In recent years, the place of popular culture within the school curriculum has become an increasingly controversial political issue. Academic studies of media audiences have questioned the view of young people as passive victims of ideological manipulation and the behaviourist notions of effects on which they are often based.

Texts record the meanings we make: in words, pictures and deeds, and politics chronicles our uses of power in shaping social relationships large and small. Textual politics is about meaning - the meaning we make with words and with the symbolic values of every object and action.

The study of literacy no longer focuses solely on psychological processes. In the past, literacy has been reconceptualized as a social practice, or rather as social practices which make up daily life. Private Practices examines the broad fictional reading of middle class pre-teen girls in ethnographic detail, and describes the place of literacy, both at home and at school, in the construction of gender. cultural and social construction, not a biological given. Gender is something people create whilst interacting with each other in all activities of their daily lives, including their literacy...

Popular fiction continues to be the object of both academic and political interest as educators seek to understand the role literacy plays in constructing the gender, class, race, ethnic, age, sexual and national subjectivites of youth.

This book focuses directly on student empowerment through meaningful research. It fills a specific gap in educational literature by making explicit the relationship between teaching method, classroom practice, and the production of knowledge. Drawing on the best of theoretical innovations over the last decade Students as Researchers places them in a living accessible context. With a sound basis in theory, the book is also extremely practical and accessible for students, giving scenarios and examples that can be used to reveal the workings and benefits of research.

A collection of Ben Agger's essays on the origins, significance and applications of critical theory, a perspective associated with the Frankfurt School. These essays address a variety of interrelated topics including the viability of Marxian theory in late capitalism, new social movements, the politics of science and technology and the future of public life. More than an exercise in textual exegesis, this book applies critical theory to contemporary intellectual debates and social problems. As such, it explores the role of critical intellectuals in building a more humane society.

A compelling story of father-son confrontation, Stevenson was working on this novel the day he died. This new edition is based on careful research of Stevenson's notes and drafts to continue the story beyond the published novel.