Representing "U" E-Book

Pauline J. Reynolds

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Serie: J-B ASHE-ERIC Report Series (AEHE)
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 250

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

From the magazines and newspapers of the mid-1800s to movies andapps of the twenty-first century, popular culture and media in theUnited States provide prolific representations of higher education.This report positions artifacts of popular culture as pedagogictexts able to (mis)educate viewers and consumers regarding thepurpose, values, and people of higher education. It: * Discusses scholarly literature across disciplines * Examines a diverse array of cross-media artifacts * Reveals pedagogical messages embedded in popular culture textsto prompt thinking about the multiple ways higher educationisrepresented to society through the media. Informative and engaging, higher education professionals can usethe findings to intentionally challenge the (mis)educating messagesabout higher education through programs, policies, andperspectives. This is the 4th issue of the 40th volume of the Jossey-Bass seriesASHE Higher Education Report. Each monograph is thedefinitive analysis of a tough higher education issue, basedon thorough research of pertinent literature and institutionalexperiences. Topics are identified by a national survey. Notedpractitioners and scholars are then commissioned to write thereports, with experts providing critical reviews of each manuscriptbefore publication.

Leseprobe

ASHE Higher Education Report: Volume 40, Number 4

Kelly Ward, Lisa E. Wolf-Wendel, Series Editors

Representing “U”: Popular Culture, Media, and Higher Education

Pauline J. Reynolds

Representing “U”: Popular Culture, Media, and Higher EducationPauline J. Reynolds ASHE Higher Education Report: Volume 40, Number 4 Kelly Ward, Lisa E. Wolf-Wendel, Series Editors

Copyright © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., A Wiley Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction or translation of any part of this work beyond that permitted by Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act without permission of the copyright owner is unlawful. Requests for permission or further information should be addressed to the Permissions Department, c/o John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River St., Hoboken, NJ 07030; [phone], fax [phone], www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Cover image by © Jangeltun/iStockphoto.

ISSN 1551-6970  electronic ISSN 1554-6306  ISBN 978-1-118-96623-5

The ASHE Higher Education Report is part of the Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series and is published six times a year by Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company, at Jossey-Bass, One Montgomery Street, Suite 1200, San Francisco, California 94104-4594.

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CALL FOR PROPOSALS: Prospective authors are strongly encouraged to contact Kelly Ward ([email protected]) or Lisa E. Wolf-Wendel ([email protected]). See “About the ASHE Higher Education Report Series” in the back of this volume.

Visit the Jossey-Bass Web site at www.josseybass.com.

The ASHE Higher Education Report is indexed in CIJE: Current Index to Journals in Education (ERIC), Education Index/Abstracts (H.W. Wilson), ERIC Database (Education Resources Information Center), Higher Education Abstracts (Claremont Graduate University), IBR & IBZ: International Bibliographies of Periodical Literature (K.G. Saur), and Resources in Education (ERIC).

Advisory Board

The ASHE Higher Education Report Series is sponsored by the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), which provides an editorial advisory board of ASHE members.

Ben Baez

Florida International University

Amy Bergerson

University of Utah

Edna Chun

University of North Carolina Greensboro

Susan K. Gardner

University of Maine

MaryBeth Gasman

University of Pennsylvania

Karri Holley

University of Alabama

Adrianna Kezar

University of Southern California

Kevin Kinser

SUNY – Albany

Dina Maramba

Binghamton University

Robert Palmer

Binghamton University

Barbara Tobolowsky

University of Texas at Arlington

Susan Twombly

University of Kansas

Marybeth Walpole

Rowan University

Rachelle Winkle-Wagner

University of Nebraska – Lincoln

CONTENTS

Executive Summary

Foreword

Representing “U”: Popular Higher Education

Introduction

Framing Higher Education in Popular Culture

Examining Popular Culture

(Mis)educating “U”

Once Upon a “U”: A Brief Historical Examination of Popular Higher Education

Introduction

Popular and Prolific “U”: Examining Popular Culture

Concluding Thoughts

Note

Being “U”: The Setting of Higher Education

Introduction

Being an Institution of Higher Education: Thematic Discourses

Being an Institution of Higher Education Too: The Salience of Type

Concluding Thoughts

Running “U”: Administrators in Popular Culture

Introduction

Being a Higher Education Administrator: Types and Presence

Being a Higher Education Administrator: Thematic Discourses

(Mis)running “U”?

Professing “U”: Faculty in Popular Culture

Introduction

Categorizing Popular Culture Professors

Trusting the Professoriate

White, Straight, and Male: The Professorial Status Quo and Alternative Narratives

The Pop Culture Ceiling: Gendered Challenges to the Status Quo

Concluding Thoughts

Learning From “U”: College Students in Popular Culture

Introduction

Shaping Popular Culture College Students Through Institutional Status

Popularity and Privilege in College Student Popular Culture

Concluding Thoughts

(Re)educating “U”: Learning From Popular Culture

Introduction

Opportunities for (Re)education

Future Popular Culture Research

Conclusion

Note

References

Advert

Name Index

Subject Index

About the Author

About the ASHE Higher Education Report Series

Call for Proposals

End User License Agreement

List of Tables

Chapter 1

Table 1

Chapter 5

Table 2

Table 3

Table 4

Table 5

Table 6

Chapter 6

Table 7

Table 8

List of Illustrations

Chapter 1

Figure 1 A Linear Model for (Mis)education

Figure 2 A Linear Model for (Re)education

Chapter 3

Figure 3 Safe and Scary Throughout the 20th Century

Chapter 5

Figure 4 Male Professor Representation Throughout the 20th Century to 2005

Chapter 6

Figure 5 Identity Traits and Shifting Locus of Status

Figure 6 Shifting Masculinities of Popular Culture College Men

Figure 7 Shifting Notions of Femininity Represented by Sexual Activity

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Representing “U”: Popular Higher Education

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Executive Summary

From the magazines and newspapers of the mid-1800s to movies and apps of the twenty-first century, popular culture and media in the United States provide persistent and prolific representations of higher education. Representing “U” argues that artifacts of popular culture are pedagogic texts capable of (mis)educating viewers and consumers regarding the purpose, values, and people of higher education (Byers, 2005; Kellner, 2009). Popular culture influences consumers and viewers (Anderson et al., 2003; Tobolowksy, 2001; Ward & Friedman, 2006; Wasylkiw & Currie, 2012) and provides a vehicle for hegemonic and ideological messages (Hall, 1997; Turner, 2006; Weaver, 2009). This monograph discusses scholarship examining a diverse array of cross-media artifacts featuring higher education to reveal the pedagogical messages they contain, particularly regarding inclusion and exclusion, about postsecondary institutions and the people in them.

Representing “U” critically and interpretively reviews scholarly literature across disciplines to reveal findings related to four important foci in higher education: actual institutions, administrators, faculty, and students. The monograph emphasizes the potential to learn from and use analyses of representations of higher education in popular culture to support professional strategies, decision making, and practice. By identifying the explicit and implicit (mis)education in representations, professionals can intentionally challenge misunderstandings through programs, policies, practices, and perspectives.

The first chapter of substantive findings discusses the representation of institutions and institutional types. Institutional type is particularly salient as popular culture portrays the stratification of colleges and the people in them through select (in)visibilities that privilege or denigrate. In addition, thematic discourses position representations of higher education as separated and separating institutions, where student experience and expectations determine institutional identity.

The second substantive chapter focuses on representations of administrators in higher education. Interestingly, the focus on administrators in popular culture is relatively sparse in the literature. Overwhelmingly, the majority of administrative depictions are negative. College administrators are minimized in both artifacts and in the literature in ways that distort their role, limit who can be an administrator, and how they perform their positions. Integrity and authority manifest as key themes for administrative representations with distrust an overwhelming feature of their portrayal.

The third substantive chapter discusses representations of faculty. It develops a typology of faculty representation and considers issues of trust and power in their portrayals that dangerously misrepresent faculty work and endeavor. Ranging from bookworm to monster, loner to superstar, many of these faculty types ultimately position professors as a powerless “other” despite White, heterosexual, male professors overpopulating portrayals. The (in)visibilities of faculty of color, women faculty, and queer faculty are challenged most noticeably by female faculty but women tend to receive marginal, limited, gendered, and often sexualized representations.

The final substantive chapter assesses studies of student representation in popular culture. The chapter discusses identity and status as defining characteristics of fictional students, and the related themes of privilege and gender performance attributed to their portrayals. Separation and inclusion, alienation and belonging, and young people's next stages in life after high school are important features of the review of student portrayal.

The monograph concludes by considering four overarching themes and suggesting possibilities for the use of these themes to inform practice and perspectives within our institutions. The analysis reviews many studies and discusses many findings, but overall, the central argument is that theexisting body of research on higher education in popular culture reveals a portrayal where messages about exclusivity and privilege, exclusion and omission, are dominant. These (mis)representations provide clear messages about who belongs in higher education, who belongs where, and who does not belong at all. Higher education has a deep hold on U.S. popular imagination, and this is demonstrated through the sheer volume of popular culture artifacts that include or center on the actors, institutions, and experiences of higher education. Those who come to such institutions seeking a higher education and others are likely to have developed expectations and understandings, however subconsciously, about what these institutions are all about. An important implication of this analysis is that it behooves those of us working within institutions of higher education to consider how our endeavor is portrayed in these popular culture artifacts so that, if necessary, we can take steps to help counter these portrayals and their potentially deleterious effects.

Foreword

Paper Chase. Animal House. A Different World. Community. Good Will Hunting. What do these things have in common? They all offer glimpses of higher education as depicted in movies and television shows within different time periods. Regardless of the media or the time period, popular culture shapes how people think about and judge colleges and universities. Movies like Animal House have left a seemingly permanent mark on the mind of society about what it means to be a college student. Obviously such movies only represent a small portion of what takes place on a college campus, but the impression can be lasting and important to consider. With massification, a broader public has access to higher education and media references are often the only source people have to learn more about higher education. In spite of the efforts of guidance counselors and well-meaning parents to inform their students and children about college, popular culture has a stronghold on societal impressions.

Pauline J. Reynolds in the monograph Representing “U”: Popular Culture, Media, and Higher Education does an excellent job of tying the representation of higher education in popular culture to how people are informed about higher education, at times in ways that are quite narrow and limiting, as well as how popular culture can be used to provide perspectives on higher education to be educative and helpful. Media and popular culture play an important role in the beliefs people develop and the choices they make. The monograph integrates theory and related research as well as examples of higher education in popular culture to prompt thinking about the multiple ways higher education is represented to society through the media.

The monograph includes discussion of how higher education has been represented historically in popular culture as well as more contemporary perspectives. In addition to being a thought-provoking analysis on how popular culture miseducates the public about higher education (and also how it can be used to reeducate), the monograph is also a source of very interesting information about a broad array of books and movies about higher education. Readers are sure to learn more about sources of popular culture that represent higher education as well as the author's analysis of how popular culture represents the postsecondary experience. In addition to overall representation, the book includes detailed analysis of student, faculty, and administrative portrayals. Integral to the author's analysis is a critical perspective of gender, race, and culture.

Faculty who teach courses related to popular culture and contemporary issues in higher education are sure to find the monograph useful in terms of additional information about films and books that include higher education and also as a way to augment teaching and learning environments with additional resources. In addition those who do research about faculty, students, administrators, and campuses as a whole are sure to find information to provide unique perspectives related to theory and practice. Reading this book I learned much about how higher education is depicted in popular culture and also about where higher education is represented in popular culture. The monograph is a comprehensive resource for those wanting to round out their reading and watching lists.

The study of higher education in popular culture is not only interesting, but also important to the overall field of higher education. Media portrayals of colleges and universities reach broad audiences. By being more informed, scholars and teachers of higher education can introduce popular culture perspectives into teaching and research as a way to keep readers and students informed and as a means to more fully understand how people come to know higher education. The information in the monograph provides readers with the opportunity to be more savvy consumers of popular culture as it relates to higher education.

Kelly WardLisa E. Wolf-WendelSeries Editors

Representing “U”: Popular Higher Education