Media education in Four eu countries - Kennisnet

5. The UnitedKingdomIn many ways attention to media literacy seems to have a bright future,in education and in wider society, in the UK and in the world at large…[However,] further developments seem now both possible and urgent.Andrew Burn & James Durran, 2007The United Kingdom has a special position, globally speaking, as regards media literacy because“media studies” has been taught at British schools since the 1970s. This special optional subjectis given at secondary schools for pupils aged 14 to 18. This long tradition means that schools andteachers have built up tremendous expertise in the field of media education over several decades.Good teaching materials are available.It is not difficult to guess the downside of such a specialist tradition, however. Only a very smallproportion of pupils are involved (about 7% according to an EU study). Pupils who do not choosemedia studies benefit far less from the extensive expertise that has been built up. That is not tosay, however, that British children do not learn anything about the media. In fact, more than 70%of pupils in the 8 to 15 age group are taught about the Internet at school. Unfortunately, thatfigure naturally says very little about the content or quality of the lessons.In a telephone interview, Andrew Burn – a leading UK expert on media education – spoke candidlyabout media education in that country. He is proud of the specialist tradition but at the same timesceptical about general media education.“We have one of the longest traditions where media education is concerned. We have exams inmedia studies and teachers with a great deal of experience because this subject has been taughtfor decades now. When media studies was first taught here as a separate school subject, hardlyany other countries were doing so. The courses concerned popular culture, specific media, theinstitutions within the media landscape, types of audiences, and the politics of representation.That constitutes an exceptional pedagogical and didactic tradition.”Along with the development of these special school subjects, the traditional idea of “literacy” hasbeen increasingly extended. There were already references to “game literacy” and “film literacy”quite a long time ago. The “literacy” tradition is therefore strongly represented, both in educationand in academic research.That is also apparent where film education is concerned. In the UK, this has been assigned higherpriority than in the other countries covered by the present report. The government now and thensupports large-scale national projects, but since June 2008 the UK has also had a national strategyfor film education, implemented by the British Film Institute (BFI).Film education in the UK is classified as part of the development of critical reading skills within theschool subject Literacy and English. In addition to the BFI, the Film Education organisation producesteaching materials for use in schools. There are also a number of organisations involved in filmproduction and after-school viewings. A quarter of the UK’s four million primary-school pupils areestimated to receive lessons about film. Teachers are not consistently trained to give such lessons,but there are lesson packages that can be used during lessons in English or modern languages.However, this exceptional tradition of media studies does have a downside. Andrew Burn explains:“The government has never in fact given full support to media literacy. Nobody holds teachersto account if they do not deal with it in their lessons. If it is taught effectively, then the initiativecomes from the teachers themselves. If you visit a school and find a teacher who is providingMedia Education in Four EU Countries How do Finland, Sweden, and the UK tackle media education?And how does that compare to the Netherlands? Mijn Kind Online / Kennisnet, October 201324