Teaching towards the twenty-fourth century : the social curriculum of Star Trek in the schools

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Karen Anijar-Zapolsky (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
Kathleen Casey

Abstract: My collection and analysis of Trekker teachers' narratives highlight the role of social "dialect" (Bakhtin, 1981), "collective subjective" (Gramsci, 1980), "general cultural repertoire" (Popular Memory Group, 1982), or "interpretive community" (Fish, 1980; Casey, 1993). The social self can only be understood in "relationship to the specific others with whom she is actually in conversation, and with reference to the interpretive traditions to which she has access" (Casey, 1993: 1). The self is both contextual and contingent (Goffman, 1959; Vygotsky, 1987), therefore there can be no "generic teacher." Thus, the teachers whose narratives are presented here can only impart a curriculum which is significantly shaped by a world view that utilizes Star Trek as its aegis. The Trekker teachers interviewed construct identity in an area of the southern United States known as the "Bible Belt." Their sense of (southern) place deeply structures these narrators (re)interpretations of Star Trek in relationship to technology, religion and the military. Further, all these factors influence how these narrators understand their identities as teachers.

Additional Information

Publication
Dissertation
Language: English
Date: 1994
Subjects
Star trek (Television program)
Teachers $x Attitudes

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