ABSTRACT
The integration of popular culture into education is a pervasive theme in educational policy and discourse from early childhood to adult education, and in a wide variety of subject disciplines. Insights into the educational significance of popular culture are also found in several areas of research and practice. These include:
Popular culture studies. Originally based on the Journal of Popular Culture (founded in 1967) and the Popular Culture Association, popular culture studies focuses on the study of popular culture as an academic subject and as an aspect of other disciplines in higher education (Browne, 2005). There are now also Australasian, Canadian and European versions of the Journal of Popular Culture.
Media Studies, media literacy and media education are often the contexts in which popular culture appears in school education: Media Studies as a subject in the curriculum, and media literacy or media education as themes cutting across a variety of subject areas (Buckingham, 2003; Richards, 2011).
Literacies studies. Mainly concerned with out-of-school literacies as social practice, ‘new’ and ‘critical’ literacies studies have also been an important context for research and practice, bridging out-of-school and in-school uses of popular culture, especially in early childhood (Alvermann et al., 1999; Evans, 2005; Marsh, 2005; Marsh and Millard, 2000).
Informal learning. Research on informal learning and public pedagogy is increasingly concerned with the roles of popular culture and media in everyday learning (Drotner et al., 2008; Sandlin et al., 2010).
Play, games and toys. In research on play, games and toys, popular culture is examined in the contexts of both school and informal education (Gee, 2007; Goldstein et al., 2004; Willett et al., 2009).
Digital technologies have also become an important context for research and practice on popular culture and education that often cuts across the areas listed above (Buckingham, 2007; Lankshear and Knobel, 2008; Urbanski, 2010).
