Education is a social and cultural process that enhances the knowledge of young people regarding the requirements for both being a member of a certain society and being integrated into the complex structure of the whole society. While schooling has always been considered a continuation of the present social order and its cultural patterns in institutionalized forms and practices, today Turkish students seem to shift between two different worlds of reality and find it even more difficult to relate what they experience and learn in school with their out-of-school experiences. The tension between school and culture outside the classroom has become even more complicated in higher education. With the rise of digital technology that directly influences educational practices globally, young people’s literacy experiences have been transformed in Turkey. Moreover, the everyday social and cultural practices of Turkish students in the academy, who are participants in the popular culture shared and (re)constructed globally, have taken on new forms and functions that lead to different learning experiences and which manifest themselves in different educational expectations and cognitive, affective, and creative potentials. This paper is an attempt by a teacher who has been part of the Turkish

academy for twelve years to find a way to take students out of this conflict and to propose another approach, one that can bridge the gap between students’ real-life learning experiences and academic learning. It is a compelling question, whether the products of popular culture can provide an alternative terrain where Turkish academics-who find the new generation “different”— could find resources and methods to make both teaching and learning more effective.