First Consultations Held on Media Education within Primary Education

On January 30, 2023, from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM on the Zoom platform, the first consultations were held as part of the structured dialogue within the “Media Education Matters.MOV” project. The consultations discussed the possibilities of integrating media education into the primary school curriculum.

The moderator of the structured dialogue was Darija Jeger from the Croatian Debate Society. The consultations also included Lana Ciboci Perša from the Society for Communication and Media Culture and Dražen Hoffmann from Gong, who are authors of the guidelines on media education in primary school teaching and cross-curricular implementation of Civic Education, as well as members of the project consortium. Additionally, representatives of primary schools involved in media literacy and media education participated.

Using the Mentimeter tool, participants initially answered questions about what media education means to them, who should have the primary role in media literacy for children, and for which skills media education is essential. Participants’ responses highlighted the need for media usage training focused on teachers, educators, and school librarians. They also emphasized the importance of developing critical thinking and collaboration between teachers, parents, and other educators to enhance media education and literacy among primary school students. It was noted that parents and teachers should be primarily responsible for media education and that it is crucial for developing critical thinking, evaluating information, and acquiring technical skills for using media and media content appropriately.

Following a brief overview of the current state of media education in existing school curricula, participants were presented with recommendations on empowering primary and Croatian language teachers to implement media education. They were also given the opportunity to contribute their comments on how to effectively integrate media education content into the teaching process. After discussing various approaches, including introducing media education as a separate subject, extracurricular activity, or cross-curricular theme, it was concluded that cross-curricular implementation is the most favorable approach. However, media education should still be linked to existing subjects.

Most participants felt only partially prepared to teach media education as a separate subject and emphasized the need for systematic awareness-raising among all teachers about its importance. This could be achieved through organized training sessions and collaborative teaching among teachers and librarians, as well as through workshops during homeroom periods and project-based learning.

The dialogue also addressed who should be responsible for educating teachers on media education and to what extent. It was concluded that the Agency for Science and Education should play a key role in organizing such training, with county expert councils also being suitable venues for educating educators on media education topics.

Regarding the quality and availability of materials for effective media education in primary schools, participants stated that existing materials are useful but need to be standardized. Further work on developing quality teaching materials for media literacy, in collaboration with the Agency for Education, schools, principals, and civil society organizations, is necessary. Ensuring the quality of teaching materials and training requires a particular emphasis on collaboration between school librarians and teachers. Although such collaboration exists, it often depends on the enthusiasm and interest of individual teachers and educational associates involved in media education and literacy.

At the end of the consultations, participants ranked the recommendations from the guidelines for improving the position of media education in the primary education system by importance. It was shown that teachers and educational associates consider the most important recommendation to be educating teachers to implement curricula that include media literacy in primary school programs. Following this, it is essential to give more space to media education within the education system and to strengthen content focused on developing critical thinking about media and media content, as well as promoting teacher-librarian collaboration in media literacy education for students.

It was also concluded that there is a need for broader societal and public discussion about designating media literacy as a separate cross-curricular theme. Media education should not burden students as an additional assessed subject; instead, teachers should be empowered to effectively pass on their knowledge about media education and literacy to students.