The Artifacts to Be Integrated into the Teaching Syllabus as Significant Pedagogical Tools - Literature review Example

Culture and Education (Name) (University Affiliation) (Date) Introduction Notably, cultural artifacts that students get exposed to often have influence to their mindsets with respect to the possibilities they imagine as their identities. Therefore, as a teacher one can significantly use cultural artifacts in the classroom to comprehensively delineate various concepts that are fundamental in shaping their identities. Many studies have indicated that cultural artifacts play a significant role in shaping the identities of individuals right from when they are born all through to their teenage as well as adulthood. Specifically, the cultural artifacts associated with the pop culture has been found to impact students, more so, the adolescents both negatively and positively, as far as their identities are concerned. As such, there have been profound arguments on whether teachers should stick to traditional classroom tools or incorporate the use of popular cultural artifacts in guiding the students to adopt proper conceptions about their identities. As such, this paper will use two pop cultural artifacts (Samsonite and Christian Dior Fashion ads) in teaching the students about the representations of sexuality for both adults and children. Moreover, the paper will analyze how the aspects of identity are reflected in the artifacts. Ultimately, the paper will argue the reason these artifacts would be effective in teaching students about the impact of cultural artifacts on their identity. Artifact 1: Christian Dior Fashion Ad Artifact 2: Samsonite Ad Artifact Analysis As Papadopoulos (2010) notes, the impact of popular culture on gender identity is negatively affecting children and even young adults. According to Kilbourne (2013), a teenager is exposed to nearly 1,500 ads each day and will spend more than 1.5 of his or her life watching T.V advertisements or commercials. Further, statistics indicate that teenagers are often persuaded by these ads to view themselves as well as their lives problematic. In other words, they are made to believe that their gender identity should be defined along the masculine and feminine-attached stereotypes. Through the cultural artifacts such as ads, the teenagers believe that when they become adults, they will need some other “solution,” in order to be perceived as real women and men as portrayed in the ads. As Kilbourne, (2013), indicate a significant of portion of the $130 billion often spent on ads every year is often targeted to adolescents. Advertising often exploits teenagers as well as young adults because their consumer experience makes them a vulnerable marketing cohort. Moreover, their insecurities usually hinder them from rebuffing the cultural messages that are brought about by advertising. Nevertheless, adults who are ostensibly knowledgeable consumers are similarly finding it difficult to resists these messages. Teenagers can be significantly influenced by ads such as the ones posted above, in that, they are encouraged to let their looks problematize their lives. For example, the female teenagers are influenced to be conscious about the essence of feminine beauty. On the other hand, the second artifact, Samsonite Ad, may influence the teenagers to believe that will need to enhance their appearance while women need to transform themselves. During a recent study, over 300 teenage girls were interviewed about their perception of an advertisement regarding a product aimed at enhancing women breasts. Amazingly, ninety percent of these interviewees admitted that the products had influenced them to believe that a woman would be more appreciated when having enhanced breasts. With this perception, teenagers grow up the idea that the use of silicone breast implants is acceptable and thus as female teenagers they will have to use them at some point in their adulthood in order to be considered beautiful. This aspect is strongly buttressed by Tait’s (2012) argument that indeed popular culture plays a significant role in the shaping of the teenager’s identity. Tait (2012) posits that popular culture sometimes makes the teens believe that women are sexual objects and as such, make female teenagers accept this myth hence being vulnerable and easy to be manipulated when they became adults. As such, it is evident that the culture’s aesthetic expectations of teenage girls are reinforced in the printed representations of women such the poster indicated in artifact 1. The cultural artifacts that teenagers come across in their everyday life create a desire in them such that they believe that when they become full adults, their gender should be defined by the cultural aesthetics (Reich &Black, 2012). For example, teenage girls are made to believe that the society expects them to be aesthetically fair. Teenage boys, on the other side, believe that as men adults, they will be at liberty to misuse women sexually as they would regard women as sexual objects that can be exploited at will. These kinds of artifacts are dangerous to growing teenagers as they inject the concept of inequality in them naturally hence turning out to be chauvinists. The artifact above, Christian Dior Fashion Ad, indicates how pop culture is over sexualizing the women’s body. According to Macdonald (2004), more than 82% of women in the ads are shown as decorative as well as sexual objects. Accordingly, the advertising representation of women as sex objects significantly impacts teenager’s adversarial sexual belief, rape myth acceptance as well as violence against women by men (Peterson et al., 2009). With an exposure of such cultural artifacts in their daily lives, teenager’s minds are socially constructed to believe that women should by nature be obedient, submissive and their value should be based on their looks as well as ascetics. The artifacts depicted above significantly influence teenagers in defining their identities as they grow up to be adults; the vision of beauty in the ads for women shapes their beliefs. In the words of Cortese (2008), the cultural ideology tells female teenagers that they would not be desirable as well as loved by men if they are not physically perfect. What these teenagers do realise is that there is no ideal beauty and all women are naturally unique. What teenagers should understand is that female perfection is often a male fantasy, which has considerably been contributed by much exposure to popular culture. The popular culture has forced women to see themselves through men's eyes. As Feasey, (2008) argues, women that seem not-sexualized are perceived as mothers housekeepers as well as wives. Much of the content explicated by the popular culture tend to associate femininity with motherhood, gentleness, finesse, love, emotionality as well as fragility. With regard to gender roles, the popular culture, mostly depicted through commercials, tend to associate women with "no-working" roles. The commercial ads portray women as dependents of men hence influencing the teenagers to adopt this perception and embrace such roles once they become adults accordingly. According to Feasey (2008), texts or cultural artifact such as the ones displayed in the beginning of this discussion reinforce impossible standards of beauty of women hence limiting the chances of teenagers viewing themselves as acceptable human beings by nature. Artifacts such as the ones depicted earlier tend to paint an ideal woman as thin, young, tall, beautiful, long-legged as well as vibrant. These depictions often come along with problems as teenagers who do not have such features will tend to have low self-esteem and very insignificant level of confidence. Moreover, the male teenagers may be forced to have a negative perception of women who do not have these features. Print ads encourage female teenagers to imitate the perceived “ideal woman” by generating the same look over and over again. In commercials that feature both men and women, such as artifact 2 above, women are depicted to be subservient to men. Besides, women are depicted as playful clowns hence perpetuating the perception that by their nature, women are childish hence cannot be taken seriously. This is indeed a dangerous perception to teenagers, especially the male, as they will grow into their adulthood underrating women and regarding as lesser woman beings. This in itself coincides with Tait (2012) argument, which posits that the female teenagers are often made to accept inequality right from the time they begin comprehending the real world through popular culture. Tait (2012) is of the opinion that the media artifacts associated with commercials have made teenage girls believe that they are by nature powerless and unimportant compared to their male counterparts. Therefore, inequality can be tackled right from the school environment by teaching students about the significance of respecting every human being irrespective of their cultural, racial, religious, sexual orientations and ethnic backgrounds. From the discussions above, it is evident that the cultural artifacts displayed earlier limits teenagers’ ability to understand what it means to be a female or male. The artifacts misguide the teenagers to adopt negative stereotypes and identities as they transform into adults. Hence, teachers must ensure that discourses associated with popular culture must be incorporated in the learning processes in order to make the students understand the depictions that come along with these artifacts. Consequently, these teenagers will adopt the behaviour of questioning or criticising such artifacts hence not influencing them negatively. Pedagogical Evaluation Even though one may view the artifacts delineated in the previous section as misleading and harmful to their beliefs with respect to gender roles identity and sexuality, they can be significantly useful in teaching students. It is significant for students to be given proper analogies that they can relate with as far their perception of sex and gender is concerned. As Parkay, Stanford and Gougeon (2010) note, students comprehend profoundly concepts when visual aids, teaching tools as well as artifacts are used. Students have been found to be actively engaged in interactive as well as discovery-based learning environments. The use of cultural artifacts which typically are meant to influence teenagers’ perception negatively would help the teacher to explicate how the artifacts mislead the audience with respect to sex and gender. This view is strongly buttressed by Feasey (2008) who posit that media artifacts are designed to offer new as well as creative tools, which teach critical thinking skills. In other words, the artifacts provide a firsthand experience and knowledge to the students who are also excited and eager to learn new concepts as it is engaging and interactive. Looking at the artifact1, Christian Dior Fashion Ad, the teacher would use the artifact to explicate the kind of messages that such artifacts communicate to the audience. For example from artifact 1, a woman is portrayed as an animal. Moreover, she is seen to wear fur as well as clutches an alligator skin-designed purse. When looked at closely, one would realise that the woman skirt has the same pattern and colour as the purse. Further, behind the woman is a leopard print fabric. The woman’s eyes are open with her hair tousled wildly, teeth exposed as her mouth slightly relaxed. She is out symbolically to represent a wounded animal as well as a dismembered creature. When one looks at the ad carefully, he or she will realise that the woman is poised onto her back. The above artifact is an excellent demonstration that will help the students understand how women are portrayed as sex objects in the society. Through the artifacts, the students will learn that contemporary advertisement, as well as some elements of popular culture, aims at influencing women to have low social expectations as well as self-identity profoundly. Besides, women are they are made to believe that they have a lower social status than men. According to Gilbert (2010), who studied the association between self-identity and social expectation extensively, teenager’s minds are influenced by the various commercial that depict women as sex objects hence conforming to other prescribed ideal image of women. This, in turn, shapes their identity in a negative way. Conclusion and Reflection Therefore, these kinds of artifact should be integrated into the teaching syllabus as they are significant pedagogical tools that can be used. Moreover, students should be allowed to go out and research such types of artifacts and bring them in class for each one of them to give a critical opinion of the effects such artifacts have on teenagers and how to ignore them. This will help the class sessions to be interactive while at the same time making the students have a profound understanding of the concepts being discussed in class. From the weekly readings, I have gathered that the use of media popular culture artifacts is significantly relevant to today students as studies indicate that digital gadgets surround their lives. The 21st-century students are characterised by the urge to try new things and learning through experience and as such, using popular culture artifacts would be effective in relating the real world with what they learn in class. Also, the use of media and the perceived offensive artifacts will make the students to be critical thinkers. In summation, the paper has identified two artifacts that have been used comprehensively to discourse the concept of sexuality, masculinity and femininity as well as sex and gender. The paper has explicated the reason the artifacts are useful in teaching the students the concepts delineated above. References Feasey, R. (2008). Masculinity and popular television. Edinburgh University Press. Gilbert, J. K. (2010). 13 Supporting the development of effective science teachers. Good Practice In Science Teaching: What Research Has To Say: What research has to say, 274. Kilbourne, J. (2013). Killing Us Softly: Gender Roles in Advertising. Adolescent medicine (Philadelphia, Pa.), 4(3), 635-650. Macdonald M., (2004) ‘Representing Women: Myths of Femininity in the Popular Media’, Hodder Headline Group, pp. 16, 194. Papadopoulos, L. (2010). Sexualisation of young people review. Parkay, F. W., Stanford, B. H., & Gougeon, T. D. (2010). Becoming a teacher (pp. 432-462). Pearson/Merrill. Patterson, M., O'Malley, L., & Story, V. (2009). Women in advertising: representations, repercussions, responses. Irish Marketing Review, 20(1), 9. Reich SM and Black RW (2012) Missed opportunities on Webkinz when develop-mental abilities are not considered. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 33:136–145. Tait, G. (2012). Making Sense of Mass Education. New York: Cambridge University Press. Read More