Dalton, Mary M. (1999). The Hollywood Curriculum: Teachers and Teaching in the Movies. N.Y: Peter Lang.
Pp. 117
$24.95 IBSN 0-82043-732-8
Weber, Sandra and Mitchell, Claudia. (1995). That's Funny, You Don't Look Like a Teacher. Washington, D.C: The Falmer Press.
Pp.156
$24.95 IBSN 0-75070-413-6
Gordon Alley-Young
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
February 17, 2003
Watching television one night, I observe several of images of education. The television crime drama "CSI Miami" previews an upcoming episode in which the murder of a professor leads investigators to the teacher's secret life of sadomasochism. During "CSI Miami" there are advertisements for "The Emperor's Club," a film about a teacher who inspires his prep school students to greatness. Cable movie channel HBO airs commercials for the film "O" that takes Shakespeare's Othello and updates it by making it a story of a sex, sports, rivalry, and murder set in a modern high school. On the Fox network viewers are urged to tune into the next episode of the drama series "Boston Public" as the fate of a popular teacher hangs in the balance. The sadomasochistic teacher, the teacher as savior, the teacher in peril, the privileged student, and the student athlete plus any number of other student and teacher expectations we have are shaped to some extent by popular culture representations of education. This is the premise of the books The Hollywood Curriculum and That's Funny, You Don't Look Like a Teacher.
Popular culture representations of education abound in books, personal narratives, as well as in cultural artifacts. Research has examined the concept of 'teacher lore' as the personal narratives and stories people tell in a culture to explain the function and roles of teachers, students, and teaching in a culture. Teacher lore may exist within popular culture but it has the power to influence educational policy and practice. Valenzeula (1999) identified the teacher's lounge as a site of negative teacher lore where teachers' talk regularly disparages students, most often of color, and can affect the performance of other teachers (Valenzuela, 1999). We cannot dismiss popular culture as mindless entertainment because its representations of education have become measuring sticks with which we compare our educational experiences.
When a popular culture representation is particularly resonant with a culture it evolves into a myth that allows members both inside and outside of the culture to understand the phenomenon it describes. One such myth, the 'superteacher myth,' refers to a specific type of teacher in films where all the ideals and hopes a culture has about teachers reside in one dynamic character (Farhi, 1999). Myth denotes both what a culture desires in an actual ideal teacher but yet it seems so far removed from reality that this teacher can only exist in a mythical figure or time that has yet to be or will never again be realized.
Intercultural and critical pedagogies have found an instructive function for popular culture's myths about inner city schools. An increased demand for teachers is bringing white, middle class individuals to urban schools when they have only experienced urban schools through films. Films like "Dangerous Minds," "Stand and Deliver," and "187" have been used as a point from which to explore and deconstruct pre-service teachers myths about learning, teaching, and culture in the inner city (Grant, 2002). There is a growing segment of educators who feel that it is through exploring the educational representations and myths perpetrated by popular culture that real learning can occur. The expectation we can educate by examining popular culture myth and representation is held by each of the researchers whose works I will subsequently discuss.
Both authors engage a cultural studies-critical research ethos by wanting their research to create change by deconstructing popular myths and representations of education. The researchers seek to attract readers for whom this work is significant whether that is students and teachers, the audiences of the popular culture texts, or some combination of the two. With this in mind I review and critique their works paying attention to what voices are privileged, how faithful they are to theory and method while being accessible to diverse audiences, and how their research facilitates understanding while adhering to the principles of good scholarship. I will begin with an overview of each of the texts.
The two books reviewed here similarly recognize that there is a reflexive relationship between popular cultural texts of education experience and an audience's understanding of education. Dalton's (1999) introduction to The Hollywood Curriculum provides a useful theory for understanding this relationship in the concept of intertextuality. Intertextuality recognizes that texts are produced of a context so when a reader engages a text they draw on life their experience as well as on competing texts. Thus the reader incorporates the text into their experience just as their everyday life becomes part of the text. Both researchers want to extend intertextuality to include critical theories of power and education. Through critical theory both researchers position themselves as reading popular texts of teaching and education through their own experience and using the knowledge revealed in this interpretive work to affect change in future representations of education. A related goal is to share this knowledge with readers so they can be aware of the ways this popular text-reality relationship shapes their worldview of education.
The Hollywood Curriculum examines fifty-eight popular Hollywood films produced between 1936 and 1998 dealing with representations of education. Guided by cultural studies and critical theories Dalton organizes the work using Huebner's five frameworks for valuing curriculum. Dalton characterizes the first three of these frameworks (aesthetic, ethical, and political) as characteristic of portrayals of "good" teachers and two of the frameworks (technical and scientific) as characteristic of portrayals of "bad" teachers in film. Stepping outside this structure, Dalton offers a feminist analysis of the public-private dichotomy that she sees characterizing the lives of female teachers in film.
That's Funny, You Don't Look Like a Teacher also interrogates representations of education but does not restrict itself to popular Hollywood film. Researchers Weber and Mitchell (1995) examine popular representations of teachers in television, film, and fiction as well as aspects of teacher lore found in subjects interviews, drawings, and play. Adopting Fiske's three level method for a cultural reading the authors look at primary texts (i.e. books, television, films), secondary texts (i.e. fan magazines, publicity, criticism), and reader's texts. The work is broken up into several chapters each examining representations of teaching as gendered, communicated in words and clothing or adornment, and through the teacher's gaze.
Though both these texts come from a cultural studies-critical theory perspective they each provide me with a different understanding of how popular culture represents education. This difference comes from how each incorporates theory into the analyses, what data each privileges, and the story that each book tells as a whole. An effective interpretive text will tell a coherent story, carry theories and methods through analysis, and show the work done in selecting, analyzing, and excerpting texts.
How the story of education in popular culture is analyzed is shaped in two ways. The first way is through the texts that are selected for analysis and the cultural frame of reference that they indicate. The second way the story is defined is in who is allowed to contribute to the story of representation. Is it the voice of the researcher I am hearing or that of the readers of the texts in question? I am speaking here of a coherent text--but by "coherent" I do not mean that the story is told from one subject position to the exclusion of others. Instead I am looking for research that unfolds in a way that data follows logically from what appears before and after it in the book. The texts aim to tell similar stories and they arrive at similar results but their telling of the story is what makes the difference for me as a reader.
In both works the voice that tells the story is a white, western, feminist voice because of the subject positions identified by the authors but also the choices that they make in organizing data. I am bothered by how representations of education are inextricable from mainstream American cultural texts. For Dalton this is understandable because limiting her study to Hollywood film presupposes an American text yet it still leaves me wondering what independent American filmmakers would have to contribute to the Hollywood story. Weber and Mitchell draw respondents from Canada, Europe, and Africa yet the primary cultural texts that they continue to return to are American. They specifically point out the intercultural nature of their subject pool yet they preface a heterogeneous western perspective by dealing only with American cultural texts and by failing to draw cultural distinctions. Weber and Mitchell assume that the American media are the primary source of representations of education, an assumption that I would tend to support. However they also make the assumption that these representations have universal appeal and universal meaning for audiences that leads me to perceive a cultural relativism in their work that they fail to address.
Reading American cultural texts cannot preclude a discussion of race especially considering that both books claim a foundation in critical theory. Critical theory provides a means of deconstructing unequal power relationships in a text. Researchers have noted Hollywood's problematic representation of the inner city school experience and the experience of students and teachers of color (Giroux, 1997; Grant, 2002). Both books miss the subject of race as significant in a critical study of representation. Dalton (1999) cites a single scene from the film "Fame" where a white English teacher offers a black student a copy of Othello because she thinks he may be better able to relate to a black character. In contrast a racial conflict driven film like "Dangerous Minds" is overlooked as a race text in lieu of a feminist analysis makes me wonder about Dalton's criteria for choosing representations. A feminist analysis is warranted for this film because it reveals inequities of power but doing a feminist analysis cannot and should not preclude analysis of race or class. This discussion is relevant, as I subsequently discuss the books' use of theory and method.
Dalton offers a reading of films from her own perspective. Even when respondent's voices are presented in the work of Weber and Mitchell, I understand that these voices are always included as filtered through the researcher's biases. Both books take the postmodern stance that there are multiple readings of popular culture texts. Dalton (1999, p. 3) describes her relationship to the films she studies as, "dynamic rather than static," which recognizes that meanings are not fixed but always changing. Dalton notes that with relation to validity that there are multiple readings of the films she analyses and while some readings may be regarded as more informed than others that all are equally valid. Both books reject a quantitative definition of validity if that definition is premised on a belief of generalizability to other studies. There are internal and external components to validity that indicate the potential for research to be validated within the context of study as well as outside (Maxwell, 2001).
Dalton acknowledges a sense of internal validity in her acknowledgement that 'informed readings' of these texts—presumably by formally educated people--may be perceived as more culturally relevant and thus shared among informed readers. She notes that readings that fall outside this informed community are valid even if they are not reconcilable with each other. Is she responding to quantitative critics here or to readers who diverge from her perspective or both? It is not clear to me to whom she speaks because she provides little space for this divergence of meanings to play out. Weber and Mitchell make this point of a multiplicity of readings being possible more implicitly rather than explicitly by showing how respondents have either echoed or diverged from their own readings. I think that Dalton inadvertently makes claims to the generalizability of her readings without the data from respondents to back this up. Dalton (1999, p. 31) notes, "If you were to ask the students they teach what makes them different they would probably tell you that these teachers 'really are' about their students and are willing to do right by them at great personal cost." However, Dalton does not show research or data from respondents to establish this point, she earlier disavows any claim to generalizability, and she is not of a subject position that would let her speak for this group.
Commendably, Weber and Mitchell's book aims to reflect various respondents' voices. It is not because this move makes their work more valid, in the sense of validity as agreed upon meanings by members of a community, than Dalton's book but because it shows a commitment to a belief in multiple readings of a cultural text. Dalton makes a claim to some sense of validity among informed readers of a text while she acknowledges that all readings are valid. This notion of all readings being valid comes through for me in Weber and Mitchell's inclusion of play as a method of inquiry. Through play and picture drawing the researchers are able to get readings from young children who, it is noted, may not be suited to the traditional interview format but that can provide readings of cultural texts through their drawing and play. Rossman and Rallis (1998, p. 135) note that the traditional interview setting is not conducive to interviewing children but acknowledge that during play, "Fascinating perspectives often emerge." I appreciate this because it is children who attend school and participate in a youth culture where representations of teachers abound because they speak children's everyday experience of school. Weber and Mitchell introduce the idea of intergenerational sharing whereby the elements of a child's culture are passed down from generation to generation of children. Weber and Mitchell acknowledge children as having a cultural standpoint and thus a voice in issues of cultural representation.
Both books articulate their foundations in critical and cultural studies theory differently. For Dalton critical theory is articulated by drawing upon critical theories of pedagogy and feminist theory and cultural studies theory in her interpretation of scenes from particular film texts. Dalton's primary structure for organizing the book comes from Huebner's five frameworks for valuing curriculum. The theories provide her with a four-fold lens through which she reads her films. The lenses are good curriculum practices, bad curriculum practices, feminist critique, and finally critical pedagogy. The method of reading films that Dalton describes sounds more fragmented than the final product ends up being. I will later discuss the lack of thorough interpretation this multi-lens approach affords the work.
Weber and Mitchell also privilege cultural studies and critical theories but instead of looking outside of these theories for an organizing structure for the book, they let a cultural studies method guide their inquiry. The authors look at texts that have been suggested to them by their respondents. Dalton argues against articulating a cultural studies methodology for her book because she claims that this field lacks prescribed methods and the methods that do exist would require that she revel in her bias while claiming false objectivity. Weber and Mitchell adopt the cultural studies methods of John Fiske (1987) who claims that a cultural reading requires analysis at the level of primary, secondary, and reader texts. Out of a larger multi-national group of respondent data there is a core of meaning-making statements, pictures and texts that reappear across chapters. Weber and Mitchell continue to draw on these data because they reflect feminist themes congruent with the authors' standpoints as feminist educators. This is not a weakness of the book, for as qualitative interpretive research the reader expects more depth of analysis given to a smaller data set.
Though Dalton does a better job of articulating the lenses through which she reads her films, using four lenses creates a book that lacks unity. The value of organizing the work according to theoretical lenses is that it provides a means for distinguishing the film by the type of pedagogy and how that type of pedagogy is valued in the film in question. Building upon Huebner's frameworks allowed me to see Dalton's effort at research as participation in a larger academic dialogue, the goal of which is to carry forth the ideas of previous researchers, when relevant, while trying to further the discussion. Yet in Dalton's work when a film falls under the scope of a particular lens there is a sense in which it is excluded from the analysis that other lenses provide.
To repeat, Dalton's feminist analysis of "Dangerous Minds" takes place outside of the critical lens of race. This frustrates me as a reader because I end up seeing the chapters on feminist analysis and critical pedagogy as awkward add-ons to the rest of the book because the other chapters follow Huebner's framework. Weber and Mitchell use the same data across chapters as they move through different analytical lenses (i.e., feminist, critical pedagogy). This latter example of theory application is appealing to me as a reader because it privileges the idea of multiple meanings in a single representation and does not impose a structure on a piece of data that requires that it be read singularly through only one lens. The focus of qualitative inquiry, as I understand it, is to treat a piece of data to in-depth analysis rather than focusing on the greatest quantity of texts possible. Dalton can lose sight of the fact that she is doing qualitative, interpretive research as she will cite literally paragraph long lists of movie titles because they contain one specific representation.
The use of multiple lenses forces the films in question into a dichotomy of good or bad representations and leads Dalton (1999, p. 65) to shortsightedly conclude, "there is no room for ambiguity in the Hollywood curriculum." She bases this assessment on the film representations of teachers like Miss Collins from "Carrie" who, while outwardly supportive, is inwardly scornful of Carrie and thus fits the model of the bad teacher. I reject conclusions like this because there is room for ambiguity in these film texts in the readings of audience members like myself who see Miss Collins as a fallible person not an exclusively bad teacher. I could accept, but still not agree with, Dalton's stance of no ambiguity if her book had not been premised on the cultural studies tenet that there are multiple levels of meaning in a popular culture text. In a recent remake of "Carrie" for NBC Miss Collins is an entirely sympathetic character even empathizing with Carrie about her own alienating experiences in high school (Carson, 2002, November 4). Both directors adapt the same text for screen but interpret Miss Collins in contrasting ways indicating if there is no room for ambiguity in the Hollywood Curriculum then there is at least contrast in interpreting the curriculum.
Dalton (1999) asserts that she wants her book to be accessible to the general reader and thus she does not incorporate references to theory in her analyses beyond her methodology chapter. This move to accessibility is laudable because it makes for an accessible book that can be shared with friends and family members who are not academics so that discussions about popular film can take place from some common point of reference. By making the book accessible, Dalton adheres less closely to her assumptions that informed perspectives will prevail and that there is no room for ambiguity. The text has less internal validity because it can contradict in one chapter the same theory that applies in another.
Dalton interprets cultural studies methods as requiring the researcher to adopt the false pose of objectivity. Weber and Mitchell rigorously apply a tri-level cultural reading method and I think that Dalton, understanding her bias against cultural studies methods, would read these researchers as feigning objectivity in not making conclusive statements about their topic. I read this move to avoid blanket statements about their texts to indicate fidelity to the cultural studies principles of multiple meaning and intertextuality. While Dalton (1995, p. 65) argues that her interpretations are without ambiguity, Weber and Mitchell respect the voices of their respondents even when those voices contradict their own. For instance, Weber and Mitchell come across a series of cultural texts where the teachers that are depicted would seem, in conventional wisdom, to be negative, boring representations of teachers yet there is a certain audience to whom this teacher appeals. Weber and Mitchell (1995, p. 60) try to understand the different meanings made by their respondents:
The teacher's blandness is appreciated by children and parents alike because it seems to fit an undefined notion of how a teacher should be (someone with an uninteresting appearance and lifestyle, who is equally boring and methodical in class).
The resulting analyses confirm the multiple layers of a cultural reading rather than offering one definitive reading. I think that offering a definitive reading seems more useful in a positivistic sense of validity as generalizability (Maxwell, 1992) where research findings are only valuable to the extent that they can be replicated by another. This is not true with a cultural reading based in cultural studies where some similarity between books is expected but complete replication is as impossible as it is undesirable and unnecessary for a textual reading.
Critical theory is also central to the research in each of the books. To determine whether the books adhere to the goals of critical theory I considered the potential for each of these works to affect significant change in the way that representations of education are read and produced. Both books cover similar critiques of power imbalances in the texts they read and analyze (i.e., the feminist critique, a limited critique of whiteness, class) but as I understand critical theory, a main tenet is to affect change in the system that produced the inequity of power in the first place. I think that to affect audience attitude changes towards popular culture texts research must be accessible to the same popular audience that consume the popular cultural texts that are studied. To direct a work on representation like this exclusively towards an academic audience is to some extent preaching to the choir. Both books articulate a desire that, in keeping with critical theory, they wish to open readers' eyes to the ways that some representations can be harmful in shaping the expectations and behaviors of those who participate in actual systems of education. I think that Dalton comes closest to success in making the book accessible to general audiences by providing few explicit references to theory beyond the introductory chapters of the book. But again, in doing this Dalton falls into the trap of forgetting some of the assumptions of her theoretical foundation as she provides an analysis that is accessible.
I would personally refrain from claiming that I could affect change if I had done similar research because this claim is made so often that it reads like a cliché. The work of Grant (2002), who uses popular texts of education and her critique of them to train pre-service teachers by interrogating their assumptions of race, class, and urban life, better meets a standard of change through critique. Change occurs most effectively in the work that takes place between a researcher and participants in research. Similarly Rossman and Rallis (1998) describe the desire to affect change through research as an emancipatory practice and they model this understanding on the efforts of Freire to teach literacy in Chile in the 1960s and 1970s. To affect the type of change in representation that both books claim to seek, the authors would have to work directly with a community of students or of teachers and find some way to empower these individuals with the knowledge they gained from their research. Otherwise I see only academics self-selecting to be an audience for this type of work, and while I gained insight from reading the books, I could not claim that this constitutes significant attitudinal change of the type that the researchers anticipate.
I have already discussed the reporting of data as it pertains to Dalton's claims of wishing to make hers a work that is accessible to a wider audience. Weber and Mitchell's closer attention to method and frequent citation of theoretical support for their analyses makes theirs a work that is directed toward other academics in education and media/cultural studies. This is the most likely audience for Dalton's book as well but it has the potential to be read and comprehended by a general reader. For that reason, the work the author does to accomplish this can be appreciated. A discussion of reporting style requires a discussion of the presentation and of data and analyses.
Both books succeed when they clearly present data from mediated texts and respondents so that even a person unfamiliar with the text can gain some understanding. When this is happens it provides a transcription of the words or film scene with thick description introducing and summarizing the selection so as to provide a context for production and/or to situate it within a larger text from which it is excerpted. Both books follow this practice with Weber and Mitchell proclaiming that the various voices from texts and respondents and researchers come together to form a collective autobiography. I am able to see the meaning that Weber and Mitchell are making from respondents' responses because they provide long excerpts of respondent's speech and choose representative selections from media text. When selecting media texts to excerpt they recognize that not all the texts that reflect a theme can be excerpted so they chose only relevant texts to include at the individual level of representation.
Dalton relies on her own analyses of texts, which is fine, but she also attempts to speak for other audiences without showing that she has done the required research with people. Dalton (1999, p. 31) notes, "If you were to ask the students they teach what makes them different they would probably tell you that these teachers 'really are' about their students and are willing to do right by them at great personal cost." Based on my experience with pre-service teachers, I would agree with this statement, but Dalton is not justified in saying this with authority because she does not show where her understanding comes from. Dalton (1999, p. 104) does this again at the end of the book when she reports a conversation she hears from two student-employees of a movie theatre:
The young man said, 'School is just so pointless. I spend most of my time there just daydreaming. I mean, it is so pointless.' The young girl said, 'Yeah?' He replied, 'Pointless.' She thought a moment. 'You know every time I take a test, like, the next week I don't remember a thing .... I know what you mean.' Soon they moved onto other topics, but it struck me that their dialogue could easily have been excised from any number of movies about high school students and their experiences in school.
For me, the exchange that she hears is anecdotal much like the observations I make at the outset of this essay about my experience of a night of television viewing. It is anecdotal because she does not know the context out of which such statements are produced and neither does she know the experiences that these respondents have had with popular films of education situations.
While reading Weber and Mitchell's book I come across a selection of hand-drawn pictures of teachers and educational scenarios and descriptions of children engaged in playing school. The multiple ways of accessing and presenting data make for a stronger researcher product for Weber and Mitchell because it acknowledges that there are levels of meaning that are expressed beyond words. The researchers reason from the uses of play in therapy settings to communicate meanings that the child may not have the communicative skills to fully participate orally. The use of play can be related to Rubin and Rubin's (1995) observation that people reveal in story what they might never reveal in direct exchange. It is far better to use data gained at playing school for the data it yields about children's understanding of popular texts of education and teaching especially when children are often identified as belonging to a population that is mis-served by popular culture's representation of education.
I had hoped to learn more about popular culture's representations of education and teaching in non-American cultures given the respondent base that Weber and Mitchell draw upon, but such was not the case. Am I to take both books' conflation of the representation of education and teaching with American popular cultural texts to be a reality stemming from American's increased cultural presence in the world? Even when this is the case, we cannot assume that reader's reactions and interpretations of texts can be identical to dominant American cultural readings of these texts. Texts can be found that fall outside of this U.S. worldview and the challenge will be to determine how, if at all, meanings change through a different cultural lens. A related task will be determining what independent filmmakers and media have to contribute to the story of education in popular culture?
These books further the dialogue in this area of educational research in some significant ways. Weber and Mitchell succeed in incorporating children into the literature on popular representations of education to a degree that privileges their special needs in communicating their thoughts about culture. This is done in a way that also acknowledges children's long overdue right to be a part of a discussion of which they have long been a prime concern (i.e., as students and popular culture consumers). Dalton's prime contribution to this area of study is her commitment to write and present critical studies of culture in a way that general audiences can engage. Ironically, much of the research I have come across in preparing to write this review does similar work in critiquing popular culture's representations of education but it is written and published in ways that only academics will likely ever read and challenge these ideas. Though I am not convinced that writing in an accessible way alone constitutes an emancipatory act, it is a step in the right direction. Future researchers should continue to experiment with more accessible genres for presenting their research on popular culture.
References
Carson, D. (Director). (2002, November 4). "Carrie" [Television broadcast]. United States: National Broadcasting Corporation.
Farhi, A. (1999). Recognizing the superteacher myth in film. Clearinghouse, 72, 157-159.
Fiske, J. (1987). Television culture. London: Routledge.
Giroux, H. (1997). Rewriting the discourse of racial identity: Towards a pedagogy and politics of whiteness. Harvard educational review, 67, 285-320.
Grant, P. (2002). Using popular films to challenge preservice teachers' beliefs about teaching in urban schools. Urban education, 37, 77-95.
Maxwell, J.A. (2001). Understanding validity in qualitative research. In C.F. Conrad, J. G. Haworth, and L.R. Lattuca (Eds.), Qualitative research in higher education: Expanding perspectives (pp. 301-316). Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing.
Rossman, G.B. and Rallis, S.F. (1998). Learning in the field: An introduction to qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Rubin, H.J. and Rubin, I.S. (1995). Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Schwarz, G. (1995). Relevant readings: Teacher lore. Action in teacher education, 17, 76-78.
Valenzuela, A. (1999). Subtractive schooling: U.S. – Mexican youth and the politics of caring. Albany: State University of New York Press.
About the Reviewer
Gordon Alley-Young is a doctoral student in Communication Pedagogy and Intercultural Communication at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. He serves as the assistant to the director of graduate study. His research interests include multicultural education, whiteness and postcolonial theory, and cultural studies. He holds a B.A. in Communication from the University of Cape Breton (Nova Scotia, Canada) and an M.A. degree in Communication and an M.A.L.S. degree in Women's Studies from the University of Maine.
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