Cringe or Worthy?
Popular youth cultures are often criticized for their marketability and for the unreflective consumerism associated with them or for their ideologically questionable content.
Reflections on Art and Music Education in Popular Youth Cultures
Vienna 2026
However, they are also regarded as aesthetic and subversive creative spaces in which social criticism seems possible. Accordingly, they regularly encounter either rejection or a positive response in educational and didactic settings.
In this volume, specific popular culture productions for young people and by young people are examined from various perspectives to determine what role they play in mediation, learning, and teaching in the field of art and music education. How can a didactic approach be developed that takes various youth culture artifacts and practices into account? When is it worthwhile to translate these phenomena—which are typically structured informally in terms of knowledge—into formal knowledge, and how can this be achieved?
What impact do popular culture media themselves have on education? The contributions invite reflection on how educational programs must be designed if they are to do justice to both popular culture formats and their respective audiences.