Ernest Morrell is an associate professor in Urban Schooling and Associate Director at the Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access (IDEA) at the University of California, Los Angeles. For more than a decade he has worked with adolescents, drawing on their involvement with popular culture to promote academic literacy development. Dr. Morrell is the author of four books: Linking Literacy and Popular Culture: Finding Connections for Lifelong Learning (Christopher-Gordon), Becoming Critical Researchers: Literacy and Empowerment for Urban Youth (Peter Lang), Critical Literacy and Urban Youth: Pedagogies of Access, Dissent, and Liberation (Routledge) and The Art of Critical Pedagogy: Possibilities for Moving from Theory to Practice in Urban Schools (co-authored with Jeffrey M.R. Duncan-Andrade). To find out more about Dr. Morrell visit http://www.ernestmorrell.com/.

UCLA's IDEA is a research center aimed at understanding and challenging racial and social inequalities in education. To find out more about IDEA, please visit http://idea.gseis.ucla.edu/ or www.facebook.com/uclaidea.