Thinking pop literacies, or why John Howard should read more

The author reviews the relationship between ‘literature’ and pop culture, arguing that both are part of an intellectual continuum, and that to attempt to extol one and demonise the other is not only based on false and simplistic premises, it is exclusive and destructive. She reminds us that ‘All education is based on assumptions about standards and quality. We carry values in our minds that subtly but continually remind us of gradings and shadings of importance and significance.’ And that this needs to be acknowledged. Education is not value-neutral, objective or ethically and intellectually pure. She draws attention to ‘the dire state of debates about education in Australia’, and offers a more positive and proactive agenda is offered for ‘putting the pop into the literacy’.