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Becoming Critical: education, knowledge and action research

Memes in Digital Culture

Text World Theory: An Introduction

Drawing on relevant policy, theory and research, this article explores the implications of applying the definition 'disaffected' to a substantial proportion of young people. It is argued that this taken-for-granted dominant discourse in policy and practice is confused and problematic. The application of mentoring as a common response to 'disaffection' compounds the confusion. Problems may be particularly apparent when mentoring is focused on narrow targets related to education and work. 'Disaffection' and 'mentoring' separately, and especially when combined, warrant more substantial analysis and research than is currently apparent, and initiatives should be evaluated in the light of broader understanding of youth transitions into work.

Disaffected Young People as the Problem. Mentoring as the Solution. Education and Work as the Goal.

This article serves as an introduction to the themed issue on Incarcerated Masculinities, providing an overview of the literature in this field, including both scholarly texts and personal memoirs. The issue addresses a variety of POW experiences and memories, ranging geographically across incarceration in Europe and the Far East, considers the representation and cultural memory of POWs in the post-war period and engages with the intergenerational transmission of traumatic memories in subsequent decades. This article introduces the experience, impact and legacy of captivity amongst men from Australia, Britain and France during the Second World War which are explored in depth in subsequent articles.

Incarcerated Masculinities: Male POWs and the Second World War

This article examines how an after-school comics club made a space for children’s literacy practices. 21 8- to 10-year-olds took part in the ten-week project. During that time the children made their own comic strips, and worked in groups to create their own self-initiated publications. These comics were sold at two comics fairs, which were collaboratively planned and organized. In this article the multimodal medium of comics will be explored. The concept of children’s literacy worlds will be discussed in relation to identity. Text World Theory will be examined as a framework for analysing children’s literacy worlds, with a particular focus on the bidirectional relationship between the discourse world and the text world. Action Research as a methodology is considered. Text World Theory is then used to interrogate the literacy worlds of two groups of children, examining the interplay of the discourse world and the text world of the two comics created. The article argues that the space for children to create their own, self-initiated narratives plays an important role in children’s meaning making and exploration of identity, through a bidirectional relationship between their discourse and text worlds. Finally, the article offers suggestions for future practice.

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Helen Jones

Papers

Caticorns and Derp Warz: Exploring children’s literacy worlds through the production of comics

War and Welfare: British Prisoner of War Families, 1939–45, by Barbara Hately-Broad

Robert McDonald (ed.), Youth, the ‘Underclass’ and Social Exclusion, London, Routledge, 1997, 228 pp., £45.00 hard, £13.99 paper.