ABSTRACT

Doing Theory on Education explores key debates using examples from contemporary media and popular culture to guide Education Studies students through the perennial debates that surround teaching and learning. Aimed at undergraduates, postgraduates and teachers in education settings, it uses over seventy popular culture texts from television, music, videogames, fiction, film, architecture, social media, the press and art to illuminate important issues and make the critical theory that underpins educational debates more accessible and engaging.

Each chapter also offers essential background knowledge and historical perspective and includes reflective activities to help you develop a critical approach, enabling you to argue your own point of view with confidence and consider where issues may progress to in the future. It examines core issues such as:

  • Class and educational choice
  • Learning styles
  • Testing and assessment
  • What counts as knowledge
  • Leadership and professionalism

Education students and those in education settings often struggle to see the value of theory. Doing Theory on Education: Using Popular Culture to Explore Key Debates is an accessible text designed for educationalists who want to put theory to work as an active strategy for influencing thinking and practice.

chapter |10 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|30 pages

Class, disadvantage and hope

The Bullingdon vs the ‘bog standard’

chapter 2|35 pages

Questions of knowledge

What counts in education? Physics vs Media Studies

chapter 3|28 pages

Learning theory and pedagogy

Academia vs the school of life

chapter 4|38 pages

The problem of testing

‘Testing, testing 1, 2, 3’ vs Vygotsky

chapter 6|27 pages

Ways of being in education

The ministry of soundbites vs the hidden curriculum