AMST 14
Race, Education, and Pop Culture Winter 2020

Cross-listed SPEC 14
This is not the current course catalog

This course will explore the educational experience of Black students as portrayed in popular culture and compare that to the K-12 and higher education literature that documents and examines the lived experiences of Black students. How accurately do we see the experience of Black students represented in popular culture? What choices or biases might be reflected in these depictions? What might the consumption of these media have on the ways in which people build narratives around the experiences of Black students throughout the American educational system? Potential topics include the experience of students at historically Black colleges and universities (A Different World, School Daze, The Quad), experiences in gifted and talented education (Smart Guy, Akeelah and the Bee, Finding Forrester), experiences at predominately White institutions (Higher Learning, Grown-ish, Dear White People), experiences as student-athletes (Love and Basketball, Coach Carter), and experiences in public and public charter schools (Lean on Mean, The Steve Harvey Show, Dangerous Minds, On My Block, Boston Public,Waiting for Superman, The Lottery). Students will be expected to choose some popular culture medium and explore how it connects to the literature in a final paper of 10 -12 pages and contribute actively to classroom discussions. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Christopher Sewell is an Associate Dean of the College at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. His scholarship focuses on studying the experiences of gifted students of color, how schooling and policies around gifted and talented education affect students of color long-term experiences, the ways in which LGBTQ+ gifted students negotiate their academic, racial and sexual identities, and the experiences of Black students at Predominantly White Institutions.