Abstract
The account of a media lesson on female stereotypes in advertising, conducted in a multicultural single-sex classroom of an inner-urban Australian school, becomes the starting point for a challenge to the feminist orthodoxies currently being taught in media studies. It is suggested that, in the negotiation of selves and future roles, the media play a complex role in the lives of young women whose expectations and desires may differ from those of their parents and/or teachers. Crucial to the construction of selves is the question of agency which is discussed in relation to the concept of moral careers and how these are to be managed successfully by girls who experience degrees of cultural dissonance across different social spheres. It is argued that the media play a significant role in the negotiation of such dissonance which should be recognised and acknowledged by teachers in their classroom practice.