ED4946:04
Youth Cultures and Education
Townsville
20 lectures, 20 tutorials. Second semester.
Staff: Dr G Dawes, Assoc. Professor R Gilbert.
This subject focuses on the implications for education of the construction of identity among youth in contemporary Australian society. It reviews current approaches to understanding popular cultures and social change and how these position students with respect to the cultures of schooling. Topics include: the concept of youth; the impact on youth subcultures of globalisation, consumerism and the media; the construction of identity in discourses of class, ethnicity, gender, race and sexuality; youth, the labour market and education; school and community responses to the problems of young people; educational policies and their impact on youth.
Learning Objectives:
- review contemporary theories of the concept of youth and the construction of identity;
- understand how young people are positioned by the competing demands of youth cultures, the cultures of schooling and the multiple discourses which shape people’s identities;
- assess the significance for education of problems facing young people in a context of social, cultural and economic change;
- evaluate educational and other policies and practices which address problems of young people in contemporary Australia.
Assessment by seminar presentation (20%); seminar participation (15%); project/essay (30%); resource folio (35%).