The Divergent Media Habitus of Teachers and Pupils in Primary Schools – A Difficulty for Implementing Media Education

Author(s):

Ursula Mutsch(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2011

Network:

21. Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES D 06, Parallel Session D 06

Paper Session

Time:

2011-09-12

15:10-16:40

Room:

JK 27/103,G, 46

Chair:

Petra Grell

Contribution

Today’s rapidly changing landscape of media requires appropriate and continual updating of knowledge, a diversity of skills and literacy practices in order to interact, participate and communicate in society successfully. In recent years the school becomes more and more responsible to develop these competences and to provide guidance and support. This leads to an increased need for media education in schools. Eventhough there are a lot of attempts and initiatives such as the introduction of media education as an educational principle in the curriculum, the access to technology in classrooms or teacher training, there are still difficulties in the implementation of media education in primary schools. For that reason the Austrian research project MiVA (media education in primary school) aims to achieve an understanding how media culture and contemporary media practices of pupils and teachers meet in Viennese primary schools. The thesis of this study is to find out if the possibly divergent media culture - caused by different media habits - may result in communication problems between pupils and their teachers and complicates the development and support of media education. Therefore it’s necessary to investigate the “media habitus” of pupils and teachers. Proceeding on the assumption that the “media habitus” is an appropriate concept for analysis, Bourdieu’s conception of the “habitus” (Bourdieu 1976, 1999, 2000, 2001; Krais/Gebauer 2002) is used as the theoretical framework in this study. For our purpose it is required to adapt and respectively to develop the habitus to the topic media and media culture (Biermann 2009; Henrichwark 2009; Kommer 2006, 2010).

Method

To answer this complex question in an empirical way this study uses a mixed methods design, or more specifically, a sequential explanatory design (Creswell 2009). According to Bourdieu the habitus has necessarily to be understood in the social context and by considering the existing social structures. Therefore the first quantitative research phase investigated sociodemografic features and the available living conditions, like the media equipment at home and the related and common media use in the families, of the pupils and the teachers with a multiple choice questionnaire (n = 1130) in six Viennese primary schools. The second research phase is based on these results and examines further dimensions of the media habitus (for example: media biography, media use, media taste, reasons for using media & environment’s influence) in a qualitative way. Therefore the teachers (n = 15) and the pupils (n = 13) were interviewed separately: The teachers were interviewed with open semi-structured interviews at school; the pupils were interviewed with unstructured interviews at home. Firstly every interview was coded, analysed and summarized in a case study. Secondly the case studies of the teachers and the pupils were compared and contrasted to find differences and similarities concerning the media habitus.

Expected Outcomes

After presenting interim findings from the quantitative research phase at the ECER 2009 and from the qualitative research phase at the ECER 2010, we are able to present final results from the project MiVA at the ECER 2011: First we will summarize the main results from the quantitative and the qualitative research phase to describe and to compare the divergent media habitus of teachers and pupils considering their socio-cultural background. Secondly, based on these empirical findings, we would like to mention some recommendations which can be drawn for teaching (media education) in schools.

References

Biermann, Ralf (2009): Der mediale Habitus von Lehramtsstudierenden. Eine quantitative Studie zum Medienhandeln angehender Lehrpersonen. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Bourdieu, Pierre (1976): Entwurf einer Theorie der Praxis auf der ethnologischen Grundlage der kabylischen Gesellschaft. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. Bourdieu, Pierre (1999): Sozialer Sinn: Kritik der theoretischen Vernunft. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Bourdieu, Pierre (2000): Die feinen Unterschiede: Kritik der gesellschaftlichen Urteilskraft. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Bourdieu, Pierre (2001): Wie die Kultur zum Bauern kommt. Über Bildung, Schule und Politik. Schriften zur Politik und Kultur 4. Hamburg: VSA-Verlag. Creswell, John W. (2009): Research Design. Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Los Angeles et al.: Sage. Henrichwark, Claudia (2009): Der bildungsbezogene mediale Habitus von Grundschulkindern. Eine empirische Studie zur Reproduktion sozialer Ungleichheit in Schule und Familie. [http://elpub.bib.uni-wuppertal.de/edocs/dokumente/fbg/paedagogik/diss2009/henrichwark/dg0901.pdf (20.11.2009)] Kommer, Sven (2006): Zum medialen Habitus von Lehramtsstudierenden. Oder: Warum der Medieneinsatz in der Schule eine so 'schwere Geburt' ist. In: Treibel, Annette; Maier, Maja S.; Kommer, Sven; Welzel, Manuela (Hrsg.): Gender medienkompetent. Medienbildung in einer heterogenen Gesellschaft. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Kommer, Sven (2010): Kompetenter Medienumgang? Eine qualitative Untersuchung zum medialen Habitus und zur Medienkompetenz von SchülerInnen und Lehramtsstudierenden. Opladen: Budrich UniPress. Kommer, Sven/Biermann, Ralf (2007): Zwischen Erinnerung und Inszenierung. Medienbiografien medial. Freiburger FrauenStudien “Erinnern und Geschlecht, Band II”. Zeitschrift für Interdisziplinäre Frauenforschung, 20, S. 195–220. Krais, Beate; Gebauer, Gunter (2002): Habitus. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. Mayring, Philipp (2008): Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse. Grundlagen und Techniken. Weinheim, Basel: Beltz Verlag. Mutsch, Ursula; Schrammel, Sabrina (2010): Zur Frage der Mediennutzung von Schulanfängerinnen und Schulanfängern. In: merz/Wissenschaft – Medien und Erziehung. Zeitschrift für Medienpädagogik. Jg. 54/2010, Heft 6, S. 68-79.

Author Information

Ursula Mutsch (presenting / submitting)

University of Vienna

Department of Education

Vienna

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