“Waiting for Superman”: A Cultural Studies Analysis in the Nightmare of the Present

• In Event: Roundtable Session 87
  In Roundtable Session: Praxis, Pedagogy, and the Popular: Engaging Youth, Exploring Texts

Abstract

This paper suggests the recent film Waiting for Superman offers an opportunity for a cultural studies analysis with clear import on education and curriculum theorizing. In specific, this paper notes the important conjuncture of forces at work in the public discourse of so-called education reform and suggests that cultural studies analysis may be needed now more than ever. This offering provides linkages between the discursive construction of educative reform efforts and the material lived experiences of those who spend time in educative contexts. As free-market fundamentalism, neoconservative ideological formations, and representations of school and schooling are all in play, this perspective intends to help provide new understandings of this “nightmare of the present” (Pinar, 2004).

Authors

• Robert James Helfenbein, Indiana University - IUPUI

• Gabriel Stephen Huddleston, Indiana University