Author ORCID Identifier
0000-0002-8016-2266
Document Type
Article
Disciplines
5.4 SOCIOLOGY, Women's and gender studies, 5.8 MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS, Interdisciplinary
Abstract
The concept ‘cultural flashpoint’ (CF) has not been fully defined or described. The authors test this concept through the prism of a controversial gender-focused Irish school programme, Exploring Masculinities (EM). Adopting an instrumental case study methodology, they use media content analysis to develop a temporal trajectory of the CF, describe its shape, explicit and implied contentious themes, and its process. They identify characteristic features of a cultural flashpoint: (i) a focal issue, event and/or object; (ii) conflict; (iii) bounded time period; (iv) the involvement of exo- and multi-sectoral individuals and groups; (v) randomness, opaqueness and conflation among its expressions; and (vi) broadly cultural and not confined to its sector of origin. They offer a definition of a CF and suggest it as a conceptual device for identifying, analysing and understanding contestation about educational (and other) change occurring in the context of wider and more long-standing cultural, social and political movements.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2023.2206798
Recommended Citation
Hanafin, Joan; Conway, Paul; O Beaglaoich, Cormac; and Hanafin, Jack, "Definition and Characteristic Features of a ‘Cultural Flashpoint’: A case study of Exploring Masculinities, a controversial gender and education programme in Ireland" (2023). Articles. 184.
https://arrow.tudublin.ie/creaart/184
Funder
NCCA; IreL TU Dublin
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Publication Details
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0305764X.2023.2206798
https://doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2023.2206798