English teaching and media education: the (lost) legacies of Cultural Studies

Abstract

ABSTRACT The focus here is on English teaching and media education, with particular reference to the Australian and English contexts. It considers the role and significance of media in and for English teaching, as a school subject. It asks: What are the legacies of Cultural Studies in this regard? English teaching is considered in relation to, first, the UK national curriculum, the 1989 Cox Report and what was called ‘Cultural Analysis’, and second, the Australian Curriculum, and the programmatic shift in focus to ‘texts’. In particular, we want to think about the lost legacies of Cultural Studies: those insights and orientations that don’t seem to have been taken up, or perhaps have withered, or have fallen away. This includes Cultural Studies’ key concern with everyday life and media culture, as practice and flow. Some questions remain: What remains of Cultural Studies today, with regard to English teaching and media education? Moreover, What possibilities and prospects for curriculum renewal are there in the current conjecture, in the third decade of the 21st century?