The World of Popular Culture and Reading

Culture is something that very important and students need to understand the cultures that they will be subjected to as adults. Using popular culture in the classroom to help students learn is a great way to teach them but also introduce important ideas to them. In “Popular Culture and Critical Media Pedagogy they state: “…conceptualizes society as a terrain of domination and resistance and engages in a critique of domination and of the ways that media culture engages in reproducing relationships of domination and oppression”. What the writers are arguing is that our culture is an oppressed culture and must be understood as such. Another part to the oppression that should be understood is that the “rich” or upper class have all the power and therefore push their agenda and thoughts on the lower class, thus creating the oppression. When we read that lower class or different ethnicities are illiterate it is the upper class telling them they must be this way. In reality, the lower class or different ethnicities can read but often need to find what they are passionate about.

As teachers we must teach that students hold the power. Once they realize they hold the power they will succeed. By using Hip-Hop Culture we can show students: “their oppression because it relates to their own experiences and teaches them to be themselves, fight for what they believe in, and pursue their dreams”. The major thing that we should all consider when thinking of using any culture or text is: “Reading the world always precedes reading the word, and reading the word implies continually reading the world. Reading the word is not merely preceded by reading the world, but by a certain form of writing it or rewriting it, that is, of transforming it by means of conscious, practical work”. Why do we read? What meaning does it bring to our lives? Why should we understand the world around us? All things to consider when picking a text and reading it.