Nick

The Adolescent Revisited "The authors used data from seven schools in a metropolitan region to explore continuity and change in adolescent cultures and status structures; they identified six major types of status structures and explained variation among them in terms of characteristics of communities and schools." The subculture I will be choosing is referred to as the "oppositional culture" in this study. This grouping of students consists of "stoners, wannabee hippies, headbangers, Punks, Skins, ravers, skaters, gangstas, thugs, and bullies." In short, I would like to invstigate the school aged subculture that glorifies anarchy; a group I like to refer to as "The Outsiders." []

I discovered a book that describes the glorification, definition, sources and problems with oppositional culture. There is a chapter that discuss education in this culture. The book is titled, "Critical Pedagogy and Predatory Culture, Oppositional Politics in a Postmodern Era." It was written by Peter McLaren. []

My third choice for reaching oppositonal culture in classrooms would be taking an inverse approach to trying to reach them. Instead of trying to be like them or trying to gain their trust by showing my interest in their interests (meanwhile possibly encouraging their oppositional behavior) teaching them that the stereotypes they hold so dearly to may be a hoax may be even more effective. I stumbled on this concept in the article, "Training Graduate Students to Teach Culture: A Case Study." It foucuses on teaching students to better understand diverse cultures and their history, which would improve their teaching method. At first I thought it was going to discuss the typical African-American culture and history, but I found that it focuses on German and Austrian cultures instead. That was a rude awakening for me. []

My fourth choice is an article that is offered by Indiana University. It is called, "Popular Culture by Oppositional Culture: Rap as Resistance." "In this paper, rap music is identified as an important African American popular cultural form that also emerges as a form of oppositional culture. A brief analysis of the lyrics of political and gangsta rappers of the late 1980s and early 1990s, provides key themes of distrust, anger, resistance, and critique of a perceived racist and discriminatory society." []

My final choice is a publication that discusses reacing native indians in Canada. The author points out how, "through humility... these students can be my greatest teachers." []