Cultural Studies and education: a dialogue of ‘disciplines’?

In this opening contribution to the Special Issue Cultural Studies and Education: A Dialogue of Disciplines?, Guest Editors Bill Green and Andrew Hickey survey the pedagogical and disciplinary intersections of Cultural Studies and Education. Positioning an account of Cultural Studies that draws attention (back) to Cultural Studies’ founding pedagogical project, Green and Hickey note that Cultural Studies has always maintained a pedagogical imperative. Attention is given to how this concern for the pedagogical translates, now, across a range of educational settings, both formal and informal. The Editors cast a distinction between the pedagogical and educational, and from this basis argue that predominant accounts of Cultural Studies’ educative purpose derive from the relationship that the field has maintained with formal and institutional sites of Education. The paper then moves to survey the contributions for this issue with attention given to the conceptual and theoretical connections that run through the collection. Highlighting that emphasis is given to Cultural Studies’ attendant practices and intellectual foundations, the Editors identify how Education and Cultural Studies might continue to engage in dialogue and how common intellectual threads that generate critically motivated scholarly practices might (continue to) recognize the implications of the conjuncture.