Consuming Dora the Explorer: a critical pedagogical examination of culture, literacy, and media

This dissertation seeks to ground its method and theoretical discussion based on frameworks regarding difference and representation in children’s media. This study engages Dora the Explorer’s first five seasons that were produced from 2000 to 2010. This investigation seeks to understand the dialectic nature between media, culture, literacy, pedagogy, and identity. This study is a contribution to the theoretical and methodological frameworks currently in practice in cultural studies, media studies, and bilingual and bicultural education. For example, cultural studies examine questions of representation and difference in media; however, a focus on children’s media has not always been seen as a sufficiently scholarly project (Steinberg & Kincheloe, 1997). Through my personal vignettes with my niece, I attempt to shed light on children’s inherent intellect and their capacity to critique media from their own perspective. It is also important that educators and parents take children’s media into consideration when speaking about issues that affect children’s daily lives. In order to do future qualitative studies that involve focus groups, interviews, and audience focal groups, one needs theoretically and methodologically to decipher the messages and representations, which seem to be at work in children’s animated cartoons, from a bilingual and bicultural context. In order to do so, the study utilizes critical bicultural pedagogy (Darder, 1991) and borderlands theory (Anzaldúa, 1999) to construct a conceptual and analytical framework.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Policy Studies

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2013

Author dc:creator

• Estrada, Judith

Contributors dc:contributor

• Darder, Antonia
• Mayo, Cris S.
• Ono, Kent A.
• Lugo, Alejandro

• Critical Bicultural Pedagogy
• Chicana/o Cultural Studies
• Critical Media Literacy
• Borderlands
• Border Theory
• Education
• Bilingual Education
• Children's Media
• Dora the Explorer
• Critical Discourse Analysis

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2012 Judith Estrada

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/42156

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/42156