Shirley R. Steinberg

Shirley R. Steinberg is the Director and Chair of The Werklund Foundation Centre for Youth Leadership in Education, and Professor of Youth Studies at the University of Calgary. She is the author and editor of many books in critical pedagogy, urban and youth culture, and cultural studies. Her most recent books include: Kinderculture: The Corporate Construction of Childhood (2011); 19 Urban Questions: Teaching in the City (2010); Christotainment: Selling Jesus Through Popular Culture (2009); Diversity and Multiculturalism: A Reader (2009); Media Literacy: A Reader (2007); the award winning Contemporary Youth Culture: An International Encyclopedia; and The Miseducation of the West: How Schools and Media Distort Our Understanding of the Islamic World (2004). Originally a social/improvisational theatre creator, she has facilitated happenings and flashmobs globally. A regular contributor to CBC Radio One, CTV, The Toronto Globe and Mail, The Montreal Gazette, and Canadian Press, she is an internationally known speaker and teacher. She is also the founding editor of Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education, The International Journal of Youth Studies, and the Managing Editor of The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy. The co-founder of The Paulo and Nita Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy, she is the organizer of The Critical Pedagogical Congress, she is committed to a global community of transformative educators and community workers engaged in radical love, social justice, and the situating of power within social and cultural contexts.