Higher education is at a pivotal point of reflection due to the forces of neoliberalism, anti-Blackness, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In the past, higher education has overlooked the university's far future, opting to focus on readily conspicuous change. Along with this disregarded conversation, these crises present higher education faculty,…

Portrayals of characters with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and/or with autistic traits on film and in TV-series are increasing. Such portrayals may contribute in increasing awareness of the condition but can also increase stereotypes. Thus, these character portrayals are subject to heated debate within the ASD-community, but also in the general…

John Buethe draws upon the Netflix series "Stranger Things" and develops this paper's ideas by using it as an allegory for and education towards subjectivity along lines suggested by Gert Biesta in "The Beautiful Risk of Education", and Jaeggi in her work, "Alienation." Buethe observes that the show places a wager on…

In this month's interview, Kappan's editor talks with Paul Kuttner and Kevin Coe about their recent research into how network television news programs have covered preK-12 education. They found that, over the last 35 years, coverage of education has been rare, well under 1% of total coverage. Stories tend to focus on individual teachers and…

This media review focuses on one of "Atlanta"'s episodes entitled "FUBU." The episode is utilized as a proxy to provide a critique of American society and its power relations in everyday life. "Atlanta" and its writers use television as their vehicle to create critical and constructive discourse in spaces that they…

Rosemarie T. Truglio is the senior vice president of curriculum and content at Sesame Workshop, where she is responsible for the development of the interdisciplinary curriculum on which "Sesame Street" is based, and oversees content development across platforms such as television, publishing, toys, home video, and theme park activities.…

This interview with 2015 Caldecott Medal winner Dan Santat explores matters of influence, familial and cultural background, the creative process, and the children's book marketplace.

Even though I recognize the value of using the mass media to teach sociological concepts and reveal racial biases, I caution against the use of classroom exercises that are developed solely in the context of whiteness studies. Overarching statements of white privilege mask complex race-class interactions generally and the mass media's…

Prof. Niemonen claims that the concept of white privilege is "anti-sociological" and "mask[s] complex race-class interactions." He highlights the importance of including social class in discussions of white privilege but focuses exclusively on the white working class, neglecting how race and social class also intersect for…

The Texas Board of Education's sweeping approval of roughly one hundred changes to the social studies and history curriculum, a ban on so-called ''interpretive history'' in Florida, and a vitriolic campaign of book-banning in Arizona, indicate the extent to which American education and curriculum is currently under assault…

In this short commentary piece, the authors stand back from many of the specific details in the seven papers which constitute the special issue, and offer some observations which attempt to identify and assess points of similarity and difference amongst them, under a number of different general headings. To the extent that the "sociolinguistics of…

A report for the British Library concluded that despite access to information provided by contemporary technology, there had been no increase in the information literacy of students. Major publications from the National Middle School Association, including "This We Believe" and "From Rhetoric to Reality," recognize that the mass media is a…

Incidental vocabulary learning has attracted a great deal of attention in ELT research. However, it is important that teacher and researcher exploitation of vocabulary developments be guided by more than replication of previous research designs. For conclusions based on empirical research to be valid, it is important to be clear about exactly what…

This essay uses the recent victory of an IBM computer (Watson) in the TV game, "Jeopardy," to speculate on the abilities Watson would need, in addition to those it has, to be human. The essay's basic premise is that to be human is to behave as humans behave and to function in society as humans function. Alternatives to this premise are considered…

Normative thinking around democracy often emphasizes the supremacy of electoral politics, underplaying the salience of education as a defining feature to produce a more meaningful, engaged, inclusive form of democracy. Critical pedagogy can be an extremely useful, illuminating and transformative means and process of deconstructing how democracy is…