Dangerous Minds and Dangerous Messages: How Film Analysis Impacts the Critical Consciousness of Future Teachers

66 pages. Presented to the Department of Education Studies and the Robert D. Clark Honors College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts June 2018This thesis examines how the representation of schools, teachers, and students in the film Dangerous Minds interacts with societal perspectives of race, gender, and class as they pertain to the education system. Specifically, this investigation explores how the University of Oregon’s Educational Foundations program uses analysis of education films in the course EDST 225 “School & Representation in Film” as a way of raising the critical consciousness of preservice teachers. I interviewed three instructors in the College of Education, seven seniors in the Educational Foundations program, and five students from EDST 225. The interviews were analyzed to understand the impact of film analysis on students’ critical consciousness