ABSTRACT
The cultural politics of education can be understood through a similar matrix. Both the liberal and conservative perspectives see culture in the tradition of Matthew Arnold as a collection of the "best and brightest" of human endeavors—ideas and art. Stuart Hall rejects cultural meaning as being fixed, universal, and timeless. Hall's constructivist theory of culture also offers a version of selfhood that emphasizes the constructedness of identity. Hall's and Henry Giroux's ideas on culture are highly significant for teachers as cultural workers. Teachers inevitably make pedagogical choices. When they choose a curriculum, plan lessons, and teach, then teachers become responsible for what meanings they make in the classroom. Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu believed that economic class was a critical category in the competition for cultural meaning. Cultural capital for Bourdieu begins in the home and is rewarded or punished in the schools. The current craze for measuring educational quality and progress through standardized testing nicely illustrates contemporary positivism.
