China's post-1978 educational reform was born by and into an era of transformation. Given a historical background where modernization leads the principle of all kinds of reform, the Chinese educational system is found to be problematic in the country's struggle of a balance between economic growth and social equality. Upon using basic a historical methodology of Change over Time, the thesis examines the dilemma "between a socialist egalitarian model and a liberal competitive model" from a perspective that takes chronological and spatial transition into consideration. By placing the ongoing educational reform into two theoretical frameworks, namely isomorphism and modernization, the research tries to demonstrate the inevitability of a series of institutional changes that provide both opportunities and threats to the limited social mobility of the world's largest migrating population. The thesis concludes by assuming that although it undergoes many controversies and disputes, the educational reform is exploring a way to satisfy migrants in a particular Chinese manner.

Given the ubiquity and pervasiveness of digital technologies within contemporary society, scholarly exploration about how life is lived in this digital era is critical in order to understand the impact upon our lives, as well as upon society. One aspect of living a digitally oriented life involves how and why one represents oneself in virtual environments, and how one interacts with others within the digital ecosystem. As individuals spend more time online, their interactions, perceptions, and behaviors -- even their sense of self -- are shaped by new technologies as well as by the social contexts within which these manifest. Understanding this is particularly relevant for educators, as they engage with students who are increasingly conversant with technologies, and whose life experiences may best be appreciated, by educators, if grounded within a broader sensibility about digital life.

This study focuses on how and more critically why the self is constructed and presented as it is within online environments. In order to assess this, particularly from the perspective of those emplaced within this mode of living, this inquiry is situated at the intersection of three scholarly disciplines. Thus, this study draws from the following theoretical frameworks: a constructivist developmental approach emanating from social psychology, wherein symbolic interactionism and performativity are invoked; a communication studies approach that considers how technologies mediate identity representation and interaction; and a critical cultural studies perspective that examines media culture, with a particular emphasis on the role of spectacle within society. This study presents the results of qualitative research that examines the online self-representations of 12 students at a large urban university in Los Angeles. This study also employs a longitudinal approach, as five of these 12 participants have been observed for a period of nearly two years, and comparative assessments of their activities as well as their own interpretations of the same have occurred over this time period. Since the primary focus of this study is to enable understanding regarding the motivations, meanings, and value associated with self representation online, it is necessary to derive these insights directly from participants themselves. As such, interviews have been conducted with all participants, and in some cases, more than once.

The findings of this research reveal four broad patterns that address how and why participants construct their online identity representations. They do so 1) to enhance their employment prospects; 2) to position themselves in a particular light to formulate a self-brand; 3) to engage socially with others; and 4) to engender feelings of self-worth from which they derive feelings of self-satisfaction, among other positive emotional benefits. In consideration of these self-representation, this study further proposes a new theorization with which to frame these findings. It proposes that what is occurring might be viewed as a form of self-spectacle, one that derives its foundation from previous iterations of societal spectacle, inclusive of some of the tenets of broader spectacle, yet is distinct, given its singular focus on the individual. It is suggested that this micro-level spectacle instantiates in the myriad shapes online self-representation assumes today and, if the rapid adoption of self-facing technologies is any indication, is likely to continue unabated. As such, this study contributes to the emerging scholarship regarding life lived online, and offers a perspective that attempts to contextualize what is occurring during this contemporary moment.

This two year longitudinal study focused on the evolving conceptions and self-reported practices regarding social justice of twelve diverse teacher candidates who were enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles’s (UCLA’s) teacher education program (TEP). The distinctive attribute of this study was to reveal how the social justice conceptions and practices of the twelve candidates changed between the time they entered and completed an urban-centered, social justice oriented teacher education program.

Using qualitative methods, this study conducted four interviews with each participant, one in the beginning and end of each academic year, over the two year program period. The theoretical backdrop for the analysis conducted during this study, included the works of critical pedagogue Paulo Freire and scholarship grounded in the critical tradition urging educators to be engaged in self reflection and be well informed about the structural inequalities due to social, historical, political and cultural contexts.

The results of the study indicate that all participants increased their understanding and commitment towards social justice education, and made an effort to integrate social justice into their pedagogical practice. Those who were initially committed to social justice ideals, maintained and further expanded their understandings and practices of social justice. Alternatively, those who were initially unaware and uncommitted to social justice issues gained an increased understanding of the concepts—mostly rooted in the instructional application of social justice—but had not integrated their concepts into teaching. This study did not evaluate UCLA’s teacher education programs’ impact, but rather explored the evolving notions of social justice among candidates as they completed their course of study.

Latinos are the largest minority in the U.S., yet they hold the least number of conferred college degrees compared to their total population. Despite these low numbers, Latinos have grown exponentially in colleges and universities. Presently, the University of California has six out of its nine undergraduate campuses designated Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). HSIs require a Latino student population of 25 percent or higher. It is important to note, however, that these institutions are structurally and culturally white. Latinos have been found to experience a culture shock when entering higher education (Yosso, 2005). Sixty-percent of Latino students begin their post-secondary education at community colleges, and they, too, experience what is known as transfer shock: a dip in students’ GPA when entering their senior institution. As such, tools that may mitigate these various adjustments are explored. Most college aged students do not know of a time before the world wide web. More than 90 percent of the college going population uses Facebook. Given that Latino students continue to encounter marginalizing experiences in higher education, the function of Facebook was explored for Latino community transfer students during their adjustment period.

Transfer students’ adjustment periods are one to two academic terms (Laanan, 1995). A virtual ethnography of participants’ Facebook was conducted that included semi-structured interviews that took place at the end of participants first term (December of entering year) and at the end of their second term (March and April). The study found that Facebook functioned as (a) a navigational tool, (b) coping mechanism, and (c) as a political platform and asset. Facebook as a navigational tool is important for first-generation college students. Facebook use a as a coping mechanism was important for Latino students, especially given that at the time of adjustment and transition to their senior institution, negative political rhetoric about Latinos and immigration policy. The ability to bridge social capital was particularly important for Latino transfer students, as they name family and peers a source of support. Facebook as a political tool and asset was important given the political climate—namely, Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant and dehumanizing platform—during Latino transition.

Due to the increasing popularity of video games in mass media culture, I will be investigating one particular video game series, Portal: Still Alive and Portal 2, and the manner by which players learn from them. After observing that most instructors use these games in physics and math classes, I want to expand more on the way that video games enact a new story-telling feature through experiential means, which also serves a pedagogical function. I assert that players learn from games through their interactive gameplay, which allows them to engage with the game narrative that contains ideological content embedded through portrayal of characters, plot development, use of imagery and text, and thematic development. Thus, I develop my model of video game literacy through interactivity with a game narrative.

My model, Critical Narrative Gaming Literacy, provides a construction of game narrative comprising of thematic development as the central component encompassing the development of the other narrative elements such as plot, character, use of symbols, setting, and point of view. A new form of Cultural Studies that incorporates the study of video games, Critical Narrative Gaming Literacy is informed by theorizations in Cultural Studies, Critical Pedagogy, and Psychoanalysis as articulated in Literacy Theory. In my analysis of the game series, I investigate the narrative using a means of comparison to Jacques Lacan’s reading of Antigone and examine themes of the sublimated death drive, violence, and sado-masochism, since I experienced those themes manifesting through plot and character development and the use of symbols. Due to the interactive nature of video games and variability in gameplay, I also capture the manner by which undergraduate players experience the narratives differently from each other. Thus, taking a phenomenological approach to data collection through 13 interviews with 13 different participants, I narrow my focus on 5 different participants’ experiences of the game series. These participants express their experiences of the game series as revealing a mother-daughter relationship and a cautionary tale of science and power.

There is a great debate among scholars on the virtues of digital online culture, yet as people spend more time in cyberspace, little attention is being paid to understanding the forces at play within these contexts as well as their impact on identities. Education is critical to protect and equip the citizenry in this new environment; however, perspectives have not shifted to include meaningful theorizing in how to live the information revolution.

This dissertation draws on the work of scholars across the disciplines of cultural studies, education, communication, and philosophy to provide a cultural, ideological critique of identity construction in the context of virtualization and to draw some conclusions for schooling in light of the analysis. Subsequently, each chapter represents a different facet of the real-virtual and human-machine lines to help deconstruct the ontological distinction between these realms of being. This is accomplished by using a multiperspectival approach employing the theoretical frameworks of constructivist psychology, critical theory, symbolic interactionism, and sociocultural identity theory.

Organized in five chapters, the first initially identifies technological agents of change that have generated shifts in personal identity. The second critically engages the work of Sherry Turkle, a pioneer researcher of digital online culture. The third chapter historicizes identity formation and the cultural transformations that have occurred since the Internet's inception. The fourth unravels neoliberal and high-tech capitalist forms of manufactured consciousness followed by mapping today's new forms of resistance. The fifth and concluding chapter demonstrates how education is implicated in the current hegemonic movement and the role it could play to guide the citizenry through this area of complex interactions.

This dissertation highlights the personal and cultural changes occurring as a result of increasing reliance on online environments. Additionally, it proposes a new perspective on education's role in this evolution and advocates for schooling to take a stance in the face of the current digital, globalized world. This work is intended to benefit educators, social scientists, critical theorists and scholars currently struggling to identify the individual and societal changes underway as it proposes meaningful and original strategies to address contemporary challenges to schooling's normative ideal.

Freire wrote that reading one's world is a necessary precursor to writing it, or conscienzation. The present dissertation, expanding on Kellner's concept of multiple literacies (1998; 2002a; 2005b; 2006a; 2008), explores what it means to read and write one's world in the context of globalization. Given the arrival of a new imaginary, with its impact on people's imaginations, it insists that a new set of literacies, global literacies, is central to claiming agency and constructing a democratic public sphere.

Employing a multidisciplinary, Critical Theory framework, the dissertation begins with an analytic overview of the main processes presently associated with globalization. Next, engaging insights from the philosophies of John Dewey, Herbert Marcuse and Paulo Freire, and drawing upon the already established field of critical media literacy, it attempts to offer a normative initial framework for what I am calling global literacies. Finally, striving for praxis, it pursues action research as a means of applying, critiquing and revising theory.

Research takes place in an English conversation course in a South Korean university, with inquiry focused upon the course content and material. Special discussion is given to the use of social media, namely Facebook, as a platform for addressing new literacies. The dissertation concludes by offering fellow educational researchers the border as a location for continued dialogic inquiry when addressing needs for the global city.

This study analyzes the idea of “media archiving as critical pedagogy” by using the Saving Home Movies Campaign (hereafter the Campaign) in Taiwan as a case study. Home movies are not only valuable family artifacts but also historical and cultural documents full of signs and symbols and an anthropological record of a transforming society. They reflect the standpoints of the people who produced them, providing messages and information different from official records and mainstream media. This study illustrates how a group of people made it their mission to save, collect, and preserve home movies made and owned by ordinary Taiwanese, and engaged them in home movie preservation practice. The goal of this study is to analyze the Campaign and its use of critical pedagogy, learn the perspective of the “ordinary people” who participated, and interpret what critical pedagogy both the Campaign and the ordinary people bring. This study adopts qualitative approaches to collect data and a combination of textual analysis and coding to examine and interpret the data collected. First, I conducted field research in several archival institutions to collect past and current studies related to Taiwanese home movies, as well as the data about the Campaign. Second, I participated in several media archiving workshops held by the Campaign and observed how the workshop activities engaged the participants. Third, I interviewed 15 workshop participants to understand their thoughts about and perspectives on their home movies, the Campaign, and the workshop activities.

This study reveals that critical pedagogy existed in the interactions among the Campaign, the participants and the current media cultures. The Campaign empowered participants by teaching them preservation skills and knowledge and fostered their literacy on home movies and engaged them in making diagnostic critiques of mainstream media culture. It created an engaged pedagogy by sharing and dialoguing. Also, the Campaign established a participatory archive which collects and preserves counternarratives of ordinary Taiwanese. Through this learning process, people raised their consciousness about themselves and their relationship with the world. Last, the study critiques how digital media technology lowers the technical threshold for preservation while increasing public concern about permanent preservation.

This dissertation comprises three case studies of audience participation in media, addressing in turn Web 2.0, fan culture, and video games. The overarching theoretical framework highlights the dynamics between participation ‘from above’ and ‘from below,’ emphasizing the fact that participation is managed, controlled, and commodified on the one hand, and holds the potential for autonomy, creativity, and resistance on the other. This framework represents a synthesis of existing approaches to the study of audiences, bridging accounts of ‘participatory culture’ and ‘audience autonomy’ with those emphasizing the ‘new spirit of capitalism’ and the ‘social factory.’ The first constituent chapter is a study of the ideology and practice of Web 2.0 platforms, centering on a thematic analysis of managerial literature that finds such platforms to be extensions of what Boltanski and Chiapello term the ‘new,’ ‘participatory’ spirit of capitalism. The second chapter explores the contestation that arises within brand communities between managers and consumers; more specifically, it takes up the case of professional wrestling fan culture, developing a historical analysis of how company efforts to arouse and contain fan participation within sanctioned parameters clash with fan efforts to organize via online and offline communities to alter the direction of wrestling storylines. The final chapter draws upon contemporaneous newspaper articles and interviews with gamers to understand the earliest American home video games as a historical milestone in the emergence of participatory media consumption. The conclusion considers each case study in light of the framework of participation from above and below, ultimately connecting this discussion to the problem of structure and agency in social theory.

Since the early 1970s, an important but under-examined subgenre of Made-for-Television Movies have foregrounded critical LGBT concerns, including coming out, parental custody, HIV/AIDS, gays in the military, and hate crimes or featured affirmative LGBT representations. These programs, often highly-rated and critically-acclaimed, were nonetheless sites of political contestation from social conservatives and LGBT activists. Through the lenses of critical media pedagogy, critical cultural studies, and critical media industries studies, this dissertation conducts a critical cultural history of LGBT TV movies. This history includes critical case studies of twenty seminal LGBT programs featuring original interviews with the producers, executives, and writers responsible for their pedagogical design. The evidence reflects how these programs helped frame these concerns, educate audiences, and advocate on behalf of the LGBT community. This research further suggests how progressive pedagogues and media producers might collaborate to help address other social issues through the use of critical entertainment.