In this paper, I trace three traditions and bodies of work: The Chicago School of Sociology, the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies and the New Sociology of Education. Each of these traditions evolved in distinct though overlapping ways. Taken together, they offer a productive set of resources for thinking through the complexities of popular culture and education today. These traditions are of course not meant to be comprehensive or exhaustive. Rather, I approach them as pieces of "context" to evoke the work of Leslie Fiedler--ways of drawing circles around particular texts. The goal, as always, is to find the places where they cannot explain away the particularity of texts and practices in their "ambiguity and plentitude." I hope to encourage a particular kind of critical disposition towards popular texts. (Contains 1 note.)