Session Information
06 SES 11, Media Education
Paper Session
Contribution
This paper draws on a research project that aims at a cross-cultural comparison of teachers’ motivations for and perceptions of media education in Germany and in the United States. Cross-cultural comparisons are of great interest with reference to the global media economy, new (virtual) environments which decrease boarders and the increasing importance of international educational research programs, e.g. PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment).
Media literacy and media education are issues of great importance in the field of education (see e.g. European Charter for Media Literacy Education 2006). In Europe the presence of media literacy in the compulsory education curriculum increases and Europe-wide efforts on teacher training in media literacy are promoted and coordinated (ibd.). However, the implementation of media education and digital technology into school is often difficult due to various factors, e.g. equipment, attitudes of teachers, infrastructure, insufficient support of headmasters (Hunneshagen 2005) or missing knowledge and skills of teachers (European Commission 2007). In Germany and the United States, media literacy is not a separate school subject but integrated across the curriculum. Media education is increasingly being implemented into current educational frameworks (Kubey & Baker 1999, Wagner 2007), but there is less evidence of implementations occurring in K-12 settings in both countries (Hobbs 2006, Herzig & Grafe 2007).
Although some researchers have begun to evaluate school-based media literacy programs, few studies have been published and little research has been done on teachers’ motivations for implementing media education into their classrooms, teachers’ judgement of media education goals and teachers’ perception of media education. According to study results, many American teachers describe the preparation of students for citizenship as their primary purpose of media education (Stein & Prewett 2009). Furthermore, they assume that media education offers students new tools for learning and self-expression (ibd.). Most German primary school teachers prefer a competence-oriented approach to media education to a protectionist view (Tulodziecki & Six 2000). However, there are still many teachers in Germany, Malta and England who are not familiar with the production and action oriented media pedagogy (Lauri/ Borg/ Günnel/ Gillum 2010). This is the only study so far which focused on an international comparison of attitudes of teachers towards media education (Lauri/ Borg/ Günnel/ Gillum 2010).
These results show that there is a need for knowledge about teachers’ motivations and perception for media education in international comparison in order to better adapt teacher training to individual needs and make professional development more effective. Promotion of teacher training in media literacy was identified as a Europe-wide need (European Commission 2007).
Against this background the main research questions of the project are which concepts of media education in both countries can be used as the theoretical basis for the analysis of teachers’ motivations and perceptions for media education, if there are differences between teachers’ motivations and perceptions for media education in the United States and Germany and, if so, how these differences can be explained. Furthermore we are exploring the relationship between teachers´ motivations and goals for media literacy education and the media practices they report using in their classrooms.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
European Charter for Media Literacy Education (2006). http://www.euromedialiteracy.eu/ European Comission (2007): Current trends and approaches to media literacy in Europe http://ec.europa.eu/culture/media/literacy/docs/studies/study.pdf Herzig, B. & Grafe, S. (2007): Digitale Medien in der Schule. Bonn: Deutsche Telekom AG Hobbs, R. (2006): Media Literacy and the K-12 Content Areas. In: Brown, P. (Ed.): Media literacy: transforming curriculum and teaching: Blackwell, pp. 74–99 Hunneshagen, H. (2005): Innovationen in Schulen. Münster u.a.: Waxman Inan, F.A./ Lowther, D.L. (2010): Factors affecting technology integration in K-12 classrooms: a path model. In: Education Tech Research Dev (2010) 58, pp.137 – 154 Karabenick, S. A. et.al. (2007): Cognitive Processing of Self-Report Items in Educational Research: Do They Think What We Mean?. In: Educational Psychologiest 42 (2007)3, pp. 139–151. Kubey, R. & Baker, F. (1999): Has Media Literacy Found A Curricular Foothold. http://frankwbaker.com/edweek.htm http://powerfulvoices.wikispaces.com/file/view/Survey+Report+Final.pdf Lauri, M. A., Borg, J., Günnel, T. and Gillum, R. (2010): Attitudes of a sample of English, Maltese and German teachers towards media education. In: European Journal of Teacher Education 33 (2010) 1, pp. 79 - 98 Stein, L. & Prewett, A. (2009): Media Literacy Education in the Social Studies: Teacher Perceptions and Curricular Challenges. In: Teacher Education Quarterly, Winter 2009, pp. 131 - 148 Tulodziecki, G. / Herzig, B./ Grafe, S. (2010): Medienbildung in Schule und Unterricht. Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt/ UTB Tulodziecki, G. & Six, U. (2000): Medienerziehung in der Grundschule. Grundlagen, empirische Befunde und Empfehlungen zur Situation in Schule und Lehrerbildung. Opladen: Leske + Budrich Wagner, W.-R. (2007): Medienbildung im Rahmen von Bildungsstandards und Kerncurricula. Niedersächsisches Landesamt für Lehrerbildung und Schulentwicklung (NiLS). Hildesheim
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