoretical framing and methodology, I take up a broad conception of discourse derived in large part from the work of French philosopher, Michel Foucault. Instead of connoting language in use, discourse in Foucauldian terms signals an uncertain world composed of shifting matrices of power and knowledge through which we are constituted (Foucault, 1980). Instantiated by means of practices such as language use, traditions of family and culture, and institutions such as school and media, we can understand discourses as having different degrees of authority, with dominant discourses appearing natural or true, denying their own partiality, and supporting and perpetuating existing power relations (Garvey, 1997; Pile & Thrift, 1995). Accordingly, the aim of discourse analysis is not to uncover an objective reality, but to investigate how we construct objectivity, or sedimented power, through the discursive production of meaning (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002). Like all research, discourse analysis itself is unable to avoid constituting the world in particular ways. Thus, we can view the analysis of discourse as a political intervention intended to challenge certain discourses, even as it constitutes or reproduces others. As Jørgensen and Phillips (2002) suggest, “treating the delimitation of discourses as an analytical exercise entails understanding discourses as objects that the researcher constructs rather than as objects that exist in a delimited form in reality ready to be identified and mapped” (pp. 143‐
THREE PORTRAITS OF RESISTANCE 201 144). We can then assess validity, not in terms of truth‐telling, but in relation to the role of the research in maintaining or disrupting power relations in society. THE SUBJECT OF AGENCY The discourses dominant in a given time and place tend to constitute the subjectivity of the majority of the people much of time, acting both, in Foucauldian terminology, as “technologies of power” initiated and enforced by official authorization and as “technologies of the self,” internalized means of self‐discipline (Foucault, 2003/1982, p. 146). An example is the pervasive influence of corporate advertising, whose influences are both officially sanctioned and perpetuated through our own desires (Kilbourne, 2000). According to this understanding, “discourses that carry public authority shape identities and regulate bodies, desires, selves, and whole populations” (Seidman, 1994, p. 215). Rejecting the humanist notion of authenticity in the individual, this framing suggests instead that subjectivity is fluid and multi‐faceted, with its constitution changing in relationship to the relative power of various discourses over contexts and over time. The possibility of agency within this constituted subjectivity remains a controversial area of scholarship. In contrast to traditional understandings of agency as the capacity for choice and self‐
determination, those working with discursive epistemologies propose various limited possibilities for reflexivity and resistance to processes of discursive constitution. Foucault himself is considered to have insufficiently elaborated on the question of agency, although seeming to move in his later work to a position of greater support for its possibility (Butler, 1997b; McNay, 1999). For example, in the History of Sexuality: Volume I, Foucault (1981) writes: We must conceive of discourse as a series of discontinuous segments whose tactical function is neither uniform nor stable…. Discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling block, a point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy. Discourse transmits and produces power; it reinforces it, but also undermines and exposes it, renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart it. (p. 101) 202 MARCIA MCKENZIE Judith Butler is among those who have sought to take up where Foucault left off, working to theorize subjectivity and the workings of agency in more detail. Butler (1993) suggests that the source of agency is within the hegemonic force of social conventions, such as heterosexual normativity, which create “abjects.” The resulting discursive slippage is a means of resistance, challenging the norms by indicating how constitution is social and hegemonic, rather than natural (Applebaum, 2004). In The Psychic Life of Power, Butler (1997b) outlines the conditions of agency: Power acts on the subject in at least two ways: first, as what makes the subject possible, the condition of its possibility and its formative occasion, and second, as what is taken up and reiterated in the subject’s “own” acting. As a subject of power (where “of” connotes both “belonging to” and “wielding”), the subject eclipses the conditions of its own emergence; it eclipses power with power … the subject emerges both as the effect of a prior power and as the condition of possibility for a radical conditioned form of agency. (pp. 14 ‐15) However, some scholars feel that Butler’s elaboration remains inadequate. Although it explains how change occurs through subjects, it does not explicate how change occurs because of subjects, resulting in an ambiguity reminiscent of that in Foucault’s work (Applebaum, 2004; Mills, 2000). Lovell (2003) posits that what is required is the recognition of agency as an ensemble performance, with transformative political agency existing in the interstices of interaction between contingent and constituted subjects. Taking up Butler’s (1997a) example of the pivotal day in the U.S. civil rights movement when Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, Lovell suggests it is necessary to look at the cumulative effect of the multiple other resistances that created the conditions for her refusal (not the first by her or others) to become an important “act of resistance.” The effect of these multiple resistances, including social and political circumstances, point to the possibility that change results from the interaction of multiple discourses, whether at the individual or societal level. Indeed, other scholars have suggested that a high level of interdiscursivity is associated with social change, while a low level signals the reproduction of the established order (Jørgensen & THREE PORTRAITS OF RESISTANCE 203 Phillips, 2002). Similarly, subjectivity can be viewed as more than a sum total of positions in discourse (Walkerdine, 1989), with the opportunity for agency occurring within and amongst discourses, as they bump up against one another – as one discourse enables critiques of others. This understanding supports the possibility that subjects do not simply reflect the practices through which they are constituted, but that there is always a possible tension between the discourses available and, as a result, the subject’s interpretation and use of them (Søndergaard, 2002). Rather than being free from discursive constitution, we may work within that constitution, using alternative discourses to “resist, subvert, and change the discourses themselves” (Davies, 2000, p. 67). In this view, agency can be understood as the ongoing process of (un)making ourselves through explorations of our positioning within discourse. Encumbered by constituting discourse, and not at all transparent or outside of power matrices (Applebaum, 2004), this alternate notion of reflexivity becomes a potential tool as educators work to engage students in their own (un)making. THREE PORTRAITS OF RESISTANCE In the following sections I revisit these perspectives on the possibilities of agency and resistance through the data generously provided by students and educators from three Canadian programs that have a focus on social and ecological issues. Ranging from a grade‐12 global education class in a public school in a rural working class community of 5,000, to a grade‐8 to 10 Montessori mini school within an urban public school, to a non‐
profit, two‐year International Baccalaureate school in a remote residential setting, these programs particularly vary in terms of dominant social class and depth of focus on social and ecological issues. Although media education is not the sole focus of any of the programs, it is a central part of everyday practice at each site, with activities including discussions and workshops on bias in media coverage, local and global issues, body image and eating disorders connected with the popular media, advertising and consumerism, critiques of current trends perpetuated through the media, as well as frequent Internet‐based research projects. Teachers include media education in each of the programs as one aspect of broader curricula 204 MARCIA MCKENZIE aimed at social and ecological activism. To suggest how resistance to popular media, and mainstream society more generally, is understood and enacted differently by students in the three programs, I have organized my analysis of discourse into “portraits” of the three schools. This form of representation differs from the methodology of “portraiture” (Lawrence‐Lightfoot, 1983), which sets out to essentialize by “raising the mirror” and hoping to capture the research subject “with accuracy and discipline” (Lawrence‐Lightfoot & Hoffman Davis, 1997, p. 2). Instead, this analysis of discourse is performative (MacLure, 2003). It represents the data in one particular way through the gathering of discourses in salient portraits of resistance of the three programs, seeking not to truth‐tell, but instead to question dominant discourses as they affect students’ abilities to (un)make themselves as media consumers and producers, and as socio‐ecological activists. In keeping with this orientation, both data collection and analysis were flexible and did not have systematicity or comprehensiveness as goals. In total, 38 students participated in the study (63% of whom were female), as well as 5 teachers (60% of whom were female). Data were collected mainly through a mix of individual (24) and focus group (4) semi‐structured interviews of one to two hours in length. These were undertaken with current students and teachers, and in the case of one focus group, with program graduates. Additional data were included through photographs, questionnaire responses (6), and school documents provided by program teachers. I collected all of the data during the spring of 2003, with a total of two weeks spent at each site. The data were subsequently analyzed through processes of transcription, (re)reading, identification of discourses for discussion, and the creation of various representations which brought together the data in various ways (i.e., see also McKenzie, 2004). I worry that the representation by portrait offered here is unfair in that it washes out the complexity that exists within each of the sites; however, my hope is that in exchange it usefully draws attention to differences among forms of resistance, and their possible roles in the (un)making of Canadian students more generally. THREE PORTRAITS OF RESISTANCE 205 Awareness and Inactive Caring: Hillview Central to the dominant mode of resistance suggested in the talk of students in the Hillview Secondary School1 Global Education course is the perception that their education is, and should be, unbiased ‐‐ a view that continues to be commonly held and promoted within Canadian secondary schools (Kelly & Brandes, 2001; Lousley, 1999). This discourse of neutrality is evident in the comments of Angela: I learned a lot about the problems dealing with sweatshops and about cloning, not only with people but with food. And possible solutions for these problems…. In this class you get the truth and solid facts about what is going on. Not like the one‐sided media. (Angela, Hillview student, 18) An understanding of education as neutral seems to be symptomatic of a broader reliance on a discourse of objective knowing, which makes awareness possible and appears to correspond with a lack of challenging critique of dominant societal discourses. Resistance in the Global Education course tends to involve having one’s “eyes opened,” and learning about “what’s going on” in the world, as the following remark epitomizes: I’ve just learned that there are issues and problems that people don’t focus on… the States, for example, have so much money… and they would never look at other countries and, and give up pennies for their health care and people are dying and people are getting sick and they’ve got, we’ve got medicines in Canada and in the States that, cure some of those diseases and stuff that they have in other countries, but there’s no, there’s no way of connection…. I’ve just learned so much about, countries that can help, but don’t, and just because they’re blind—they don’t take the time to, to figure out what’s going on. (Kelsey, Hillview student, 16) In “teaching students about the world in which they live” (Global Education Course Outline), the course highlights issues that are explored as largely external to the students, and proposes solutions that tend to draw on dominant ethno and anthrocentric discourses, such as Western intervention in “less developed” countries, globalized economic development, and environmental management (Bowers, 1997; Gough, 206 MARCIA MCKENZIE 1999). Ironically, students repeatedly contrast the assumed educational neutrality with an understanding of the popular media as strongly biased, as exemplified in Angela’s comments that, “In this class you get the truth and solid facts about what is going on. Not like the one‐sided media.” Another student explains, We’ve learned that the news is kind of biased and whatever country you’re watching in you’re going to hear that government’s side more than what’s actually going on. And I think that’s kind of neat, that we found that out. Because you watch the news here and we hear some parts of the war on Iraq, right?, from our news channels. And then you watch American news – it’s totally different and I just noticed that. Before I thought it was two different things that happened (laughs), and now, it’s like the same thing, they just flip it. (Corrine, Hillview student ,19) Students seem to take up this “media is I think for the rest of my life now, biased” stance as part of learning I’ll be wondering what’s going “what’s going on” in the world, on, looking on the Internet and although there is little suggestion that watching CNN more so that I students understand why or how they know what’s going on. (Corrine, Hillview student, 19)
might undertake a more in‐depth deconstruction of media. Indeed, students seem to continue to use mainstream media uncritically as their main source of knowledge about the world. This absence of critique was also evident more generally, suggesting low interdiscursivity and minimal reflexivity and agency on the part of students. In addition to discourses Your friends are the people you hang out with around knowing, discourses the most, well, other than your family, so they of subjectivity also appear to influence the way that you feel about things. I be central to students’ mean, like, everybody is their own person, understandings and but, if you don’t agree with your friends then, I don’t know, it causes a lot of conflict. enactments of resistance. (Corrine, Hillview student, 19) Adhering to dominant humanist conceptions of the subject, students in the Hillview Global Education course appear to generally understand themselves as somewhat influenced by family and friends, but as primarily THREE PORTRAITS OF RESISTANCE 207 autonomous and stable. Holding themselves responsible for their (lack of) achievement and agency, the students in this course emphasize their desire to live “a steady life.” This position is strongly articulated in the following conversation with Doug: Researcher: So, do you think that your experience in the class will, in the long run, affect the way you’ll live your life? Doug: Uh, affect it in a good way I would say, maybe help it out and, I would know more about what’s going on globally because of it, I guess? Things like that. And being on the field trip too, I’m not too sure, the homeless – that was a good experience, that helped me. Researcher: How did it help you? Doug: I don’t know, I’m just, never really liked the city very much and going there and seeing how all those people live and stuff like that is just, like, it’s an eye opener, for sure. Researcher: What does it make you think – did it make you like the city more or less or? Doug: It makes you think of how they got there, and if you want to end up like that, right? Imagining yourself being in that same situation. Researcher: It gets you more motivated or? Doug: Yeah… Researcher: What things do you think will affect who you are ten years from now? Doug: What will affect me? Probably I will regret my grades in school. I should try better, but I just don’t right now. That’s one thing I should be doing. If I wanted to get a better job down the road. And, I don’t know. That’s probably the most important one. Researcher: And do you have any specific dreams or goal for the future? Doug: Uh, I’d like to be a personal trainer, but that’s just a lot of school work and I’m not very good with school, so – but, just live a steady life and have a family. Researcher: Do you have plans for next year? Doug: Uh, I’m just going to get a job and then, after I work here for a bit I want to go the oil rigs. Go to the oil rigs for a couple of years. (Doug, Hillview student, 17) Like many of his classmates, Doug’s plans for his future appear inhibited by a sense of lack of agency as he worries about where he might end up and considers his goals for the future. In contrast to the discourse of individual power that is so prevalent at the other two sites, the 208 MARCIA MCKENZIE discourses available to the Hillview students are no doubt bound by their class‐specific material realities and life experiences (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002). Tied to their understanding of social and ecological problems as requiring objective awareness of events happening elsewhere, as well as to perspectives of themselves as autonomous, stable, and lacking agency, students in the Global Education class commonly articulated a second component of their resistance, which I have called “inactive caring.” Several students indicated that they have “grown to care” for others “less fortunate” through the class, and a few talk of wanting to find careers that enable them to help others. However, the caring expressed in students’ comments typically does not carry with it a sense of being able to make any substantial change in the world, as suggested in the following remark made by Doug: Researcher: What do you think [Ms. Scott is] wanting to teach you in the Global Ed class, particularly around social issues or environmental issues? Doug: Uh, how the world is and how it runs and problems around the world and things you can do, that you can do personally, obviously you can’t change it, but to help it. Things like that. (Doug, Hillview student, 17) Another student, Kelsey, articulated a similar notion of caring that is restricted in its ability to effect change. In discussing the possibilities of taking action, she commented that the experience of raising money for an orphanage in Asia was We had that, what’s that group, “Check Your Head.” They came in and they were talking about, um, like, sweatshops and stuff… educative in Like, I know, most of the clothes I’m wearing have been made in that “it seems sweatshops, but I really don’t know where else to buy them from. like it would That makes you feel kinda like there’s nothing you can do, like, be difficult to even when you feel bad about it, it’s just like, well, I got to get clothes from somewhere. (Shelley, Hillview student, 16) help them, but actually it’s not.” However, Kelsey retreated to a position where she wanted “not to make the world a better place,” but just make “a little bit of a difference or at least put, like, a smile on someone’s face that wasn’t smiling beforehand.” This modest understanding of her potential effect on the world, or resistance to it, is reiterated elsewhere when she stated, THREE PORTRAITS OF RESISTANCE 209 “I know I’m not going to be able to help [people] dramatically.” Through the combined discourses of awareness and inactive caring, Hillview students articulate a limiting portrait of resistance: one that remains strongly influenced by mainstream cultural narratives and suggests some of the difficulties that can be involved in engaging students in deeper levels of reflexivity and activism. A Way of Thinking and Lifestyle Activism: Kirkwood Students in the Kirkwood My viewpoints of what’s cool and what’s not in Montessori program grade school was directly from the media, I commonly took up a guess you could say. I think, now, I’ve just discourse of educational changed, I’ve realized what’s cool and what’s not. Montessori helped a lot. Like kind of neutrality, as did students learning about child labour and that kind of in the Hillview Global stuff, questioning the companies and that kind Education course. For of thing. (Daniel, Kirkwood student, 16) example, when asked whether the Montessori teachers promoted certain perspectives on the world, one student commented: Um, not so much perspectives of, though I guess, in some ways, but, they, they just sort of promote the world. And they don’t really say any negative points or positive points. They just explain how the world is and they explain how countries are, and they don’t say whether that’s good or that’s bad, ‘cause that’s something that we have to learn ourselves. (Lara, Kirkwood student, 14) Unlike at Hillview, however, comments such as those made by three program graduates suggest a tension between statements of educational neutrality and acknowledgement of experiences of norming within the Montessori program. Researcher: You said it strengthened your strength, being in the Montessori program? Steve: Well, it strengthened my strength, but Montessori can manipulate only the values I had already. It’s not like I [students’] minds, and make developed bad values and then had to them become Montessori. (Lena, change them. I just had, like, sort of, well I Kirkwood student, 17) already had them, but then because of this I knew they were the right ones. 210 MARCIA MCKENZIE Researcher: Which ones? Steve: Not steal, not buy Nike, not whatever. Daniel: The ten commandments. Lena: Yeah. I don’t know if it’s strengths, as much as morals. It’s not really what to do, as much as what not to do. (Kirkwood students: Lena, 17; Daniel, 16; Steve, 16) Students’ comments suggest that although the values of the Montessori program were considered “right,” and therefore perhaps could still be thought of as “neutral,” in some cases students experienced them as constitutive, or as a form of norming. Although maintaining Researcher: How do you think the values that that the Montessori are sort of taught here in the Montessori program did not “bump up program – do you think they correspond or against” mainstream conflict with values that are taught by society in Canadian values “at all,” general? Lara: They’re quite the same actually, cause I Ms. Pryde suggested how know that Canadian society, they’re uh, “We the Montessori program don’t want to be part of war,” and sought to enable students to environmental concerns – little hippie tree resist the power of the hugger country right? (laughs) So that’s what Montessori is too. (Lara, Kirkwood student, 14) media and related mainstream values: It’s no surprise that their life is pop culture and when they put in a CD, when they turn on the TV, when they go see a movie, when they pick up a magazine, they are being targeted as a marketing group. And they are being sold a consumer lifestyle. So, that’s totally juxtapositioned to what we’re asking them to think about. And it’s everywhere, it’s pervasive. So, we’re really swimming upriver with the kind of power that that has on them. (Ms. Pryde, Kirkwood teacher) This view of students as socio‐culturally constituted to some degree, and of media and society as constitutive, contributes to the existence of a discourse of critique in the Montessori program, although a number of discourses such as assumptions of objectivity and educational neutrality seem to generally be beyond the realm of this critique. The taking up of the combined discourses of socio‐cultural constitution and critique appear to translate into students at Kirkwood THREE PORTRAITS OF RESISTANCE 211 talking less about awareness of social and ecological issues, and more about a different way of thinking about [They teach you] freedom of the world, including in terms of their speech, to question authority interactions with media. The Montessori (laughs), not to challenge it but to students describe this way of thinking question it. Yeah, don’t sit back as being quite pervasive and as affecting and be spoon fed, you know. (Jenny, Kirkwood student, 16) their actions, including their interactions with peers and family. Lena, a graduate of the Montessori program, self‐describes how she Even the little butterfly flapping its took on an anti perspective wings, I guess, could influence me in during her time in the program, some way. (Lara, Kirkwood student, 14) which has now shifted back towards a middle ground which is less extreme, but still a different way of understanding the world than the one she started with. Sometime in grade 10, um, it all kind of just, snapped into place. Then I thought I saw a bunch of conspiracies and things, which was I guess the extreme (laughs)… but um, it’s kind of like an awakening. It’s neat. And then you just get to react to everything differently. Um, I guess it comes about with more knowledge probably, or maybe a deeper kind of knowledge, more critical. (Lena, Kirkwood student, 17) Another Montessori student, Kim, also talked about developing a different “way of thinking.” It just kind of accumulates. Like, from [other students], like, they’re kind of the vegetarian spokespeople for Montessori (laughs)… And then we have Off Ramp, which is promoting clean and safe transportation. And we have Evergreen promoting a green school and a green environment. And we just have all these groups, and they just kind of, mesh together, and together it’s kind of like a super being, you know, kind of a super global issues/knowledge thing (laughs), and I just think that, everybody’s hearing about this, you know, every day at class meeting or whatever, things are brought up. (Kim, Kirkwood student, 15) Although assuming an underlying discourse of neutrality, the way of thinking described by Kim and Lena seems to go beyond awareness to a deeper, more reflexive kind of knowing, one that causes them to pit certain discourses against each other, challenging their own constitution 212 MARCIA MCKENZIE through media and society more generally, and contributing to their socio‐ecological activism. Connecting to this portrait of resistance is a discourse of agency as “individual power,” a sense of “freedom” not uncommon in more privileged classes (Dillabough, 2004), which is prevalent in the Montessori program and quite distinct from the modest aspirations and lack of agency suggested in the talk of the Global Education students at Hillview. Contained in this discourse is the notion that students can achieve what they “set their sights on” if they only work hard enough. What Kirkwood students judged as worthy of striving for commonly seems to match dominant North American discourses around academic success, social status, and economic achievement. The coupling of individual power with these other unexamined discourses around achievement can be heard in the comments of Kirkwood students, such as those of Kim: Researcher: How would you describe your values? What things are important to you? Kim: Most things that are important to me, grades are important to me… but, uh, I’m striving for success in life basically – overall goal. Obviously. Um, and I think grades are a big way of getting there. Grades are getting me up to where I need to be to get into programs for university, for, I want to go to a program in Europe, a boarding school for grade 11 and 12 to earn a baccalaureate… what university or college I attend or law school… I have big goals, but – it lets me strive higher. (Kim, Kirkwood student, 15) Although indicating a strong sense of agency, Kim also suggests that the “way of thinking” in the Montessori program extends limited critique to many of dominant cultural narratives, in some cases restricting reflexivity and resistance to particular domains. The sense of agency, and yet often limited focus of resistance, evident in the Montessori “way of thinking” goes hand in hand with the discourse of “lifestyle activism” commonly taken up by students in the program. This approach to “making a difference” is highlighted in the following discussion with three Montessori graduates: Researcher: What do you think the teachers involved in the Montessori program are wanting to teach you during your time here, particularly in relation to social and environmental issues? THREE PORTRAITS OF RESISTANCE 213 Tess: You can make a difference! Camille: Yeah (laughs). That is the number one lesson they say – like, every little thing counts. Alix: Be informed. To know what’s going on. I saw this kid wearing Camille: And, involve others. Outreach. To your Nike and I said, “Do you friends, kids. Anything to get out there and get know they use sweatshop labour,” and he said, stuff spread, kind of thing… “Yeah.” So then I asked Researcher: So, do you believe your experience in him, “I’m just wondering the Montessori program will affect your life in the why you wear it.” (Tess, long term? Kirkwood student, 16) All three: Totally. Yep. Researcher: Why? Tess: Take shorter showers. The way you eat… Recycling. Just little things. Little things you do that affect the global environment. Camille: And getting involved. Just, like, even when I’m in grade eleven, and out of the Montessori program, I still want to get involved in workshops and things like that. (Kirkwood students: Alix, 15; Camille, 16; Tess, 15) As these students explained, the dominant discourse of activism in the Montessori program seems to be one of valuing the many “little things” that can be done to “affect the global environment,” including staying informed despite media biases, making conscious lifestyle choices, and spreading the word to those around you. However, for some this discourse of lifestyle activism is taken up within an otherwise “mainstream” life of consumerism and achievement. Kate, for example, suggested that “when I go to buy my house now, I’ll probably buy with a low flow toilet,” and “When I have money to make the decisions on my eating habits … I can buy organic and shade grown and that kind of thing … I’ll make those decisions to, um, eat to save the planet.” The restricted focus of the critique for some students at Kirkwood seems in part to be a result of particular dominant narratives, such as educational neutrality, individual power, and economic achievement, remaining unquestioned, and may also be a function of the reluctance of the Montessori program teachers to contribute to their students feeling “downtrodden” by focusing on more systemic and challenging forms of activism. As one of the Montessori teachers explains, I’ve gotten the sense that they’re almost like dogs with their tails between their 214 MARCIA MCKENZIE legs, that there’s so much crap and there’s so much, you know, because they feel responsible and they want to act responsibly, but there’s so much to do, and there’s so many choices and decisions for them to make, and “Gee, I just want to be a kid.” They’re kids. So they kind of have to balance that with themselves, what can they do, what can’t they do, what do they enjoy, what could they change a bit, without feeling downtrodden over it. (Ms. Pryde, Kirkwood teacher) Despite limitations, empowered by a view of socio‐cultural constitution and critique, as well as a strong class‐based sense of agency, this mode of resistance suggests considerable interdiscursivity and reflexivity, and results in a strong emphasis on lifestyle activism. Impacting the World and Contingent Agency: Lawson Both consciously and unconsciously, through its Knowers and Sources of Knowledge How is knowledge gained? What are curriculum and particular the sources? To what extent might environment, Lawson College these vary according to age, education introduced many of its students to or cultural background? What role alternative conceptions of does personal experience play in the formation of knowledge claims? To knowledge and identity as what extent does personal or contingent, thus establishing an ideological bias influence our important aspect of dominant forms knowledge claims? Does knowledge of resistance within the program. come from inside or outside? Do we construct reality or do we recognize it? Unlike at Hillview and Kirkwood, Is knowledge even a ʹthingʹ that students at Lawson tend to view resides somewhere? knowledge as generally subjective, ‐ From “Theory of Knowledge” course rather than objective; and website understand cultural norms, media, and even their education as biased and potentially alterable, dependent on underlying values and beliefs. This discourse of contingent knowing is included as an important part of the curriculum through the first year course, “Theory of Knowledge.” One student explains: That’s what TOK [Theory of Knowledge] teaches us to do: think critically about information, and see which one’s more likely to be true. It is biased, of course, but all information is biased, but still; the only information that is not biased is THREE PORTRAITS OF RESISTANCE 215 say, “I weight 65 kilos,” or “I’m 17 years old,” that’s a neutral statement. But as soon as you’re getting involved in international politics and points of view, things become really subjective. And the theoretical job of TOK is that, you inform yourself and decide which one you support, and act based on the information. (David, Portugal,2 Lawson student, 17) As suggested by David, this approach to knowing includes a strong element of critique. There is an interesting interplay suggested in the talk of students and teachers at Lawson between discourses of critique and subjective knowing, and a discourse of educational bias. Students generally understand their education as promoting particular perspectives, such as a discourse of media scepticism, which are often quite different from those at home. Yet most students seem to accept and take up the values being advanced by the College, including the emphasis on critique. David explains, Even though they try to be as neutral as possible, there is always bias. Which means they can’t produce unbiased statements, and of course there are biases here at Lawson, and they kind of want us to, force us to, think that way … Even if you think critically there are certain biases that the College introduces to you. For example, the word around campus is that, “Don’t trust CNN, don’t trust a word of what they say.” Even if what they’re saying is true, I think that a Lawson student will assume that it is false. (David, Portugal, Lawson student, 17) A teacher describes this process of taking up of the biases of the College in the following way: I viewed life differently when I first came here. You know, I might have been a bit more racist. But being here has changed me a lot… it opens up a whole load of questions about yourself and about people in general, why we’re here, and it’s just opened up a whole new world. (Adam, England, Lawson student, 18) This experience of living together in a small global community is something that affects not just what you think, in terms of attitude and background knowledge, but affects who you are, affects the screens through which you see all the world, and we’re speaking of knowledge …. I think the screens that were developed, the eyes through which you look, are, that they more or less look through ‐ I don’t think students look at the world through the eyes after 216 MARCIA MCKENZIE they’ve left Lawson. (Lawson teacher) As in these examples, the learning students experience at Lawson College is often described as dramatically changing their understanding of the world, or in the words of a Kirkwood student, their “way of thinking.” Related to discourses around knowing, are those to do with subjectivity, including the unexamined discourse of individual power. In keeping with the privileged backgrounds and experiences of many I think Lawson is within a of the students at both Lawson and western model for sure. And I think we westernize students to Kirkwood, this discourse is strongly some extent. (Lawson teacher) promoted at the College. Violeta articulately outlines this discourse of “I am an individual and I am different and I can do anything.” Reseacher: “Whatever you set your sights on,” where did you learn that? Violeta: It’s just that the daily experience of seeing the way you people behave towards each other, the way things function and all the things, it’s, it’s just how it became engraved in myself …. At home we still have, kind of all believe some form of mythic, some kind of the communistic way of thinking …. there is still this sort of set mould for everything there. Well here it’s very much individualistic and the tolerance is valued. “I am an individual and I am different and I can do anything.” (Violeta, Bulgaria, Lawson student, 17) As part of their assumed stance of agency as You have to, to, to climb the ladder of power in order to make some big decisions that will individual power, as well as impact, that will have a big impact on the world. through understanding the (David, Portugal, 17) world as a contingent and shifting object of critique, students at Lawson commonly articulated and enacted a resistance writ large, through their desire and efforts to “impact the world.” For example, Emilia described the impact her experiences at the College have had on her way of living. Lawson has inspired my soul, my spirit, my life, in the way that now I have so many goals, like physical goals but also internal goals, like, as I was saying before, like, converting the educational system in Nicaragua. I don’t know, the THREE PORTRAITS OF RESISTANCE 217 way you see people, the way you talk to people, but also, the way you live. (Emilia, Nicaragua, Lawson student, 17) Although certainly not the case for all, a number of students work between a “lifestyle activism” approach to socio‐ecological change similar to that at Kirkwood and a more outwardly activist stance for effecting change. Heidi described her own struggle with how to “help the most.” Researcher: I just have one more question — do you have specific dreams or goals for the future? Heidi: I thought I did, when I first came here, in terms of wanting to be head of Oxfam or something like that, but, and then as I’ve come here I’ve been like, I’m between the lines of just taking care of myself and my immediate area, like you know, having a nice farm and an orphanage of some sort, like very small. I’m torn between that and running Nike so that I can make it so there aren’t sweatshops. You know, it’s kind of one extreme or the other – how to help the most? And is helping the most important, or do you want quality, quantity. Ahhh!! So I’m torn between that. That will just sort of, time will tell. (Heidi, Canada, Lawson student, 17) Although the strong discourse of impacting the world promises much action, it is the less expected discourse of “contingent agency” which is perhaps more exciting in its possibilities for a deeper reflexivity and more selective resistance to normative discourses of media, society, and education itself. Students Rastha and Emilia suggest a sense of contingent agency that works in the spaces of their constituted selves. I’m from a very large family… I’m the youngest of them, and there was a lot of pressure on me from other members of my family. And I needed to sort of focus on, “Okay, what do I take from it, and what do I push away from?” And coming away provided a space for me to sort of reflect on what I want. (Rastha, Maldives, Lawson student, 18) My experience has made me the way I am. Because you go to so many different experiences and so many different things through the span of your life, and then the way that you react to those, to those experience is the way you are making your own personality, and I would say that’s the way. Of course, what informs them? My parents, my culture, my religion, and everything, so, yeah. (Emilia, 218 MARCIA MCKENZIE Nicaragua, Lawson student, 17) Both Rastha and Emilia took up a discourse of socio‐cultural constitution in talking about how their previous experiences have exerted pressure on them/made them the way they are. The possibility of agency within this state of constitution is suggested in their comments that their reactions/reflections were “the way you are making your own personality.” Rastha in particular articulated agency as occurring through a process of asking, “Okay, what do I take … and what do I push away from.” Agency is suggested to be the working with/against ways of viewing the world (discourses) that have been introduced through various influences. This is an understanding of agency as contingent on previous constitution, but as allowing some degree of resistance to be exerted. In taking up a discourse of contingent agency, a number of students suggested that at times their sense of agency was overwhelmed by forces of constitution, with students worrying about losing the ways of thinking they have gained at school once they return home. Violeta expressed her concern: Researcher: Do you believe this experience has affected the way you will live your life? Violeta: I hope so … It’s because again it’s true that this is very, very much in a way idealistic, um, but as long as … I’ve incorporated these ideas in myself I try for them and like fight for them but it depends very much on the environment where I go. Because, for example, if I go home, if I am still able to do these things, it will be much harder. And I hope, I dearly hope, that I don’t give up with the first failure, because I know if I go home I will have lots of failures with incorporating these ideas but I will try at least. That’s maybe, that’s what matters, no? (Violeta, Bulgaria, Lawson student, 17) In realizing the challenges of resisting particular discourses, the students at Lawson indicate a tentative agency that works through a high level of intercultural interdiscursivity to provoke reflexivity and possibilities for working at difficult changes. THREE PORTRAITS OF RESISTANCE 219 EDUCATING FOR AGENCY Notwithstanding the many conversations left out and the selectivity of the discourses I have chosen to represent here, these three portraits – or perhaps more accurately, caricatures – are intended to provoke inquiry into the ways in which students and teachers may understand and enact different modes of resistance in accordance with those discourses that constitute their subjectivities and schooling. The three programs are evidently very different in their scope, and in the age groups and populations they serve; but all share a commitment to encouraging socio‐ecological activism through media education and other means, and are a result of the hard work of dedicated and resourceful teachers. This research seeks to learn from and contribute to the efforts of these teachers, and not to consider them responsible for more or less promising modes of resistance that should rather be understood as stemming from broader social and cultural narratives and conditions (Van Galen, 2004). With a discursive framing, resistance can no longer be understood as replacing wrong with right, but instead must be complicated as something that is never outside of discourse and never proffering a once‐
and‐for‐all solution (Lather, 1991). In these sites, the ways resistance is understood and enacted suggest strong connections to dominant program discourses (e.g., educational neutrality, constitution, critique), dominant societal discourses (e.g., objective knowledge, economic achievement), including discourses more or less available to students with different levels of class privilege based on the sedimentation of early discursive practices and experiences (e.g., critique, individual power). The intriguing “contingent agency” articulated by students at Lawson College suggests a reflexive response to the interdiscursivity manifest in the shifting between cultural narratives, which is no doubt encouraged by an understanding of knowledge as subjective as introduced through the International Baccalaureate curriculum. According to a discursive frame, this state of possible resistance entails engaging in an examination or an (un)making of one’s own discursive constitution, as well as that of one’s education, and surrounding media and culture(s), with the possibility of working within that constitution to effect desirable change. Although the desires that 220 MARCIA MCKENZIE drive that change may always rest within discourse, resistance can be viewed as a more thorough, and always unfinished, probing of their ethical and political implications (Boler, 1999). Understanding agency as a matter of positioning within discourse perhaps offers otherwise unavailable opportunities for resistance and change, for (un)making oneself in relation to the dominant discourses of media and society more general, and ultimately, for more reflexive and systemic socio‐ecological activism. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was possible because of the interest and generosity of the dedicated educators and students at the three schools involved in the study. The support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada is also gratefully acknowledged. NOTES 1 All places and names of participants have been changed for reasons of confidentiality. 2 The student’s country of origin provides important context for their comments. Lawson is a non‐profit school with a culturally diverse, predominantly middle‐class student body of 200 from around the world. REFERENCES Applebaum, B. (2004). Social justice education: Moral agency and the subject of resistance. Educational Theory, 54(1), 59‐72. Boler, M. (1999). Feeling power: Emotions and education. New York: Routledge. Bowers, C. A. (1997). The culture of denial: Why the environmental movement needs a strategy for reforming universities and public schools. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of “sex.” London, UK: Routledge. Butler, J. (1997a). Excitable speech: A politics of the performative. London, UK: Routledge. Butler, J. (1997b). The psychic life of power: Theories in subjection. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. THREE PORTRAITS OF RESISTANCE 221 Davies, B. (2000). A body of writing: 1990‐1999. Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira Press. Dillabough, J. (2004). Class, culture and the “predicaments of masculine domination”: Encountering Pierre Bourdieu. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 25(4), 389‐506. Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings 1972‐
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ecological education. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver. McNay, L. (1999). Subject, psyche and agency: The work of Judith Butler. Theory, Culture & Society. London, UK: Sage. Mills, C. (2000). Efficacy and vulnerability: Judith Butler on reiteration and resistance. Australian Feminist Studies, 15(32), 265‐279. Pile, S., & Thrift, N. (Eds.). (1995). Mapping the subject: Geographies of cultural transformation. London, UK: Routledge. Seidman, S. (1994). Contested knowledge: Social theory in the postmodern era. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Søndergaard, D. M. (2002). Poststructuralist approaches to empirical analysis. Qualitative Studies in Education, 15(2), 187‐204. Van Galen, J. A. (2004). Seeing classes: Toward a broadened research agenda for critical qualitative researchers. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 17(5), 663‐684. Walkerdine, V. (1989). Counting girls out: Girls and mathematics. London, UK: Virago. Revisiting Pearl Harbor: Resistance to Reel and Real Events in an English Language Classroom Ardiss Mackie & Bonny Norton In this article, we draw on disruptive scenes in a postsecondary classroom to examine a critical incident concerning conflicting readings of the film Pearl Harbor (2001). We raise crucial questions for pedagogical work with popular film: Who speaks for whom about the meaning of a given film? Under what conditions do students resist particular readings of a film? How should teachers respond to acts of resistance in debates on the meaning of film? The use of popular film provides insight into language as a linguistic system as well as a site of struggle over meaning, identity, and power. Key words: race, ethnicity, critical pedagogy, popular film Dans cet article, les auteures traitent de l’utilisation, dans une classe au postsecondaire, de scènes prêtant à controverse tirées du film Pearl Harbor (2001). Elles soulèvent des questions importantes pour la pédagogie à l’aide d’un film à succès : Qui parle au nom de qui au sujet de la signification d’un film donné ? Quels facteurs amènent les étudiants à résister à telle ou telle lecture d’un film ? Comment les enseignants devraient‐ils réagir aux actes de résistance dans des débats sur la signification d’un film ? Le recours à des films à succès permet de mieux comprendre le langage à la fois comme système linguistique et comme lieu de débat sur le sens, l’identité et le pouvoir. Mots clés : race, origine ethnique, pédagogie critique, film à succès _________________ With increased access to television, videos, and DVDs, watching films has become a powerful and popular way in which international students experience the English‐speaking world. Indeed, as Seung‐Hee, a participant of a larger study1 of students’ viewing of film, reported, ʺWhen I arrived Canada [from South Korea], I didn’t feel much differences and I couldn’t find much new things that gave me shock. CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 29, 1 (2006): 223‐243 224 ARDISS MACKIE & BONNY NORTON Unconsciously, I learn North American culture through movieʺ (Mackie, 2005, p. 249). This statement suggests that popular American films may promote the adjustment of international students to the North American world. It also suggests that popular American films may essentialize North American culture. In this article, we argue for curriculum that invites students to resist cinematic assumptions about the essential quality of culture and ethnic identities. Said (1993) has suggested that for European readers of Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness, the novel was “as close as they came to Africa, and in that limited sense it was part of the European effort to hold on to, think about, plan for Africa” (p. 68). We argue that popular film has such a geopolitical impact on viewers. Film images become part of a visual experience of the world although viewers may be critical of a film’s language, i.e., its characterization, script, mood, editing, and meaning. The separation between the events of life and film images and stories is more an exchange than a well‐defined border. Certainly, as Chow (1995) has argued, being a reader means reading the visual as well as the written world. A case in point is the often‐heard response to watching on TV the unforgettable picture of two planes crashing into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001: “It looked like a movie,” or “I thought it was a movie.” Here the TV image of 9‐11 may have sparked previous movie images and stories held in memory. Examples of these include the burning and collapsing sky scraper in The Towering Inferno (Allen & Guillerman,1974), the takeover and destruction of a 40‐story building in Die Hard (McTiernan, 1988), or the take‐over of the U.S. President’s plane in Air Force One (Peterson, 1997). Whatever the viewers’ response to these movies, the reel image is drawn upon and interacts with the real (televised) image of planes bursting into flames and the towers collapsing. If a viewer’s response to the movie was, “It was just a movie. That couldn’t happen in reality,” or “That was cool!” then seeing the TV images of 9‐11 creates incredulity and confusion, among other responses. In this liminal space between real and reel, it is more difficult to shrug off the images in films and the banks of visual memories and stories that viewers may draw on in reference to their day‐to‐day life. Real and reel negotiate. REVISITING PEARL HARBOR: RESISTANCE TO REEL AND REAL EVENTS 225 In the field of English language education, Duff (2001, 2002), Norton (2000), and Norton and Vanderheyden (2004) have raised the issue of access to popular culture. They argue that without knowledge of popular culture, English language learners in the target language community are positioned on the periphery of important language learning sites and relationships. However, with the exception of several conference presentations on practices with film in adult English language classes in Japan and the United States (Fluitt‐Dupuy & Heppner, 2001; Nakamura, 2001; O’Brien, 2002; Tatsuki, 2000), popular film as a global educational resource has received little attention in the second language literature. What is currently available in the literature on film in English language education is not commensurate with the geopolitical power of film, nor does it do justice to the knowledge that many international students already have of popular films, stars, and directors. Precisely because popular film, especially from the United States, is seen globally in cinemas, on‐line, and on television, we note that an effort to understand how film co‐constructs ethnic identities, the English language, and education is much overdue. We are not arguing that international students need access to popular films to help them learn English and build cultural references, but rather that films should be scrutinized for their pedagogical possibilities and limitations. To this end, we have focused on disruptive scenes from a postsecondary class in which English language learners were engaged in an assignment of reading racial and ethnic representations in popular films, with a particular focus on the film Pearl Harbor (Bay, 2001). The scenes of resistance from this class, which Mackie taught, raise three crucial questions for critical pedagogy regarding film in English education: Who speaks for whom about the meaning of a given film? Under what conditions do students resist particular readings of a given film? How should teachers respond to acts of resistance in debates on the meaning of film? In developing the class exercises that led to the scenes of resistance, Mackie was informed by a growing literature on film and critical theory, which we present in subsequent sections. 226 ARDISS MACKIE & BONNY NORTON FILM AND CRITICAL THEORY In developing the assignment described in the next section, Mackie drew on the film Anna and the King (Tennant, 1999) as a model. Key works in cultural, feminist, film, and postcolonial studies helped to inform her critique of this film. The first work from film studies was Dyer’s (1997) White which focuses on the construction of whiteness in photographic and cinematic images, a valuable text in its detailing of various technologies and techniques of positioning whiteness visually in public media, for instance in Tarzan movies. Although reading the visual world is the main thrust of Dyer’s work, he begins by turning the lens on himself as a white man and his early experiences with ethnic and racial difference. Rather than the trite decontextualized positioning sometimes offered in, for instance, “I’m a white professor,” Dyer offers a reflective account, locating his desire of racial difference in his difference as a gay man. Such racial self‐location in this and other studies (Ahmed, 1984; Amin, 1997, 2001; Bannerji, 1997; Luke, 1998; McIntosh, 1988; Ng. 1993; Schenke, 1991) also underpinned Mackie’s response to her students’ engagement with Pearl Harbor (Bay, 2001). Shohat (1991a, 1991b) and Shohat and Stam (1994), scholars of film and womenʹs studies, also influenced Mackie’s pedagogical choices. In contrast to Dyer (1997), who is primarily interested in how photographic language such as lighting positions white and black actors, Shohat and Shohat and Stam offer various postcolonial and racial tropes and metaphors in films. For example, the master trope of the colonized land as feminine, as female body, as sexualized, as “the dark continent” (Shohat and & Stam, 1994, pp. 148‐151) is readily available in films that include scenes of English language education, such as Out of Africa (Pollack, 1985), Miss Mary (Bemberg, 1986), and Where the Spirit Lives (Pittman, 1989). In these films, the spaces of English education in Kenya, Argentina, and Canada respectively are surrounded by virgin land, in a pure state of nature, with bare and open frontiers. Seemingly unpopulated, they are therefore available for the exploration and exploitation that follow. A final work that Mackie found valuable, from a feminist postcolonial perspective, was that of Kaplan (1997), who examined the colonial gazing relations between black and white characters in films REVISITING PEARL HARBOR: RESISTANCE TO REEL AND REAL EVENTS 227 such as Out of Africa (Pollack, 1985). Kaplan maintains that who looks at whom signals a relation of power (Kaplan, 1997, pp. 65‐66) in which whites are interpellated with power with respect to their gaze at black characters. Kaplan differentiates the white woman landowner and English school owner in Out of Africa from the white men in the film. The female character Blixen (played by Meryl Streep) works alongside the Kikuyu people on the land, planting and separating coffee beans; further, her male servant Farah (played by Malick Bowens) is foregrounded in many scenes that show how Blixen depends on him for translation, healing, and cultural knowledge (pp. 69‐71). Kaplan’s analysis, although limited in some respects (Mackie, 2005), provides an important lens through which to view popular films, particularly with respect to the question of who speaks to whom, how, and in what circumstances. PEARL HARBOR: A RESISTANT READING The scenes of resistance around the film Pearl Harbor took place in February 2002, in Mackie’s class at the University‐College of Western Canada (UCWC),2 a small institution with an enrollment of approximately 3,000 full‐time students. Approximately 200 of them are English language learners who are mainly full‐time international students from Asian countries including China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. The main goal of the English language curriculum at UCWC is academic preparation, and the majority of the students desire an undergraduate degree from Canada. The critical incident that we discuss took place in a class of 13 students, all in their early to mid‐20’s. Students were participating in an upper‐intermediate, general reading, writing, speaking, and listening course, which met four days per week for two hours. There were approximately equal numbers of females and males, who had varying amounts of education depending on their age and country of origin. The students from China were 19 to 21 years of age and had completed high school; some had an additional year of English preparation school. The students from South Korea were older than the Chinese students and had completed their university degree or were in their fourth year of a university degree in South Korea. The male students from South Korea 228 ARDISS MACKIE & BONNY NORTON had also completed two years of mandatory military training. The students from Japan were in their early‐ and mid‐20’s. Some had just finished high school while others were in the middle of a degree program in Japan. Mackie, the teacher, had integrated various kinds of texts related to questions of race and gender in her curriculum during her twenty years of postsecondary English teaching in Canada, China, Greece, and Japan (Mackie, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2003). For instance, in an effort to dislodge the colour‐blindness of her whiteness, Mackie (2003) questioned how her own identity as a white woman has been constructed, and part of this questioning involved her childhood viewing of the film To Kill a Mockingbird (Mulligan, 1962). Mackie’s curriculum and assignments were, therefore, an integral part of her interest in disrupting taken‐for‐
granted assumptions about how people are socially positioned and how they might defend or resist these subject positions. In this class, most of the students enjoyed lively and often playful discussions of the curricular topics that included kinesics, gender, aging, intelligence, beauty consciousness, media awareness, advertising, and popular comics. In the assignment for media awareness, however, the collegial relationships changed dramatically. The assignment Mackie gave the students was to work in groups to deconstruct the cross‐
cultural representations in an English‐medium film of their choice, and then present their analysis in the form of a film critique. The student audience could comment on the respective film critiques of their peers by writing an anonymous comment that Mackie then read aloud. The student audience also voted for the best critique, and the most votes won a bonus point in addition to the grade Mackie assigned. This strategy of anonymous peer review was designed to encourage critical engagement with both the strengths and limitations of the respective film critiques. Importantly, Mackieʹs reading aloud marked the closure of the assignment. Other than listening, she did not expect students to engage with the comments from their peers. Mackie modeled a film critique using clips from Anna and the King (Tennant, 1999), focusing on scenes in which Anna Leonowens (played by Jodie Foster) and the King of Siam (played by Chow Yun‐Fat) and his son, Prince Chulalongkorn (played by Keith Chin) are juxtaposed in REVISITING PEARL HARBOR: RESISTANCE TO REEL AND REAL EVENTS 229 terms of world knowledge and cultural sophistication. For example, in one scene Leonowens presents the world map, a prominent postcolonial trope in many popular films with ESL, as a surprise and a privileged piece of curriculum. The King’s son opposes the world map’s representation of Siam as not the center of the world and too small. A shoving fight ensues between the Prince and Anna’s son. In the end, the map stays, and by the end of the movie when the King is bedridden and the Prince must take over, he is eager to stop Siamese customs such as everyone bowing in the presence of the King. Accepting the map of the world, like other curricular technologies, represents the necessity of progress vis‐à‐vis colonialism and letting go of the encumbered and limited past, another cinematic postcolonial position for colonial histories. In raising questions about the relationship between the characters, Mackie sought to provide a safe space in which students could resist the film’s dominant representations. It is important to note that Mackie intended to model the genre of presentation and the language of critique, rather than to teach the students to be “critical” as such. Like Kubota (1999a, 1999b, 2001, 2002) and Susser (1998), Mackie’s teaching experience had taught her to reject the essentialized and postcolonial view of Asian students as quiet, uncritical, and passive. In response to the assignment, students worked together to analyze how the language of their chosen film constructed cross‐cultural representations. Each group had three to four members with each member presenting a different part of the critique: introducing and giving a plot summary of the film; illustrating how the language of the film (script, costumes, dialogue, lighting, make‐up) constructs cultural identities; and concluding with a reflection on how they responded to these cultural identities. Some students asked for clarification on the parameters of the assignment, such as how long their critique should be, while other students asked for help in reading the identities of their chosen film. Mikiko, a Japanese student who was in the latter part of her degree program in Japan, was one of the students who sought Mackie’s help. Because she had studied English in Japan, Mikiko’s command of English was excellent. She was also well‐prepared for each assignment. Because she attended another course that Mackie taught, they often shared small 230 ARDISS MACKIE & BONNY NORTON jokes about the two classes and their assignments as they walked from one course to the next. Mikiko was in a group with two South Korean female students who were of the same age and academic preparation as Mikiko. Mikiko and her group had chosen to critique Pearl Harbor (Bay, 2001), a dramatic movie that entwines American love stories with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Mikiko, who was to present the second part of the critique, the illustration of cinematic construction of ethnic identities, gave Mackie her ideas about the representations of Japanese and Americans in the movie, but she was uncertain about how to apply cinematic language to the characters’ ethnic identities. Mikiko thought the Japanese were unattractive and lacking in appeal. For example, with respect to the female Japanese characters, she said that the kimono costumes suggested to her a traditional dress that was not worn much at that time—an unmodern Japan whose representation she resented. Mackie and Mikiko discussed a range of ways the film distinguished Americans from Japanese, including the wearing of black clothes, the lack of a social life, family, or friends, and the devotion to warring, juxtaposing these with the portraits of Americans. Overall, Mackie considered Mikiko’s class presentation to be excellent. Some of Mikiko’s clips made the students laugh as these showed just how explicitly the cinematic distinction was made between the dark unattractive Japanese and the colorful fun‐loving Americans. The students’ laughter at her chosen film clips indicated the extent to which Mikiko succeeded in convincing many of her fellow students that her resistant reading of the film was a valid one. While Mackie read the comments aloud, the students listened attentively. For this particular assignment, Mikiko’s group won the most votes. The students’ comments suggested that not only was the group’s language clear and the critique well‐organized, but Mikiko’s analysis had taught them how the use of costumes, lighting, and plot could produce particular ethnic identities. CRITIQUE AS A SITE OF STRUGGLE In contrast to the responses of a majority of the students, a South Korean student, who called himself John, was distressed by Mikiko’s REVISITING PEARL HARBOR: RESISTANCE TO REEL AND REAL EVENTS 231 presentation. John and Mikiko sat beside each other in class, and until that point, had constantly teased and joked with each other. John, who had finished military training and university, had lived in Japan for four years where he attended Japanese school and learned Japanese. His ambition was to be an international businessman. Among his many friends at UCWC were Japanese students with whom he spoke Japanese. Like Mikiko, his English was excellent, so he was one of the students who participated most often in class discussions. As mentioned above, the student audience wrote comments on each critique, and voted for the best one. In his comment regarding the critique of Pearl Harbor (Bay, 2001), John wrote: You guys [the two South Korean students in the group] should have known [about the role of the Japanese in World War II]. At that time, Japanese soldier were more cruel. They have killed a lot of Chinese, Korean, American, and other Asian. However, Japanese government still hide that. I like Japan but truth must be know. (John, South Korean student) Mackie read the comments out loud in class following the critiques. After she read John’s comment, he added in an upset voice: “That was my comment. I want to know what the Japanese students think about what I said. Do you know about the war?” Until this point, the assignment had positioned students as social critics who analyzed ethnic stereotypes in films, and kept themselves at a distance from the text. John’s response positioned himself quite differently. He was no longer a peer laughing at Pearl Harbor’s (Bay, 2001) obvious racial stereotypes. He was a student actively engaged in resisting the assignment’s parameters and Mikiko’s analysis. The class was unusually quiet. The friendly, talkative, and comfortable atmosphere changed completely. Indeed, no one said a word, and the Japanese students did not respond to John’s challenging question. Mackie repeated John’s question, “Do the Japanese students know about World War II?” There were three Japanese students in class that day. One said he knew about it, another that he did not know about it, and Mikiko said, “We don’t learn in school.” When Mackie had a chance to talk to the students individually, John said that he liked Japan and Japanese students, who were his friends, 232 ARDISS MACKIE & BONNY NORTON and that as a teenager he had lived in Japan for four years and was fluent in Japanese. He disagreed with Mikiko’s critique because it made the Japanese look like victims when he believed it was Koreans and others who were the victims of the war. He differentiated the critique of Hollywood identities from his own more immediate experiences of the war. He drew upon language to express what Canagarajah (2002) calls a “burning desire to articulate the inequalities” (p. 18) on the topic. The following day, Mackie spoke with Mikiko and one of her South Korean partners, Miga, about John’s comments. After hearing his question, Mikiko told Mackie that she had researched the Internet to learn more about Japan in the war. Mackie asked her what she had learned, and, visibly upset, Mikiko’s response was, “I can’t say,” adding, “We are under the control of our government. It’s not our fault.” The Japanese curriculum, tightly controlled by the Department of Education (Monbusho [Department of Education]), limits information about the atrocities the Japanese committed (Colley, 2003). Even now, the Japanese government will not recognize such colonial brutality as the Korean comfort women in Japan (Min, 2003). What started out to be a task in visual deconstruction became a difficult lesson in learning Japan’s history in a new and disturbing light. It is important to note, in contrast, that Miga simply dismissed Pearl Harbor (Bay, 2001) as “just a movie” and certainly nothing to get upset about. CRITICAL PRAXIS WITH POPULAR FILM After the class engaged silently with John’s question, Mackie struggled to determine how best to respond to the evolving events. She had several options. The first and by far the easiest was to create distance from the moment, the topic, and the realities of the disruption. Mackie dismissed this option because she wished to acknowledge both Mikiko and John for the risks they had taken, and for the learning that had taken place. Another option was for Mackie to give her personal opinion on the events of the war. She was drawn to this option because she felt that failure to address the Japanese role in World War II would deny studentsʹ critical knowledge that might promote more transnational interaction in the class. She reluctantly decided against this option because she was concerned that speaking against the Japanese REVISITING PEARL HARBOR: RESISTANCE TO REEL AND REAL EVENTS 233 government’s educational policy would further shame Mikiko and the other Japanese students. She believed that the Japanese students had already felt public shame when John had posed his question to them. Mackie assumed that Mikiko had already learnt a great deal about Japan’s role in the war, and was more aware of a South Korean view of Japanese silence regarding the war. Mackie instead chose a third option to respond to this critical incident. She sought to provide a wider context in which to understand not only the events of Pearl Harbor, World War II, and Japanese culpability, but a way to understand how it might be possible to challenge the Japanese government’s silence concerning the war. She chose to examine Canadian atrocities against ethnic minorities as an example of how governments can be made to accept responsibility for racist social practices. She began by explaining instances of racism throughout Canada’s history, including the near genocide of First Nations people; the Komagata Maru incident in which 400 people from India were refused entrance to Canada in 1914; and the internment of Canadian citizens of Japanese descent during World War II. She emphasized the third example, describing the loss of private property and the Japanese experience of human rights violations. Mackie then asked the students if they thought that she, as a Canadian citizen, was personally responsible for these actions. The students replied emphatically that she could not be held responsible because she was not even alive at the time. She then described the compensation that the Canadian government granted to Canadians who were interned in camps during the war. She explained that this was the result of a collective campaign against the government by the families who suffered loss through internment, rather than through the initiative of a generous government. She explained further that the First Nations people were continuing their struggle with various levels of government even to the present day. When this class was over, Mackie approached Mikiko and Miga and asked them whether her comments had made sense to them. Mikiko replied that it was interesting that a country like Canada had such a racist history, while Miga made the surprising comment, “Yeah, so what?” articulated in a frustrated tone. Miga wanted her to go further to 234 ARDISS MACKIE & BONNY NORTON make the specific point that ordinary Japanese citizens should resist their government’s policy of silence regarding its role in World War II. She was suggesting that it was the teacher’s responsibility to encourage the Japanese students to put collective pressure on the Japanese government to change the official school curriculum. Two interesting issues arise in relation to Miga’s response. The first important point is that Miga had changed her initial understanding of the assignment in which she saw Pearl Harbor (Bay, 2001) as being “just a movie” to seeing the film as a possible catalyst for political change; she wished to take up John’s call for action from Japanese students in the classroom. The second important point is that Miga also resisted Mackie’s comments, suggesting that Mackie had not been sufficiently proactive in insisting on the need for action on the part of Japanese students. Mackie was again left wondering what might have been the most appropriate response to the critical incident, and whether her desire to maintain a safe environment in the classroom was misguided. THEORIZING THE PEARL HARBOR CRITICAL INCIDENT We have been discussing a variety of ways that critical work with popular film and education is practised. In Mackie’s English language classroom, the use of film, the assignment, and the students’ previous experiences created powerful moments of resistance, learning, and educational change. The film Pearl Harbor (Bay, 2001), in particular, provided a rich opportunity for students with diverse identities and investments to learn that a film, as a socially constructed “text,” can be a site of struggle over meaning, identity, and power. Bodies and histories collided over meaning. What we have yet to do, however, is to theorize the reel and real events that took place in Mackie’s classroom in February 2002. With Pennycook (2004), we agree that “trying to be a critical educator is more often about seeking and seizing small moments to open the door on a more critical perspective” (p. 341). What “critical perspective,” then, might we bring to the debates over Pearl Harbor (Bay, 2001)? It is useful, we believe, to distinguish between pedagogical practices that promote “critical thinking” and those that promote “critical praxis.” We would like to make the case that both Mackie and the students were caught in REVISITING PEARL HARBOR: RESISTANCE TO REEL AND REAL EVENTS 235 the tension between the assignment as an exercise in critical thinking and an exercise in critical praxis. Teachers who use popular film to promote critical thinking seek to promote equality, equal access, and an attitude of tolerance toward minorities. In this view, films hold meaning, that is, the meaning is understood to be fixed within the text of the film. The critic is separated from the film, with the assumption that the critic has enough distance from the film to analyze it “objectively.” Although few connections are made between the film and wider social practices, viewers are invited to connect to the film on an academic or linguistic level. In promoting critical thinking in the viewing of a film, the teachers may ask students to identify, for example, the genre of the film; the good guys and the bad guys; the quality of the acting, dialogue, or ending of the film; and the students’ favourite or least favourite scene. Teachers may ask students to discuss their opinions of the issues that the director raised, and if they have been in a similar situation as represented in the film. At its most socially conscious, this kind of skill‐building may also require that students identify stereotypical images of minorities and how the film essentializes groups. The assumption here is that once students have identified cinematic stereotypes, they may question their own constructions of particular groups. In the initial assignment that Mackie gave the students, she sought to develop such critical thinking skills in her students. She modeled for the students how to summarize the plot of the film, how to analyze the language of the film, and how to critique a director’s decisions. She assumed that the students would objectively read their respective films for the purposes of a progressive literacy, a literacy in which students would develop language and an awareness of genres, as well as a sympathetic approach to cultural minorities. Further, she encouraged critical class participation by asking students to write anonymous reviews of their peers’ critiques. She did not expect that any students would resist the parameters of the assignment, and she did not expect that any students would disrupt the class, curriculum, or community. Indeed, most of the students, of whom Mikiko is a prime example, had no difficulty with the parameters of the assignment. Further, most students, in writing their peer review comments, were content to view 236 ARDISS MACKIE & BONNY NORTON the film as text, in which meaning remained fixed and unconnected to the identities, histories, and investments of particular viewers. Not all the students, however, were happy to adopt a distant and objective stance with respect to the critique. John resisted the parameters of the assignment, insisting that the meaning of a film is not fixed in time and space, but a site in which viewers’ identities were implicated and negotiated. Miga’s response, initially at least, was consistent with the expectation that the assignment was simply an exercise in critical thinking and academic analysis. Dismissing John’s concerns, she argued that Pearl Harbor (Bay, 2001) was “just a movie” that provided an exercise in deconstruction. In response to John’s intervention, what began as an exercise in critical thinking shifted to an exercise in critical praxis, an approach to pedagogy that assumes that teaching is not a neutral activity, but a set of practices informed by critical theory, including feminist poststructuralism, postcolonialism, and queer and critical race theories (Pennycook, 2001, p. 5, p. 42). Such practices question modernist notions of science and language as objective systems and posit a view of society and subjectivity as discursively constructed within larger relations of power. As such, critical praxis is centrally concerned with the multiple ways in which meaning is constructed, and how both individuals and groups struggle to appropriate textual meaning in the interests of greater power and possibility. When John began to question Mikiko’s reading of Pearl Harbor (Bay, 2001), Mackie had to confront not only a challenging student exchange, but an entire contested history spanning generations of time and continents of space. The meaning of the film Pearl Harbor became a site of struggle in which student identities and investments were highly implicated. Students were no longer simply film critics; they were embodied in time, space, and history. In the first reading of the film, Mikiko, like Miga, saw the assignment as an interesting activity in language learning and deconstruction; she exercised her analytical eye, applying it to the Hollywood genre. Her critique was an excellent example of what Mackie had expected. She effectively taught the students how to read and thereby resist cinematic stereotypes. Then, in the space of 24 hours, her critique of the film took on a very different REVISITING PEARL HARBOR: RESISTANCE TO REEL AND REAL EVENTS 237 meaning as she sought to engage more actively with reel and real versions of Pearl Harbor. At the same time, she struggled to reposition her own identity. Miga, likewise, began to question her earlier dismissal of Pearl Harbor as “just a movie” and began to articulate a different set of investments with regard to the film as pedagogy. SELF‐REFLECTION AND CRITICAL PRAXIS The situation called for great self‐reflexivity on Mackie’s part, a central motif in critical praxis that has taken a variety of forms in recent educational work with film. For Butler (2000), self‐reflexivity involved responding quickly to education students’ time restraints in completing the research protocols she had set out for them and changing her initial protocols so that her project would fit better with the students’ busy lives. Here, self‐reflexivity interpellates students or research participants with power and the teacher/researcher as making changes based on that power. Self‐reflexivity also comes to mean a critical awareness of one’s politics and the limitations of that knowledge, a kind of hyper‐
reflexivity. Kelly (1997) is an exemplar here in her examination of the film, To Sir, With Love (Clavell, 1967). Another example of reflexivity is in Smith’s (1999) work where she is inclusive of other readings of the film Lean on Me (Avildsen, 1989) but acknowledges both their resistance to her reading and her own resistance to adopting theirs. In working through issues of race and desire (Mackie, 2003), self‐reflexivity begins with a call to question discourses of whiteness and gender and to recognize how these inscribe subject positions. In responding to the set of events precipitated by Mikiko’s critique of Pearl Harbor (Bay, 2001), Mackie engaged in much self‐reflection about an appropriate pedagogical response. She realized that her assignment, while encouraging critical thinking, also called for critical praxis. The rationale for her choice of response to the critical incident, in which she sought to locate Japanese actions within a wider international context, was multiple. A major concern was to maintain a sense of community in the class, and ensure that both South Korean and Japanese students considered the class to be a safe space for discussion and debate. She also wanted the students to understand that violations of human rights are universal and that people need to be constantly vigilant about 238 ARDISS MACKIE & BONNY NORTON struggles for social justice. But her primary rationale was to model for the students the position that acknowledging a country’s historical injustices is not tantamount to being a disloyal citizen. However, the third option Mackie chose is not without its problems. First and foremost is the possibility that Mackie felt white guilt over Canada’s racist actions, and that positioning students to absolve her, the authority figure, of this guilt would be problematic. Another problem is the possibility that the students were left believing that Canada is a model country with regards to addressing its human rights violations, possibly creating an unfavorable contrast to their own countries. A final difficulty with her choice is the lack of discussion of Japanese‐Canadian redress and how citizens of other countries might redress their human rights violations. It was this very issue that led Miga to challenge Mackie’s pedagogy. Indeed, Mackie remained highly conflicted about her pedagogical choices. The work of Simon (1992) aids in the analysis of Mackie’s self‐
questioning. Simon has argued persuasively that critical praxis assumes ongoing and perpetual struggles for a vision of the world that is “not yet”: Affirming a commitment to a project of possibility … will require forms of teaching and learning linked to the goal of educating students to take risks, to struggle with ongoing relations of power, to critically appropriate forms of knowledge that exist outside their immediate experience, and to envisage a world that is “not yet” – in order to be able to alter the grounds on which life is lived. (p. 57) Simon suggests that the search for the right pedagogical practices and the appropriate responses to critical incidences in classrooms is perhaps misplaced. Critical praxis presupposes that the desire for a world that is “not yet” will remain an ongoing struggle, in which both teachers and students constantly negotiate their claims to knowledge and power. At the heart of such negotiations are shifting identities and changing possibilities. Notwithstanding Mackie’s self‐questioning, her pedagogical practices had opened up increased possibilities for discussion, debate, and disagreement. The students were taking risks, struggling with ongoing relations of power, and appropriating forms of REVISITING PEARL HARBOR: RESISTANCE TO REEL AND REAL EVENTS 239 knowledge outside their immediate experience. It is clear from the ongoing debates in the classroom that critical praxis can still remain a safe place for critical engagement, while not necessarily remaining a comfortable place for all. CONCLUSION The classroom discussion on Pearl Harbor (Bay, 2001) illustrates the pedagogical untidiness of providing space for critique and resistance. Mikiko’s resistant reading and the students’ responses to her critique underscore the multiplicity of ways popular films are read and resisted. For some students, meaning remains fixed in the film as text; a film is “just a movie” that bears little relationship to contemporary realities. For other students, meaning is discursively constructed by different stakeholders with conflicting claims to knowledge and power. For yet other students, the meaning of a film shifts as they appropriate new forms of knowledge and experience. The challenge for a teacher is to consider what pedagogical practices might create possibilities for both individual and collective growth. There are no easy or correct answers. Drawing on the reel and real events around Pearl Harbor (Bay, 2001), we have concluded that an agenda that includes both critical thinking and critical praxis with regard to the use of popular film in English language education provides exciting possibilities for engaging students in discussion, debate, and critique. Most importantly, students have the opportunity to explore the power of language as both a linguistic system and a social practice. 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Popular Media, Critical Pedagogy, and Inner City Youth Diane Wishart Leard & Brett Lashua In this article, we explored ways youth, traditionally silenced, engaged with popular culture to voice experiences and challenge dominant narratives of public schools and daily lives. We also considered how educators use popular culture as critical pedagogy with inner city youth. Through ethnographic bricolage and case study methods, and drawing from cultural studies and critical pedagogy, we have presented two case studies. One study highlighted how a school used popular theatre and critical literacy to connect with students’ experiences. The second focused on narratives in students’ rap songs. These case studies highlight the risks, challenges, and potential for building respectful and reciprocal relationships with students. Key words: rap music, popular theatre, ethnography, bricolage, case study, schools, poverty Dans cet article, les auteurs analysent comment des jeunes, d’ordinaire réduits au silence, utilisent la culture populaire pour exprimer leur vécu et contester les discours dominants des écoles publiques. Ils étudient également comment des éducateurs ont recours à la culture populaire comme outil de pédagogie critique auprès de jeunes de quartiers défavorisés. Utilisant un montage ethnographique et s’appuyant sur des études culturelles et la pédagogie critique, ils présentent deux études de cas. L’une met en relief comment une école s’est servie du théâtre populaire et de la littératie critique pour faire le lien avec les expériences des élèves. L’autre est axée sur les narrations des élèves dans des chansons « rap» de leur cru. Ces études de cas montrent bien les risques, les défis et les possibilités d’établir des liens réciproques et respectueux avec les élèves. Mots clés : rap, théâtre populaire, ethnographie, étude de cas, écoles, pauvreté _________________ CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 29, 1 (2006): 244‐264 POPULAR MEDIA, CRITICAL PEDAGOGY, AND INNER CITY YOUTH 245 In this article, we present narratives of youth and educators who were participants in two research projects in inner city alternative schools in Edmonton. As teachers and researchers in these schools, we explored our involvement with young people’s engagement of popular culture to voice their experiences and challenge dominant narratives in their public schooling and daily lives. We also examine how both the researchers and other teachers used popular culture as critical pedagogy in these educational contexts with inner city youth. Diane’s work—a case study at Inner City High School (ICHS)1 in Edmonton—highlights how the school recognized students’ experiences as important in meeting educational needs. Brett’s ethnographic research of the music program at Boyle Street Education Centre (BSEC) focused on narratives performed through students’ rap songs. In both instances, critical pedagogy approaches arose from the recognition of the need to value the voices of youth who have traditionally been silenced or unheard, and attend to the importance of popular cultural practices in young people’s lives. Our projects sought to create and open up ways of incorporating popular culture as critical practice in contemporary urban classrooms. We take a cue from Weiner (2003), who reminds us of the importance of moving beyond critiques of popular texts and practices, to focus upon the relations and social contexts in which these practices take place. The urban schools that are the focus of our studies shared many common characteristics. Both schools serve a population of students who left the mainstream public school system prior to high school completion. Both schools are located in older and poorer inner city fringe neighbourhoods bordering Edmonton’s downtown business core. Most students involved in the studies were between the ages of 14 and 21, and have had a wide range of experiences in schools, including gaps in their education ranging from a few months to several years. Because of the transient nature of their lives, most have attended many different schools. Poverty was a primary concern for all students, with most living independently or in group‐home settings. Of those who lived with parents, most were in single parent homes. Many students reported periods of homelessness. Students identified having had frequent experiences with racism and discrimination in public schools. Over 50 per cent of the students in our studies reported Aboriginal heritage. 246 DIANE WISHART LEARD & BRETT LASHUA Many students also indicated having been arrested many times. Additional factors contributing to their difficulties in schools included drug use and addictions (e.g., alcohol, crystal meth), gang involvement and violence (e.g., stealing cars, fighting, dealing drugs), and struggles with depression and suicide. Because of these challenging dynamics, both schools sought relevant and respectful ways of engaging with students to provide meaningful and successful educational opportunities. LOCATING THE RESEARCH As doctoral students working within separate departments at the University of Alberta, we first met at an Aboriginal education conference where we began talking about the similarities and shared concerns in our work. We found that we both had known and worked with several of the same students, and we shared questions about ways to better engage and create dialogue with young people through critical education and popular culture. We additionally shared similar concerns about negotiating our own positions with students as white, older, educated, and relatively affluent people in positions of authority. We both sought to break down hierarchical structures of authority through our teaching practices as staff members at these schools. Additionally, we wanted to incorporate these same approaches to our doctoral projects in these contexts. Brett’s music‐creation option class was well suited to this approach. Diane’s practice considered the use of popular theatre, photography, and video as tools for literacy development. Conceptual Framework We initially considered how the two schools used popular culture as critical pedagogy and how our own practices reflected the philosophies of these schools. Critical pedagogy and popular media literature provided a context for our thinking about the schools’ critical engagements. Critical pedagogy provides a way of seeing an unjust social order and revealing how this injustice has caused problems in the lives of young people who live in impoverished conditions. It offers an approach to education, through dialogue and reflection, whereby the effects of power can be interrogated and the needs of students met POPULAR MEDIA, CRITICAL PEDAGOGY, AND INNER CITY YOUTH 247 (Apple, 1990). Shor (1987) additionally illustrates the need to situate formal learning within students’ cultures. Through the process of “unveiling … reality and thereby coming to know it critically” (Freire, 1996, p. 51) those who have been disenfranchised come to explore their own social and cultural realities, draw their own conclusions, and work toward appropriate responses. Critical pedagogy and cultural studies approaches offer understandings of how young people use popular cultural representations to construct and express the meaningfulness of their lives, identities, and cultures (Giroux, 2001; Hall, 1997). These approaches interrogate mainstream cultural representations and encourage youth to construct their own representations through understandings of their own realities. Willis (1990) referred to the “extraordinary symbolic creativity of the multitude of ways in which young people use, humanise, decorate and invest meanings within their common and immediate life spaces and social practices” (p. 6). Creative engagement with popular culture allows youth “a sense that they are controlling their own representation, that they are in control of their own cultural identity, and are creatively shaping and moulding language, style, and self into something new” (Carlson & Dimitriadis, 2003, p. 21). If schools are to become more relevant spaces for young people, it is useful to listen to the stories youth are telling educators through their use of popular culture. Graveline (1998) has added that “insisting on people representing their own voices, their own stories” as a “central pedagogical tool” is imperative in the classroom (p. 124). Lincoln and Denzin (2003) noted: “We can study experience only through its representations, through the ways in which stories are told” (p. 240). Representation and narrative are useful concepts for developing better understandings of how young people draw from a variety of popular media to continually re‐define and reposition themselves within the social contexts of their everyday lives. Reflections on Critical Practice Our research is thus concerned with creative media use, and the ways that young people narrativise their everyday lives through popular media in inner city alternative schools. Teachers and students in these 248 DIANE WISHART LEARD & BRETT LASHUA contexts co‐create meaningful practices that move beyond the simple re‐
creation of dominant popular culture narratives. In creating the conditions for dialogue, we learned about ourselves. Apple (1990) has noted this reflection on society is joined with self‐reflection in a critical analysis. We feel that engagement in a critical process with the youth in our studies helped us to better understand our own positions within these environments. In relation to the practices of the two schools in our studies, we asked how they constructed educational opportunities for student experience to inform critical discussions and understandings of the daily lives of youth. Youth in these schools, who have been marginalized and silenced in prior schooling and social locations, expressed their own diverse consciousness and share their understandings with others in the classroom. For example, a young Aboriginal woman reflected on how her involvement in a popular theatre activity while she was a student at ICHS2 caused her to think about an issue from a different perspective when she played the part of a White girl. We were actually in the play and working on the scene and I thought about my opinion on it and I had to because of the play and there was a girl that was vocal in the play and she was the one who was saying the things about White people. ‘You took our land, took our this and that’ and I had no idea how to react to that because that’s purely on defence mechanisms. (ICHS Youth Worker) Young people’s reflections on their involvement in popular theatre created spaces for dialogue on issues relevant to their lives. Doing Media as Critical Engagement The young people in our studies often expressed that they believed no one was listening to them. One student at Boyle Street Education Centre related the following narrative about an interaction he had while recording city sounds for a sonic composition about the city subway system. At times it’s like, it’s like, ‘cause they see a Native guy they think I’m gonna ask them for money. Like, I had this stereotype just a couple days ago. I was walking down the street, and went up to ask this lady a question. I was like, ‘um, I was wondering if you could help me out?’ and she was like ‘no no, I got nothing!’ and I’m like ‘hold on man, you never even listened to the question yet! I just POPULAR MEDIA, CRITICAL PEDAGOGY, AND INNER CITY YOUTH 249 wanted to interview you about what you thought about Churchill Station!’ (MC Ed Mile) Stories such as Ed Mile’s highlight the need to listen to young people, and create spaces for the discussion of issues that are closed down in other conversations. Stories that young people have to tell open up possibilities to engage in shared dialogue. Fine, Weis, Centrie, and Roberts (2000) refer to these openings as “free spaces” where young people are “‘homesteading’—finding unsuspecting places within their geographic locations, their public institutions, and their spiritual lives to sculpt real and imaginary corners for peace, solace, communion, personal and collective identity work” (p. 132). As teachers and researchers our aim was to develop our classrooms, our schools, and our pedagogies to address these concerns, using popular culture and valuing youth experiences to transform our classrooms into more supportive, dialogic, and democratic spaces. METHODS Diane’s research project at ICHS followed a case study approach as outlined by Stake (1995). She based her findings on individual interviews and focus group discussions with students and staff, as well as her participation in daily sharing circles and weekly staff meetings. Reflections on her practice as a teacher in this school informed the analysis. Formal data collection took place over a two‐month period and involved 12 students and 8 staff members. She sought a wide range of student experience in addition to an approximately equal representation of gender as well as Aboriginal and non‐Aboriginal students. This study was reviewed and approved by the Faculty of Education and the Extension Research Ethics Board at the University of Alberta. Approval was also granted from Inner City High School. Brett’s research at BSEC represented a bricolage of narrative, arts‐
based, and performance methods reflective of Lincoln and Denzin’s (2003) presentation of ethnographic techniques that emerge where and when young people involved in the research rapped, shouted, danced, performed, and sang their stories. The research—called The Beat of Boyle Street music program—brought Brett to the school four days a week for three years to teach students to use audio production software to create 250 DIANE WISHART LEARD & BRETT LASHUA their own music, raps, beats, dance tracks, soundscapes, and spoken‐
word poems. This study was reviewed and approved by both the University of Alberta Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation Research Ethics Board and the Board of Directors of Boyle Street Education Centre. RESEARCH CONTEXTS Boyle Street Education Centre Boyle Street Education Centre (BSEC), established in 1996, was the first charter school in Alberta. The school was initially housed within the Boyle Street Community Services Co‐Op, an agency providing essential social services to people living in poverty in Edmonton’s inner city. BSEC was located in the basement of the Co‐Op until August 2004, when the school relocated four blocks away to provide more space. The school offers a core curriculum including science, math, social studies, and language arts, plus a variety of option courses, such as Cree language and culture, cosmetology, video, music production, fashion studies, and work experience programs. In addition to the music program, BSEC recently added a hip‐hop/breakdancing class. The school’s mission is to re‐engage students who have been unsuccessful or have had interruptions in their school experience. Brett’s work at BSEC was federally funded (through the National Crime Prevention Strategy, Community Mobilization Program) and sought to re‐engage young people in education through their interests in popular music, particularly rap and hip‐hop. Inner City High School Inner City High School (ICHS) in Edmonton provides an academic program, as well as literacy/bridging and options courses, built on a foundation of critical pedagogy. ICHS was established in 1993 as a private school; about 700 youth have gone through the program. The school objectives are aimed at engaging youth who left public high schools prior to completion because of the social situations of their lives and prior schooling experiences that reflect a process Freire and Giroux (1989) identify as making “some students voiceless” (p. ix). POPULAR MEDIA, CRITICAL PEDAGOGY, AND INNER CITY YOUTH 251 The school’s founder and principal, J. Cloutier, developed the program with a unique understanding of students who have had difficulties in public schools. Cloutier identified his own life story, similar to many of the students’ stories, as being an important component in this understanding (Cloutier, 2002). Relating, from personal experience to the reality and psychological pressures faced by many inner city youth, he acquired formal education that he felt enabled him to help these youth succeed. Although incorporating many informal education approaches within school programming (e.g. Elders), Cloutier wanted to ensure a structure was in place to give youth an opportunity to complete high school. He knew from personal experience that these youth were not lacking intelligence, just opportunities. USING POPULAR MEDIA AS CRITICAL PEDAGOGY The program at ICHS initially grew out of the belief that drama was a powerful tool for addressing social issues. Teachers adopted a popular theatre approach because it allowed inexperienced and less articulate participants to do sophisticated social analysis (Cloutier, 2002). Popular theatre strives for social change by involving individuals as groups or members of communities in identifying issues of concern, points of change, and analyzing how change could happen (Prentki & Selman, 2000). Through this medium, youth at ICHS were able to explore their own social reality, draw their own conclusions, and work toward appropriate responses. A youth worker and former ICHS student outlined this process. After the warm‐up games and those group building games we get into more issue‐based things, like sculptures…we go into themes, sometimes on like respect, and they [the students] come up with solutions of how they can go from disrespect to respect. I mean, that’s a pretty big thing. (ICHS Youth Worker) This process of empowerment “involves learning to question and selectively appropriate those aspects of the dominant culture that would provide individuals and their communities” with the basis for transforming the wider social order (Graveline, 1998, p. 124). Issues identified by the youth at ICHS and explored through drama included racism, violence, and prostitution. The drama program 252 DIANE WISHART LEARD & BRETT LASHUA provided real life contexts for “learning as the outcome of diverse struggles rather than as the passive reception of information” (Giroux, 2000, p. 127). Since popular theatre exercises are most often about social issues, then the kind of analysis that takes place is fairly significant as well… it often takes place just through presenting scenes without any kind of moralizing by the facilitators and it’s the youth [who] are able to draw [out] what they’re ready for from that process. (ICHS Teacher) One student talked about how drama helped him focus on school. Through involvement in “a lot of drama skits on everyday living and how you see things … you’re aware of a lot more things in the downtown area and the people that surround you” (ICHS Student). Popular theatre helped a number of the youth work through many of the issues that were having a negative effect on their lives (Cloutier, 1997). Once engaged in this healing process, they began to see education as a way to change their lives. Cloutier (1997) recognised the process of conscientization, defined by Friere (1996) as actions participants engage in to transform their social situations, as that undertaken with these youth. This process ultimately led to the development of ICHS. Teachers at the school then incorporated popular theatre into the educational program. At BSEC, rap music represents a type of knowledge and artistry that is valued in the classroom. This approach is not new. For instance, Kun (1994) described working through a unit on poetry with inner city students that began with writing raps. He asked: “to what extent can we work through rap as a paradigm for the incorporation of music into the daily lesson plan?” (Kun, 1994, sample 7, para. 1). For many students, rap music is not only part of their everyday lives, but also something that they can make by themselves to express valuable kinds of knowledge and broader social relationships. Along these lines Dimitriadis (2001b) noted that teachers should begin to understand rap as part of “under explored resources for thinking through what counts as ‘the pedagogical’ for increasingly disenfranchised young people” (p. 34). The Beat of Boyle Street is innovative in that students learned how to make their own rap music using computers and audio production POPULAR MEDIA, CRITICAL PEDAGOGY, AND INNER CITY YOUTH 253 software. Many students at BSEC reported that music class, with the opportunity to rap, make remixes, or simply hang out and talk about music, was the primary reason they got up in the morning and came to school. Making a rap song provided a sense of accomplishment and success, and an area to build upon existing strengths and confidence, which in turn translated across a whole range of school competencies. In an interview with CBC radio about his raps, one student commented: I came to this school back in like ’99‐2000, and that year I was having a lot of struggles at home, and problems with issues with police and stuff and court problems. The next time I came here was this year. This year I started coming here in September when I got out [of Edmonton’s youth detention centre] on September 28th, and then I heard about this music class and I thought ‘Holy smokes!’ and it’s just what I needed ‘cause that’s what I like doing, writing lyrics since I was 12 years old. (MC Rasta P) In one of his compositions, MC Rasta P rapped about how he felt that rap music was helping him to turn his life around. The first verse of the song, titled “Rhyme Spree,” explains how, although he continued to struggle, he was using rap to change his life. Some Natives can’t even get out of their own fucking position, To kill the pain, go out and get drunk, is their only mission. I love the people looking for love in the all wrong places, Got ‘em making babies, trying to hustle cash, got ‘em catching cases. Already a lot of nechies in jail, man I don’t wanna fail, But with all this freedom I remind myself I ain’t even living well. Sometimes breakfast, sometimes supper, sometimes a snack here and there, A lot of kids going wild since their parents don’t even care. I try to stay focused, make something happen like hocus‐pocus Stick to this rap thing ‘cause like mary jane it’s the dopest. No hood rat, no mall rat, I’m past all that, Believe me, entrepreneur coming up in this game, Y’all know my name, Rasta P, it shouldn’t change, it’s still the same. (MC Rasta P) 254 DIANE WISHART LEARD & BRETT LASHUA MC Rasta P employed rap music—so insidious to many adult/middle‐class/white people for its connotations of gangstas, ghettos, thugs, sex, and violence (Mahiri & Conner, 2003)—to escape or counter some of the aspects of that lifestyle. He had been too close to those hard realities, and this rap represented his hopes and dreams for a better future. Rapping opened a space of respite and solace, a space to begin to create a new story, and a point of re‐entry into his education. Although many young people in The Beat of Boyle Street did not want to sit down and talk about their anger or frustrations, they did want to rap about it, or select a set of songs for a “mixed CD” that articulated their feelings. Raps, such as MC Rasta P’s, opened critical dialogues between students and teachers that questioned how popular media challenged contemporary understandings of social issues such as racial and class conflicts. RETHINKING RELATIONSHIPS: RESPECTFUL ENGAGEMENT AND CRITICAL DIALOGUE Our work in these projects required us to occupy and think through the multiple and shifting roles we played within the classroom—as teachers, researchers, musicians, advocates, and as students—and to rethink the ways that we constructed and understood ourselves in these contexts. For example, students’ rap songs challenged Brett to recognize the political relationships and power dynamics inherent in his interactions with students. The following short rap created by a young Aboriginal woman (MC “Glorious”) describes her experiences in city spaces filled with racism and hatred. When I’m rolling on the bus, all I see is bad streets, No peace, when I’m bumping to my beats, Makes me wanna give up on life, cut myself with a knife It hurts to see my brothers, begging for money, stuck in the game, Feeling the shame, Please God, we fought for our land, we brought our clan, Been real to our band When I see us now, the girl makes me wanna hurl, Why we gotta be hated and jaded and waited on? POPULAR MEDIA, CRITICAL PEDAGOGY, AND INNER CITY YOUTH 255 Stop the racist‐ism, start the creatist‐ism People look at me like I’m nothing, But deep down inside I feel I’m something. When I’m strolling through the ‘hood all I see is people up to no good. (MC “Glorious”) This rap expresses aspects of one young woman’s struggles to feel that she was “something” as she moved through the city on public transport and listened to music in her headphones, always under the gaze of the people around her. For her, making rap music offered what Soja (1996) identified as new lived spaces of representation, in the form of “creatist‐ism” which she uses to counter the “racist‐ism” that she experienced, and saw affecting Aboriginal people throughout the city. After helping this student to make a recording of this rap, Brett reflected in his journal. The last line offers a bit of a conundrum as the reader [listener] is forced to ask which people are “up to no good”? Does she mean her “brothers” who are panhandling and “stuck in the game” of cycles of alcoholism, poverty, and violence? Or, does she mean the people who are up to no good are those with the power of the gaze, the racists who look at her like she’s nothing because she is Aboriginal? At first listen, I had the first interpretation—I was thinking along established lines through which I understood being “up to no good” as panhandling and drinking. So am I just like the people who look at this young woman like she’s nothing? It required additional times of listening to this song for me to reconsider my position, and recognize how I was being complicit in the perpetuation of “racist‐isms.” Despite my best intentions, I too was getting up to no good. (Brett, journal entry) This passage illustrates how a shift occurred in Brett’s thinking during the course of his research, a moment that has been identified by others as a coming clean at the self‐other hyphen (Dimitriadis, 2001a; Fine, 1998; Fine & Weis, 1998), and creating spaces for new subjectivities for teachers, researchers, or students alike. Grossberg (1994) argued that the task of a politically engaged pedagogy is “never to convince a predefined subject to adopt a new position. Rather the task is to win an already positioned, already invested individual or group to a different set of places, a different 256 DIANE WISHART LEARD & BRETT LASHUA organization of the space of possibilities” (p. 19). Rap music and popular culture offer one possibility for creating meaningfully shared spaces for critical practice. Making rap music in the classroom also indicates how Brett began rethinking his relationships with students, questioning whose story was being told, and recognizing that his story was bound up with students’ narrative raps. At ICHS, the school staff endeavoured to be flexible and caring in their interactions with youth to foster critical dialogue. A student explained how important these relations were to her success. [The staff] were really supportive of me…they always tried to help me even though I was not even really serious about school and they still tried to encourage me…they always take you back, no matter what…I’ve gone through a lot of shit and it’s helpful to have someone that cares about you, tries to help you even though you haven’t been as good, the best person or made the best choices…they still accept you and are willing to help you. (ICHS Student) Many students started and stopped the program a number of times before they established a routine of coming to school regularly. School staff members paid careful attention to relationship building through respectful dialogue that encouraged students to continue attending school. In Diane’s discussions with ICHS staff, one teacher noted that in their relations with disenfranchised youth, “you have to stop the bleeding before you can engage in critical questioning” (ICHS Teacher). The process of stopping the bleeding and building the conditions for pedagogy began when students first arrived at the school. Early relations focused on positive, accepting interactions that lead to establishing trust as a crucial component of academic engagement. A youth worker talked about how he tried to build this trust in initial contacts with new students. They’ve [the youth] gone through so much and faced so much adversity in their lives that they don’t know who they can trust. And they’ve tried to trust so many people throughout the years that when they first come in they just look at me as just another guy… after a series of one on ones then they start to see that I’m genuine and then they start to crack the shell a little bit. (ICHS Youth Worker) POPULAR MEDIA, CRITICAL PEDAGOGY, AND INNER CITY YOUTH 257 Openness in interactions with students and abilities to relate to some of their personal experiences helped this staff member establish relationships where youth felt comfortable talking with him. Diane reflected on her own relationships with students in this school. She wanted to better understand how she established trust leading to openness in dialogue. She recognized the importance of listening to students and creating an atmosphere that was non‐
judgmental but also came to believe in the necessity of contributing to the relationship through sharing of her own stories. These stories emerged from different social locations yet offered many points of connection that youth readily responded to. She felt that by opening up to them, spaces were created whereby youth could offer their knowledge. Young people’s knowledge was validated through this process. Diane felt the students also validated her in this process, as worthy of receiving what they had to offer. New students coming into ICHS progressed through a series of courses designed to bring their reading, writing, and analytical skills up to grade level prior to starting an academic program. These courses were set up as short‐term modules to allow students the opportunity to experience academic success quickly, leading to an increase in self confidence and a desire to continue coming to school. These early courses began with literacy where, through drama, photography, video, reading, and writing, students explored the social issues in their lives. When ICHS students began this process, many of them looked at the school and surrounding community as focal points for photography and descriptive writing. They then moved on to examine these objects more critically through questioning and dialogue with other students and staff members. Knoblauch and Brannon (1993) provide support for the type of media literacy programs offered at ICHS, asserting that creative writing reflecting greater self understanding must be motivated by tapping into feelings, such as desire, pain, ambition, and curiosity. At ICHS, topics for literacy projects were identified and developed by the students based on problems they felt had significant impact on their lives. Often for ICHS students the realities of street life became early topics for writing and other forms of creative expression. Emotional responses, such as anger at police, racism, or frustrations of 258 DIANE WISHART LEARD & BRETT LASHUA homelessness, became motivators for their work. These courses are in keeping with Weiner’s (2003) assertion that they “help students see ideology as lived experience in literature, music, painting and social interaction” (p. 61). The next level of literacy courses at ICHS moved students into media analysis. I think we really try to look at the way of the world as well as [the ways] the youth that come here manipulate it in order to survive. And I think we look at how they have been maybe manipulated by the world and the structures that they’re up against. And we deliberately have elements within our literacy program to help us discuss those issues. Like we’ll watch a movie because it’s an in to talking about how the world is not a fair place. (ICHS Teacher) ICHS students identified news stories or advertising campaigns and worked through critical questions that lead them to discern how media shapes understandings. Significantly, these students understood themselves differently in relation to the ways inner city youth are portrayed by mainstream media. DISCUSSION: ALTERNATIVE VISIONS AND VOICES For Weaver and Daspit (1999) and Knoblauch and Brannon (1993), critical pedagogy can critique and connect popular culture and education, engage in questions about the power of representation, and change realities in schools. This approach was adopted by teachers at ICHS to incorporate critical questioning in “the arts and … the literacy program[s] [that were used] to look at the world around us” (ICHS Teacher). Teaching in this school reflected an approach put forth by Giroux (1994) to view “students as bearers of diverse social memories with a right to speak and represent themselves in the quest for learning and self determination” (p. 279). This approach coincides with Weaver and Daspit’s (1999) claim that critical pedagogy should promote students, teachers, and administrators who are able to negotiate within the terrain of popular culture to constantly remake their own identities. At ICHS teachers and youth workers often incorporated critical approaches that connected popular media forms with discussions of the power of representation. POPULAR MEDIA, CRITICAL PEDAGOGY, AND INNER CITY YOUTH 259 Digital media and also basic photography…gives somebody a purpose to go out into the community and look at it. I mean literally looking at it through a lens that you also have something between you and the community and you have a stake there that not everyone else has…once they’re given that prop they would go out and really look at the community with a different purpose…they have a role that’s valid within the community…suddenly they have a place within the community…and at the same time they’re not a part of it. They’re separate so they can really look at it from the other side…it gives them a power they haven’t had before. (ICHS Teacher) Students used this medium to critique the messages in the world around them and consider alternative representations of the images they saw. Photography not only provided opportunities to view the world critically but also allowed students to name and talk about the community of which they were part. According to Freire (1996), an emancipatory praxis must be informed by the experiences and voices of the disempowered. At ICHS, the program was adapted to meet the needs of the current students. As previously noted, this flexibility was essential to student success. Student experiences were the basis for popular theatre and literacy programs where students used their voices to express themselves, while working on social and academic skills needed for academic success and in the larger community. The use of the arts is critical in our work because the use of the arts allows us to address academic deficiencies in a way that allows students to maintain some sense of dignity and self worth and also promotes their confidence at the same time. We’re able to move towards the academic courses and feel good about the whole process rather than putting them into a reading program that highlights their deficiencies. (ICHS Teacher) Through media and art, in literacy courses, staff at ICHS have recognized that students “don’t need a lot of skill to produce something that is sort of ‘wowing’ … and they have something that they can feel proud about … and they’re beaming … it’s really important … if they can tackle the confidence the rest will follow” (ICHS Youth Worker). Confidence is an essential component of academic success and creating a desire to continue formal learning. 260 DIANE WISHART LEARD & BRETT LASHUA The project at BSEC also built confidence through teaching young people to make their own rap music using computer technology and audio production software. Dimitriadis (2001a) argued that it is important to validate a wide range of competencies in the classroom, such as emceeing or rapping, and utilize knowledge gained from efforts to survive on the streets. Along these lines, one BSEC student—who raps under the name “MC P.A.”—noted: I started here at Boyle Street Education about when I was sixteen, and when I was coming here it was going good, you know, the people were there for me, but I didn’t try hard, you know I ended up dropping out, I ended up doing a lot of things and getting in trouble, whatnot. It took me until now [age 19] to, like, finally get into it. I feel I’ve come a long way from when I was younger to now. And, it’s like, I don’t know, I’m a dedicated student now, it’s a full time thing now… music gives me, now that I’m in this classroom, and what I’ve learned here so far, it gives me a new perspective on music, you know. It just like opens up doors you know so I can see where I’m going with it, it’s not just something I listen to anymore, it’s something I do. (MC P.A.) This narrative highlights the importance of doing popular cultural practices. Grossberg (1994) argued that these practices are “not only the sites and the stakes of struggle, but also the weapons as well. Cultural practices not only represent power, they deploy it as well” (p. 7). MC P.A. has written raps that are illustrative of struggles for self‐
representation, and which spoke of Aboriginal pride in the face of pervasive negativity, the value of getting an education, and the importance of listening to the voices of Aboriginal youth. The Beat of Boyle Street supported young people speaking through their creative musical voices and hip‐hop compositions. More importantly, the processes of doing music together allowed teachers, researchers, and students to enter into new relationships, support and challenge existing power dynamics, and explore new spaces of identity formation. Fiske (1989) claimed “the study of popular culture requires the study not only of the cultural commodities out of which it is made, but also of the ways that people use them. The latter are far more creative and varied than the former” (p. 15). At BSEC, hip‐hop provided different ways for students and teachers to “learn how to position” POPULAR MEDIA, CRITICAL PEDAGOGY, AND INNER CITY YOUTH 261 themselves, as well as contest how they have been positioned, within struggles over power (Carlson & Dimitriadis, 2003, p. 12). Rose (1994) reminds educators that young people need to be in control of their own representations; making raps provided the students at Boyle Street Education Centre some sense of agency and power in an arena that sustained self‐determination, creativity, and shaping identity on their own terms and turf. RISKS, CHALLENGES, AND POTENTIAL Our research projects sought to illuminate ways in which teachers in inner city classrooms engaged students in critical dialogue and analysis. The approaches we and other staff members used to incorporate popular culture in classrooms enacted Giroux’s (2001) notion of performative pedagogy. Giroux explained this concept as a mixture of critical pedagogy and cultural studies approaches that emphasize “‘the act of doing,’ the importance of understanding theory as the grounded basis for ‘intervening into contexts and power . . . in order to enable people to act more strategically in ways that may change their context for the better’” (Grossberg, 1996, p. 143, quoted in Giroux, 2001, p. 7). As teachers and researchers, both of us struggled with the challenges of creating opportunities for students by examining their experiences through critical lenses and co‐creating meaning with them. Brett’s study involved making rap music as an option class and explored the ways young people articulated their hopes, struggles, successes, and unique skills through music. Diane’s work also revealed the struggles and possibilities for creating better futures through critical examinations of community and social issues allowing for engagement in alternative futures. We found through our work that the young people in our studies were willing to accept us for who we were (white, educated, middle class, teachers, and researchers) when we indicated a willingness to engage in meaningful dialogue together. In this, we adhere to the idea that: The critical pedagogue is always someone who teaches from where the student is, rather than from where the teacher is at. This does not mean that the teacher denies his or her pedagogical intentions or specific expertise, but merely that s/he 262 DIANE WISHART LEARD & BRETT LASHUA respects the myriad expertise of the students that s/he does not share. (Mostern, 1994, quoted in Grossberg, 1994, p. 20) Our research and practice, respecting the lives and experiences of students, sought to create opportunities for speaking and listening in moments of shared dialogue. Doing popular media in our classrooms provided a nexus of critical engagement in these alternative school environments and clearly is an integral part of Inner City High School and Boyle Street Education Centre programming. In our work, popular media practices form the core of our critical pedagogical approaches, rather than operating as additives to existing courses and curricula. However, we also see our work as useful for teachers wishing to incorporate popular media in the classroom to explore ways of creating meaningful dialogue with young people. Popular media practices offer potential points of re‐engagement within schools for developing respectful, relevant, and reciprocal relationships with students. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Brett thanks the students and staff at Boyle Street Education Centre for their creative participation and support in The Beat of Boyle Street. Diane acknowledges the invaluable contribution to this study of the students and staff at Inner City High School. Special thanks also to Dr. Karen Fox and Dr. Alison Taylor for their guidance, inspiration, and thoughtful provocation of these doctoral research projects. NOTES 1Permission has been granted to use actual names of the schools. 2The former student quoted here was employed as a Youth Worker at ICHS during the time period covered by this study. All the Youth Workers quoted in this study are graduates of ICHS. REFERENCES Apple, M. W. (1990). Ideology and curriculum (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. Carlson, D., & Dimitriadis, G. (2003). Introduction. In G. Dimitriadis & D. Carlson (Eds.), Promises to keep: Cultural studies, democratic education, and public life (pp. 1‐35). London, UK: RoutledgeFalmer. Cloutier, J. (1997). Popular theatre, education, & inner city youth. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta. POPULAR MEDIA, CRITICAL PEDAGOGY, AND INNER CITY YOUTH 263 Cloutier, J. (2002). Joe Cloutier, founder of Inner City Drama & Inner City High School. 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151. Fiske, J. (1989). Understanding popular culture. London, UK: Routledge. Freire, P. (1996). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum. Freire, P., & Giroux, H. (1989). Popular culture, schooling, & everyday life. Granby, MA: Bergin & Garvey Publishers, Inc. Giroux, H. A. (1994). Disturbing pleasures: Learning popular culture. New York: Routledge. Giroux, H. A. (2000). Stealing innocence: Youth, corporate power and the politics of culture. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Giroux, H. A. (2001). Cultural studies as performative politics. Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies, 1(1), 15‐23 Graveline, F. J. (1998). Circle works: Transforming Eurocentric consciousness. Halifax, NS: Fernwood Publishing. Grossberg, L. (1994). Bringing it all back home—Pedagogy and cultural studies. In H. A. Giroux & P. McLaren (Eds.), Between borders: Pedagogy and the politics of cultural studies (pp. 1‐25). London, UK: Routledge. Hall, S. (1997). The work of representation. In S. Hall (Ed.), Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices (pp. 13‐74). London, UK: Sage. 264 DIANE WISHART LEARD & BRETT LASHUA Knoblauch, C. H., & Brannon, L. (1993). Critical teaching and the idea of literacy. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers. Kun, J. (1994). Reading, writing, and rap: Literacy as a rap sound system. Bad Subjects: Political education for everyday life, (12). Retrieved December 5, 2005 from http://eserver.org/bs/12/Kun.html Lincoln, Y. S., & Denzin, N. K. (2003). Turning points in qualitative research: Tying knots in a handkerchief. London, UK: Sage. Mahiri, J., & Conner, E. (2003). Black youth violence has a bad rap. Journal of Social Issues, 59(1), 121‐140. Mostern, K. (1994). Decolonization as learning: Practice and pedagogy in Frantz Fanonʹs revolutionary narrative. In H. Giroux & P. McLaren (Eds.), Between borders: Pedagogy and the politics of cultural studies (pp. 253‐271). New York: Routledge. Prentki, T., & Selman, J. (2000). Popular theatre in political culture: Britain and Canada in focus. Portland, WA: Intellect. Rose, T. (1994). Black noise: Rap music and black culture in contemporary America. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Shor, I. (1987). Educating the educators: A Freirean approach to the crisis in teacher education. In I. Shor (Ed.), Freire for the classroom. (pp.7‐32). Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, Inc. Soja, E. W. (1996). Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and other real‐and‐imagined places. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Stake, R. E. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Weaver, J. A., & Daspit, T. (1999). Critical pedagogy, popular culture and the creation of meaning. In T. Daspit & J. A. Weaver (Eds.), Popular culture and critical pedagogy: Reading, constructing, connecting (pp. 183‐200). New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. Weiner, E. J. (2003). Beyond “doing” cultural studies: Toward a cultural studies of critical pedagogy. The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 25(1), 55‐73. Willis, P. (1990). Common culture. Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press. Resistance through Re‐presenting Culture: Aboriginal Student Filmmakers and a Participatory Action Research Project on Health and Wellness Ted Riecken, Frank Conibear, Corrine Michel, John Lyall, Tish Scott, Michele Tanaka, Suzanne Stewart, Janet Riecken, & Teresa Strong‐Wilson This article focuses on a participatory research project designed to promote student use of digital video to explore conceptions of health and wellness. We have viewed aspects of student resistance through the cultural perspectives that guide the Aboriginal education programs involved with the study. In presenting this piece, we have experimented with a number of different styles to represent the different cultural, ethical, and educational dimensions of the research project and to advance a form of resistance to standardized representations of research results. Through video re‐presentation of culture, students resisted the privileging of text and dominant cultural constructions of their personal identities. Key words: digital video, First Nations education, multiple literacies, health education, community and university partnerships Cet article porte sur un projet de recherche collectif visant à promouvoir l’utilisation de la vidéo numérique chez les élèves en vue d’explorer diverses conceptions de la santé et du bien‐être. Les auteurs analysent certains aspects de la résistance des élèves à travers les perspectives culturelles qui orientent les programmes d’enseignement à l’intention des autochtones compris dans l’étude. Dans leur recherche, les auteurs ont fait appel à différents styles de représentation des diverses dimensions culturelles, éthiques et pédagogiques de l’étude et ont promu une forme de résistance aux représentations traditionnelles des résultats de recherche. À travers la re‐présentation vidéo de la culture, les élèves ont refusé d’accorder une place privilégiée au texte et aux constructions culturelles dominantes de leurs identités personnelles. Mots clés : vidéo numérique, enseignement dispensé aux autochtones, littératies multiples, éducation en matière de santé, partenariat entre la communauté et l’université. _________________ CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 29, 1 (2006): 265‐286 266 TED RIECKEN ET AL. In the broad context and network of relationships that constitute public education, resistance can take many forms. It may take the form of student resistance to adult authority (in the school system) and how adults perceive students, or of teachers struggling to maintain an ethos of care in a system designed around a metaphor of industrial production and ranked outputs. Resistance can also take the form of alternative programs designed to provide a safe place for teachers and students whose histories lie outside those of the dominant culture. It can be found in approaches to teaching, learning, and research that seek an alternative to positivist paradigms of knowledge production that privilege text as a medium of communication. As a system designed for the transmission of culture, public education provides a rich site for contestation and struggle, especially for those whose backgrounds and aspirations are positioned outside those of mainstream society. In this article we highlight some of the forms and contexts of resistance that have emerged in a participatory research project we have engaged in over the past four years. WHO IS SPEAKING HERE? In presenting this article, we use the word “we” to describe a collective voice that represents a range of individuals occupying a variety of different roles. The challenge for us in creating this multi‐vocal piece is accurately conveying the differing perspectives, experiences, challenges, and understandings that have emerged over the course of this project for the student participants, and for us, as individuals. As a research and writing team, we are a mixed group: four Aboriginals and five non‐
Aboriginals, and among the occupational roles we hold are teachers, professors, graduate students, research assistants, and program developer. Some of these roles overlap, and all blended together when we worked on this project. We are from Coast Salish, Kwakwakaʹwakw, Shuswap, Dene, Euro‐American, and Euro‐Canadian heritages, with all but one of us living in an urban context in Western Canada. We are also parents, family members, and community activists living in diverse circumstances. In this article we experiment with form and voice, borrowing from the conventions of script writing, combining historical and personal RESISTANCE THROUGH RE‐PRESENTING CULTURE 267 narrative, fiction, expository text, and academic writing. Using a mixture of styles and structures is in itself a form of resistance. In several ways, this piece reflects our own resistance to reducing a complex project to a standard article format that glosses over much of the difference and detail embodied in the project. We have struggled with how to present this project to an academic audience, and elsewhere have written about the ethics of voice as it relates to representing research participants (Riecken, Strong‐Wilson, Conibear, Michel, & Riecken, 2005). Ideally, this article would take shape not as it is required for publication – a systematic, linear representation of written words, but somehow as a living, breathing portrayal that articulates the reality we experienced within the research project. Because of this, we have used several different conventions to structure this piece and explore these different manifestations of resistance. As a way of highlighting classroom research experiences, we have used fictionalized conversations, a kind of scripted “dataplay” (O’Riley, 2003) that is grounded in our own research and teaching experiences. These “ethnographic fictions” (Van Maanan, 1988), identifiable as italicized text, serve to supplement and background the ideas in the various sections. The dataplays or “playlets” (Ely, Vinz, Downing, & Anzul 1997) are intended to give the reader a sense of the actual classroom and research environments. They are drawn from a combination of direct quotations from interviews and student videos, paraphrasing of interviews, recollections of situations and conversations, conversations that might or could have happened, and field notes. They represent the essence of the reality and practical issues that educators, researchers, and participants encounter daily. It is also another way to include the student participants in the overall research process and writing. Included in the piece are the voices of the student filmmakers and some of the people they interviewed for their productions. Through this interpretive “pastiche” (Denzin & Lincoln, 1998), in which we combined multiple methodologies for representing what we had learned, we hope to present readers with a representation that is both textual and filmic thereby moving beyond the limitations of standard text‐based structures for recounting the processes and outcomes of participatory research. In 268 TED RIECKEN ET AL. an analogue to the filmmaking technique of compositing used by the student filmmakers in which one combines layers of video imagery, text, and sound to produce a video narrative, we juxtaposed dataplays, researchers’ and teachers’ perspectives, student interviews, and academic references to produce a piece that is not only heteroglossic (Bahktin, 1981), but representative of the different cultural, historical, and occupational orientations we bring to our work as a project team. PROJECT DESCRIPTION Traditional Pathways to Health (TPTH) is a participatory research project intended to address issues of health and wellness among Aboriginal youth. Developed in partnership with the teachers who are co‐authors of this article, the project, funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, makes use of digital video as a tool for developing youths’ understandings of health and wellness. Students in three different programs run by Corrine Michel, Frank Conibear, and John Lyall partnered with a research team from the University of Victoria to learn not only the techniques of digital video production, but also the basic ethical and methodological structures of interpretive research. Classroom diversity is broad with nine different First Nations represented across three separate program sites designed to address First Nations education. Students, as co‐researchers, chose a health topic or issue that interested them. They then planned, researched, and developed a video with their message that they presented to their community to share what they had learned. Now in its fourth year, over 30 student videos have been produced, covering a variety of health related issues including smoking, drug use and addictions, drinking and driving, suicide, diabetes, the protective effects of culture, cultural dancing, language, healthy lifestyles, participation in sports, racism and discrimination, healing circles, traditional foods and medicines, cultural understandings, and relationships. While working on their projects over the course of a school term, students engaged in a variety of activities beginning with identifying a focus for their research project. They then formulated a research question that guided their inquiry. As part of the data gathering process for their project, students could search for information on the Internet, interview family and community members, RESISTANCE THROUGH RE‐PRESENTING CULTURE 269 or conduct library research. In addition to gathering the raw material for their videos, the students learned the skill sets for digital camera use and computer‐based video editing, thus increasing their technological capacity. Each program operated slightly differently within the provincial school system to support students whose needs were not being met in the mainstream system. First Nations communities, school communities, and the wider community have developed these programs as part of an effort to increase the opportunities and chances for academic success of urban Aboriginal students. All three programs have similar goals and philosophies that in many ways relate to resistance within education. Careers and Personal Planning (CAPP) at Victoria High School has a course option for Aboriginal students that focuses on making connections with Elders and other Aboriginal role models in the community to facilitate their career planning. The WestShore Center for Learning and Training has developed a separate First Nations graduation program that assists adult and youth learners. A strong cultural focus engages students in many activities and relationships with Aboriginal artists, poets, dancers, and writers. Provincially required courses are taught in a supportive setting through relationships developed and built on trust and respect. In First Nations Leadership 11 at Esquimalt Secondary School, the philosophy of the course is rooted in the conviction that students are capable of learning, deserving of respect, and are leaders in their communities. It embraces the understanding that First Nations values and beliefs are essential to the understanding of self and others as leaders. Resistance, as it is used in this article, means several things. The classroom programs we operate within are based in Aboriginal pedagogies that resist colonial styles of education. The act of utilizing video as a form of literacy to develop culturally grounded conceptions of health and wellness resists typical curriculum methodology. Using a participatory model of research lays a foundation and creates space for counter‐narratives that resist the predominant positivistic models of health research as well as western definitions of health. 270 TED RIECKEN ET AL. ETHICAL DIMENSIONS Teacher: Today, I’d like to welcome our guests from the university to the circle. They’re here to talk to you about doing a video research project on health and wellness. Welcome. Researcher: Thank you. Student: (Standing and crossing the circle to shake the researcher’s hand) Welcome. Researcher: Thank you for welcoming us to your circle and your classroom. As your teacher has told you, we’d like to invite you to join us in doing a participatory action research project. Student: Say that again? Researcher: A project that you all participate in by choosing your own topics and researching them. The project is called Traditional Pathways to Health and one of its objectives is to involve students and youth in doing their own research about health and wellness using digital video. Student: Video? We get to make movies? Researcher: If you’d like to, yes. You’ll need to agree and sign a consent form that indicates you understand what the project is about and how the research is to be used as well as how it will benefit the community. Student: Which community? Teacher: Your community and maybe the school community too. Researcher: We have the forms with us and we’d like to go through them with you if you are interested. This is what we call informed consent. It’s something that you will need to do with anyone you ask to be in your videos too. People want to know what you’re going to do with the video you’re making, especially if they’re going to be in it. A lot of this is really about building relationships and trust. The ethical dimensions of a project such as this one are many and complex. Although the preceding dataplay illustrates the ethical guidelines of informed consent that the university researchers are obliged to follow, we need also to highlight the parallel guidelines and protocols that are in place within the communities in which we worked. The Aboriginal teachers who are part of our team are keenly aware of the multiple roles they must play as they simultaneously represent cultural, institutional, pedagogical, and personal interests that can conflict with RESISTANCE THROUGH RE‐PRESENTING CULTURE 271 one another. Wearing multiple hats is not easily done and elsewhere we have written about the challenges presented by these “layers of consent” as they exist in this project (Riecken & Strong‐Wilson, 2006). Over the life of this project we have learned some important lessons about the blending of university and Aboriginal protocols regarding research ethics. For instance, the issue of ownership of the videos arose very quickly during the first year of the project. Within each of the communities in which we worked, there are well‐established cultural protocols around the protection and preservation of Aboriginal knowledge. In several instances, before Elders would agree to share their knowledge with student filmmakers, or indicate a willingness to appear in their video, they asked important questions about ownership, control, and access to the final video product. For this project, we took the stance that the student filmmakers were the owners of the work they created. Ownership of cultural property and knowledge is retained within the community, and the students have authority over the dissemination of their work. Adhering to this stance has been problematic at times, but we believe that it has enriched the project and strengthened our relationships with the communities. In terms of the dissemination of the project’s findings, when the project team made a public presentation that included showing a student video, whenever possible, we included the student filmmaker as a co‐presenter so they could speak to the content and meaning of their message. Student co‐presenters were compensated for their time at presentations with a small stipend or honorarium. If we were not able to have the students co‐present with us, as a minimum, we sought their permission before presenting their work. This approach to ownership, control, and access represents a blending of the interests of the academic community (i.e., knowledge production and knowledge transfer) with the interests of the students as members of their Aboriginal community (i.e., protection, preservation, and control of cultural knowledge). This blending of interests is counter‐hegemonic in the way it addresses both research ethics and the different cultural interests associated with knowledge production and use. 272 TED RIECKEN ET AL. As researchers, we also worked from an ethical perspective that strives to encapsulate the social norms of the youth and teachers with whom we collaborated. For example, students were instructed by the research team in a way that was deliberately non‐intrusive by using language that asked and did not tell students what to do within the project. Aboriginal conceptions of ethical conduct can differ from Eurocentric conceptions; however, research that includes the incorporation of Native ethics, such as the ethic of Non‐Interference, allows for the development of a spiritual/cultural groundwork for ethical duties (Piquemal, 2001). Ibrahim (1985) and McCormick (1997) have suggested that researchers must understand the beliefs and worldviews, including the ethics, of a cultural community prior to engaging in a meaningful exchange with its members. Further, lack of understanding Aboriginal beliefs, values, and ethics could result in erroneous assumptions in research practices (Herring, 1999). At the onset of each project, we entered the talking circles of the students, in keeping with the cultural practices of each specific classroom. Initially, we took on the role of visitors in the circles, and then moved to a role as classroom members through continued and consistent participation in culturally based group activities. Cross‐cultural research in an Aboriginal context ought to begin with an exploration of the natural communication and ethical styles of a culture before utilizing theories or approaches for members of that culture (Minor, 1992). Collaboration with community members, such as the classroom teachers/co‐researchers, who consulted regularly with local Elders regarding the project, was ongoing throughout the research process. This form of community control over research was acknowledged by the student co‐researchers as critical to our ethical research design and methodology (Batten, 2003). Ethical research practices with Indigenous peoples requires Elder input, must be marked by community control, and should produce outcomes that benefit the community, such as the transfer of technological skills (Hudson & Taylor‐Henley, 2001; Piquemal, 2001; Stubben, 2001). Through the processes of community consultation via the teachers, along with the project’s protocols of student ownership, control, and access to their videos, we attempted to RESISTANCE THROUGH RE‐PRESENTING CULTURE 273 ensure that the practices described by Hudson and Taylor‐Henley, Piquemal and Stubben were enacted within this project. CRITICAL PEDAGOGIES OF RESISTANCE Student: Do we have to do this? Researcher: No, of course not. Your participation in the project is completely voluntary. Teacher: Do you want to pass the course? (grins) Student: Well…, Teacher: What is it that you’re not sure about? Student: I don’t know. Do we have to do it? Teacher: You don’t have to do it as part of the research project with the university, but you do have to do a research project for the course. If you really don’t want to learn how to make a video, you may do a written research paper instead. We had to rely on the classroom teacher’s experience and judgment to discern if this was a student resisting the assignment because it appeared too difficult or because they were scared. The youth, like many of us, feared being in front of a camera or of approaching participants to record on camera. Students sometimes also did not think they had any worthy ideas on health and wellness or prevention of injury. As educators, we know this is a process that involves much individual encouragement and conversation. It takes time to allow a good idea to evolve. You have to create a direction. Sometimes this feels like a form of coercion. The classroom teacher will say to the students: to get through this course you need to complete this project. At that point, she or he may suggest a topic based upon what students stated as personal interests in past classes or conversations. The coercion is part of being a teacher, but it conflicts with the ethical protocols of voluntary participation that a researcher must follow. The teacher is closer to the students than the university facilitators, and can get a longer term read on student interests. Frank Conibear states: For me as a teacher, it is hard‐line support. In a collaborative approach, if the participants don’t really want to do it, they don’t do it. I am giving them a 274 TED RIECKEN ET AL. challenging project, one through which they can say something as an individual and they can make a difference in their community. As a facilitator, I still provide the opportunity not to do the research if they are in any way uncomfortable with it. But as a teacher, I then inform them that they have to come up with a project similar in scope and size. So far, the students have taken up the challenge. (personal communication, December 17, 2004) Teacher: As you know, one of our projects this term is to do a video about health and wellness. Can anybody tell me why that topic is important for First Nations people? Student: Suicide. Teacher: Yeah, First Nations people have more suicides than the non‐native population in Canada. Why is that? Student: Rough life. Teacher: People have had rough lives, yeah. Why is that? (The class continues on their discussion and brainstorming ideas about health and wellness.) Student: Is this what we have to do a video on? Researcher: They’re ideas that you might want to consider. What interests you? Teacher: You need to have a personal connection with your topic so it’s your choice. How are you going to make a difference? With your video? Student: Something close to my heart. Critical social theorists encourage educators to “forge a language of transcendence” (Leonardo, 2004, p. 15) with youth so they can resist and move beyond dominant discourses that hinder their ability to speak and act in ways that are true to themselves. Giroux (1998), a critical educational scholar, points out that: Educationally and politically, young people need to be given the opportunity to narrate themselves, to speak from the actual places where their experiences and daily lives are shaped and mediated…. Educators and others need to recognize the importance of providing opportunities for kids to voice their concerns, but equally important is the need to provide the conditions – institutional, economic, spiritual, and cultural – that will allow them to reconceptualize themselves as citizens and develop a sense of what it means to fight for important social and political issues that affect their lives, bodies, and society. (p. 31) RESISTANCE THROUGH RE‐PRESENTING CULTURE 275 Video is a language of transcendence for many of the student participants because it allows them to express their personal experience of reality with a depth and clarity that often is not possible for them in a written format. In a post‐project interview with one of the student filmmakers, Augie described how making his film allowed him to learn more about himself. It definitely is different from all the other projects that I’ve done. It really helped me do a lot of digging on my emotions…. What it [research] means to me is doing deep digging from here, in here (points to chest), in your heart and it helps you learn more about yourself, and the experience of how you feel, of what you do, from here (points to chest again)…. It means doing a lot of deep digging and learning how to express yourself more. (Individual interview excerpt, Augie) For Gary, another student filmmaker, a link developed between what he learned from doing the project and having that knowledge in a visceral sense of knowing. For his video, Gary asked his elders about the meaning of health and wellness and what message they would like to give to young people today. In turn, we asked Gary about his learning. The most important thing I’ve learned from this project is to live a good life. No matter what anybody says, I’ll do what I want, and if it’s good then I don’t need anybody else’s consent. Interviewer: How do you know if something is good? Gary: You can feel it. Feel it inside, you know it’s good. (Individual interview excerpt, Gary) Becoming familiar with the video process also promotes critical thinking about the indoctrinating qualities of the media and the use of video as a valid alternative literacy (Selber, 2004). The New London Group (1996) writes about expanding the notion of literacy to include a multiplicity of discourses. Specifically, they take into account the context of cultural and linguistic diversity found in society today as well as the increasing variety of text forms brought about by the digital era associated with information and multimedia technologies. In developing their idea, the authors define different design elements used in the meaning‐making process and put into pedagogical practice, leading to a broader vision of what it means to be literate in the twenty‐first century. 276 TED RIECKEN ET AL. New Administrator: Why do you use video in this project? Teacher: In our program, we work with the whole child and recognize that there are many facets to consider in the education of our students. They don’t all learn the same way and using video is a way for students to express their thoughts and ideas, it’s a form of literacy. Producing video is like writing, and watching video is like reading. Student: And it’s way more fun! New Administrator: But how is that teaching them to be literate? Sure, they need to learn about technology – the Information Technology teachers do that. You need to get these students reading and writing! Teacher: Using video as a research tool also allows students to find out about things you can’t find in books or texts. They have access to perspectives that aren’t represented in the formal education system. New Administrator: They need to be learning what’s in the curriculum so they can be successful. Teacher: They are learning! And they are proud of what they are learning as well as who they are learning from. This is a way that students can acknowledge and be acknowledged by their families, their communities, and their culture. It’s a way for them to both be creative and to contribute. Look around you — the students are engaged and working hard at putting together their videos, with their messages about health, wellness, and injury prevention for youth. The creation of personal videos becomes a powerful resistance to the many forces that negatively influence health and allows student participants to acknowledge the reality of their present situation as well as actively look to the future in health affirming ways. Goldfarb (2002) has described how videos that students and teachers collaboratively produced and owned can develop students’ abilities to critique media representations of race, class, and culture, while simultaneously advancing visual pedagogy as an important adjunct to learning. Similarly, in their book Postmodern Education, Aronowitz and Giroux (1991) have argued for a relevant curriculum in which “[s]tudents would make videos that express their own ideas, writing the scripts, producing the documentaries, learning how to write and perform the music, and so forth” (p. 183). RESISTANCE THROUGH RE‐PRESENTING CULTURE 277 In his review of critical media theory of the late twentieth century, Goldfarb (2002) noted that the emergence of low‐cost video production technologies has allowed students to shift from appropriating (and reclaiming) media through critical analysis to a more active mode of appropriation via the actual production of media itself. “By producing media texts themselves, students learn there is an alternative to resisting interpellation through mainstream media, or critical reading alone. They can appropriate the means of production to produce new sorts of meanings” (p. 69). Thus, teachers who work with students, helping them become active producers of media, are moving them beyond the typical media education strategies of “arming students against media messages with writing and speech as the weapons of choice” (p. 66). In the case of the students in the Traditional Pathways to Health Project, critical awareness of media representations developed through the creation of the videos themselves. Video is a medium for connecting ideas with messages. The processes involved for the student filmmakers in the development and creation of video in this project included brainstorming activities, planning interviews, orientation to camera equipment, capturing video, analyzing and editing footage into the final piece, planning a presentation venue, presenting the final video, receiving feedback, and reflecting on the project by participating in interviews intended to help them articulate the process and the reasons for their choices. All these processes are a means through which students acted upon their ideas through the development of critical media literacy skills. For Jessica, being part of a team that produced a video on the role of culture in the lives of Aboriginal youth, helped her recognize the importance of culture. In an interview, she spoke about her understanding of culture and its relationship to urbanization, industrialization, and the environment. [I have learned] how culture has an effect on society, and how it should have an effect on society…. What I came out with most, is how culture is really important to carry on because it gets covered up by all the media stuff and all the fancy big cities even…. I think it should always be present…. culture defines who people are…. It should be one of the first things people have on their mind. It’s an important thing to remember…. Everything’s about jobs, and money…. And 278 TED RIECKEN ET AL. things shouldn’t be about money I don’t think. And culture, First Nations culture especially, it’s not about being big and huge and having lots of money and lots of power. And this is a new age that doesn’t really respect the earth at all…. And in our culture really, you give back whatever you take. End of the story. That’s how it should be. [Now] we take way more than we give back. (Individual interview excerpt, Jessica) For each of the student filmmakers, there was a dimension of the film making process that required them to “read the world,” in the Freireian sense of the term (Freire & Macedo, 1998, p.8). In creating their video as a form of text, students positioned themselves and their communities within the larger context from which they drew their experiences. Through doing this, students thus read the world and many of them displayed a well developed awareness of the conditions of their oppression as they prepared their video messages about health and wellness. From the perspectives of emancipation and transformation, for the student filmmakers, the video making process provided not only a vehicle for communication and concrete action about specific concerns, it was also a way for them to acknowledge and promote aspects of Aboriginal culture that have a transformative effect. A dozen students made videos on the benefits that accrue from cultural engagement. Healing circles, traditional foods, cultural ceremonies and tradition, drumming and dancing groups, and athletics have all been showcased in student videos as important aspects of their culture that have a powerful positive and transformative impact upon the individuals who engage in these activities. Through reading the world as part of an iterative process of transformation, the students not only identified areas for change and action, they also focused on the positive by acknowledging and celebrating the parts of their world that kept them healthy while developing their own identities as members of Aboriginal communities. FIRST NATIONS EDUCATION AND IDENTITY New Administrator: So what exactly is the purpose of the First Nations leadership course? Elder: Welcome. RESISTANCE THROUGH RE‐PRESENTING CULTURE 279 New Administrator: Thank you. Teacher: Yes, welcome. This course is about creating a welcoming atmosphere of respect and developing relationships. New Administrator: How does leadership come into that? Teacher: Leadership is quite individual. We take it in our lives; express it internally, and then externally. Elder: Leadership isn’t a position; it’s who you are. The First Nations Graduation Program is an alternative, sixteen and over adult education program for Aboriginal students in the Sooke School District, located just outside Victoria. It originated three years ago as an alternative option for school‐aged and adult Aboriginal students continuing or returning to their schooling. It is a small program, enrolling approximately twenty students in a district that enrolls approximately 700 Aboriginal students. The Sooke School district is similar to the majority of school districts throughout the province with respect to Aboriginal success in the public school system. In the recent 2004 Aboriginal Report: How are We Doing, the BC Ministry of Aboriginal Education (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2004) reported graduation rates in the Sooke School District for Aboriginal males at slightly greater than 40 per cent, while Aboriginal females were as low as 30 per cent. There are certainly a multitude of explanations for these statistics, but it is clear that Aboriginal student populations are in some nature of resistance to the provincial education system. The First Nations Graduation Program opened its doors in September 2002 to provide Aboriginal students another educational option. Its goals are to provide a safe, caring, open, and exciting community for learning, to integrate First Nations culture, and to engage with the community through local involvement of First Nations artists, cultural instructors, and Elders. As well, its staff strive to acknowledge the emotional pain that many Aboriginal youth and communities carry. They hope that by providing such a learning environment, academic success will follow (with patience). Too often, schools start with a focus on academic success, losing students from the beginning. 280 TED RIECKEN ET AL. The production of digital videos allowed students in these programs an avenue to communicate, to present, and share their stories. Sharing stories developed a sense of personal identity and pride in their place in the world. Students often chose topics that connected themselves to their culture or their community’s way of life. Students aligned themselves with their involvement with culture or community in an approach that said “this is keeping me healthy”. This is counter to producing films that focus on what is “not healthy or not well for me”. In the TPTH film, Evolution of a People (Dick, 2004), student filmmaker Alvin Dick queried Kwakwaka’wakw members of Alert Bay on the role that culture played in their lives. Alvin: How has culture affected you? K’odi Nelson: If I didn’t have any cultural background, I would probably seem like I was a bit lost. So how has it affected me? I know who I am and where I come from, and this makes me proud. Shelley Joseph: It is pretty much the base of who I am. I don’t think I would have survived in this world if I didn’t have my culture. It dictates the core of me, the core of my children. It dictates how I treat other people, how I conduct myself. Wherever I am, no matter where I am, who I am with, I will always be Kwakwaka’wakw. (student film maker, Alvin Dick) The strong messages provided by these community members’ participation in the video provided positive affirmations of identity for all involved. Through their participation in the students’ videos, community members asserted their voice and communicated their knowledge. Students’ self‐affirmation through project involvement resolved into self‐pride. The strength of Aboriginal people is derived from their sense of identity, of knowing who they are and where they come from. A sense of pride provides a resistance to assimilation. A resistance to assimilation by Aboriginal peoples is a testament to the multiculturalism that Canada aspires towards as a nation state. Researcher: Now that you’ve completed a video and presented it to the community, tell us how your involvement in this project has made a difference in your life. RESISTANCE THROUGH RE‐PRESENTING CULTURE 281 Student: It brought me closer to my culture. It made me see who I am, what I am and what I stand for. Researcher: What about you? You’ve been a partner in this project for almost four years now. Tell us what is working for you. Teacher: It brings the community here. We’re making a connection with the students and their communities. It’s part of our philosophy. We don’t exclude people. We welcome them. We’re building relationships. Elder: Our children need to feel welcome and a part of the school community as well as their own communities. Teacher: It’s not just a need for First Nations students. It’s a need we all have in education, for all students – especially those who don’t fit in. Some student videographers had an understanding of the importance of traditional teachings and how those translated into a way of being in the world. Jo‐Ann Archibald (2002), an Aboriginal educator, has stated that traditional teachings foster “respect, responsibility, reverence, relationships, and reciprocity with learners” (p. 1). The First Nations teachers agreed to participate in the TPTH project because of the fit between the traditional element of respect and reciprocity that was part of the participatory action research methodology that guided the project, an opportunity to do something within the school system that felt right. But it was the students who displayed a creative form of resistance through the topics they chose. Rather than focus on disease, many of the youth chose to focus on the strength that shines through cultural and community activities. Participation in a research project that locates Indigenous teachers and learners in a place of authority is already an act of resistance. Marie Battiste (2000), another Aboriginal educator writing in Canada, describes the challenge Aboriginal learners face in schools: In the Canadian educational system today, Aboriginal people continue to be invisible. Occasional pictures in books are the only images of participation in the educational world…. The cultural imperialistic curriculum in these schools has degraded and demoralized cultural minority students, assigned them to transitional classes, failed them, and then accused them of lacking motivation, attention, or spirit. (p. 198) 282 TED RIECKEN ET AL. As advocated by those who position themselves as practitioners of critical pedagogy (Aronowitz & Giroux, 1991; Leonardo, 2004; McLaren, 2003), the TPTH project strove to ensure that students were representing themselves and their communities. Images of local community leaders were a powerful teaching tool, and in many instances they spoke to the resistance of their ancestors who came before them. Were it not for the spiritual, intellectual, and emotional strength of the teachings, and the willingness to take the cultural practices underground, and without their ability to adapt to rapid social and political change, an Indigenous worldview would not have persisted. Maintaining this worldview is integral to establishing a strong identity. Creating space for students to engage with their community in the production and recording of knowledge is a direct challenge to the Eurocentric educational system. Battiste (2000) writes, The gift of modern knowledge has been the ideology of oppression, which negates the process of knowledge as a process of inquiry to explore new solutions. This ideology seeks to change the consciousness of the oppressed, not change the situation that oppressed them. (p. 198) Visual recordings that document Indigenous epistemologies affirm for students that their view of the world is valid. It is unusual for First Nations persons to see themselves accurately represented and encouraged to actively participate in their own education in a way that has meaning to them. In many instances, what has meaning to First Nations students is connected to their family, culture, and community. This is not the norm in a dominant society that practices cognitive imperialism. Battiste (2000) explains, Cognitive imperialism is a form of cognitive manipulation used to disclaim other knowledge bases and values. Validated through one’s knowledge base and empowered through public education, it has been the means by which whole groups of people have been denied existence and have had their wealth confiscated. Cognitive imperialism denies people their language and cultural integrity by maintaining the legitimacy of only one language, one culture and one frame of reference. (p. 198) RESISTANCE THROUGH RE‐PRESENTING CULTURE 283 Seeing themselves, their relatives, and other First Nations people on video expressing pride in their cultural teachings, speaking their language, and making direct reference to their way of seeing the world absolutely and positively affirmed the identity of the students in the project. Students often filmed topics of cultural significance, providing an important archival tool for Aboriginal knowledge. Producing and showing the videos to a greater audience (disseminating the videos) educates and informs the public about Indigenous people. Sharing stories to promote greater understandings amongst Indigenous peoples is also important. The student participants in this project have told us it is their responsibility to share their stories. They asked “if not us, then who?” In their roles as Aboriginal filmmakers focusing on identity and community, the students are actively and effectively resisting the dominant Eurocentric public education system. RESISTANCE Researcher 1: So have we determined what resistance is? Researcher 2: Well when the students choose their own topic, and then make a video about it, it’s a form of resistance. Researcher 3: And just making videos is resistance. Researcher 4: You mean the process of making videos? Researcher3: Yes. It’s resisting the dominant or regular forms of school projects and texts. Researcher 4: The privileging of text. Researcher 5: And public school students participating in a community partnership with the university is a form of resistance. Researcher 6: The actual videos the students make are also resistance; they are both text and context as they represent the different dimensions of their world. As a kind of text, the students’ videos reflect both a reading and a writing of the world. Researcher 4: But is it really resistance? Researcher 7: Sure it is. As they rewrite the world with their own images, they resist other’s constructions of who they are. Researcher 1: Gee, and I thought all we were doing was making videos! 284 TED RIECKEN ET AL. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The research described in this article was supported by a grant from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. The authors gratefully acknowledge that support as well as that of the many community members whose knowledge and insight is an important part of the overall project. We would also like to thank Abigail Godfrey for her editorial contributions. REFERENCES Archibald, J. (2002). Editorial: Sharing Aboriginal knowledge and Aboriginal ways of knowing. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 25(1), 1‐5. Aronowitz, S., & Giroux, H. (1991). Postmodern education: Politics, culture, and social criticism. 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(1985). Effective cross‐cultural counseling and psychotherapy: A framework. The Counseling Psychologist, 13, 625‐683. Leonardo, Z, (2004). Critical social theory and transformative knowledge: The functions of criticism in quality education. Educational Researcher, 33(6), 11‐18. McCormick, R. (1997). Healing through interdependence: The role of connecting in First Nations healing practices. Canadian Journal of Counselling, 31(3), 172‐184. McLaren, P. (2003). Critical pedagogy: A look at the major concepts. In A. Darder, M. Baltodano & R. Torres (Eds.), The critical pedagogy reader (pp. 69‐96). London, UK: Routledge / Falmer Press. Minor, K. (1992). Issumatuq: Learning from the traditional helping wisdom of the Canadian Inuit. Halifax, NS: Fernwood Publishing. New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60‐92. O’Riley, P. A. (2003). Technology, culture, and socioeconomics: A rhizoanalysis of educational discourses. New York: Peter Lang. Piquemal, N. (2001). Free and informed consent in research involving Native American communities. American Indian Culture and Research Journal 25(1), 65‐79. Riecken, T., Strong‐Wilson, T., Conibear, F., Michel, C., & Riecken, J. (2005). Connecting, speaking, listening: Toward an Ethics of voice with/in participatory action research [57 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research [On‐line Journal], 6(1), Art. 26. Available at: http://www.qualitative‐research.net/fqs‐texte/1‐
05/05‐1‐26‐e.htm 286 TED RIECKEN ET AL. Riecken, T., & Strong‐Wilson, T. (2006). At the edge of consent: Participatory research with First Nations student filmmakers. In B. Leadbeater, E. Banister, C. Benoit, M. Jansson, A. Marshall, & T. Riecken (Eds.), Ethical issues in community based research with children and youth (pp. 42‐56). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Selber, S.A. (2004). Multiliteracies for a digital age. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Stubben, J. (2001). Working with and conducting research among American Indian families. American Behavioral Scientist, 44(9), 1466‐1480. Van Maanan, J. (1988). Tales of the field: On writing ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Resistance through Video Game Play: It’s a Boy Thing Kathy Sanford & Leanna Madill The male youth in our study used video games to resist institutional authority, hegemonic masculinity, and femininity. Videogame play offered them a safe place to resist authority, which was often limited to small acts of adolescent defiance that could limit their future ability to engage thoughtfully and critically in the world. This resistance shaped and reinforced their identity formation and supported their resistance to traditional literacy practices they considered more feminine. Adults were absent from their play; hence they had no mentorship in critiquing the worldview presented in videogames. Key words: masculinity, identity, critical literacy, alternative literacies Dans cette étude, les garçons se sont servis de jeux vidéo pour résister à l’autorité institutionnelle ainsi qu’à une représentation hégémonique de la masculinité et de la la féminité. Ces jeux leur offraient un espace dans lequel ils pouvaient en toute sécurité opposer une résistance à l’autorité sous la forme de modestes gestes de défi typiques des adolescents. Ces gestes risquaient toutefois de limiter leur capacité future de s’engager dans le monde avec sérieux et en faisant preuve d’un esprit critique. Cette résistance a façonné et renforcé leur identité et concordait avec leur contestation des méthodes de littératie traditionnelles qu’ils considéraient comme plutôt féminines. Les adultes étaient absents lors de leurs jeux ; les jeunes n’avaient donc pas de mentors pour critiquer la vision du monde présentée dans les jeux vidéo. Mots clés : masculinité, identité, littératie, esprit critique, littératies alternatives. _________________ Youth, in particular boys, are finding many literacy activities, largely outside the realm of the school institution, that engage them and sustain long‐term interest, e.g., video games (including computer and console systems). These games provide an interesting, engaging, dynamic, social space for many types of boys, both those who succeed at school literacy CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 29, 1 (2006): 287‐306 288 KATHY SANFORD & LEANNA MADILL and those who struggle; they do not have to fit into any particular affinity group, they can engage without interference or sanction from adults, whenever they choose or when they have opportunities, and in ways that provide social capital for making connections with peers in real‐time and virtual spaces. The lack of boys’ success in formal schooling activities, so frequently reported in public press, can, we argue, be framed as resistance, both unconscious and conscious, against meaningless, mindless, boring schooling or workplace activities and assignments; instead, they engage in activities that provide them with active involvement and interest. Videogame play also serves as a form of resistance to stereotypical views of boys as a category who, by virtue of the fact that they are boys, has been categorized as unsuccessful learners – videogames are spaces where players can be successful in their endeavours. VIDEO GAME CULTURE, GENDER, AND NEW AND CRITICAL LITERACIES Video Game Culture According to the Kaiser Family Foundation study Kids, Media, and the New Millennium, boys and girls differ in the amount of time engaged with media. Girls aged 8‐18 spent less time per day than boys with the combination of media surveyed. Boys spent more time with TV, video games, and computers than did girls who spent more time with music media and print materials (as cited in Newkirk, 2002, p. 42). Rowan, Knobel, Bigum, and Lankshear (2002) report similar findings, claiming that “girls use the internet more than do the boys surveyed, but the girls use it more for educational purposes” (p. 131). The Canadian Teachers’ Federation (2003), in Kids’ Take on Media: Summary of Findings, report that almost 60 per cent of boys in grades 3‐6 play video or computer games almost every day, 38 per cent for boys in grade 10. For girls, 33 per cent of grade‐3 girls play interactive games every day, but only 6 per cent of grade 10 girls (p. iv). Boys and male youth are far more involved in videogames than are girls. By engaging in these activities that resist traditional literacy learning, video game players are keeping up with the changing technological world faster and more productively than schools are. Gee RESISTANCE THROUGH VIDEO GAME PLAY: IT’S A BOY THING 289 (2000) describes this changing world: “If our modern, global, high‐tech, and science‐driven world does anything, it certainly gives rise to new semiotic domains and transforms old ones at an even faster rate” (p. 19). “Attempts to assess the effects of video games on young people have been extensive,” report Alloway and Gilbert (1998), “and have come from a variety of research domains and methodologies” (p. 95). Although some studies (Alloway & Gilbert, 1998; Alvermann, 2002, Rowan, Knobel, Bigum, & Lankshear, 2002) have focused on connections between gender and videogame play, many have focused on these issues separately, addressing videogame play and learning (Gee, 2003), identity development through videogame play (Filiciak, 2003), the nature of computer games (Myers, 2003), the value of videogames (Newman, 2004), and gendered marketing strategies for videogames (Ray, 2004). Although videogame culture is strongly male‐focused and masculinist, developing aggressive themes and situations (Alloway & Gilbert, 1998), often children and youth are represented as a homogeneous group, ignoring issues of difference connected to gender (Kline, 2004) and differing impacts on diverse populations. Gender and Masculinity Gender as a social construct impacts learning both in and out of school, dictating what is and can be learned and what is out of bounds. Gender, and therefore masculinity, is not fixed in advance of social interaction, but is constructed in interaction, and masculinity must be understood as an aspect of large‐scale social structures and processes (Connell, 1995, p. 39). From a poststructural perspective, there are multiple ways of being a male and creating/negotiating male subjectivity. These multiple and diverse positions open up the possibility of constituting subjectivity as multiple and contradictory (Davies, 1992): every individual male accesses, performs, and transforms multiple versions of masculinity in various contexts and at various times. There are multiple ways that masculinity is performed; however hegemonic versions of masculinity are most highly valued, that is, performances of masculinity that embody “the currently accepted answer to the problem of the legitimacy of patriarchy, which guarantees (or is taken to guarantee) the dominant position of men and the subordination of women” (Connell, 1995, p. 77). 290 KATHY SANFORD & LEANNA MADILL Family activities and values transfer into schooling practices where notions of masculinity (often linked to images of such things as strength, cleverness, winning, power, and status) are further developed and reinforced, creating powerful sites for gendered messages to be reinforced by teachers and young people themselves (Browne, 1995; Sanford, 2002). Hegemonic masculinity not only naturalizes masculine behaviours, but also male discipline areas, such as science, mathematics, mechanics, and technology – those areas seen to require rational, unemotional engagement. Males and females develop attitudes towards science and machines differently, and at a very young age. As Ray (2004) notes, the concept of the computer as a male object is reinforced in children very early in their lives. Males, given machine‐type toys, including computers, are encouraged to experiment with them; they are more likely to receive training (formal and informal) in using computers. One young participant in our study commented, “You’ve got to know how to make what go where and stuff. I learned some of that from a game manual, mostly just clicking around … that’s how I learn that kind of thing, just trial and error.” Males, like this participant, are socialized to engage with computers and video games. New and Critical Literacies In this article, we have discussed not only how males use videogames to create resistances, but also our concerns related to videogame play when viewed simply as another form of “text.” We have raised questions about operational, cultural, and critical dimensions of learning. Based on a socio‐cultural perspective in examining new or alternative literacies comprehensively, we draw on Green’s (1997) three‐dimensional model that considers operational, cultural, and critical dimensions of literacy and learning. Operational literacy “includes but also goes beyond competence with the tools, procedures, and techniques involved in being able to handle the written language system proficiently. It includes being able to read and write/key in a range of contexts in an appropriate and adequate manner” (Lankshear & Knobel, 2003, p. 11). Cultural literacy “involves competence with the meaning system of a social practice; knowing how to make and grasp meanings appropriately within the RESISTANCE THROUGH VIDEO GAME PLAY: IT’S A BOY THING 291 practice … this means knowing what it is about given contexts of practice that makes for appropriateness or inappropriateness of particular ways of reading and writing” (Lankshear & Knobel, 2003, p. 11). Critical literacy addresses “awareness that all social practices, and thus all literacies, are socially constructed and ‘selective’: they include some representations and classifications – values, purposes, rules, standards, and perspectives – and exclude others” (Lankshear & Knobel, 2003, p. 11). We believe that as educators embrace videogames as a powerful learning tool (Gee, 2003), they must also find ways to raise critical questions relating to these texts and to disrupt unexamined hegemonic masculine attitudes related to power, status, and exclusivity. METHODOLOGY In this article, we examine video games as a domain that many boys and men choose to resist traditional school‐based literacy, and examine how they use games to resist controlling societal forces and so‐called feminized spaces such as home, daycare, and school. Given the considerable and growing involvement of boys with this alternative form of learning about literacy, technology, and the world, it is critical for both males and females that researchers and educators examine the implication of this male immersion into these new semiotic and technological domains. In this study, we elucidate the complexity of the interplay between gender and videogame play, to better understand the nature of the learning done by male youth, and to consider the impact of this learning on them and on others in society. We observed the youths (predominantly male) in this study as they engaged in the literacy practice of videogame play as a discursive tool. These observations provided a context in which we examined the performance of gender subjectivities through a range of alternative literacy practices (Gee, 1992; Street, 1984). Participants and Data Collection The informants for this study included two groups of participants/players. The first group, six young adolescent males attending a middle school in a small Canadian community, volunteered 292 KATHY SANFORD & LEANNA MADILL to participate in this study. Throughout the year, we observed them at school, both in classrooms and in less regulated spaces such as the hallways, out‐of‐doors, and in computer labs. We interviewed each participant twice throughout the year, where the discussion focused on his use of and interest in computers generally and game playing particularly. We transcribed the interviews, and used the first interview to shape the discussion of the second interview. Our second group of participants, five young adult males, referred to us by acquaintances and selected for their interest in videogame play, were observed and videotaped in their home environments, playing videogames both independently and with a friend. We interviewed them in‐depth two to three times over three months, where they discussed the nature of their videogame playing and reflected on the influences of videogame play on their lives. As with the first group, we transcribed the interviews, using the first interview to shape the focus of subsequent interviews. Both groups of participants, from the same geographical region, were predominantly from white, middle‐class backgrounds. Our gender as two white females might have initially imposed barriers; however, the participants became very willing to share their ideas and expertise about videogames and helped us understand their specific references and to share their insider knowledge. The interviews were analyzed and coded using NVivo text analysis software program. The data were coded into categories, mapped, searched, synthesized, and analyzed. We also conducted manual coding of themes to supplement the computer analysis which we shared with boys. To recognize themes of significance, we used critical discourse analysis to identify oppositions, recurrent key terms, and subjects spoken about by the participants and connected to the videogames identified by the participants. FINDINGS A significant theme that we identified through the analysis was the participants’ perception of resistance as they engaged in videogame play: resistance to institutional authority, hegemonic masculinity, and femininity. These themes often overlapped or were sometimes even contradictory as the participants talked about how and why they played. RESISTANCE THROUGH VIDEO GAME PLAY: IT’S A BOY THING 293 Some of the forms of resistance were consciously selected (resistance to societal rules and resistance to school) while others were not consciously selected, but seemed to us to be pushing back on some of the restrictions and taboos they faced in school and current Western society (versions of restrictive masculinity and at the same time all types of femininity). Through discussions with the participants, we learned what games they played, the types of games available, and their operational critique of the games (Lankshear & Knobel, 2003). We observed and videotaped the young adult players as they engaged in a variety of games (e.g., NBA Live 2005; Grand Theft Auto: Vice City; Counter Strike). Surprisingly to us, the games discussed by the adolescents and the young adults were very similar. They identified a range of game types: role play games ‐ RPG (Final Fantasy, Halo), First Person Shooter ‐ FPS (Max Payne, Medal of Honour, James Bond), Strategy/Simulation (Sims), Real Time Strategy ‐ RTS (Counterstrike), Multi‐genre role play/First Person Shooter (Grand Theft Auto), sports games (NBA 2005; Triple Play 2001, NHL Hockey 2002), and Movie games (Harry Potter, Star Wars, Punisher, Man Hunt) as being games they chose to spend hours playing, with their friends or on their own. Boys and male youth are engaging in the same types of videogames as adults, even though the games are intended for mature adult players (Canadian Teachers’ Federation study, 2003). Sites of Resistance We examined the role(s) that videogames play for males in challenging existing societal norms and expectations as they sought to define their masculine subjectivities in appropriate ways. Popular culture and media have historically been used as sites of resistance, whether through music, banners, graffiti, or alternative newspapers (Guzzetti & Gamboa, 2004) and this use of popular media continues today to resist constricting forms of education that stereotype, limit learning opportunities for segments of the population, and prevent meaningful learning for a rapidly increasingly global, technological, and digital world. Videogame players demonstrate many examples of resistance through challenges to rules and structures imposed by existing societal regulation and through challenges to restrictive identity formations and stereotypes. 294 KATHY SANFORD & LEANNA MADILL Three significant areas of potential conflict and resistance include: institutional authority, hegemonic masculinity, and femininity. There are many ways in which students, particularly boys, overtly resist the hegemony of adult authority, and videogame play offers them a safe place to contest these power structures. Resistance to Institutional Authority. Whether purposefully or unconsciously, youth engage in practices that serve to resist imposition of structures and rules currently prevailing in society. These rules are challenged in both private and social spaces. Even when speaking to us as researchers, the participants seemed more willing to share their expertise once it was clear that we were not negatively judging their videogame play. Players shared their frustrations and (either overtly or subtly) opposed authority within their cultural groups, ignoring and reshaping the rules. As they gained skills and confidence in playing games, they felt more able to resist traditional authority, relying on their fellow gamers for support and understanding – of the risks, the meaning, and the value. “I like lots of videogames,” said one younger participant, “though there are some games that I had to defend that adults would think are stupid.” They received immediate feedback not only from the game but also from their peers as they developed greater skill and confidence in playing the game. The world of school, followed by the world of work, offers many routinized, dull tasks that do not offer the qualities reported by males as required for meaningful engagement, that is, personal interest, action, fun, purpose, or opportunities for success (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002; Blair & Sanford, 2004). Instead, they faced a world of ordinariness, lacking excitement or purpose. “I get bored quite a bit,” one adolescent participant told us, “at school and at home. Then I usually go up and play on the computer.” All the adult male participants explained that they used games to “zone out,” to stop thinking or engaging with real people in their lives who have demands and remind them of their responsibilities. Videogames enabled players to create fantasy worlds for themselves where they were heroic, active, and respected. Videogames also offer opportunities for players to learn information in alternate multi‐modal ways through playing videogames, unlike traditional school learning that is most often linear and book based. RESISTANCE THROUGH VIDEO GAME PLAY: IT’S A BOY THING 295 Engaging in Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault allows youth to gain information about a significant historic event, but goes far beyond transmission of facts because adrenaline allows the players to feel the experience through sound and vibration, newer aspects of videogame play. Simulation games (Sim City, Speed Racing, Air Strike) enable players to learn about valued workplace and life skills, such as driving a car, flying a plane, or building a city. The immersion experiences that are promised, engaging players in the action, enabling them to feel the exhilaration and the fear, create a far more powerful and memorable learning experience than the reading of a textbook. One young adolescent participant reported, “I’ve learned tons about history, tons and tons, from Civilization 3. You just learn lots of stuff, and you don’t really think about it.” Not a far stretch, then for students to begin to challenge the material (both content and format) being presented in school, and to resist the linear, uni‐dimensional approach to learning that is so often used in school. Videogames provide many opportunities for players to explore alternatives to the reality of adult society and its patriarchal, imposed rules. These rules, or laws, create restrictive structures that adolescents yearn to resist. As one young adult commented, “…it’s cool, you can just explore … you can fly with a jet pack, break into an airport, grab some pizza … you’re not limited to what you can do.” Through videogame play, they can try out resistant and dangerous choices and experience the consequences, all within the safety of game play. The opportunity to adopt an alternative persona and to experience characters’ perceptions and actions, which are often inappropriate or illegal actions in the real world, and usually have no consequences, was a powerful enticement. One young adult participant commented, “You take street racing that’s illegal and you take new cars and you soup them up and you make them look all flashy and crazy… and you race them on the street, swerving in and around other cars and things like that – it’s slightly rebellious or whatever, but I’d like to see what that’s like.” The players assume authority as the game character and thereby gives their individual consent for the actions and attitudes that they role play (Leonard, 2004). Playing games that transgress societal, family, and school rules and norms enables a freedom to experiment with and 296 KATHY SANFORD & LEANNA MADILL challenge existing restrictions that, while providing safety, are also limiting and dull. Trying on resistant thoughts and actions is highly appealing to our participants. The technology of videogames allows players to cheat by downloading codes or finding glitches in the game. One participant explained that players use cheats1 because “at the moment they’re so angry or frustrated with the game that they just want to go ahead, or they wonder, Wow! It would be so great if I had that.” By using cheats, and engaging in a community that understands the purpose of cheats and the importance of them, players can band together to resist traditional and mainstream rules as a community, using their social connections to succeed at their game play. Many videogame story lines encourage players to resist society’s expectations. From stealing cars to killing enemies or random people, the game allows players to play out scenarios that they would never actually do: “It’s kinda fun to do because it’s not something that you would do everyday, obviously.” Videogames allow players to forego the rules of the real world and engage in a new fantasy frontier where they can be mavericks, able to ignore rules that others have to abide. When players state that the reason they play video games is to escape, they suggest that they are not having to think critically about what they play: “I definitely play it to get into the role and forget about other things” and “I just go and play it and space out” are answers from our adult participants as to why they play video games. This attitude allows them the right to ignore stereotypes, prejudices, or other usually conflicting messages that they would otherwise not be allowed to (or even want to) participate with. “It’s like a feeling of power, but it’s sadistic,” one adult participant explained,“You really enjoy it, like killing someone, blasting them in the head … maybe it’s cause you can’t do it, it’s such a forbidden thing, but like they make it so real and powerful, like in a game you can have the ability to smoke people continuously.” Another participant commented, “I don’t know why I enjoy it, I imagine myself living in Vice City [Grant Theft Auto] just doing missions and you can kill people and steal cars and just do bad stuff. You do all these things that you don’t necessarily want to do, but it gives you so much power…”. To succeed the RESISTANCE THROUGH VIDEO GAME PLAY: IT’S A BOY THING 297 participants engaged in the rules of the game, even if the rules did not match socially constructed values or rules. Resistance to Hegemonic Masculinity. Western society has responded to expanded and alternative gender positions with a rigid homophobic stance regarding masculinity. Young males today are faced with a fierce policing of traditional masculinity, and the rules of masculinity are enforced in many overt and subtle ways. Being a male who does not exhibit characteristics of physical strength, individuality, and machismo can find the world dangerous and lonely space (Connell, 1995; Frank, Kehler, & Davison, 2003; Kehler, 2004; Martino & Pallotta‐Chiarolli, 2001). Videogames provide players with spaces in which to experiment with identity: to safely resist traditional masculinities currently prevailing in society, or conversely, to demonstrate their heterosexual masculinity and resist connections to the feminine, and to challenge societal expectations of appropriateness regarding attitude, appearance, or behaviour. By adopting roles through which they can experiment with their identity formation, they can expand their sense of self and understand their world from new perspectives. One adult participant negotiated his identity as he described a game, “In Halo, I really like that it is shoot ‘em up, not that I am a killer, but you know… I just like that it is go and shoot, shoot, and kill, kill, kill.” In another interview, an adult male participant was asked what characteristics of male video game characters he admired. He responded: “I’d like to have the big body, a six‐pack not an 8 pack! ... I’d like to be built; I don’t want to be a drug dealer, king of the city.” When he was asked, “What about saving the girl?” he answered, “That would be neat …. I’ve often had dreams about that, meeting a girl by doing something courageous, you know.” Another adult participant commented on his desire to be a hockey player. “I didn’t ever play hockey; I don’t know the rules. But in the game I’m always trying to start a body check or start a fight … I like all the silly things like how the glass breaks when you do a body check.” Videogames provide a way to resist traditional hegemonic masculinities in a safe space, to play out alternative personas, such as personas of men of colour or of females. In reality, not all males are strong and macho (and may not want to be), but they may wish to try on 298 KATHY SANFORD & LEANNA MADILL the persona of a rugged heroic figure who rescues the weak from dangerous situations. By using on‐line forums and Internet gameplay, subjectivities can be disguised and trans/reformed in myriad ways. One participant talked about a friend whmo he described as a “very fairy tale type of person, similar to the Everquest type of thing. He’s kind of creative, and likes imaginary types of stuff.” This friend was able to engage in the videogame as a character who did not display traditional masculinity traits, yet in the context of the game it was safe for him to do so. However, his alternative masculine persona might not have been as safe to perform in reality. As suggested earlier in this article, the media and the public have categorized boys as regularly experiencing failure in school, of under‐
performing, and of being less literate than girls. Videogames provide spaces where boys can dominate and create an alternative sense of success. They are finding many activities that engage them and sustain long‐term interest; videogames provide an interesting, engaging, dynamic social space for many types of boys who do not have to fit into any particular category. Videogames also allow for the creation of additional social spaces where boys from various social groups (athletes, trades, academics, rebels) can belong, resisting imposed societal roles and positions. By creating fantasy personas for themselves, heroic powerful figures able to rescue innocent girls and garner the respect of their peers, they resist the traditionally stereotypical ways they are viewed in society. Additionally they develop skills that are valued in the workplace, giving them future social capital through which to be successful. By connecting to communities, face‐to‐face or on‐line communities, and engaging in extensive rounds of play, players gain skills in manual dexterity, ability to read multiple screens or texts simultaneously, and make quick, accurate decisions based on information provided. These operational literacies referred to earlier in this article (Lankshear & Knobel, 2003) teach the mostly male players how to use many functions of computers, to make repairs and adjustments to programs and glitches, to make accurate predictions, and to apply their knowledge to new situations – most importantly, they gain a confidence in their ability to use computers effectively, not just videogames, but many aspects of RESISTANCE THROUGH VIDEO GAME PLAY: IT’S A BOY THING 299 computers. This confidence enables them to resist traditional school literacies, choosing instead modes of literacy that support the particular type of masculine persona they have selected for themselves, and make a commitment to that self‐selected identity. As Gee (2003) comments, “Such a commitment requires that they are willing to see themselves in terms of a new identity, that is, to see themselves as the kind of person who can learn, use, and value the new semiotic domain” (p. 59, italics in original). And if they are successful, then they will be valued by and accepted in that affinity group. Rejecting Femininity. One way that male game players use videogames as a form of resistance is to create a clearly non‐female identity, that is, muscular, big, and dangerous‐looking. Although it is interesting to try on different personas, even those of females, it is personally dangerous to associate oneself with the feminine. One young adult male participant explained how sometimes a friend of his might choose to be the princess in a Mario Bros. game and they would all tease him. “We started calling him princess.” This adult participant is a football player in real life and he attempted to masculinize his interest in videogames; he comments, “I don’t think many girls are too interested in playing a game of Dead or Alive and seeing another girl’s scantily clad body bounce around like it is, that kind of stuff appeals to guys. It’s on more of a primal level, just kinda like one‐on‐one combat. It really turns guys on for some reason.” He differentiates males from females in this sexual way, and includes himself in this masculine description; he is not sure why males are drawn to these primal interests but is not inclined to question his theory or his participation in this world. A similar example of resistance within the role playing games is the type of avatars (game characters) that players select to become in the videogames. The selected character is often the strong, independent rebel, such as in Max Payne, all the Grand Theft Auto games, Man Hunt, and Counter Strike; one adult gamer described these characters as “not really dependent on anyone else, very like ‘I am going to do this my way.’” The players’ desire to shape their identity as rugged, independent, and strong precludes them from making choices of characters who seem weak, dependent, and feminine. This same 300 KATHY SANFORD & LEANNA MADILL participant talked about Max Payne as a character he admired. “He’s kind of a dark and lonely character, very dark and devious, and he talks with kind of a low deep voice and he’s very masculine and he usually gets with one woman in the storyline.” Although choice of creating videogame characters helps the players to experiment with diverse subjectivities, again the hegemonic masculinity model looms large in most of the games the participants report playing regularly. As they negotiate their sense of self through various videogame characters, we worry that they are reinforcing the binary that relegates females to subordinate positions and does not allow any space or opportunity for a critical reading of the gender positions offered in the games. DISCUSSION There is no question in our minds that videogames encourage resistance to school values, parental authority, and societal expectations, and partly because of the perception of resistance are hence a major attraction for youth. Videogames are fun, and this is partly because they are perceived as dangerous, entering forbidden territory. There is no doubt that videogame players are developing an understanding of learning principles through playing games, as suggested by Gee (2003), in relation to text design, intertextuality, semiotics, transfer of knowledge, or probing and identifying multiple approaches. However, we are not convinced that, as Gee claims, there is significant learning about cultural models. We did not find evidence that learners were thinking consciously and reflectively about cultural models of the world, or that they were consciously reflecting on the values that make up their real or videogame worlds. The resistance that we have observed in one area of the players’ lives did not necessarily lead to resistance of imposed stereotypical and potentially harmful beliefs and attitudes. Resistance to hegemonic hypermasculinity in game play does not necessarily lead the players to challenge gender stereotypes, or present themselves to the world in alternative representations of masculinity. And although resistance to anything feminine enables male players to develop their own subjectivity, it does not cause them to be more aware of their privileged positions of power or to respect difference in any significant RESISTANCE THROUGH VIDEO GAME PLAY: IT’S A BOY THING 301 way. We are concerned that the resistances made possible by videogame play serves only to reify the traditional stereotypes and cement them firmly in place. There is, perhaps, a place to encourage resistance on a more conscious and responsive level through videogame play. Is it possible that spaces for critical questioning can be identified and taken up in relation to the images, actions, attitudes, and values being presented at hyperdrive speeds throughout the duration of a videogame? As we began to see in our interviews with young adult males, there is a place for them to critically examine their motivation and attitudes as they engage in games. Critical questions, such as those posed by Rowan and colleagues (2002), can help to shape resistances that change the world, rather than merely playing with the world as it exists. •
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Who and what are included? What groups of people are included or excluded? How do you know? What do those who are included get to do? What roles are taken by men/boys, women/girls? What evidence do you have? Which people and roles are valued and how is this communicated? Who has control? Who has access to power? Who exercises power? Who acts independently? Who initiates action? What are various people rewarded for and with? In what ways does the inclusion or exclusion reflect to your own life? What are the consequences of this relationship? What alternatives are there? (pp. 117‐118) These types of questions enable engagement with and purpose for resistance, encouraging videogame players to look beyond the superficial qualities of action, speed, and excitement to a consideration of more fundamental levels of meaning and value that includes issues of power, control, and difference. CONCLUSION Popular media has historically been used as sites of resistance, through underground newspapers, graffiti, and music. And it is being used today 302 KATHY SANFORD & LEANNA MADILL to resist constricting forms of education that stereotype, limit learning opportunities, and prevent meaningful learning for a rapidly and increasingly global, technological, and digital world. The speed at which literacies are being challenged and reshaped defies institutional support and knowledge from maintaining the pace. Children create connections when they learn: “Our experiences in the world build patterns in our mind, and then the mind shapes our experience of the world (and the actions we take in it), which, in turn, reshapes our mind” (Gee, 2003, p. 92). Gee acknowledges that the harmful side of patterned thinking can lead to prejudices or stereotypes. If videogames are a main area from which players gain knowledge about a certain type of person, setting, or event then knowledge is heavily influenced by the limitations, biases, and values found in the videogames. It is these potentially harmful effects that cause us to draw on Lankshear and Knobel’s (2003) framework that includes a critical dimension of literacy and learning, and to recognize the need for further research into the effects of videogame playing in the longterm, both for boys and for girls. Through an examination of the opportunities for resistance to traditional authority and identity formation through videogame play, we can see the multiple types of literacy learning that are possible. Players are developing a wide range of useful operational knowledge that can be used as social capital in the workplace. As discussed previously, they are gaining a confidence in using new technologies, a belief that they can use and create programs effectively; they are becoming accomplished at making speedy decisions and reactions, developing a new level of manual dexterity, and are able to read/process multiple pieces of information (text or screen) simultaneously. However, as Gee (2003) points out, it is the potentially harmful effects of such opportunities for subversive and localized resistance as videogame play afford that also need to be interrogated. Educators and researchers need to be aware of the cultural and critical literacies that may or may not be addressed through the extensive videogame play that is currently in vogue with many boys and young men. Resistance to the videogame representations of gender, race, and sexual orientation are generally uni‐dimensional and highly stereotypical; these can serve to reinforce societal prejudices that maintain hegemonic patriarchal power RESISTANCE THROUGH VIDEO GAME PLAY: IT’S A BOY THING 303 structures and understandings if the various types of resistance available to game players are not recognized and encouraged. More thought needs to be given to considerations of appropriateness related to specific contexts, indeed appropriateness of values and respect for diverse perspectives needs to be encouraged and supported. In our observations of videogame play, we believe that the speed of decision making and action taking in videogames mitigates any reflective element of the game beyond how to win – during game play there is often little opportunity to consider alternative, more complex issues and decisions. There is opportunity to learn and experience historical events in multiple modes, but space and encouragement to reflect upon which of these perspectives holds more evidence of ethical and moral truth is also important. Clearly evident in discussion with these videogame players is an element of critical literacy in relation to technical and technological qualities of videogames, in relation to the realism of visual components of the games, and in relation to comparisons with other modes of interaction. The participants are highly articulate about aspects of the game that function well, glitches in the games, and visual elements of the game. However, we are concerned about a lack of demonstrated critical thought in relation to alternate worldviews and perspectives on socio‐
cultural issues. As Lankshear and Knobel (2003) suggest, to participate effectively and productively in any literate practice, people must be socialized into it. But if individuals are socialized into a social practice without realizing that it is socially constructed and selective, and that it can be acted on and transformed, they cannot play an active role in changing it. (p. 11) If players are not critically engaged in the literacies of videogames, they will not be able to understand the transformative and active production aspects of meaning making; rather they will be limited to existing in and engaging with literacies as they are created by others. There will be little room for players to consider the origins of the games, who creates the characters and the commercial aspects of the games, and the values that are subtly (or overtly) being perpetuated and encouraged. Both educators and researchers need to consider whether the resistance to authority and to identity shaping enables future citizens to 304 KATHY SANFORD & LEANNA MADILL engage critically in the world, or whether their resistance is limited to small acts of adolescent defiance. Is the nature of their resistance limited itself to the individual or self‐selected affinity group, or does their engagement in oppositional interactions engage the broader world? Do videogames desensitize players from moral and ethical responsibility for the world? Do videogames support concern for environmental and ecological realities that continue to consume the human and natural world or do they provide escapes from these global issues? Further, how are schools developing the increased sophistication in operational literacies, but also creating opportunities for students to engage with cultural and critical literacies that are so necessary for the twenty‐first century? How are schools understanding and addressing the knowledge capital that will be needed by our future generations for being successful in an increasingly technological and changing world? These are some of the concerns that need to be taken up by educators and researchers as they attempt to gain deeper and broader understandings of the nature of videogame learning and the nature of resistance. NOTE Cheat is a code a player can enter into the game to make play easier. 1
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l Martino, W., & Pallotta‐Chiarolli, M.. (Eds). (2001). Boysʹ stuff: Boys talking about what matters. Sydney, AU: Allen & Unwin. Myers, D. (2003). The nature of computer games: Play as semiosis. New York: Peter Lang. Newkirk, T. (2002). Foreword. In M. Smith & J. Wilhelm, Reading don’t fix no Chevys: Literacy in the lives of young men (pp. ix – xi). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Newman, J. (2004). Videogames. London, UK: Routledge. Ray, S.G. (2004). Gender inclusive game design: Expanding the market. Hingham, MA: Charles River Media, Inc. Rowan, L., Knobel, M., Bigum, C., Lankshear, C. (2002). Boys, literacies and schooling. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press. Sanford, K. (2006). Gendered literacy experiences: The effects of expectation and opportunity for boys’ and girls’ learning. Journal of Adult and Adolescent Literacy, 49(4), pp. 302‐314. Smith, M., & Wilhelm, J. (2002). Reading don’t fix no Chevys: Literacy in the lives of young men. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Street, B. (1984). Literacy in theory and practice. New York: Cambridge University Press. Ethnography, the Internet, and Youth Culture: Strategies for Examining Social Resistance and “Online‐Offline” Relationships Brian Wilson The integration of traditional (offline and face‐to‐face) and virtual ethnographic methods can aid researchers interested in developing understandings of relationships between online and offline cultural life, and examining the diffuse and sometimes global character of youth resistance. In constructing this argument, I have used insights from studies on youth activism and the rave subculture. These studies also informed my central theoretical suggestion: that an approach to research underscored by a sensitivity to everyday experiences and the power structures framing these experiences can (still) be a powerful guide for understanding flows and circuits of resistance in Internet‐influenced cultures. Key words: globalization, qualitative research, social movements, rave culture, virtual ethnography L’intégration de méthodes ethnographiques traditionnelles (hors ligne et en présentiel) ou recourant aux TIC peut aider les chercheurs à mieux comprendre les relations entre la vie culturelle en ligne et hors ligne et à étudier le caractère diffus et parfois planétaire de la résistance des jeunes. L’auteur fonde son argumentation sur des observations tirées d’études portant sur l’activisme chez les jeunes et la sous‐
culture techno‐rave. Ces études servent également de point de départ à l’hypothèse centrale de l’auteur, à savoir qu’une approche de la recherche qui est sensible aux expériences quotidiennes et aux structures du pouvoir encadrant ces expériences peuvent (encore) servir de guide précieux pour comprendre les courants et circuits de résistance dans les cultures sous l’influence d’Internet. Mots clés : mondialisation, recherche qualitative, mouvements sociaux, culture techno‐rave, ethnographie virtuelle _________________ CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 29, 1 (2006): 307‐328 308 BRIAN WILSON Virtual reality and cyberspace are commonly imagined in terms of reaction against, or opposition to, the real world…. In certain cases, these are presented as some kind of utopian project. Virtual Reality is imagined as a nowhere‐somewhere alternative to the dangerous conditions of contemporary social reality…. The mythology of cyberspace is preferred over its sociology. I have argued that it is time to re‐locate virtual culture in the real world (the real world that virtual culturalists, seduced by their own metaphors, pronounce dead or dying). Through the development of new technologies, we are, indeed, more and more open to experiences of de‐realisation and de‐localisation. But we continue to have physical and localised existences. We must consider our state of suspension between these conditions. (Robins, 1996, pp. 16, 26) In the years since Robins’ (1996) critique, researchers have made important strides to better understand links between online and offline cultural life. Scholars like Burkhalter (1999), Ebo (1998) Harcourt (1999), and Stubbs (1999) have examined how race/ethnicity, class, and gender related identities are experienced offline and online. Other researchers have considered, for example, how youth subcultural life is a continuous virtual‐real experience (Bennett, 2004; Wilson & Atkinson, 2005). Still others have examined online and offline addiction/recovery support group conventions (Pleace, Burrows, Loader, Muncer, & Nettleton, 2000). Researchers are also considering how to best understand the experiences of those who navigate across online and offline spaces. In this context, Hine (2000), Markham (1998), Miller and Slater (2000), Mann and Stewart (2002, 2003), Kendall (1999), and others have emphasized the importance of an ethnographic approach to Internet research, and offered important insights into the use of (and relationships/differences between) computer mediated communication (CMC) and face to face (FTF) methods in interviewing and focus groups. Ethnographers who study Internet‐related topics struggle to develop and apply novel approaches to their research, while remaining sensitive to still‐useful elements of conventional techniques for qualitative inquiry. Markham (1998) called this the “the paradox of conducting a non‐traditional ethnography in a non‐traditional nonspace, with traditional sensibilities” (p. 62). There remains much to explore in these areas given the various relationships between online and offline qualitative methodologies. For example, the Internet is a space where research subjects are recruited for offline interviews, documents produced by culture members are accessed for analysis, and experiential ethnographic explorations ETHNOGRAPHY, THE INTERNET, AND YOUTH CULTURE 309 through cultural spaces and online environments take place. The area of research that specifically considers relationships between online and offline ethnographic methods remains especially rich for development because there is a relative scarcity of work that includes detailed reflections on ways that online and offline ethnographic techniques can be integrated to aid research focused on cultural groups and especially on cultural flows – a topic of particular interest for those who study the globalization of culture. The reason that this is important for those working in education is that understanding the dissemination of culture is a way of understanding the dissemination of a dominant form of knowledge for young people – cultural knowledge – and the sets of cultural knowledge that people acquire and possess inform their interpretations of the world around them (including their interpretations of forms of knowledge they are offered in formal education contexts). The goal of this article is to contribute to existing literature around these topics by offering methodological reflections from my experiences conducting an ethnographic study of online and offline cultural life in a youth subculture; describing and outlining the rationale for the methodology for a recently designed study of the online and offline cultural lives of members of youth‐driven social movement groups; and ultimately offering a set of suggestions for examining social resistance in a global age – an age where (youth) culture circulates globally and locally, and where collective action is increasingly transnational. The argument that underlies this article is that the integration of ethnographic methods, both traditional (offline and face‐to‐face) and virtual, can be helpful in developing rich and comprehensive understandings of relationships between online and offline cultural life, and for examining the diffuse character of youth culture and resistance. This research is particularly pertinent for those interested in the ways that young people interact with and through Internet technology in and out of educational settings, the ways that online and offline cultural lives of youth transcend educational settings, and for those concerned with the ways that knowledge of social issues is sometimes translated into social action. In making this argument, I acknowledge that a combined online‐
offline approach is not always preferable to exclusively online or 310 BRIAN WILSON exclusively offline studies of Internet cultures and experiences. The choice of methods is largely dependent on the goal of the research and ‘strands of experience’ that the researcher is interested in studying (Eichhorn, 2001). As Hine (2000, p. 59) observes, even studies that include research conducted both online and offline should not be viewed as holistic, given that all ethnographic accounts are selective and partial. However, for research concerned with tracing connections/relationships between online forms of social organization and activism, and offline interactions and action, a multi‐site and multi‐method approach is sensible and desirable – although not without challenges and problems – as I intend to show. ETHNOGRAPHY: THEORY, METHOD, AND RATIONALIZING AN ONLINE AND OFFLINE APPROACH Ethnographic Methods and the Boundaries of Ethnographic Research Although ethnography is a notoriously ambiguous term, some consensus occurs around the idea that ethnography includes some combination of participant and non‐participant observation, informal and semi‐structured interviews, and document analysis – and that the process of writing up research findings and (re)presenting life worlds is integrally related to the act of doing ethnography (Prus, 1996; Tedlock, 2000). Although oral interactions have traditionally been privileged “as part of the ‘romantic legacy’ of ethnography, that tends to treat speech as more authentic than writing,” increasingly the written texts associated with cultures have become equally valued accounts of the realties of those being studied (Hine, 2000, p. 51, drawing on Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995). Hine (2000) elaborates on this more inclusive view of texts. Rather than being seen as more or less accurate portrayals of reality, texts should be seen as ethnographic material which tells us about the understanding which authors have of the reality which they inhabit. Texts are an important part of life in many of the settings which ethnographers now address, and to ignore them would be a highly impartial account of cultural practices. Rule books, manuals, biographies, scientific papers, official statistics and codes of practice can all be seen as ethnographic material in the ways in which they present and shape reality and are embedded in practice. (p. 51) ETHNOGRAPHY, THE INTERNET, AND YOUTH CULTURE 311 Including online and offline texts as part of a broader ethnographic analysis means properly contextualizing and situating the writing and reading practices in ways that make the texts meaningful, or as Hine (2000) argues “tying those texts to particular circumstances of production and consumption” (p. 52). Implicit to this argument is the view that ethnographic work around the Internet ideally takes place in multiple sites, a point pursued later in this paper. Connecting Theory and Method Around a Critical Interactionist Approach Although the roots of sociology‐based ethnographic research lie in the symbolic interactionist tradition, ethnography (especially as it related to the study of urban youth cultures) came to be associated with more critically oriented writing and studies in the 1970s at the University of Birmingham’s Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. The Centre, and especially centre‐associate Paul Willis, advocated an approach known loosely as “critical interactionism” (Willis, 1977; see Kincheloe and McLaren, 2000 for an overview of this and related traditions). This approach – an approach that guided the research described in this article – is essentially an integration of a conventional, interpretive, micro‐
sociological approach to research and a structuralist approach to interpretation. The critical interactionist position is aligned with a critical‐realist stance – a positioning that is somewhat distinct from the more relativist stances adopted by those influenced by some strands of postmodern theory. The ontological position associated with critical realism is linked to the epistemological assumption that although multiple (even endless) interpretations of texts exist – whether these be images, webpage documents, interview transcripts – at some point a “relative anchorage” of meaning in interpretations of texts occurs (Hall, 1985, p. 93). Interpretations of media texts (e.g., webpages) made by media analysts/researchers can be useful in shedding light on how these texts might be used by audiences/users. In her textual analysis work on women in sport media, Margaret Duncan (1990) offers a succinct articulation of this position. Responsible textual analysis studies do not assert with absolute certainty how particular texts are interpreted. But they suggest the kinds of interpretations that 312 BRIAN WILSON may take place, based on available evidence, and likely interpretations of a particular text. Ultimately these interpretations must be judged on the basis of the persuasiveness and logic of the researcher’s discussion. (p. 27) This understanding is especially pertinent for textual analysis work focused on unveiling the potential meanings of webpages for users/audiences; and the likely goals of website producers. Textual analysis studies focused on the Internet are ideally complemented by ethnographic work that includes interviews with audiences and producers of online content, especially if insight into the relationships between online and offline cultural life are sought – a point that influenced the design of the second case study presented in this paper, described later. This reflexive, critical‐realist stance is inherently linked with an approach to studying and interpreting (youth) resistance that is grounded in the Marxist‐related concepts hegemony and ideology. A neo‐Marxist understanding of hegemony presumes a relationship between marginalized youth and a dominant group (e.g., moral entrepreneurs such as law‐makers and media producers), a relationship that has been at least tentatively secured because the dominant group has been able to achieve and maintain consent to its dominance and because it has successfully allowed safety valve expressions of resistance amongst those who are marginalized (e.g., symbolic forms of resistance, like shocking hairstyles or musical forms, that might empower some young people, but seldom alter the social conditions that frame and reinforce the circumstances of their oppression–c.f., Hall & Jefferson, 1976; Wilson, 2002a, drawing on Gramsci, 1971). This understanding is inherently linked with Hall’s and Duncan’s view of interpreting texts (like webpages) because it is based on the assumption that dominant groups maintain their dominance through the use of ideological strategies (e.g., incorporating forms of alternative youth culture into mainstream culture) (Baron, 1989; Schissel, 1997). In a similar way, resistant (youth) groups, especially those who are (relatively) well‐
equipped and well‐organized, often attempt to challenge the hegemony of dominant groups by undermining and disrupting the ideological messages and structures that have been created and disseminated to support their power positions. Succinct examples of this sort of ETHNOGRAPHY, THE INTERNET, AND YOUTH CULTURE 313 undermining/disruption are evident in the work of those at the Vancouver‐based magazine Adbusters who devise and publish counter‐
advertisements and write articles that are intended to unveil the contradictions that underlie the practices of multinational corporations. Underlying critical analyses of dominant structures and media messages is the assumption that a real set of power relations privileges some groups and marginalizes other groups, and that behind the ideological messages that support and justify these relations (e.g., oversimplified, decontextualized messages/images about youth – see Acland, 1995) is a hidden reality, a reality that must remain hidden if the privilege of powerful groups is to remain relatively unquestioned and unchallenged. For critical interactionist researchers, a primary goal is to uncover contradictions that emerge when comparing the ideological fronts presented by power groups and the actual practices of these groups (Howell, Andrews, & Jackson, 2002). This is important context for subsequent parts of this article, especially the description of and rationale for methodologies that I adopted to study the resistance of youth who were guided by these critical interactionist principles. Studying Youth Cultural Resistance in a Global Age What is unique about the critical study of everyday experience and forms of cultural resistance in the age of Internet communication is that these experiences and forms often take place on a global level. The challenge for social theorists and methodologists has been to figure out and clearly articulate what it means to study experience on this level. Guiding my research on this topic has been the theoretical work of Arjun Appadurai (2000). Appadurai’s writings are uniquely focused on theorizing the dynamics of global cultural transmission, or what he called “five dimensions of global cultural flows,” to demonstrate the various ways that culture moves across borders and around the world (p. 33). Appadurai outlined five dimensions, or “scapes,” that need to be taken into account when examining global cultural flow: ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, finanscapes, and ideoscapes. Ethnoscapes refers to the flow of people around the world (e.g., tourists, immigrants, or refugees). Technoscapes refers to the flow of technology (e.g., transnational business relocations or the hosting of mega‐events like the 314 BRIAN WILSON Olympics that include the movement of new technologies to various countries). Finanscapes refers to the patterns of capital transfer on a global level. Mediascapes refers to the modes of mediated image distribution (e.g., electronic or print media), and to how these images allow viewers to gain access to other parts of the world. Ideoscapes refers to images that are invested with political‐ideological meaning (e.g., propaganda images distributed to and through mass media outlets). At the core of Appadurai’s framework is the assumption that the various disjunctures or interactions that occur between global cultural flows (as they relate to the various scapes) offer cultural analysts insight into the complex ways that local cultures relate to global forces, and the ways that culture circulates (Carrington & Wilson, 2002). A variety of methodological strategies are used to study cultural flows and specifically the ways that culture flows to and from individuals around the world, although methods for studying cultural flow and the Internet (in ways that account for the complexities of global movement described by Appadurai) are only beginning to be considered. The body of work on the broad topic of globalization and cultural flows includes studies focused on the flow and impact of Americanizing forces, such as the global transmission of images of Michael Jordan (and the corporate values associated with Jordan’s sponsor Nike [Andrews, Carrington, Mazur, & Jackson, 1996]) and the reactions that people have to these sorts of messages and images (Wilson & Sparks, 2001). Methods used to examine such phenomena include the analysis of images, spaces, and discourses using textual analysis techniques drawn from media studies, historical analyses that are sensitized to the development of (and relationships between) political, economic, and cultural phenomena over time, and the use of focus group interviews as part of audience research projects that assess how individuals understand cultural messages (from abroad). Michael Burawoy (Burawoy et. al., 1999) and his colleagues in Global Ethnography: Forces, Connections, and Imaginations in a Postmodern World offer a most encompassing approach to the study of global forces and power relations. These studies use what Burawoy termed an “extended case study” approach, an approach that was guided by the following four principles: that the researcher must enter the field to appreciate the ETHNOGRAPHY, THE INTERNET, AND YOUTH CULTURE 315 experiences of individuals; that fieldwork must take place over time and space; that research must extend from micro‐processes to macro‐forces; and that theory is extended and challenged as due process when examining research findings (pp. 26‐28). This is a useful departure point for considering globalization and the Internet because it requires analyses of both the micro‐interactions that take place in the production of Internet content and across the Internet medium, as well as the macro‐
structures that frame these interactions (e.g., evident in analyses of who has access to the Internet and who offers Internet services). This approach is consistent with the critical interactionist position embodied in the classic work of Paul Willis (1977) – except that the “macro‐forces” referred to by some of those in Burawoy et. al.’s book include global phenomena not considered by Willis. What the following two case studies offer this literature is a way of thinking theoretically and methodologically about cultural flow as it relates specifically to the Internet communication medium, and with particular attention to flows through online and offline settings, and from local to global spaces. STUDYING YOUTH CULTURE, SOCIAL RESISTANCE, AND ONLINE‐OFFLINE CULTURAL FLOW In this section I have described and reflected on two studies of online and offline cultural life, social resistance, and youth. The first is a now‐
completed study of the rave youth subculture I conducted from 1995‐
1999 in Southern Ontario, Canada (Wilson, 2002a, 2006; Wilson & Atkinson, 2005). The second is an in‐progress study of youth‐driven social movement groups, with a focus on relationships between online organization/activism and offline collective action. In these contexts, the term youth is used loosely to refer to adolescents and young adults, with participants in the rave scene ranging from approximately 13‐25 years old, although several ravers were older than this. Participants in the youth‐driven activist groups range in age from approximately 13‐30 years old. Cultural Resistance, Globalization and Online‐Offline Cultural Flow Three interconnected arguments, derived from literature focused around youth, resistance, social movements, globalization, and communication 316 BRIAN WILSON technology, form the background for the discussion of the two studies. First, the subcultural lives of many Internet‐using young people should not be understood as virtual or real because the online and offline experiences of youth are oftentimes continuous and interconnected. For example, in an ethnographic study of online‐offline relationships embedded in cultural life in Trinidad and Tobago, Miller and Slater (2000) stated that the focus of so much research on “virtuality or separateness as the defining feature of the Internet may well have less to do with the characteristics of the Internet and more to do with the needs of these various intellectual projects” (p. 5). Extending Miller and Slater’s point into the context of research on youth cultural life, I assert that it is important to consider not only how the division between online and offline is in many respects (for many youth) a theoretical one, but also how the study of connections between and flows through online and offline requires methodologies that are sensitive to this form of experience and interaction. This point is especially pertinent for those interested in better gauging the cultural experiences of young people in developing pertinent curricula in schools and other settings. Second, a need exists to more adequately account for and theorize the increasingly global and political character of youth cultural life. Early theoretical explanation offered by those working in a classical American delinquency tradition (e.g., Cohen, 1955) helped subsequent researchers describe how young people react to feelings of marginalization and alienation by connecting with a group of similar others and creating an alternative (counter‐middle class) value system. Researchers at the University of Birmingham (at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies – the CCCS) in the 1970s theorized a reactive and proactive youth, a youth who assertively expressed their dissatisfaction with the dominant system through symbolic rituals and outlandish/shocking styles (Hall & Jefferson, 1976; Hebdige, 1979). More recently, theorists studying the most prominent late twentieth century subculture, the rave subculture, have argued that members of this supposedly postmodern youth group are less overtly political and confrontational than those of past subcultural generations (Malbon, 1998, 1999; McRobbie, 1993, 1994; Redhead, 1990; Redhead, O’Connor, & Wynn, 1997). In a similar way, classical social movement theorist ETHNOGRAPHY, THE INTERNET, AND YOUTH CULTURE 317 Alberto Mellucci (1996) has commented on the apparent disappearance of political action among youth in the 1990s and beyond (compared to previous eras). These approaches fail to account for more global and political forms of resistance and cultural dissemination that have emerged in recent years around a range of social issues, including the environment, globalization, poverty, and gender/racial/ethnic inequality (Barlow & Clarke, 2002; Klein, 2000; Niedzviecki, 2000; Sage, 1999; Wilson, 2002b), a point I elaborate on in my discussion of the methodology for the second case study. In the same way, the global flows of youth (culture), flows that occur through tourism, mass media, Internet media, migration, and other means, are only beginning to be accounted for in literature around youth resistance (Carrington & Wilson, 2002). This observation is at the base of the third and final argument, which is, that the identified link between the rise of Internet communication and the emergence of various social movements (and the related potential for transnational collective action, [Downing, 2001; Dyer‐
Witheford, 2000; Fisher, 1998; Myers, 1994]) has not been investigated in any depth by those who study youth resistance (Wilson, 2002b) This lack of research focused on the global dissemination of youth cultural forms and on the enhanced potential for collective action in an age of Internet communication has also meant that methodologies aimed at examining online‐offline culture, global flows of culture, and the impact of Internet communication on attempts at collective action remain underdeveloped and unexplored. Case Study 1 – Rave Culture, Online and Offline Rave culture, as it existed in Southern Ontario in the mid to late 1990s, was a largely middle class culture of youth whose members were renowned for their interest in computer‐generated dance music, attendance at all‐night dance parties and, in many cases, amphetamine drugs. Unlike previous youth subcultures that rejected mainstream progressions in communications and media, ravers embraced technology as part of their philosophy (Wilson, 2002a, 2006). My study did not initially aim to examine relationships between online and offline cultural life, although eventually this became an interest (and requirement) once 318 BRIAN WILSON it was clear that the Internet was a central meeting place, space of organization, and cultural reference point for youth ravers (Wilson & Atkinson, 2005). I chose a variety of methods and data sources to study this group, many focused around the Internet. I joined three rave newsgroups: two Toronto‐based newsgroups and one inhabited by ravers around the world. I read weekly and monthly online rave zines produced in Toronto and abroad. I attended online‐offline raves that featured online video of DJs playing at a dance party, and a chatroom where those in attendance at the offline rave location could interact with online participants/ viewers. I also, more conventionally, spent time at all‐night rave dance parties in various Toronto locations, and conducted in‐person and online interviews with rave DJs, rave promoters, and members of the rave subculture. There were several instances where my work online and offline (especially my involvement on local rave newsgroups) was complementary. The following set of examples drawn from my research is evidence of this: •
•
information gleaned from reading newsgroup discussions and debates in the local rave scene provided a basis from which to develop early “sensitizing concepts.” These experiences and early ‘mini‐hypotheses’ informed the development of interview guides, guides designed to allow for explorations around these identified concepts. the local newsgroup was a forum through which I recruited interviewees for both offline and online interviews (although the majority were offline). I was especially aware of the need to be viewed as credible and trustworthy by potential interviewees because ravers were commonly being stigmatized in local and national media at the time (and for this reason, concerned about and suspicious of outsiders who might lurk on their newsgroups). At the same time, I was sensitive to the fact that posts that included too much depth and detail might not be read. For this reason, I adopted what I called a “two message” approach to recruitment. The first letter was a short summary of who I was, the nature of my involvement on the newsgroups, the reasons for the research, and ETHNOGRAPHY, THE INTERNET, AND YOUTH CULTURE •
319 my interest in interviewing ravers. In this letter, I directed those interested in the project to a second letter (i.e., newsgroup posting) where I provided greater detail about myself and the research. I received several responses from interested ravers. Perhaps surprisingly, there was no online negative response to the research request. the newsgroup was an excellent information source about upcoming events (i.e., online and offline events). My research schedule was heavily influenced by the daily information I received. The online and offline qualitative approaches were harmonious in other ways. My online research, focused on websites that promoted the rave scene and offered insights into the rave philosophy, provided an excellent reference point for examining contradictions and tensions within the rave scene, and distinguishing between the official rhetoric about the scene, and the various (and often contradictory) practices and cultural behaviors embedded in it. In several instances, offline interviews included follow‐up email conversations that allowed me to continue developing rapport and trust. In a general way, my early experiences in the rave scene (e.g., attending rave parties and reading about the scene on webpages and newsgroups), when referred to during interviews, allowed me to demonstrate to respondents that I was deeply interested in their culture, and was not looking to do a superficial, journalistic story about rave (and drugs) that would further discredit their culture. The design of the second study, outlined in detail below, was heavily influenced by my realization that the research on rave was not only about a specific group and set of spaces, but also about the circuits through which information about the culture flowed and through which aspects of the culture were enabled. This is akin, retrospectively, to the position that Hine (2000) took in her online ethnographic research. By focusing on sites, locales and places, we may be missing out on other ways of understanding culture, based on connection, difference, heterogeneity and incoherence. We miss out on the opportunity to consider the role of space in structuring social relations. [It is simultaneously important to consider] the idea that a new form of space is increasingly important in structuring social relations. This space is the space of flows, which, in contrasts to the space of place, is organized around connection rather than location…[and that] the organization of 320 BRIAN WILSON social relations is not necessarily linked to local context in a straightforward way. By analogy, the field site of ethnography could become a field flow, which is organized around tracing connections rather than about location in a singular bounded way. (p. 61) Case Study 2 – Connected Youth: A Study of Youth‐Driven Social Movements, Globalization, and Community in the Age of the Internet In recent years, youth‐driven, social activist networks/organizations that address a variety of social, political, and cultural concerns have become abundant and at times prominent. Issues addressed within these networks are both youth‐specific (e.g., school bullying) and more general (poverty, the environment, violence, human rights, Aboriginal issues), and are engaged on both a local and global level. Many of these organizations exist, and in some cases thrive, because they have access to and make strategic use of the far‐reaching and relatively inexpensive Internet. In most cases, in fact, webpages are a central meeting point and basis for information dissemination and expression for these groups. These developments are so notable because studies on youth, to date, have tended to focus on the symbolic, stylistic, apolitical, and local ways that young people respond to their feelings of marginalization and social concerns, a point elaborated on earlier in this article. Moreover, those who study youth resistance have not investigated in any depth the identified link between the rise of Internet communication and the emergence of various (transnational) social movements. For these reasons, several questions about youth, social action, identity, and globalization remain largely unanswered: What do these developments tell researchers about the nature of youth community and social cohesion at a time when young people are increasingly gaining access to and actively using the Internet as a forum for meeting similarly positioned peers? How might the development of these networks/movement‐
organizations alter how researchers explain the resistive efforts of young people? How might the emergence of transnational youth‐driven efforts influence how young people’s relationships to globalization are understood, relationships that have traditionally been understood in terms of youth being impacted by global forces? What is the relationship between young people’s online (activist) activities and offline social action? ETHNOGRAPHY, THE INTERNET, AND YOUTH CULTURE 321 The study design was informed by traditional ethnographic principles, lessons derived from my experience conducting research on the rave subculture, and existing ethnographic work and methodological papers sensitive to online‐offline relationships (especially Hine, 2000; Mann & Stewart, 2002, 2003; Sade‐Beck, 2004) and to the study of globalization and cultural flows (Burawoy et. al., 2000). The research focuses on youth‐driven networks/organizations that use the Internet as a primary forum for promotion and communication. Organizations were chosen that had a mandate related to the engagement of local (i.e., Vancouver‐based) issues and concerns and participation in and promotion of local networks. Others were chosen because of their engagement of global issues and participation in and promotion of global networks. Representatives for thirty‐seven organizations were interviewed over the course of study. The organizations/movements were focused on a range of issues/topics, including racial conflict, the environment, violence, native youth issues, native activism, globalization, sweatshops, genetic engineering, problems with mass media, war issues, and social development through sport. Because parts of the research are still in progress – and because this article is about the research methods and methodology adopted for the research (not the findings) — I will keep the organizations’ identities anonymous. Phase One. In the first phase, the content of these websites was monitored and analyzed, including an examination of articles on the websites, chatroom activities, and online materials designed to describe and promote the organization/movement. Following this stage, the websites remained a key information source (i.e., keeping the research team informed of upcoming events and emergent issues of interest to the group). The information also provided a basis to compare the values and goals of the group as they were formally described on their website to the informal and actual practices of the organization. In this way, the collected data acted as a foundation for subsequent interviews with movement organizers and website‐producers, as well as for the ethnographic work at meetings and conferences (phases 2 and 3). Phase Two. In phase two, team members conducted in‐depth interviews with website producers and movement organizers. The 322 BRIAN WILSON interviews focused on the details of the movements’ emergence and development, strategies underlying the movements’ promotion (and the role of the Internet in this context), relationships between online and offline movement‐activities, and the various identities and perspectives of those involved in the movement. Team members also considered relationships between the various participants in the movement (local relationships, global relationships), between the movement and other movements, and between the movement and others (e.g., mainstream press, politicians, government organizations, key figures relevant to the social concerns of the group). The key goal of this phase was to find out more about the main features of youth movement‐organizations and attain a sense of the relationship between online writing/activism and offline culture/activism/action. Phase Three. Phase three was based around observation and interviewing at formal and informal events organized by these movement‐groups (e.g., rallies, cultural festivals, fundraisers, protests, demonstrations, or conventions) and around an analysis of the promotion of and media coverage surrounding higher profile events (e.g., meetings of these groups prior to the G8 Economic Summit or the Earth Summit – this part of the research is in‐progress). These events are easily found on event calendars that can be accessed through the Internet. Large‐scale events, such as Vancouver’s Rhyme and Resist – a cultural festival attended by thousands of youth, include workshops on topics such as anti‐imperialism and rainforest‐defense – occur semi‐
regularly (while smaller events occur frequently). A combination of observation and informal interviewing followed by fieldnote‐taking, transcription of recorded interviews, and ongoing (reflexive) analysis were central to this phase. Rationale and Reflections Phase one was designed with several ethnographic principles in mind. Perhaps most notably, the early explorations of the webpages informed the construction of the interview guide. At the same time, the website analysis could be viewed as ‘casing the joint,’ that is, using information from the website to make decisions about how research team members should present themselves to those the organizations, and for identifying ETHNOGRAPHY, THE INTERNET, AND YOUTH CULTURE 323 potential gatekeepers and interviewees. I also consider the websites produced by the youth groups as documents to understand the official rules and stances underlying group‐culture, acting as a key reference point during other parts of the study where the unofficial and informal rules, systems, and strategies will potentially be uncovered. The task of assessing the ability of these youth‐driven movement groups to organize and raise consciousness around certain issues (and accomplish other related goals they have set), while examining the Internet’s role in this process, are being guided by Lemire’s (2002) previous research on social movement groups. Lemire’s research identified a list of known strategies for enabling social action through Internet communication. Factors identified in his research included using email and websites to mobilize the signing of petitions, using webpages to promote the ideologies/doctrine of the group/movement, and using the webpage as an alternative media source. The aim in considering these and other factors through interviews with key group members is to be in a position to comment on Internet‐related strategies for collective action adopted by these groups, and the logic underlying these strategies. I also intend, with this background, to consider how these group members define the success of their Internet‐related efforts, and ultimately reflect on the way that the Internet enabled or constrained in their efforts. CONCLUSIONS, CONCERNS, AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS In this article, I have raised several issues pertinent to researchers interested in the study of youth cultural resistance in an age of Internet communication. I also consider in reflection how a critical interactionist/ethnographic approach, which is underscored by a theoretical sensitivity to everyday experiences and the power structures that frame these experiences, is a useful guide for understanding youth resistance in a global age and Internet‐influenced culture. The Internet is a space where aspects of youth cultural resistance that are evident in community‐formation and online production exist alongside and in the same virtual space as forms of culture operated by power groups associated with the Internet (e.g., AOL/TIME Warner). A critical ethnographic approach is useful in sensitizing scholars to this broader 324 BRIAN WILSON context that youth groups exist within, and for considering this struggle in relation to notions of hegemony and ideology described earlier – leading to questions about whether flows of youth cultural resistance are, in fact, effectively challenging power groups, and the extent to which youth cultural forms are consented to or incorporated. Underlying research on topics such as these is a commitment to understand ‘whose knowledge counts’ and understanding the Internet as a space where battles between different message producers and knowledge claims play out. 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Sociology of Sport Journal, 19(2), 207‐234. Wilson, B. (2006). Fight, flight, or chill: Subcultures, youth, and rave into the 21st century. Montreal and Kingston: McGill‐Queen’s University Press. Wilson, B., & Atkinson, M. (2005). Rave and Straightedge, the virtual and the real: Exploring on‐line and off‐line experiences in Canadian youth subcultures. Youth & Society, 36(3), 276‐311. Wilson, B. & Sparks, R. (2001). Michael Jordan, sneaker commercials, and Canadian youth cultures. In D. Andrews (Ed.), Michael Jordan Inc.: Corporate sport, media culture, and late modern America (pp. 217‐255). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. ABSTRACT/RÉSUMÉ: Art Teacher Barbie: Friend or Foe? Lorrie Blair In this article, I have revealed the meanings embodied in Mattel’s production and marketing of Art Teacher Barbie, and compared Mattel’s vision of art education to that of leaders in the field. I began with the assumption that Art Teacher Barbie participates in the cultural construction of women who teach art, and I explored what Mattel teaches children and their parents about art and art education. I conclude that Mattel’s products are educational sites that reinforce a stereotypical vision for girls and are detrimental to art education. Key words: corporate sponsorships, gender stereotypes, teachers in popular culture Dans cet article, l’auteure décrypte les sens véhiculés dans la production et le marketing de la poupée « Barbie Prof d’arts plastiques » et compare la vision de l’éducation artistique de Mattel à celle des leaders dans le domaine. Partant de l’hypothèse que Barbie Prof d’arts plastiques participe à la mise en place du modèle culturel de l’enseignante en arts plastiques, l’auteure explore ce que Mattel enseigne aux enfants et à leurs parents au sujet des arts plastiques et de l’éducation artistique. Elle conclut que les produits de Mattel sont des sites éducationnels qui renforcent une vision stéréotypée des filles et ont un effet nuisible sur l’éducation artistique. Mots clés : commandite d’entreprise, stéréotypes sexistes, enseignants et culture populaire. To view this electronic article, visit the CJE/RCE website at/Pour voir cet article électronique, visitez le site web CJE/RCE au http://www.csse.ca/CJE/Articles CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 29, 1 (2006): 329 Book Reviews / Recensions Michael Welton. (2005). Designing the Just Learning Society: A Critical Inquiry. Leicester, UK: National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE). 250 pages. ISBN: 1‐86201‐242‐3 Mia Perry, doctoral student, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia Can humankind learn from its mistakes? Can we change the course of progress/collapse or is evolutionary psychology all we need as a theory to shirk the suspicion that we may be gradually degenerating as a race into a wasteland of plundering, disease, and inequality? Augusto Boal (1985), one of the most influential leaders in theatre and social justice, relies on humankind’s unique capacity for self‐reflection and the idea that “the human being perceives what it is, discovers what it is not and imagines what it can become” (p. 13). It is this act of imagining what we can become that is also at the center of Michael Welton’s new book, Designing the Just Learning Society: A Critical Inquiry. Welton’s self‐
confessed “foolish hope [is] that humans contain the potential for doing good in the world” (p. 3). In this spirit the book presents a thorough investigation of conceptions and manifestations of learning in the last century of western society leading to his advocacy of a paradigm that he terms the “just learning society”. Not all learning is “good” learning and “all interactions are not learning encounters”, these are themes that carry through Designing the Just Learning Society (p. 211). Welton poignantly reminds us that human beings can learn “to hate other peoples, races, religions…. We can acquire techniques, carefully mentored or taught, to torture, maim, murder, bomb and harass”(p. 3). In an extensive review of theoretical studies, Welton covers many of the significant landmarks of progress and experimentation in learning models existing in business organizations and, to a lesser extent, in state and civil structures. In his CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 29, 1 (2006): 330‐343 BOOK REVIEWS 331 analysis, Welton describes the concepts and proposals of learning societies that have been raised, debated, and undertaken, from the British Government commissioned Design for Democracy report at the end of the First World War to UNESCO’s fifth international conference on adult education in 1997. The history of industrialization, the information society, the rise to supremacy of technology, and the corporate world all have had massive implications on the existence and development of learning or knowledge societies; Welton touches on them all, dealing with society in three main categories: organisational (business), civic, and state. Although Welton’s introduction to this journey portrays a strong viewpoint and perspective on today’s Western society, the conclusion is diluted by an ever more concealed voice, an unclear context and a conclusion consisting of vague expressions of hope with little direction or assertion. The assertive “I” and “my” of the opening chapter transforms into “we” and “our” by the conclusion, as if Welton has integrated his own voice and beliefs with those of the various and diverse sources that he refers to in the body of the book. In the end, the “just learning society” is defined in its opposition to current trends in society that are identified sporadically throughout the book. According to Welton, two prevalent pathologies afflict contemporary society: the market economy has become our dominant religion; and our culture has become dependent on therapy in all its current manifestations. He claims that the most powerful, universal, and awe‐inspiring element of our society has become money and commodity; the cures, crutches, and sources of comfort so essential in this new paradigm come from psychiatry, psychotherapy, counselling, etc. Both “pathologies” identified involve consumerism and a trajectory that exists in the learning structures of workplaces, civil, and state domains: the citizen role has been deflated and the consumer role inflated (p. 215). The just learning society differentiates itself from this paradigm in a promotion of co‐operative learning, active citizenship, self‐respect and the teachings of “enlightenment humanism: that human beings are active creators of their own existence, able to take risks, to imagine alternative worlds beyond the limited ones we inhabit” (p. 202). An interesting contemporary trajectory that Welton addresses in this book is that of technology and its role in democracy and the learning 332 RECENSIONS society. Welton challenges the belief among “internet enthusiasts” and “dreamers of cyber‐democracy” that modern advances in technology serve democracy providing free access to information and expression and promote social capital in the on‐line communities that transcend physical boundaries (pp. 213‐215). He argues that this optimistic ideal overlooks a number of elements, not least the divide between those who have access to the necessary technology and those who do not. And of course with the wealth of information that the internet provides for those who have it, there arises the question of how it is consumed. Welton admits, “one has to sift through a critical strainer, but gems of insight are caught” (p. 217). The concept of critical literacy (Luke, 2000) is one that goes unspecified in Welton’s analysis, but seems essentially relevant in much of his thesis. He proposes that the availability of information, the development of communication (today having reached unprecedented sophistication), and the advancements in sciences have created the appearances of a “Learning Age” (p. 8). The contradiction in this concept, however, lies in the increasing pace in which we are exhausting our resources and creating a world that is uninhabitable. Welton succinctly summarises this state as a “paradox of ignorance in an age inundated with information” (p. 4). With this blatant inconsistency, the manner of learning and the question of literacy cannot go unnoticed. Welton describes the information management industries upon which “governments, corporations and civic groups rely…in their attempts to manipulate public opinion and maintain social control” (p. 159). The promotion and development of critical literacy, considered as “the capacities to understand, critique, and transform the social and cultural conditions in which [we] live; to be creative and transformative subjects and not just objects of domination and manipulation” (Hull, Mikulecky, St.Clair & Kerka, 2003, p. 4), seems crucial to the potential of a just learning society as put forward by Welton. Designing the Just Learning Society is a book that is well equipped with historical information and punctuated with compelling theories, but rests too heavily on enigmatic hopes, assumptions, and disparate voices. At no point is the term just made clear; rather it is implied as an antithesis to an analysis of current trends that include the use of information to dominate and the promotion of commodity and BOOK REVIEWS 333 dependence on commercial industry. We are led to assume, therefore, that the just society includes the promotion of individual empowerment, active participation, and critical literacy. This lack of clear definition extends to other areas of this book, chiefly in Welton’s concluding proposal of a “realistic utopia” (p. 210). Welton suggests that “the just learning society paradigm is offered … as a counter‐utopia to the commodity paradise of globalising capitalism” (p. 219). Are we to assume, then, that in utopia we would live in a world of nationalist socialism? Nevertheless, readers’ sympathies and tendencies may lie with Welton’s views; I am an optimist and more than eager to share his hopes in a learning utopia, but if the dream is to have any grounding in reality and any possibility of progress, it will need more rigorous theorizing and clarity. REFERENCES Boal, A (1995). The rainbow of desire (A. Jackson, Trans.). London, UK: Routledge. Hull, G., Mikulecky, L., St. Clair, R,. & Kerka, S., (2003). Multiple literacies. A compilation for adult educators. Washington DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement (Eric Publications). Luke, A. (2000). Critical literacy in Australia: A matter of context and standpoint. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 43(5), 448‐461. _____________________________ R. P. Solomon & C. Levine‐Rasky. (2003). Teaching for Equity and Diversity: Research to Practice. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press. 211 pages. ISBN 1‐55130‐246‐2 (paperback). Darren E. Lund is a professor in the Graduate Division of Educational Research and the Division of Teacher Preparation, Faculty of Education, University of Calgary Reading this book for the first time a few years ago, I strongly suspected it would contribute much to the ongoing struggle for equity in Canadian schools. Striving for social justice within the field of education means negotiating a rocky terrain of competing ideologies, intense politics, institutional roadblocks, and emotionally charged discourse. This book 334 RECENSIONS offers its readers more than the authors’ sound theoretical insights into the contested fields of multicultural and anti‐racist education in Canada. Certainly, there is no shortage of voices crying for more equitable schools and communities here and elsewhere, but a strength of this book is that Solomon and Levine‐Rasky bolster their rhetoric with wisdom gained from serving as the architects of the first national study on the way teachers actually take up social justice work in schools. Originally published as a government report over a decade ago (Solomon & Levine‐Rasky, 1994), their groundbreaking research project featured surveys and interviews that engaged over 1000 teachers from across the country. In this landmark study, the authors both named and analyzed the daunting attitudinal barriers to implementing progressive change in Canadian schools. Through the last several years they have been integrating these insights into their ongoing work within an “Urban Diversity” teacher preparation program at York University; this link to their own professional and academic practices provides a strong backbone for the volume. The book’s subtitle, “research to practice,” somewhat simplifies the reflexive relationship between the two, downplaying the complex interactions they nurture between their scholarly research and the improvements they seek for the lived experiences of students and teachers in real schools. As antiracism scholar Jon Young notes in his Foreword to the book, Canadian public education takes place “in a society in which social relationships are substantially mediated by race, ethnicity and other constructions of social difference [and where] the ideals of accessibility, inclusion and equity make particular demands upon that educational system” (p. x). Solomon and Levine‐Rasky rise to the challenges offered by those significant demands, and offer a book focused mainly on hope. Their first few chapters offer a helpful overview of the wide‐ranging field of equity education as they map out their place and lexicon within the broader educational landscape. They ask in the opening chapter: “How do we link hope to reality?” (p. 3). Facing the abysmal social conditions currently existing in many contemporary schools, the authors contend from the outset: “Only with a thorough understanding of the divergence between the reality of the classroom and the hope for an equitable future for all children, can we reconfigure equity and diversity BOOK REVIEWS 335 education so that it effectively addresses barriers to its implementation” (p. 4). This book lives up to this task in a manner that offers a critical look at the material conditions in schools from within a hopeful perspective, illuminated by examining promising practices within teacher education to address these shortcomings. Solomon and Levine‐Rasky’s inclusion of the voices of so many Canadian educators from their research in this field allows readers to recognize the frank expression of a range of views on diversity and difference, some of which might make readers uncomfortable. Their ongoing analysis of these narratives, countered and illuminated by statistics about the implications of racism and other forms of discrimination, shines light on the many avenues of possibilities and optimism for a more equitable future for all Canadians. For the first half of the book, they direct their attention on equity toward a number of levels of the educational system, from the experiences of teachers in classrooms, to school board politics and school district policies, to staff in‐service and teacher preservice preparation, to parent and community participation in school decision making. One notable set of voices missing in the text is from students themselves; including first‐hand accounts of the experiences of young people would have greatly enhanced this section of the book. The second half of the book outlines the initiatives the authors have undertaken in their award‐winning Urban Diversity Teacher Education model from York University, in which a number of specific approaches are designed to address equity and diversity concerns. Framed through the lens of Critical Race Theory, their approach adapts Janet Helms’ racial identity model and highlights issues of self‐identity and privilege for mainstream, white student teachers as well as those from marginalized groups. This teacher‐education model is a departure from the typical “add‐on” approach of many universities, whereby the faculty adds a single diversity or multicultural education course to the calendar. It is helpful that these authors have had a hand in the design and ongoing evaluation of this more complex model of teacher education that highlights a range of equity issues through candidate selection, cross‐race student dyads, collaborative community partnerships, and a focus on the complexities and challenges of racial identity development. 336 RECENSIONS They address the many ongoing challenges of this work and offer practical commentary to guide the work of their colleagues seeking to implement similar progressive models in other faculties of education in this country and beyond. Through this accessible book, the authors have designed a valuable roadmap for antiracism that I hope many more educators and scholars will discover in the years to come. I have included this text for the past few years in my graduate courses on social justice activism in education because I value the authors’ use of plain language, practitioners’ voices, and attendance to the intersections between anti‐racism research and practice, too often overlooked by scholars in this field. Their explorations of the barriers and limitations to equity education may help others to elsewhere create the necessary conditions to nurture equity both within and through teacher preparation programs. May more educators in Canada become inspired and enlightened by the hope that infuses this volume. REFERENCE Solomon, R. P., & Levine‐Rasky, C. (1994). Accommodation and resistance: Educators’ response to multicultural and anti‐racist education. North York, ON: Department of Canadian Heritage & York University. _____________________________ Ratna Ghosh and Ali A. Abdi. (2004). Education and the Politics of Difference: Canadian Perspectives. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press. 193 pages. ISBN: 1‐55130‐266‐7 (paperback). Lisa Comeau, research associate, Centre for Social Justice and Anti‐Oppressive Education, Faculty of Education, University of Regina. In their introduction to Education and the politics of difference: Canadian perspectives, Ghosh and Abdi assert that multicultural education constitutes a paradigm shift from an earlier assimilation paradigm according to which “the traditional goal in education has been the transmission of the dominant culture, involving assimilation for those who were different” (p. 6). In this context, they present their purpose as “[suggesting] a restructured vision of multicultural education as an BOOK REVIEWS 337 important site for cultural transformation” (p. 7). A quick flip through the book suggests that it might indeed make an important contribution to educational thinking and practice around issues of difference and identity. However, after a careful read, the authors have failed to convince me that even a restructured multiculturalism might be an adequate solution to a racist Canada. In Chapter One, the authors present an overview of educational theorizing about social equality and equity. They consider changing theories of knowledge, and the politics of difference and recognition. Chapter Two discusses several categories of identity (race, class, gender), the forms of oppression associated with them (racism, classism, sexism), and multicultural education approaches to difference. In Chapter Three the authors trace the evolution of Canadian immigration policy, the development of Canadian multicultural policy and ideological shifts in multicultural theory, and conclude with a history of multicultural education in Canada. This chapter includes sections devoted to education in Quebec and Aboriginal education. Chapter Four discusses the potential opportunities and barriers to integrated multiculturalism which are posed by the globalization of world economies, politics, and communications (such as World Wide Web). Chapter Five concludes the book with a discussion of seven main ideas characterizing the “paradigm shift” that they see in the future of multicultural education. I agree with Ghosh and Abdi that multiculturalism and multicultural education are intended to rectify assimilative practices in Canadian history. However, I think it is erroneous to focus on cultural assimilation as the central practice in historical and contemporary oppression. Ghosh and Abdi also point to the construction of difference—and thereby dominance—as instrumental in perpetuating social inequality. I argue that this is a far more crucial point, and lament that it seems to get lost in their concern to avoid liberal articulations of multiculturalism that encourage “blindness” to difference, and which equate sameness with equality. Although they are clear that the equation of ethnicity with race is a strategy used to “evade…[and] selectively invoke racism” (p. 57), they persist in using these two constructs “interchangeably…because in Western societies they produce similar reactions in social relations” (p. 58). In so doing, I think Ghosh and Abdi themselves evade racism, for 338 RECENSIONS example in their interpretation of the “history of education of the Native population by missionaries and the governments [as] one of a clash of cultural values” (p. 132). An alternative interpretation is possible if residential schools are considered within the social, political, economic, and ideological context of the late 1800s‐early 1900s. As the authors repeat often, racism was a central ideology in the Canadian nation‐
building process during this era. For example, immigration laws of the time severely limited—and in the case of the Chinese people, banned outright—immigration by “undesirable” because racially “unassimilable” immigrants. Where such immigrants were already present in Canada, they were subjected to segregation in society and in education. Paralleling the segregation of non‐European, non‐white, non‐Christian and therefore “racially degenerate” immigrants, Aboriginal people were also segregated socially and spatially on reserves, politically through disenfranchisement, economically through the imposition of poverty, and educationally through residential schooling. In this wider context, residential schooling appears as part of a systemic and systematic effort to extinguish a race of people for the colonial purposes of expropriating resources, settling land, and producing a white, Anglo Nation within the British Empire. This is clearly about racism, not merely a clash of cultural values, and certainly not assimilation. The authors also undermine themselves through contradictory language use. For instance, they make the important claim that race, ethnicity, gender, and class are social constructs, specific to history and location. The transformative potential of this theorizing is in the recognition that difference—or the meaning ascribed to difference—is not essential, and therefore, can be changed. Yet they undermine this potential in their use of essentialist, deterministic, and binaristic language. For instance, their discussion of gender is a summary of psychological work including Carol Gilligan’s 23 year old work, and is filled with such statements as “boys are more concerned with rules, and girls with relationships. Boys’ orientation is positional…for girls it is personal” (p. 64). Another example of troublesome language: “it is quite possible for a registered or status Indian to have no Indian blood” (p. 130). Surely if “race is not a biological fact, and does not represent any constant and/or consistent biological categories” (p. 55), there can be no BOOK REVIEWS 339 such thing as Indian blood. Such essentialist language repeats discourses that authorize a racist and sexist social ordering. However, the authors fail to engage with the growing literature theorizing the discursive maintenance of racial (and gender) dominance and subordination as “normal” (Henry, Tator, Mattis & Rees, 2000; Hytten & Warren, 2004; Schick, 2000; Wetherell & Potter, 1992). They do not consider scholarship that shows how “culture” talk produces the same effects as “race” talk—
understood in biologically essential terms—once did (Razack, 1998). They don’t engage with literature that considers that dominantly positioned people’s vested interest in maintaining dominance is supported by their desire not to know their own complicity (Kumashiro, 2000). I am sympathetic with Ghosh and Abdi’s goal that “ultimately there should be no centre, no periphery” (p. 167). However, their vision of a radical equality is not new. Goldberg (1993) shows that since the Enlightenment, liberal commitments to equality produced the paradoxical effect that “race is irrelevant, but all is race” (p. 6). Much of the literature I’ve cited above argues that all is still race. Notwithstanding the authors’ critique of liberal ideas and practices of multiculturalism, they haven’t given me any reason to hope that their version of “difference‐friendly” multiculturalism will lead to anything but more of the same. REFERENCES Goldberg, D. T. (1993). Racist culture: Philosophy and the politics of meaning. Oxford & Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Henry, F., Tator, C., Mattis, W., & Rees, T. (2000). The colour of democracy: Racism in Canadian society (2nd ed.). Toronto: Harcourt Canada. Hytten, K., & Warren, J. (2003). Engaging whiteness: How racial power gets reified in education. Qualitative Studies in Education, 16(1), 65‐89. Kumashiro, K. (2000). Toward a theory of anti‐oppressive education. Review of Educational Research, 70(1), 25‐53. Razack, S. H. (1998). Looking white people in the eye: Gender, race, and culture in courtrooms and classrooms. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 340 RECENSIONS Schick, C. (2000b). White women teachers accessing dominance. Discourse: Studies in the cultural politics of education, 21(3), 299‐309. Wetherell, M., & Potter, J. (1992). Mapping the language of racism: Discourse and the legitimation of exploitation. New York: Columbia University Press. _____________________________ Michael W. Apple. (2004). Ideology and Curriculum (3rd Edition). New York & London, UK: RoutledgeFalmer. 234 pages. ISBN: 0‐415‐94911‐4 (Hardback); 0‐415‐94912‐2 (paperback). Christine Giese, doctoral candidate, Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. The publication of the 3rd edition of Michael Apple’s Ideology and Curriculum marks the 25th anniversary of this pivotal work in the field of educational theory and practice and attests to Apple’s ongoing commitment to education for thick democracy and social justice. The release of this new edition is also timely; as a critique of the influence of neo‐liberal and neo‐conservative ideology over educational policy and reform, Ideology and Curriculum is as relevant today, in an era of increasing pressure from the Right, as when first published in 1989. The addition of two new chapters further contemporizes this volume. “Pedagogy, Patriotism, and Democracy: Ideology and Education After September 11” explores the 9/11 tragedy against the backdrop of growing conservatism in the United States. In “On Analyzing New Hegemonic Relations,” Apple has reworked an interview he gave in 2001 in which he discusses how the political, economic, and cultural ideology of the Right is aggressively shaping school reform today. Although at times a challenging read—the book is rather “densely argued” in Apple’s words—Ideology and Curriculum provides a comprehensive analysis of the complicated relationship between economic and cultural power, and the ideology of schooling. For Apple, the notion of hegemony or ideological saturation is pivotal to our understanding of how both historically and currently, the interests of BOOK REVIEWS 341 dominant economic and sociopolitical groups shape the experience and structure of schooling. In Chapter One Apple provides a deft analysis of the complex and often subtle relationship between dominant ideology and the experience of schooling. He examines how ideology is embedded in and enacted through the explicit and hidden curricula, and reproduced in the ways that educational theorists, policy makers, and practitioners come to understand, value, plan, organize, and evaluate educational experiences. Throughout, Apple draws from critical theory, and the work of theorists such as Gramsci, Bourdieu, Bowles and Gintis, and Raymond Williams. Apple cautions against an overly deterministic understanding of how ideology shapes schooling and instead contends that there is a dialectical relationship between ideology and schooling. Thus in Chapter 2, he addresses how dominant cultural and economic ideological traditions and curriculum interact to reproduce and maintain the unequal distribution of, and access to, what counts as legitimate knowledge. Subsequently, Chapters 3 and 4 examine how historically hegemony has been enacted through the hidden curriculum of schooling, specifically as a vehicle for social control, and a perceived need to instill a common American culture in the face of massive waves of immigration. Apple challenges the pretense of neutrality in public education, arguing that middle‐class interests, cultural norms, and behaviours are clearly dominant, but unquestioningly and uncritically taught in schools. In Chapters 5 through 8, Apple discusses how dominant ideology also operates through the privileging of certain kinds of understandings and perspectives. Increasingly, education is modeled on scientific, technical, and managerial principles that construct student diversity as something to be measured, sorted, labeled, and managed. Throughout the book, Apple argues that these frameworks reproduce and maintain dominant interests and currently fuel an aggressive reform agenda directed towards standardization, testing, and privatization, an agenda that has had a devastating effect on students and teachers alike. Additional chapters 9 and 10 bridge the conceptual framework that Apple so carefully crafted in previous chapters, with current economic, 342 RECENSIONS cultural, and political trends and their impact on educational reform. They also add a lived dimension to a text that is, at times, theory laden. Apple’s discussion in Chapter 9 of the events of 9/11 is particularly powerful. He offers a complex analysis of the historical and sociopolitical contexts of the tragedy, and the resulting rhetoric of fear and terror that has fueled an already alarming trend toward Rightist ideology. But Apple also shares his personal response; he openly describes the difficult and painful work of confronting the event with students and trying collectively to arrive at a response rooted in justice, not revenge. The interview format of Chapter 10 similarly makes this a more accessible chapter than preceeding ones. Apple has expanded and reworked the original interview in keeping with the heavily theoretical tone of the volume, but the conversational and interactive format yields a less complex examination of how neo‐liberal, neo‐conservative, fundamentalist, and marketplace ideologies are shaping education today. While there may be limits to the relevance of this book to Canadian educators and researchers, much from Apple’s book is applicable to the Canadian context. With increasing privatization, managerialism, and standardization in education, public schooling in this country is unquestionably under similar pressures. For readers interested in exploring the Canadian context further, Ken Osborne (1999) provides the Canadian counterpart to much of Apple’s analysis of the historical and sociopolitical contexts of public education. For example, Osborne traces how industrialization and mechanization have impacted on schooling in Canada, and examines how the principles of scientific management have been applied to instill in young people a common Canadian culture in the face of massive immigration at the turn of the 20th century. Apple challenges educators everywhere to persist in the difficult, often painful work of critically and honestly exploring the ideological assumptions and understandings that shape their work, and to confront how they themselves are implicated in the reproduction and maintenance of the dominant structure and organization of schooling. Thus, nearly three decades after its first publication, Ideology and Curriculum continues to speak to educators and scholars committed to BOOK REVIEWS 343 ongoing, critical reflection on the nature of schooling and the inevitable connection between institutional education and the reproduction and maintenance of unequal economic and social power. It is a valuable read for teachers and theorists alike. REFERENCE Osborne, K. (1999). Education: A Guide to the Canadian School Debate—Or, Who Wants What and Why? Toronto: Penguin Books. _____________________________ Authors / Auteurs
David Beers is founding editor of The Tyee (www.thetyee.ca) and is a lecturer at
the University of British Columbia, School of Journalism.
Lorrie Blair is a professor in the Department of Art Education, Faculty of Fine
Arts, Concordia University.
Frank Conibear is a teacher in the First Nations Leadership Program at Esquimalt
High School District #61.
Nassira Hedjerassi is a professor in the Department of Educational Studies,
Faculty of Psychology and Education, University Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg,
France.
Deirdre M. Kelly is a professor in the Department of Educational Studies,
University of British Columbia.
Stephen Kline is a professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser
University.
Brett Lashua is currently a Research Associate at Cardiff University, School of
Social Sciences. His research interests are in leisure, pop culture, music and
soundscape, particularly as these inform questions of creativity, representation,
and identities.
Diane Wishart Leard is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Educational
Policy Studies, University of Alberta.
John Lyall is Kwakwaka’wakw from Gilford Island and is a teacher in the First
Nations Graduation Program at the West Shore Centre for Teaching and
Learning, School District #62. He is a graduate student in Aboriginal and
Environmental education at the University of Victoria.
Ardiss Mackie teaches in the English as a Second Language Department, Faculty
of Arts and Foundational Programs, Okanagan College.
Leanna Madill is a doctoral student in the Department of Curriculum and
Instruction, Faculty of Education, University of Victoria. Her research interests
include gender, popular culture, video games, and literacy practices.
Marcia McKenzie is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Educational
Studies, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia.
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CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 29, 1 (2006)
Corrine Michel is the Indigenization Project Coordinator at Camosun College.
Her research interests are First Nations ways of teaching and learning,
Indigenous methodologies, and environmental education.
David Murphy is a professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser
University, teaching applied communication design in the Media Analysis Lab
and the Sonic Research Studio.
Bonny Norton is a professor in the Department of Language and Literacy
Education at the University of British Columbia.
Paul Orlowski is a UBC sessional instructor in both the Department of Educational
Studies and the Department of Curriculum Studies. He is also a high school
social studies teacher in Vancouver.
Stuart Poyntz is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Curriculum Studies,
University of British Columbia.
Janet Riecken is a research assistant with the Knowledge Transfer Project
involving the Centre for Youth & Society and the “Healthy Youth in a Healthy
Society” Community Alliances for Health Research project.
Ted Riecken is a professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction,
Faculty of Education, University of Victoria. His research focuses on Aboriginal
education and youth engagement through participatory research and the use
of digital technologies as tools for knowledge mobilization.
Kathy Sanford is a professor and Director, Teacher Education Programmes,
Faculty of Education, University of Victoria.
Tish Scott is a graduate student in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction,
Faculty of Education, University of Victoria. Her research interests include
teaching and learning with educational technology, using technology to support
and strengthen language and culture, online interactive curriculum
development, health education, student motivation, assessment, evaluation,
culture, and participatory research.
Michelle Stack is a professor in the Department of Educational Studies, University
of British Columbia.
Kym Stewart is a doctoral student in Curriculum Theory and Implementation in
the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University.
CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 29, 1 (2006)
345
Suzanne Stewart (Batten) is from the Dene Nation. Her current doctoral research,
in the Department of Educational Psychology & Leadership Studies at the
University of Victoria, focuses on Indigenous mental health.
Teresa Strong-Wilson is an assistant professor in the Department of Integrated
Studies in Education, McGill University. Her research interests are storied
formation, narrative inquiry, Indigenous education, teacher education, and
professional development.
Alexia Stumpf is a lecturer and a doctoral candidate in the Department of
Educational Studies, Faculty of Psychology and Education, University Louis
Pasteur, Strasbourg, France. Her main research focuses on school crisis and
vocational aspects of teaching.
Michele Tanaka is a graduate student in the Department of Curriculum and
Instruction, Faculty of Education, University of Victoria. Her research interests
include Indigenous education, arts-based inquiry, teacher education, and
professional development.
Charles Ungerleider is a professor of the sociology of education at UBC and
Director of Research and Knowledge Mobilization for the Canadian Council on
Learning.
Brian Wilson teaches sociology and cultural studies in the School of Human
Kinetics at the University of British Columbia. His research interests include
youth culture, mass and alternative media, social movements, and the sociology
of sport and leisure generally.
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