Andrew Hart & Alun Hicks
Trentham Books Limited, 2002

Review by David Butts

Teaching Media in the English Curriculum is a scholarly but accessible account of a research project carried out in 1998-9 by Andrew Hart and Alun Hicks, respectively (at that time) Director and Research Fellow at Southampton University’s Media Education Centre. The research related specifically to the teaching of Media within the English curriculum at Key Stage 4 (age 14-16). It was not concerned with specialist GCSE Media Studies courses.

The project was conducted in eleven secondary schools in Hampshire and Dorset, representing a range of social and geographical environments. The primary research question investigated was: "What are teachers of English doing when they say they are doing Media at Stage 4 in UK secondary schools?"

The research method had three main elements: an hour-long interview with each teacher, exploring aims, preferred approaches and lesson plans; a five-point questionnaire, to elucidate the teachers’ views of the function and rationale of media education; and observation (supported by a schedule) of a media lesson devised by each of the eleven teachers.

The context for the research was the requirement of the post-1995 National Curriculum for England and Wales that, within the study of English, "pupils should be introduced to a wide range of media...They should be given opportunities to analyse and evaluate such material... [and to] consider how attitudes, values and meanings are communicated." The effect of this requirement, along with the demand for written schemes of work, has been to formalise the position of media education within the curriculum for English. Inevitably, the scope of media work carried out in this context by secondary schools has been strongly influenced by the interpretation which different Examination Boards have placed upon the requirement and by the examination syllabus of the Board chosen by any one school. At the time of the research project, four out of the five Examination Boards in England and Wales placed the assessment of Media within English in the terminal examination rather than within course work, prompting teachers to concentrate on print-based as opposed to moving image texts.

The first four chapters of Teaching Media in the English Curriculum provide clear details of historical development, background and context relating to the work observed in the target schools. There is a useful review of research on UK developments in media education at the secondary stage. (Sadly, no work of this kind appears to have been carried out in Scotland since the study by Brown and Visocchi in 1991.) Chapters 5 and 6 summarise the content of the teacher interviews and report on the classroom observation work. Chapter 7 comments on changes throughout the 90’s in media teaching within English and concludes that, on the basis of recorded interviews and lessons observed, there was "a tension between what teachers do teach and what they wish to teach". The final chapter, which takes account of changes in the National Curriculum for English which came into force after the research was conducted, considers the advantages and risks of a greater concentration on the moving image and comments on the proposals contained in the BFI publication Making Movies Matter. The second half of the book is in the form of an Appendix providing detailed reports of the eleven interviews and lessons. These accounts bring the reader close to the classroom and convey a comforting sense of rubbing shoulders with colleagues who share the readers’ preoccupations and who are also happy to share their expertise.

From the research evidence, "a general picture emerges of a Media curriculum centred on analysis and heavily determined by the GCSE syllabus, especially if it is assessed in a terminal examination". The teachers interviewed felt that the mandatory requirement to teach Media within the English curriculum had given the Media greater status at the expense of some constriction in their freedom of approach. Although the National Curriculum was now calling for a stronger emphasis on the moving image, examination pressures (along with the limited time and resources available and, perhaps, the teachers’ sense of what was most "appropriate" in an English framework) resulted in a concentration on language, representation and audience and a comparative neglect of institutional and technological contexts. In these eleven schools (admittedly a very small sample), the approach to moving image study was discursive and analytical, relating mainly to film and advertising. There was little attempt to cover the vast range of television output and radio was conspicuous only by its absence. There seemed to be no opportunity to explore the symbiosis between theory and practice. In the lessons observed, the approach was rarely creative and the development of the classwork was firmly within the teacher’s control.

Teaching Media in the English Curriculum can be recommended for a variety of reasons. For a start, it provides a model of the kind of empirical, classroom-based research into media education that we could be doing with in Scotland. The theme of this particular project is not immediately applicable to the Scottish situation, since there is no obligation in Scotland to teach Media within the English curriculum and very few Scottish pupils risk tackling the media-based questions that crop up in end-of-course examinations. However, this difference does not rob the Hart and Hicks book of its relevance. If educational policy-makers accept Bazalgette’s claim that some form of media education should be part of the "basic entitlement...something everyone has a right to learn", it is only realistic to assume that it will be incorporated within English, a subject that all pupils are required to study. The Southampton Media Centre’s research project provides an indication of the influence that this host department may exert upon Media teaching and learning: the restrictions of time and resources, the pressures of terminal assessment, the emphasis on text rather than context. Certainly the evidence from the south of England schools involved in the research suggests that the "rhetoric" of media messages in print is being "attended to" within the English curriculum, but the coverage of the "moving image" (for example, along the lines proposed in Becoming Cineliterate) may well be more problematic. In this connection, Hart and Hicks offer (v. pp 104-108) their own suggested unit of work which, within an English framework, would draw the four rhetorics together.

Making media education "a basic entitlement" is likely to involve compromises, a talent for logistical planning, a flair for practical politics. There will probably be no ideal solutions. Perhaps the most encouraging feature of Teaching Media in the English Curriculum is the evidence it provides of the varied inventiveness of media teachers operating within the confines of brief units of work and departmental priorities; the sense conveyed by their testimony that English and Media can be mutually enriching. "English" (that catch-all title) is traditionally an accommodating host for a wide range of initiatives. The reader is left with the impression that, for all the restrictions and limitations, what was gained on the swings exceeded what was lost on the roundabouts; and that may be a hopeful sign for the future.

David Butts

Saint Jean de Côle

[This paper is to be published in the Media Education Journal ]

©2002 David Butts