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CHANNEL
SURFING 1997
by Palgrave & MacMillan Publishers, Inc. Giroux has written a compelling series of essays on the effects of culture on how our society imagines youth. By tracing how our media culture portrays issues of race, Giroux clearly illuminates how entertainment is much more than a diversion for the masses. He argues forcefully and convincingly that our media culture is a powerful teaching technology that affects how society views issues related to race, gender, and youth. Rejecting the notion that media culture can be "read" in an endless variety of ways, Giroux points out how economic and political forces emphasize and promote one "reading" over another and how these limited readings of our media culture have come to influence our perceptions and behavior toward people of color, women, and youth. Focusing on both the "politics of representation" and the "pedagogy of the popular," these essays confront the empty rhetoric of the right (espousing family values while simultaneously cutting social programs) and suggest many helpful strategies and tactics for overcoming the malaise and cynicism that seem to be endemic to our society. TEACHERS
AS INTELLECTUALS 1988
by Bergin & Garvey Publishers, Inc. Giroux argues that the role of teachers and administrators is to become "transformative intellectuals who develop counter-hegemonic pedagogies that not only empower students by giving them the knowledge and social skills they will need to be able to function in the larger society as critical agents, but also educate them for transformative action. That means educating them to take risks, to struggle for institutional change, and to fight both against ‘oppression’ and for ‘democracy’ outside of schools in other oppositional public spheres and the wider social arena." Thus, Giroux situates teaching in a true democratic process, in which the classroom is one of the few public institutions in which an exchange of ideas and utopian visions can take place. But for this to happen, teachers will have link their knowledge of the content they teach with other academic and social contents. In other words, an English teacher should work to be aware of politics, history, science, art, and other disciplines, rather than just focusing on the teaching of novels and the discipline of writing.
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