Cultural Studies in School Transitions

Abstract

This chapter describes the No Kidding Project which set out to develop an alternative approach to vocational education with school leavers. The project sought to examine the transition from school from the point of view of young people themselves and to understand the languages of gender and class which they used to give it meaning. Photography was the main medium of self representation and working with different groups we produced a series of exhibitions, photo-texts and other curriculum materials, with funds from the Greater London Council. It was an essay in applied cultural studies in which we tried to integrate critical pedagogy, ethnographic research and curriculum development within a single reflexive arc based upon the theoretical model outlined in ‘Rethinking’.