Dear Museum - L
I've made the (perhaps foolish) decision to enter a doctoral program
here in Chicago.  It's not in Museum Studies, but in education.  The
first course is on the roots of urban multiculturalism and the
political, economic and social implications therein.

Periodically there is a thread on this list on some topic of community
or multicultural partnerships and programs, so I thought some of you
might be interested in the reading list. Rather long course description
follows.

Johanna Wyn and Rob White, Rethinking Youth
Paul Willis, Common Culture:  Symbolic Work in the Everyday life of the
Young
Stuart Ewen, The Captains of Consciousness:  Advertising and the Social
Roots of the Consumer Culture
John Fiske, Introduction to Popular Culture
Henry Giroux, Channel Surfing:  Race Talk and the Destruction of Today's
Youth
Andre Ross and Tricia Rose (Eds.) Microphone Fiends:  Youth Music, Youth
Culture
Paulo Freire, Teachers as Cultural Workers

These are for the course, Culture, Power and Education
"The purpose of the course is to facilitate the development of a
critical understanding of the larger concept of culture within the
notion of multiculturalism, with a particular emphasis on youth, and
youth cultural formation.  The course understands that educational
institutions such as schools and universities are cultural institutions
engaged in the making of culture.  That is to say, Schools and
universities [and museums, the instructor says] are contested cultural
sites where dominant and subordinate groups struggle between and amongst
themselves over conflicting cultural meanings and actions.  However,
within these cultural institutions dominant groups exercise power by
attempting to educate peo0ple about how to think, believe, desire, and
feel, and how to behave.  It is in this context that cultural
negotiation and struggle emerge between and within social groups.  This
suggests that schools and universities, for example, are not culturally
homogeneous but are political sites of cultural antagonism.  Within the
field of education, multicultural theories are critical approaches in
particular that address issues of power, knowledge and social identity,
have focussed on these specific aspects of educational institutions.

While the focus of multiculturalism is about theorizing difference in
relation to the particular cultural processes that go on in schools and
universities, its focus does not address how educational institutions
are shaped by broader cultural dynamics that are outside of the
immediate contexts of educational institutions.  The primary focus of
the course will be to explore how the larger political economy, popular
culture and politics of a society affect the dynamics of how culture is
constructed within social life.  Examined within the context of this
focus is how through culture, relations of power, knowledge, social
identity and pedagogy within educational institutions are conditioned
and shaped by the wider societal arrangements.  The course is therefore
concerned with analyzing what we mean by culture; and in public life how
the private cultures of everyday life are represented by the dominant
cultural and subcultural groups and institutions.  It is within this
context that culture will be analyzed broadly as an educational practice
that shapes and impinges upon the internal workings and purposes of
educational institutions.  These issues and concerns about culture and
education will be explored with a special attention to youth and their
cultural formations."
(whew)

Linda Wilson
Visitor Studies and Evaluation
Shedd Aquarium, Chicago, IL 60605
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