Media Education in the swedish Compulsory School. A comparison of the Swedich school curriculum documents with the leading countries

Abstract

Title Media Education in the Swedish Compulsory School – a comparison of the Swedish curriculum documents with the leading countries Authors Rosemarie Manalili, Johann Rehnberg Course Undergraduate Thesis in Media- and Communication Studies Semester Autumn Semester 2008 Supervisor Karin Fogelberg Pages 51 Purpose To describe how Media Education and Media Literacy is outlined in the curriculum documents in Sweden vis-à-vis Canada and UK. Method Ethnographic Content Analysis (ECA) Research Materials Swedish curriculum documents (national curriculum + course syllabi), National curriculum documents from the UK, Curriculum documents from Ontario, Canada. Previous research and studies. Main Results Results of the study shows that the Swedish curriculum documents are goaloriented while the UK and Ontario, Canada curriculum documents are more comprehensive and detailed in terms of covering media education and media literacy. All studied countries have integrated media education in other subjects, most explicitly in Ontario where media literacy is a separate strand in the Language Arts curriculum. In the Swedish and the UK curriculum documents, media education still appears as “small islands”.