Educational Representations Through the Media

About

This module provides a general introduction to educational studies through the use of media. Media understood here includes both fictional (e.g., film and literature) and non-fictional sources (e.g., TV shows and documentaries). The module will consider how various forms of media ‘re-present’ educational reality – specifically, the practice of formal education – and debates and issues within education. These issues may include, for example, the proper functions and aims of formal education, the qualities of a good teacher, the marketisation of education, and the extent to which education either promotes or hinders justice in society. Through engaging with selected sources, questions around what education is and how education is represented will be considered. Students will consider the value of both fictional and non-fictional sources when thinking, researching, and writing about education, as tools for both entertainment and insight. This will further raise questions around performativity and reliability in education and educational research, the relationship between representation and reality, and the ways in which understandings of reality are affected by such images more broadly.

Course leader

Dr Rowena Azada-Palacios

Target group

This is a level one module (equivalent to first year undergraduate). Students must have completed one year of undergraduate study. No prior subject knowledge is required for this module, but students are expected to have a keen interest in the area.

Course aim

Upon successful completion of this module, students will:

Describe some of the contested issues in the study of education
Identify the techniques used in different forms of media texts, especially different genres of moving pictures, to represent reality and convey ideas to audiences
Critically assess the way that different media sources portray an educational issue discussed in the academic literature

Fee info