ABSTRACT
While the history of cultural studies cites origins in adult education and contemporary scholars continue to note the need for cultural studies work in schools, the discourse within the field tends to be one-way. Cultural studies—a controversial and contested approach to the study of the social world—embraces a theoretical approach to the study of interactions between the lived experiences and interpretations of people and the social structures that act upon and encode meaning to those experiences. Cultural studies, coming from the Birmingham tradition, identified four major themes to provide a framework for inquiry on the complexities of contemporary and emerging social formations. An important beginning commitment within a cultural studies approach emphasizes a material reality that affects the social world in which people live, think, and work. As relationships of power and culture vary within the interactions of the moment, cultural studies reminds us that they are not guaranteed.
