INTRODUCTION

Abstract

Recently the topic of the media and education has received a surge of interest (e.g., Thomson, 2004; Stack & Boler, in press). For example, academics and K‐12 teachers have implemented and studied projects that engage children and youth in discussing mainstream media as well as creating their own meaning through media production (Buckingham, 2003). Scholars have also begun to look at the relationship between journalists and policymakers in the educational policy‐making process (Levin, 2004). And, with the rise of neoliberal discourse, educational institutions face pressure either to defend or promote themselves through the media. Public schools, for example, are called upon to defend themselves against stories of their lack in accountability or relevance. Simultaneously, resistance to dominant narratives takes place through challenging mainstream media and through the creation of alternative media. In this special issue, we have examined the intersections between media, education, and resistance. It is unusual because it features the work of university‐based researchers; a former provincial deputy minister of education; educators practicing in schools, a postsecondary English language classroom, teacher education, and community‐based or informal settings; and a working journalist.

We have organized this special issue into four parts. The first set of articles, by Kelly, Stack, Ungerleider, Hedjerassi and Stumpf, and Beers, focuses on mainstream news. The six authors take diverse approaches to examining how the media represent children, youth, and schools and how educators might intervene to improve and diversify representations. The second set, by Kline, Stewart, and Murphy; Poytnz; Orlowski; McKenzie; and Mackie and Norton, explores critical media education, articles that help students examine what they find pleasurable about media as well as to critique it and explore how they might create alternative representations. In the third set of articles by Leard and Lashua and Riecken and colleagues, the authors focus on media production with youth who are marginalized. The final set of articles, by Sanford and Madill, Wilson, and Blair, looks at how children and youth as well as teachers engage and resist popular culture.

We have produced this issue for students, educators, administrators, and policymakers. We see it as a useful for classes in media education, educational policy, cultural studies, social foundations of education, and curriculum. Administrators, policymakers, and educators will find the articles useful to understand how the media frame schooling, how educators can use popular culture as a pedagogical resource, and how they might engage with media more productively.