Education and Culture

Education and Culture

ADMPS 2342

EDUC 2106

SUMMER SESSION 2106

June 23- July 30, 2014

Noreen Garman, Professor

Course Description

The active experiences in the course are intended to challenge students to investigate and analyze the dynamic relationship between schooling, education, popular culture and society by addressing the normalizing effects of cultural narratives and images that influence our taken-for-granted assumptions, beliefs and actions. Class activities involve considering the moral, social and political dimensions of our educational practice by expanding our sense of what happens outside of schools and classrooms that contribute to shaping our worldviews. We work to better understand the dynamics of culture and the relationships among culture, history, power, language and knowledge. Thus we are challenged to become informed and invigorated professionals that can help reverse the patterns of dehumanization and social control that are often overlooked in the everyday world of practice.

In Education and Culture we have the opportunity to examine the confluence of cultural and educational possibility—the bringing together of thought and action in our professional and personal lives. We challenge ourselves, also, to express ideas in various forms of representation that reflect imagination and insight. Aesthetic forms such as visual images, poetry, stories, music, as well as propositional texts, can give powerful cultural messages that influence social action.

Goals

The Goals and Opportunities that shape the Education and Society course are intended as guides to the readings and activities. We assume that participants will also work on their own goals that can emerge from the dialogic initiatives of the class:

• To make visible those cultural forces that shape discourse and frame public narratives.

• To make visible the deeper insights inherent in everyday activities.

• To problematize the inconsistencies, dilemmas and injustices that emerge from the normalizing effects of everyday culture.

• To name the interconnectedness between education and culture.

Imagining the “Text of the Class”

Contrary to the common idea of an academic text as written materials, this class will consider the class text as the socially constructed experience that we create as we engage with the materials and the reflective insights we all bring to the evolving knowledge. The readings introduce ideas and themes that can serve as a common basis for discourse. Hopefully the readings will also provide glimpses of the “complicated conversations” inherent in the nexus of education and culture.

Materials for the class will be rendered as cultural texts. A cultural text can be anything from film to music, or art to books, and especially verbal discourse. As such things only become a text after they have been framed and decoded through critical interpretation (problematization). Each individual “reads” and interprets the significance of a text differently, yet it is through such things that we experience socially constructed realities

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Course Structure

In contrast to the dominant “means-ends” structure of most academic classes, Education and Culture is intended to provide learners with an organic learning mode. In a means-ends structure, the learning objectives are determined before the class begins and the materials and activities are designed in order for students to meet the objectives (means). Evaluations are done to determine to what extent the students accomplished the objectives (ends).

In an open process learning structure, Education and Culture class members have the opportunity to engage in the emerging experiences of the course and to generate insights as a result of the involvement. The course content is chosen to represent issues and scholarship in the field in order to invite class members into a dialogic space. It’s not possible to predict the various accomplishments of class members before the class begins since the learning is a result of the involvement in the on-going experience. We can, however, consider some key opportunities that are reflected in the course content. There will be other accomplishments that occur as a result of the dialogic experience. (For further explanation see Garman, N. “On dialogic thinking and writing” and “The closed and open contract: Two irreconcilable structures in the curriculum” (1989). WCCI Forum:Journal of the World Council for Curriculum and Instruction 4(2): 176-82)

Materials for the course are consistent with an open curriculum structure. We have organzed a large collection of New York Times articles from the past three months. The collection represents an array of issues that echo in the cultural surround and can be considered as cultural artifacts. In addition, we have posted several entries from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to be used as reference information. As any encyclopedia, The Stanford Encyclopedia ofPhilosophy can serve as an excellect resource to help us press for deeper understanding of the concepts and theories associated with cultural interpretations. Class members have the opportunity to manage these resources for their accomplishments in the course.

This syllabus provides you with a general sense of the course schedule, however an agenda for meetings will give more details. As the class text emerges we will generate specific agendas to help with the focus and activities based on specific class members’ interests and contributions.

For assessment,class members are asked to produce their ongoing insights through dialogue each week, to facilitate a class discussion related one’s particular interest and to submit a study plan and a final installation piece as the demonstration of accomplishments at the end of the course.

Opportunities

Class members have the opportunity to consider how we take the everyday for granted and to look more closely at those things which we take as being normalized (or “the way the world is.”) We have the opportunity to look for absences and to unpack conventions by recognizing cultural messages, and especially those that are related to educational policy and practice.

Specifically, class members are asked to consider these specific recommendations that will help guide their installation demonstrations as follows:

•• “read,” portray, and interpret messages from cultural signs (e.g. popular media, films, slogans and catchphrases, political cartoons, etc. and especially, the cultural/educational narratives that are reflected in the artifacts).

•• identify and elaborate insight from selected articles to be used for class readings and discussions as well as social communication (e.g. blog blurbs) you locate.

•• consider how cultural narratives are manifest in educational experiences.

•• design an aesthetic form of representation as a response to a cultural text.

•• articulate a characterization and positionality of your personal/professional identity.

•• develop a counter-narrative to one (or more) of the cultural/educational narratives.

•• practice the stance of a public intellectual.

READING, REPRESENTING. INTERPRETING AND CRITIQUING THE CULTURAL SURROUND:

We invite you to consider the following questions that will help to guide the direction of the course goals and opportunities. For those concerned about the ways in which assessment will be accomplished, these are key benchmarks. Three weeks into the course you will be asked to develop a study plan, which includes ways in which you intend to represent the insights that arise from enacting these questions. The course grade, however, may include various ways in which you have engaged in the course experience as well as the final representation that has been agreed to in your study plan.

What are examples of normalized cultural artifacts that have powerful social, political or educational messages?

What are examples of educational/political narratives that we tend to take for granted or at least accept as “That’s the way the world is.” That’s the way the educational world is.” “It is what it is.”

What do the cultural narratives and cultural artifacts in the surround say about gender? About being female? About girls, about women? About being male? About boys, about men?

What are other messages in the cultural surround that relate to one’s identity and positionality?

How do the concepts, cultural literacy, cultural sensitivity, cultural relativity, oppositional culture relate to educational issues, policy, and practice?

As we begin to identify the normalizing effect of aspects of the cultural surround, what are some consequential relationships among education, schooling, popular and political culture and society?

How can I demonstrate an activist position related to an issue(s) that has emerged in the course?

Demonstration of Accomplishments

Since success in the course is based on the level and nature of the involvement, it is imperative that class members develop various means to manage the flow of learning, to generate questions when needed for deeper understanding, document the insights from dialogic experiences, and elaborate the thinking through written texts (see Garman, “On Dialogic Thinking and Writing). During the course, class members are asked to develop a Study Plan to be submitted during the third week of the session.

It is assumed that members will develop their plans for specific accomplishments, in addition to engaging in daily activiies, facilitating a discussion based one’s intererst and presenting a final installation.

One book is required for the class: David Trend, Everyday Culture: Finding and Making Meaning in a Changing World, (2007, Paradigm Publishers).

Materials will be posted on-line. Class members are encouraged to share texts they find significant (including cultural signs) as well as their own writing.

University Policies

Non-Discrimination & Accessibility Policy: The University of Pittsburgh is committed to providing equal opportunities in higher education to academically qualified students with different abilities. Students with different abilities will be integrated as completely as possible into the University experience. Disability Resources and Services (DRS) shares with you, the student, the responsibility for creating equal access toward achievement of your academic goals.

The DRS provides a broad range of support and services to assist students with various challenges and different abilities. Services include, but are not limited to, the following: tape-recorded textbooks, sign language interpreters, adaptive computer technology, Braille copy, and non-standard exam arrangements. DRS can also assist students with accessibility to campus housing and transportation. Contact the DRS at (412) 648-7890 (voice or TDD) in room 216 of the William Pitt Union, or visit for more information.

Academic Integrity & Plagiarism: (The following is taken from the “Preface” of the University of Pittsburgh’s “Guidelines on Academic Integrity,” available on-line and downloadable at “In general, we seek to preserve the traditional freedoms and duties associated with academic endeavors. The University should work to preserve the rights and responsibilities of faculty and students in their relationships with one another. Just as faculty and students must be free to seek truth and to search for knowledge with open minds, they must also accept the responsibility that these activities entail maintaining the highest standards of integrity, mutual respect, and honest inquiry.” Each individual student is expected to read, understand and adhere to the University’s guidelines regarding “academic integrity,” which includes and is not limited to plagiarism and cheating

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