STUDI, RICERCHE, BUONE PRATICHE - Media Education for ...

MEDIA EDUCATION:STUDI, RICERCHE, BUONE PRATICHE

Collana a cura del MED – Associazione Italianaper l’Educazione ai Media e alla Comunicazione

http://www.aracneeditrice.it/aracneweb/index.php/collana.html?col=med


Direttori

Gianna Maria CUniversità degli Studi di Palermo

Luciano D MUniversità Telematica Internazionale UNINETTUNO

Alberto PUniversità di Torino

Maria RUniversità degli Studi di Firenze

Comitato scientifico

Piermarco AUniversità Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano

Évelyne BMinistère de l’Èducation Nationale

David BUniversity of London

Antonio CUniversità degli Studi di Firenze

Roberto FUniversità di Bologna – Alma Mater Studiorum

Paolo Maria FUniversità degli Studi di Milano–Bicocca

Giovannella GUniversità della Calabria

Renée HUniversity of Rhode Island

José Manuel P TUniversitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Roberto TUniversità di Torino



La collana a cura del MED (Associazione Italiana per l’Educazionee ai Media e alla Comunicazione) prosegue il suo percorso diformazione e di ricerca nel campo scientifico della Media Edu-cation. Al pari della rivista « Media Education: Studi, Esperienze,Buone pratiche », attiva dal marzo del , è stata fortementevoluta dal fondatore della nostra Associazione, Roberto Gian-natelli, uno dei primi studiosi ad aver portato la media educationall’interno dei confini delle nostre università e delle nostrescuole che ci ha lasciati nell’ottobre del . I primi dieci vo-lumi pubblicati dal MED hanno aperto un orizzonte in Italiaancora inesplorato, una prima collezione di riflessioni e lavoriscientifici mai apparsa prima nel nostro paese.

La collana ora riparte con nuovo editore e si propone distimolare la realizzazione di ricerche e la pubblicazione delleopere più interessanti in relazione all’educazione ai media eall’uso dei media nella scuola (e nel territorio) allo scopo dimigliorare l’apprendimento dei nostri alunni e di svilupparecompetenze mediali e digitali utili per affrontare la complessitàdel mondo odierno e per costruire una professionalità futura,anche in riferimento alle Indicazioni nazionali per il Curricoloscolastico.



Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union

The European Commission support for the production of this publicationdoes not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the viewsonly of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible forany use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Media education for equity and tolerance

Theory, policy, and practices

edited by

Maria Ranieri

Contributions byStefano Cuomo

Francesco FabbroCécile GoffardAndrea Nardi

Benjamin OpratkoMojca Pajnik

Marta PellegriniMaria Ranieri

Birgit SauerIztok Šori

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Contents

IntroductionMaria Ranieri

Policies on Citizenship, Media and Intercultural Edu-cation. A Comparative Perspective of European statesIztok Šori, Mojca Pajnik

Theorising and designing media and intercultural ed-ucation. A Framework and Some GuidelinesMaria Ranieri, Francesco Fabbro

Researching on Media and Intercultural Education.A Comparative Analysis of Results from Three Euro-pean CountriesMaria Ranieri, Francesco Fabbro, Andrea Nardi

Creating a “docutorial” on Media and InterculturalTeaching. The MEET ApproachFrancesco Fabbro, Andrea Nardi, Cécile Goffard

Contents

MEET’s Evaluation and Impact. Indicators, Tools andResultsStefano Cuomo, Marta Pellegrini

Citizenship, media literacy and intercultural educa-tion. Reflections and recommendations for policytransformationBenjamin Opratko, Birgit Sauer

Media education for equity and toleranceISBN 978-88-255-2264-8DOI 10.4399/97888255226481pag. 9–17 (march 2019)

Introduction

M R∗

Over the last twenty years, Europe has entered a new dramaticpolitical and social era where racism and xenophobia accom-panied by discrimination, intolerance and iniquity have beenrekindled in combination with a profound economic crisis and awidespread sense of insecurity. Phenomena such as globalisationand migrations, neoliberal transformations of welfare states andlabour markets are shaking the “Old Continent”, while politi-cal organisations and movements with discriminatory politicalagenda have (re–)appeared in a number of European countries(Lazaridis & Campani, ; Lazaridis, Campani & Benveniste,). Some organisations emphasise the view of migration as athreat to national culture or identity while others to the securityor the economic position of the nation. Media, particularly socialmedia and social network sites such as Facebook or Twitter,are reflecting this situation with people increasingly expressingtheir (social) rage through polarised attitudes on the Web andtransforming the others such as migrants or refugees into thescapegoat of a growing social malaise (Caiani & Parenti, ;Pajnik, Fabbro & Kamenova, ; Pajnik & Sauer, ; Pajnik& Söry, ). Racist propaganda and discriminatory discourses,either online or not, risk gaining consensus particularly amongyoung, low SES people, who are both intense users of mediaand highly vulnerable to social exclusion. Seen as the enemy,fragile social groups of young people such as immigrants andrefugees become the target of othering practices, and strong

∗ University of Florence, Italy.

Introduction

polarisation is emerging among young people living in similarvulnerable social contexts. In fact, although the relationship be-tween intolerance, media and young people is not linear, asintense users of the Internet, arguably young people are exposedto discriminatory content while they start to make sense ofthe social and political world around them. In addition, youngpeople represent a key target of radical right groups’ propa-ganda and recruitment with the emergence of a new form ofethno–discriminatory–nationalism (Krasteva & Lazaridis, ).If the consequences of this phenomenon still need to be deeplyinvestigated, we are witnessing an escalation of symbolic vio-lence and social conflicts, especially among teens at risk of socialexclusion including both “native” young SES people addressedby radical right groups and immigrants who are the main objectof racist discourses. Furthermore, as amply documented in theliterature, teens at risk of social exclusion have low media anddigital skills in terms of critical understanding of media con-tents and making their voices heard as citizens. For example,in a survey on civic engagement in the digital age, Smith ()found that social networks are playing an increasingly importantrole at the political level in the US, where a third of the popu-lation is involved in media activism. Yet, the majority of thosewho take part in engaged activities have a good level of culturaland socio–economic background. In this regard, several studies(Dahlgren & Olsson, ; Theocharis, ) found that when itcomes to civic participation and “original” media productionsthe Internet is most assiduously used by affluent, highly educatedyoung people and by those who are already interested in politicsand media making. Briefly, in socially difficult contexts such asthe many peripheries of European cities, media risk becomingamplifiers of negative messages of hate and of social differencesin terms of young people’s agency, thus promoting violence,discrimination, racism and exclusion rather than tolerance, soli-darity, equity and intercultural understanding.

In this scenario, media education can be viewed as a peda-gogical strategy to support young people’s critical understand-

Introduction

ing of media representations and discourses of othering as wellas a concrete opportunity to engage new generations with theproduction of alternative counter–narratives to raise awarenessabout tolerance and discrimination, and foster mutual respectand intercultural understanding. Specifically, focusing on dis-advantaged younger citizens, media education can serve thepurpose of a potentially powerful tool to challenge the sym-bolic violence characterising some media representations ofspecific social groups and to enact critical practices of mediaproduction that may be understood as broader acts of demo-cratic citizenship (Banaji & Buckingham, ; Hobbs, ;Ranieri, ). To sum up, critical reading of media messagescan contribute to recognising different forms of intolerance em-bodied in media discourses, while media production can turninto a good practice to involve young citizens in democraticlife supporting human rights and democratic values.

Grounded on these assumptions, this book presents anddiscusses the main results of the Media Education for Equity andTolerance (MEET) project, an initiative funded by the EuropeanUnion within the framework of the Erasmus Plus Programme– KA, –. Promoted by the University of Florence (Italy),the project has seen the collaboration of four European part-ners, that is the University of Vienna (Austria), Média Ani-mation (Belgium), medien+bildung.com (Germany) and thePeace Institute (Slovenia).

MEET’s main purpose was to promote inclusive and demo-cratic citizenship as well as intercultural dialogue through theupscaling and the dissemination of media education practicesagainst discrimination and intolerance and by engaging disad-vantaged young people aged – in media literacy activities.Through the re–design of the educational tool Media educationagainst discrimination: A guide for teens with a specific focus onstudents at risk of social exclusion, and the elaboration of guide-

. This tool, edited by Maria Ranieri (University of Florence, Italy) and Paul deTheux (Média Animation, Belgium), was developed within the framework of the

Introduction

lines for teachers based on Media Literacy modules for teachers andeducators to provide teachers’ guidance on teaching about themedia in intercultural context, the project aimed at contributingto create learning opportunities for young participants to buildcritical media competences and citizenship skills, including tol-erance, mutual respect, solidarity, appreciation of diversity andcommitment to anti–discriminatory and democratic struggles.Moreover, it intended to provide teachers and educators with ad-vice on how to teach about the media in disadvantaged contextstaking into account young people’s practices with media con-tents. An innovative approach to sharing good educational prac-tices was pursued through the implementation of an educationaldocumentary, enabling teachers to access concrete examples ofmedia education in practice. In addition, recommendations topolicy makers against contemporary forms of discrimination andto support human rights, equity and tolerance through mediaeducation in the school system have also been elaborated.

To sum up, MEET’s contribution involved: ) young peo-ple’s increased awareness about mutual respect, interculturalunderstanding and democracy through practices of criticalmedia analysis and production; ) teachers/educators’ train-ing about media literacy practices to prevent and contrast newforms of intolerance, violence and discrimination, and promoteintercultural dialogue, civic competences and critical under-standing of the media; ) schools’ climate improvement andusers’ well–being fostering young people’s participation in theschool community and deconstructing stereotyped represen-tation of different social groups; ) policy makers’ advice onhow to implement media education policies as strategies topromote equity, tolerance, human rights and inclusion in anintercultural and media–saturated society.

Daphne project e–Engagement against Violence (e–EAV) in –. All contents arefreely available at: https://e-engagementagainstviolence.eu/index/students.html.

. This tool was also developed within the framework of the Daphneproject e–EAV in –. All contents are freely available at: https://e-engagementagainstviolence.eu/index.php.

Introduction

The project was structured into four main phases as de-scribed below:

— Phase . Needs’ analysis and involvement. A review ofpolicies on citizenship, media and intercultural educa-tion was carried out at national level by each partner toidentify policy areas needing improvement in terms ofsocial inclusion of students at risk of social exclusion. Inaddition, contacts with local bodies such as municipal-ities or educational agencies were made to identify sixschools to be involved in the testing, specifically twoschools for each of the three countries in charge of de-signing and testing the learning scenario (i.e. Germany,Italy and Slovenia).

— Phase . Co–design and development. Based on goodpractices already tested within a previous Europeanproject (e–EAV, –), MEET research staff engagedwith a process of co–design involving teachers to createsix learning scenarios on media and intercultural edu-cation. Although the learning scenarios vary in termsof media used or thematic focus, they share a similarstructure entailing an average number of – learningunits as well as media analysis and production activities.

— Phase . Implementation and testing. In Germany, Italyand Slovenia, two learning scenarios were implementedover a period of about two months involving around students and teachers. Students and teachers wereinvolved in an action–research project which led to thecollection of several data about the process and its results.This data was analysed and coded by MEET researchersto evaluate the learning experience and revise the learn-ing scenarios before their online publication.

— Phase . Documentation and dissemination. The entireimplementation process was documented through theproduction of a docutorial, that is a video aiming on onehand to show teachers how to teach media education

Introduction

in intercultural contexts (from this point of view it waslike a tutorial) and on the other hand to document a realeducational situation through visual materials includingteachers or researchers introducing concepts or moder-ating discussion as well as students interacting amongthemselves during debate or collaborative work in smallgroups. The docutorial was accompanied by a theoreticalintroduction explaining MEET’s conceptual backgroundand guidelines for teachers to provide them with a de-sign principle to prepare, develop and implement mediaand intercultural education activities in school. The docu-torial together with the introduction and the guidelinesare part of an online and multimedia toolkit to supportdissemination and sharing of good practice.

MEET’s main output is an online multimedia toolkit in-volving the presentation of MEET conceptual background,the guidelines for designing inclusive media education prac-tices in intercultural classes, six learning scenarios and threevideo–capsules showing how MEET guidelines were put intopractice. The chapters included in this book aim at illustratingthe processes and the results of all project phases to providean overall picture of the main outcomes and to encouragethe uptake of similar practices. Specifically, Policies on Citizen-ship, Media and Intercultural Education: A Comparative Perspectiveof European states by Iztok Šori and Mojca Pajnik offers anoverview of the main European trends of policies on Citizen-ship, Media and Intercultural Education to identify gaps andareas that should be improved. Theorising and Designing Mediaand Intercultural Education: A Framework and Some Guidelinesby Maria Ranieri and Francesco Fabbro describes the concep-tual framework and the methodological guidelines that havebeen developed to support the (re)design of the educationalcontents produced within MEET. Researching on Media and

. Available at https://meetolerance.eu/toolkit/.

Introduction

Intercultural Education: A Comparative Analysis of Results fromThree European Countries by Maria Ranieri, Francesco Fabbroand Andrea Nardi presents and discusses the results of the par-ticipatory action–research carried out in Germany, Italy andSlovenia to evaluate the impact of MEET educational resourceson students and teachers. Creating a “docutorial” on Media andIntercultural Teaching: The MEET Approach by Francesco Fab-bro, Andrea Nardi and Cécile Goffard explains how the videoswere conceived and edited with the dual purpose of givingthe audience a sense of the concrete reality of the classroomwhile providing the audience with guidance on suitable mediaeducation practices in challenging contexts. MEET’s Evaluationand Impact: Indicators, Tools and Results by Stefano Cuomo andMarta Pellegrini illustrates the Logical Framework as well asthe indicators and the evaluation tools adopted to assess theresults and the impact of MEET project. Finally, Citizenship,Media Literacy and Intercultural Education. Reflections and Recom-mendations for Policy Transformation by Benjamin Opratko andBirgit Sauer concludes the analysis of MEET results through aseries of considerations on policies related to the field of Citi-zenship, Intercultural and Media Education with the purposeof providing insights to policymakers on structural actions tosupport the field at the different levels, from the local contextto the wider European space.

Credits

The MEET project was funded by the European Commissionwithin the Erasmus Plus Programme Key Action for the pe-riod – . It was promoted by the University of Florence,Department of Education, Languages, Interculture, Literature& Psychology (formerly Department of Education & Psychol-ogy), Florence, Italy. Other partners were: University of Vienna(Austria), Média Animation (Belgium), medien+bildung.com(Germany), Peace Institute (Slovenia).

Introduction

Maria Ranieri was the Scientific Coordinator and StefanoCuomo was the project manager of the project.

Iztok Šori and Mojca Pajnik led WP & WP, StefanoCuomo coordinated WP while Maria Ranieri led WP, BirgitSauer guided WP and WP, Anne–Claire Orban de Xivry andCécile Goffard co–led WP, and Katja Friedrich managed WP.

Researchers, scholars and/or media educators who partici-pated and contributed to the project were:

— for the Austrian team: Fanny Müller–Uri and BenjaminOpratko;

— for the Belgian team: Jean–Paul Vitry;— for the German team: Katja Mayer and Mario Di Carlo;— for the Italian team: Francesco Fabbro, Andrea Nardi,

Cabiria Nicosia, Marta Pellegrini;— for the Slovenian team: Veronika Bajt and Mojca Frelih.

All research outputs that have been included in this bookhave also been reviewed by colleagues from the University ofFlorence, that is Gianfranco Bandini, Davide Capperucci andEmiliano Macinai.

As far as the video–capsules are concerned, they have beencreated by Média Animation asbl (Rodrigo Aranda Godoy,Alexandre Détry, Flavie Gauthier, Cécile Goffard, Arthur Lecou-turier, Anne–Claire Orban de Xivry) and the University ofFlorence (Stefano Cuomo, Francesco Fabbro, Maria Ranieri).Moreover, they have been produced and directed by MédiaAnimation asbl in collaboration with the pictures and othermaterials from local activities of the University of Florence(Francesco Fabbro, Cabiria Nicosia, Maria Ranieri, Luca Righ-eschi), medien+bildung.com (Mario Di Carlo, Katja Mayer,Nicolas Hecker) and the Peace Institute (Izotk Šori, MojcaFrelih, Mojca Pajnik, Vasja Lebaric).

Introduction

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to all the teachers and students who partici-pated in the MEET project as well as the headteachers whoagreed with the implementation of the learning scenarios intheir schools. Without their support, this project would nothave been possible. We also thank the Associated Partners, in-cluding the Wiener Kinder und Jugendanwaltschaft, KIA (Aus-tria), Action Media Jeunes (Belgium), the Klicksafe and Jugen-schutz (Germany), the City of Prato (Italy) and the NationalEducation Institute (Slovenia), which contributed in severalways to the development of the project.


Policies on Citizenship, Mediaand Intercultural Education

A Comparative Perspective of European states

I Š, M P∗

. Introduction

This chapter provides an overview of policies and practicesin the fields of citizenship, media and intercultural education(CMIE) in five selected European countries: the focus is on re-cent policy and action developments in the following nationalcontexts: Austria, Belgium (French speaking), Italy, Germany(Rhineland–Palatinate) and Slovenia, also reflecting policies atthe EU level. In the context of this chapter citizenship, mediaand intercultural education are treated as separate educationfields in order to enable a better comparison between the coun-tries. We do acknowledge however, that topical and method-ological intersections of CMIE rather call for an educationalapproach equally integrating all three fields. The interconnect-edness is demonstrated with the definitions, which are com-monly adopted by EU policies:

— Citizenship education refers to the aspects of school ed-ucation intended to prepare students to become activecitizens, by ensuring that they have the necessary knowl-edge, skills and attitudes to contribute to the develop-

∗ Peace Institute, Slovenia.

Iztok Šori, Mojca Pajnik

ment and well–being of the society in which they live(EACEA, ).

— Media literacy refers to all the technical, cognitive, social,civic and creative capacities that allow us to access andhave a critical understanding of and interact with media.These capacities allow us to exercise critical thinking,while participating in the economic, social and culturalaspects of society and playing an active role in the demo-cratic process (EU Media Literacy Expert Group).

— Intercultural education refers to competences on how tolive in diverse societies and includes the principles ofhuman rights, democracy and the rule of law (Councilof Europe).

We have structured this chapter in two main sections: thefirst section provides a comparative analysis across five EUmember states on CMIE, while the second section is aimedat mapping the main actors in the field of media education,including reflection on their programmes, policies and funding.The conclusion summarises the main findings and providesrecommendations for policy.

. National policies and practices: A cross–country perspec-tive of European States

In this section, we aim to provide a more in–depth insight intonational policies and practices on CMIE in five EU memberstates: Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Slovenia. We areinterested in recent (up to March ) policy developmentsand rationale behind them, the position and relevance of CMIEin the curricula, teachers’ competences and training and mea-

. This chapter is based on the following national reports: Sauer & Müller –Uri (); Goffard & Vitry (); Friedrich (); Ranieri & Fabbro (); Šori &Pajnik ().

Policies on Citizenship, Media and Intercultural Education

sures ensuring equal rights to education for children who areat risk of social exclusion.

.. Citizenship education

The report Citizenship Education in Europe (EACEA, )shows that citizenship education is part of national curriculain all EU countries. It is delivered in schools through threemain approaches: as a stand–alone course, as part of anothercourse or learning area and/or as a cross–curricular dimen-sion. Twenty EU countries or regions dedicate a separatecompulsory course to citizenship education, sometimes start-ing at primary level, but more usually at secondary level. Thelength of time for teaching citizenship education as a sepa-rate course varies considerably between countries, rangingfrom years in France to one year in Bulgaria and Turkey(EACEA, , p. ).

The problem identified by the EACEA report (), whichpertains to nearly all European countries, considers teachers’competences in teaching citizenship. In concrete: «Very fewcountries have defined a set of common competences directlylinked to citizenship that all newly–qualified secondary teachersshould acquire, even though a majority of countries has nowconferred a cross–curricular status on elements of this subjectarea» (EACEA, , p. ). Another problem common to manyEuropean countries is the assessment of citizenship education.As stated in the EACEA report (, p. ), «it is clear that theevaluation of social and civic competences requires assessmentmethods that go beyond measuring the acquisition of theoreti-cal knowledge, to encompass skills and attitudes». This makesthe assessment a very complex and ethically challenging issue.Around one third of EU countries has issued guidelines at sec-ondary school level for assessing student participation in schoollife and in wider society. Some countries have started to designassessment tools for teachers, or nationally standardised testsfor students, which seek to assess social and civic competences


independently from a given subject; these address students’knowledge, skills and attitudes (EACEA, , pp. –).

In the countries under examination, citizenship educationis included in all types of schools, solely as a cross–curriculartopic in Austria, Germany and Italy. This was till recently thecase also in Belgium, where a new course on citizenship isbeing introduced, while in Slovenia citizenship education isa separate course in primary schools and also included as across–curricular topic in other courses and levels of education.

.. Challenges to citizenship education: nurturing critical andindependent thought

In Austria all three fields — citizenship, media and interculturaleducation — are considered as cross–curricular topics and nocourse specifically addresses only one of the named educationalfields. The inclusion of citizenship education in other courseshas been the target of critique, since this may lead to prevalenceof other courses over citizenship education and its reductionto historic perspectives (Sander, , p. ). Citizenship ed-ucation is usually referred to as “Politische Bildung”, whichliterarily translates as “political education” and has the goal to«enable students to acquire the competences that will enablethem to understand politics and take part in political processes»(Krammer, , p. ).

Citizenship education as a cross–curricular course was in-stitutionalised in , when a bill to implement it as a com-pulsory course failed in parliament. One of the more recentreforms from the school year /, introduced a newcombined course in the th grade of all school types titledHistory and Social Studies/Citizenship Education. The newcurriculum for this course also introduced “competence orien-

. For more information on citizenship history in Austria see http://www.bpb.de/veranstaltungen/netzwerke/nece//citizenship-education-in-austria?p=all( March ).

http://www.bpb.de/veranstaltungen/netzwerke/nece/206038/citizenship-education-in-austria?p=all

http://www.bpb.de/veranstaltungen/netzwerke/nece/206038/citizenship-education-in-austria?p=all


tation”, which since the school year / is to be consid-ered in other curricula and guidelines (Haupt & Turek, ,p. ). An important stimulus for introducing citizenship edu-cation was the reduction of the active voting age to sixteenyears in , when an expert committee developed an ambi-tious concept of competence–oriented learning that takes intoaccount four different types of competences: competence of po-litical judgement, competence of political acting, competencein methods related to politics and competence of political sub-ject matter. The Austrian Ministry of Education also issued ageneral ordinance on project–centred forms of teaching, whichapplies to all levels of education. It contains many objectivesin line with citizenship education, e.g. independent learning,cultivating open–mindedness, developing communicative andcooperative competences, and conflict–cultures (Federal Min-istry of Education, Arts and Culture ).

In the field of teacher training, Austria among the countriesexamined can be considered as a good practice case. Trainingfor teachers of political education has not been institutionalisedat a university–level yet, nevertheless, a variety of workshopsand training on topics with regard to citizenship education is of-fered by colleges, universities and other educational institutionsas well as non–governmental organisations. Starting with theschool year /, a new law on teacher training came intoforce that aimed at improving the standardisation of educationfor schoolteachers as well as emphasising a close cooperationof University Colleges of Teacher Education with universities.

In Belgium citizenship education generally goes hand inhand with intercultural education, therefore it is not relevant todistinguish between the two. Until recently, citizenship and in-tercultural education were considered solely as cross–curriculartopics and carried out in school practice by various initiativesand projects. In the school year /, a new course ofPhilosophy and Citizenship Education was introduced in pri-mary schools. Unlike many other courses, its framework wasadopted by all three education systems that co–exist in Belgium.


Similar courses began to be taught in secondary schools startingfrom the school year /. The course approaches citi-zenship in the framework of equal rights, human dignity andengagement in social life and democratic space. It is howevermainly the non–governmental sector and civil society that dealswith issues of intercultural and citizenship education, which issupported by the authorities through continuous funding.

Formal and non–formal citizenship education in Germanyare characterised by a diversity of federal states, known asLänder, each defining its own priorities and goals regarding ed-ucation. Placement in the curricula and teaching of citizenshipeducation therefore differ greatly from state to state. Commonlycitizenship education is included in the curricula as a teachingprinciple at all educational levels and is not taught as a sepa-rate course. In recent years however, secondary schools haveintroduced a variety of courses (e.g. Politics, Social Studies,Community Studies, Civic Education), which include citizen-ship education, while in practice nearly every school providesless than the ideal two hours of citizenship education per week(Lange, , p. ).

An important nationwide policy action happened in ,when the Conference of State Ministers of Culture (CMC) pub-lished recommendations titled Strengthening Democratic Edu-cation and History Learning (KMK, ). The CMC recom-mended an increased integration of citizenship education information and vocational training, a funded debate about allforms of extremism, fundamentalism, xenophobia, violenceand intolerance, and support for schools in the process ofdeveloping their own citizenship education programmes, bydefining democratic education as an essential part of schooldevelopment (Beutel, ). This action considerably stimu-lated the development of citizenship education in Germanschools. National policies and funds are also in place for thearea of non–formal citizenship education. The Federal Chil-dren and Youth Plan (Kinder– und Jugendplan des Bundes)is the main federal subsidiary fund that finances a variety of


non–governmental organisations and regional centres, ensur-ing diversified and impartial approaches to citizenship educa-tion.

Germany’s history accounts for the important role taken bya variety of political and religious foundations in the field, andthe Federal Agency for Political Education (Bundeszentralefür politische Bildung, FACE). The latter is the central publicinstitution for citizenship education and provides educationand information on political issues for the whole of Germany.The work of the FACE is centred on promoting awareness fordemocracy and participation in politics. It has a wide range ofservices on offer for teachers and anyone involved in educationand youth work.

In Italy a (sub)course of Citizenship and Constitution was in-troduced in schools in and is taught as part of the coursesof History, Geography and Social Sciences. Conceptually thecourse includes a wide notion of citizenship in which liberal,republican and cosmopolitan (or multicultural) ideas of citi-zenship coexist. In recent years, the idea of civic educationwas reframed in cultural rather than political terms. For exam-ple, in the National Guidelines for the Curriculum dated (Legislative Decree no. , th February ), civic educationwas replaced by the idea of civil coexistence. This concept wassupported with the argument to cover a wider scope of issues(not only citizenship but also health, road safety, environmentaleducation etc.).

Three years later the document Culture School Person() outlined an idea of a “new citizenship” and promotionof aware citizens, able to participate in the construction of mul-ticultural society, combining respect for cultural identity withthe idea of a wider community in a global context. A more nor-mative approach to citizenship education can still be found inthe curriculum, for example in the emphasis on the “educationfor legality” (educazione alla legalità) and on the obligation torespect rules. The recent National Plan for citizenship educa-tion and education to legality (art. L.D. st September )


continues a strategy of promotion of citizenship education’sprojects in schools with partners from civil society but alsofrom private business sector. Generally, recent reforms in Italyhave put great emphasis on integration of citizenship educationinto other courses, however, without increasing the number ofhours. Another point of critique are the guidelines on assess-ment, which very much consider the student’s behaviour andshould be critically reflected on and developed.

Among the three educational fields, most attention of theSlovenian educational system lies with citizenship education,which officially became part of the curriculum in . It istaught as a compulsory course currently named Patriotic andCitizenship Culture and Ethics in the th and th grade of el-ementary schools. In the th grade, students can additionallyselect the elective course Civic Culture. Citizenship educationis also considered a cross–curricular topic and is included indifferent courses in primary and secondary schools (e.g. Ge-ography, History, Slovenian Language). In secondary schools,the topic is addressed within courses of Sociology and SocialSciences.

In terms of policy development, the field stagnates and hasbeen the target of political interventions, which in recent yearshave strengthened the influence of ethnocentrism and national-ism in the curricula. In , the title of the course was renamedfrom Citizenship Education and Ethics to Patriotic Education,and Citizenship Culture and Ethics. Further interventions in-cluded changes to the curriculum, which were assessed asunprofessional (see Šimenc, , p. ) and instructions fromthe Ministry for Education to schools to use national insigniathroughout the whole year and organise patriotic celebrations.These interventions that clearly mirror political influences onschools, are however in line with the general policy frame-work in Slovenia, since educational policy documents combinehumanistic values (such as education for mutual tolerance, re-spect for human diversity and mutual cooperation, respect forchildren’s rights, for human rights and fundamental freedoms,


competences to live in a democratic society), with awarenessraising on the importance of the Slovenian language, nationalidentity and citizenship. Teachers’ competences in the field arequestionable, since the course is often practised as a “side–by”activity of teachers from other disciplines (e.g. sports). Criti-cism has also been expressed by experts that citizenship edu-cation is (still) primarily focused on political participation andpolitical literacy rather than engaging in civil society and com-munity volunteering, and that it rather prepares students to be“passive voters” than active citizens (Bezjak & Klemencic, ;Caetano et al., ).

.. Media education: integrating competences with understandingof media landscape

From the five countries under examination, Austria has thelongest tradition of inclusion of media education in schools. Itis mandated by a Principal Decree on Media Education (Grund-satzerlass zur Medienerziehung) from the Ministry of Education,which was first issued in (following earlier decrees onfilm), thoroughly revised in and again updated in .Since , media education has been conceptualised alongthe internationally accepted notion of “media literacy”. Thisinternationalisation can be regarded as the last step signifyinga break with the long–standing Austrian tradition of a «prac-tically oriented film and media education based on Christianvalues, which was designed to “immunise” against the influ-ence of (mass) media» (Blaschitz & Seibt, , p. ). “Mediapedagogy” (Medienpädagogik) is used as an umbrella term thatcomprises “media didactic” (Mediendidaktik) as well as “mediaeducation” (Medienbildung). While media didactic is used todenote education through media (i.e. the use of media as ameans within education), media education denotes educationabout media (ibid., ).

The goal of media education is “media competence” (Medi-enkompetenz), which is defined in a broad sense, encompassing


the competence to make use of technological possibilities aswell as competences to select, differentiate and structure mediacontent, and to be aware of one’s own needs (ibid.). The decreegoes on to state that «especially with regard to the use of newmedia [. . . ] questions of individual as well as social relevancehave to be asked» (ibid.). Five aims of media education areexplicitly mentioned and can also be found in the policy docu-ments of other countries. First, the ability to actively participatein communication networks; second, the development of acritical understanding of media usage; third, communicationwith and through media, which entails an understanding of thepower of media in the construction of social worlds; fourth,the role of media as either profit–oriented enterprises or publicinstitutions; and last, students should be motivated to createtheir own media products (ibid., ).

In Belgium, there is a wide consensus across society aboutthe necessity of media education and the need to promote theideas of social inclusion and citizen participation. Similarly, asin Austria media education and media literacy are included ascross–curricular topics at different levels of compulsory educa-tion. And also similar is the policy definition of media literacyin terms of skills and competences to be developed by youngpeople, i.e. as the ability to “access”, “analyse and evaluate”,and either “communicate” or “create” media messages in a va-riety of contexts. In , this definition was officially adoptedby the Higher Council for Media Education (Conseil Supérieurde l’Education aux Médias) as a general framework for media ed-ucation in French–speaking Belgium. However, no integratedpedagogical framework on media education exists, except par-tially in some school programmes.

Regarding media literacy, circumstances are somewhat dif-ferent. Media literacy is part of the transversal competencesframework of the educational system but is not implementedas a key competence. There is no core course on media literacyin the curriculum, but in some primary schools, media literacyappears as a separate course, with prescribed objectives and


competences. In the other curricula, media literacy is scatteredbetween different courses, mainly language, history, geography,ethics (or religion), aesthetics and social sciences. In practice,media education initiatives rely heavily on the motivation andthe specific skills of teachers. The possibilities of teacher train-ing are very limited and often connected with training onthe use of different media in teaching practice. For this rea-son, many teachers confuse media education with media use.In September , the IHECS Brussels School of Journalismand Communication launched a new two–year Master’s pro-gramme ( ECTS credits) in Applied Communication, spe-cialising in Media Education which might influence teachingpractices in the future.

In Germany, media education is considered as a cross–curric-ular topic. In Rhineland–Palatinate for example, the curriculumfor German at the lower secondary level includes extensivecontent, aims and suggestions for media education, includingdigital media. The curriculum promotes interdisciplinary learn-ing and cross–connections to other school subjects (D ,). An important policy development in Rhineland–Palatinatedates from , when a ten–point programme Media Literacyto the Head of the Class was developed to support schools ineducation of media literacy. In this context, a document wasadopted which formulates standards, skills to be developed andpractical examples of and for classroom work (Media Educa-tion at Primary and Lower Secondary Levels – Building Blocksfor an Altered Teaching and Learning Culture).

At the national level, more recent policy adoptions havebeen aimed at improving students’ digital skills and increasethe use of digital media in schools. The Federal Ministry ofEducation and Research adopted a policy framework EducationOffensive for the Digital Knowledge Society (). The StandingConference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairshas in recent years adopted several recommendations on mediaeducation, which have strengthened its link to citizenship edu-cation. In , they published a paper titled Media Education in


Schools, emphasising why media education is so relevant todayand how it can be realised on a sustained basis in schools, an-choring it in eight areas of activity (curriculum and educationplans, teacher training, school development, equipment andtechnical support, educational media, copyright regulation anddata protection, cooperation partners outside of schools, qualitycontrol and evaluation). This was an important step towardsestablishing a holistic and networked structure for promotingmedia education and towards overcoming the particularities ofcurricular plans in the individual states (Meister ).

The analysis of the situation of media literacy in individualstates (D, ) shows that the implementation of the fram-ing guidelines issued by the Conference vary greatly from oneregion to another. The Enquete Commission of the GermanParliament, Internet and Digital Society (), estimated theoverall implementation to be lacking. It found that media edu-cation is not integrated well enough in the curriculum of thevarious school courses. Kammerl & Ostermann (), whoreviewed the curricula of the federal states and conducted ex-tensive interviews with experts from research institutes andschool administration agencies found that, although all thefederal states have by now formulated general goals for me-dia education and the promotion of media literacy, there isa lack of practical suggestions on when and how these tasksshould be fulfilled. At some schools, teachers attend to realisingthese aims. However, such efforts are usually not obligatory.No assessment is made on whether school students have infact achieved a sufficient level of media literacy. At intervals,discussion arises on instating media education as a separateschool course, but to date this idea has not received sufficientsupport from the educational policy–makers. The current rec-ommendations for action issued by The Standing Conferencein December were developed in an extensive process ofnational dialogue and are therefore well accepted by differentstakeholders. They go far beyond the text of and make itobligatory to anchor media education in the curriculum.


In Italy, media education is neither designated as a coursein the school curriculum nor regulated by a specific authority.However, at policy level, since the late s some competencesrelated to media literacy have been progressively included inthe official documents issued by Ministry of Education, Uni-versities and Research. Historically, this indirect reference tomedia literacy education (MLE) in the school curriculum pro-vided some teachers with the opportunity to carry out dif-ferent projects in the classroom, often in collaboration withcivil society organisations (CSOs) and academic research units.In schools MLE still continues to be advised mostly by civilsociety organisations and universities rather than being partof the curriculum. Educational polices focus mostly on thepromotion of “digital literacy/competence” and “digital cit-izenship” whilst the reference to media literacy and under-standing of information is more secondary. However, the lastNational Plan for the Digital School (NPDS) (), in contrastwith the previous official documents in the area of media liter-acy, explicitly situates the development of digital competenceswithin a media education paradigm, although this paradigmis not fully explained. Moreover, it connects the acquisition ofdigital competences with the term “digital citizenship”. Draw-ing in particular from the st Century Skills framework pro-moted by the World Economic Forum, the NPDS suggeststhat young citizens «must transform themselves from (media)consumer to “critical consumers” and “producers” of digitalcontents». Hence, as claimed in the document, digital compe-tence is key to enable a “full, active and informed citizenship”.From this perspective, digital literacy is somehow presentedas a new form of citizenship education aiming at “arming thecitizen–consumer”(Wallis & Buckingham ), or the “citi-zen–prosumer”. At operative level, one key action of the NPDSconsists of the creation of “innovative scenarios for the de-velopment of applied digital competences” on the basis of a“competence–based teaching paradigm”.

In Slovenia, the field of media education has rather stag-


nated in recent years after more enthusiastic beginnings in thes, when policy developments listed the country amongthe first post–socialist countries including it in the curriculum.Media education is an elective course in primary schools andalso considered as a cross–curricular topic. It appears that itis organised only by a small number of schools and chosenonly by a small number of pupils. What is more, the currentcurriculum of the course, which dates from , is outdated.For example, the curriculum is mainly focused on traditionalmainstream media (newspapers, radio, television) while theInternet that is nowadays widely used by youth is mentionedonly randomly. In addition, the knowledge standards are setto basics: e.g. to explain the characteristics of and find contenton the Internet. Apart from that, recently adopted educationalpolicy documents largely ignore the field of media education.The White Paper on Education (Krek & Metljak ), for ex-ample, does not provide any concrete guidelines in this respect,which again indicates that media education is not adequatelyaddressed in the Slovenian education system.

.. Intercultural education: the need to surpass essentialist notionsof culture and nation–centrism

Most European countries have included references to culturaldiversity in educational policies as a guiding principle or as partof curricular courses. The list of countries includes Austria,Belgium, Germany, Italy and Slovenia (FRA, ).

In Austria, intercultural education as well as interculturallearning (Interkulturelles Lernen) was anchored as a teachingprinciple in the curricula of all general schools at the beginningof the s. Intercultural learning is also part of the curricu-lum’s general educational objectives and didactic principles inprimary and secondary schools. The principle interculturallearning is intended to contribute to «mutual understanding,to the recognition of differences and similarities and to the


reduction of prejudices». On the other hand, neither the stu-dent population’s diversity nor the need to introduce intercul-tural learning throughout the country is fully recognised inthe policy documents. The Austrian school organisational law(paragraph ) for instance still implicitly assumes that studentsin Austrian schools should have Austrian citizenship, which isin sharp contrast to the current state of affairs.

The educational principle of intercultural learning intendsto foster students’ intercultural competences through teach-ing about different cultures by inducing reflection about one’sown culture, by addressing prejudices and racism, and by re-garding cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity as a positivevalue. However, this educational principle assumes the exis-tence of intercultural and heterogeneous school settings (i.e.mixed classes of native students and minorities with an immi-grant background or members of “autochthonous” groups) asa necessary precondition for intercultural learning. Hence, itis not conceived that intercultural learning should address allstudents irrespective of the composition of the student bodyin the classroom. What Luciak & Khan – Svik elaborated ina paper published in is still valid concerning conflictingconcepts of culture, which can be identified in the contentsof the educational principles: «It is suggested that teachers usecultural assets (i.e. habits, languages, customs, traditions, tales,myths, songs, etc.) as topics. This rather monolithic and es-sentialist approach may lead to the assumption that culture isa fixed entity, which is not shaped and altered by human be-ings, but rather distinguishes group members from membersof other cultural groups in all respects. (. . . ) The concept ofculture has more than national or ethnic dimensions. Amongothers, it refers to social class cultures, to cultures of professionsand institutions, to sub–cultures as well as to gender–cultures»(Luciak & Khan–Svik, , p. ).

. Interkulturalität Österreich, retrieved January from https://www.bmb.gv.at/schulen/unterricht/uek/interkulturalitaet.html.

https://www.bmb.gv.at/schulen/unterricht/uek/interkulturalitaet.html

https://www.bmb.gv.at/schulen/unterricht/uek/interkulturalitaet.html


While, as stated above, in Belgium intercultural educationis embedded in citizenship education in Germany, many varia-tions of the inclusion of intercultural education in the curriculaexist. Some of the states have for example developed specialstrategies for schools, while others do not put much emphasison the topic. Intercultural education in the narrow sense oftenoccurs at the level of projects and individual topics of classroominstruction. As an example of a good practice, we could namethe federal programme Promote Tolerance – Strengthen Com-petence (–) by the Federal Ministry for Youth, whichbacked community commitment to democracy and toleranceat the local level. Cities and counties were called on to developa conception for action based on their local situation, with activ-ities and measures initiated and realised by residents, clubs, andinstitutions and focused on strengthening democratic cultureand living together in diversity.

Similarly to media education in Italy, intercultural educa-tion has never been considered a course within the schoolcurriculum; however, its pedagogical value has been progres-sively acknowledged by policy makers, especially in the lastten years and lately often presented as a crucial component ofcitizenship education. The review of policy documents, how-ever, shows that their adoption is strongly characterised bythe “emergency” to integrate rising numbers of students withmigrant background in the Italian school system, mainly by“solving” their linguistic and learning problems. In this respect,the official document published by the Ministry of Educationin titled The Italian Way for the Intercultural School and theIntegration of Foreign Students (La via italiana per la scuola intercul-turale e l’integrazione degli alunni stranieri) represents a notableexception, as it reflects a wider concept of intercultural educa-tion emerging from the academic debate. As these guidelinespoint out, intercultural education is not limited to (or to beconfused with) the actions undertaken to accept the children ofimmigrants. Among the principles of intercultural educationare the promotion of plurilingualism, fostering relationships


with immigrant families, interventions against discriminationand prejudice and an interdisciplinary and cross–cultural ap-proach. A new vision of teacher training inspired by intercul-tural values should be implemented in the educational system;such training should be based on reflective practices, opennessto diversity and ability to understand the cultural backgroundof the students.

In Slovenia, intercultural education is considered as a cross–cur-ricular topic addressed within different courses, especially Geog-raphy. Research on the inclusion of intercultural education in thecourse of Geography in primary schools shows that there havebeen some improvements in this regard in recent years; how-ever, intercultural competences are still not taught to a sufficientdegree (Vrecer, ). On the obligatory policy level, there is aconsiderable void in concrete definition of intercultural educationand inclusion in the educational process. Nevertheless, The WhitePaper on Education recognises global and intercultural education asan important objective of the educational system, which shouldcontribute to creating a more just and cohesive global society(Krek & Metljak, , p. ). This is also the only point wheremedia education is mentioned in the document, i.e. referring toglobal education that is defined as education for human rights,equity, peace, media, intercultural understanding and sustainabledevelopment (ibid., ).

. Actors in media education

According to the European Audiovisual Observatory () datamedia literacy activities in schools in the EU are often organisedwithin the scope of various projects, which are in the majorityconducted by civil society organisations; the next most commonproviders are public authorities and academia. The same reportfound that most of the projects address critical thinking andmedia use, while intercultural dialogue is addressed to the leastextent. Most of the projects were categorised as of national impor-


tance, while the share of European projects is relatively low. Weassume that something similar can be concluded for the fields ofcitizenship and intercultural education.

.. Public and governmental actors

The curricula in all five countries are decreed by public schoolauthorities from national to regional and local levels, who areusually also responsible for funding and quality assurance. Be-sides ministries, important public actors in the field are researchinstitutes and advisory bodies. In all countries, schools andteachers enjoy a certain degree of autonomy in selection ofcontents and methods used in the classrooms, as well as oncooperation with out–of–school organisations.

Some of the countries have established or mandated specialpublic institutions, which are developing the field of mediaeducation:

— The Austrian Department for Media Pedagogy, Edu-cational Media and Media Services (Medienpädagogik,Bildungsmedien und Medienservice) within the Ministryof Education, aims to create awareness about the im-portance of media literacy among citizens. It deliversinformation, research findings, working materials andconsultancy related to media education in Austria. Simi-lar organisational structures can be traced in Germany.

— The government of the French speaking community inBelgium has established an official coordination body onmedia education Higher Council for Media Education(Conseil Supérieur de l’Education aux Médias), which hasbeen provided with budgets dedicated to specific mis-sions targeting schools and lifelong learning initiativesand associations. Part of the scheme are Resource Cen-tres, which are an integrated set of services that manageequipment resources and training materials on mediaeducation. They promote the development of synergies


with other organisations involved in media educationpolicy (public broadcasting service RTBF, Point Culture,local television stations and cultural associations spe-cialised in the matter). The resource centres supportprojects of teachers and groups of teachers as well.

— In Italy, lately the institutional initiatives in the area of digi-tal literacy have been mainly procured in the frameworkof media as a tool in educational technology. Among themost active institutions is the National Institute for Docu-mentation, Innovation and Educational Research (IstitutoNazionale di Documentazione, Innovazione e Ricerca Educa-tiva), which is in charge of the coordination of teachertraining and research on technology integration in edu-cation. The institute has developed many educational re-sources (case studies, tutorials, webinars, etc.), which areavailable online for primary and secondary school teachers.However, teacher training lacks the critical understand-ing and mindful use of media (media literacy education).Conversely, the regional media regulators CORECOM(Comitati Regionali per le Comunicazioni) play a more proac-tive role in the field. Most of their initiatives focus on thesafe use of the Internet and they address children, ado-lescents, teachers and (media) educators. CORECOMsusually carry out their initiatives in large networks of or-ganisations, institutions and private companies.

— In Slovenia, the National Education Institute is the mainnational research, development and consultancy insti-tution in the field of pre–school, primary and generalsecondary education. In recent years, no specific actionhas been undertaken by the institute with regard tomedia education.

In all five countries, universities and research institutes haveconsiderably contributed to the development of media educa-tion field and its inclusion in the school curriculum. In somecountries, public media play a role in media education as well.


Among the goals of the public media service for the Frenchspeaking part of Belgium, RTBF is developing media literacywith and within the population. Since , RTBF has had aspecific mission statement to develop media literacy in theframework of the management contract with the government.For this purpose, in cooperation with High Council for MediaEducation, RTBF developed a strategic plan for media literacy,which includes different initiatives and projects, for exampleTV and radio shows aimed at decoding media (Medialog, LesDécodeurs RTBF, Media , Empreinte digitale, Surfons tranquille,Hi Tech, L’actu du web et des médias, La journée du web ou Laboite à clichés) or guided tours of the RTBF studios for schoolsand other groups). The Italian public broadcasting companyRAI has carried out several media education projects aimed atpromoting media literacy among the general public throughspecific educational TV shows, for example “La TV Ribelle”(The Rebel TV), whose contents are directly suggested byyoung people via social networks.

.. Non–governmental initiatives

In several European countries, it was and still is the enthusi-astic work of non–governmental organisations that is the keydrive of media education development and practicing. The ac-tivities are manifold and often extra–curricular (work in youthcentres, life–long learning programmes, awards, journals, pro-viding online resources etc.). Austria, Belgium, Germany andItaly have in this respect a very rich landscape of organisationsdealing with media education, while Slovenia lags behind. Thiscan at least partly be explained by the fact that Slovenia hasnot yet established a consistent funding framework for thenon–governmental sector.

. For more information: see www.rtbf.be/entreprise/education-aux-medias/intro/detail_l-education-aux-medias-c-est-quoi?id= ( January).

http://www.rtbf.be/entreprise/education-aux-medias/intro/detail_l-education-aux-medias-c-est-quoi?id=9318722

http://www.rtbf.be/entreprise/education-aux-medias/intro/detail_l-education-aux-medias-c-est-quoi?id=9318722


A common problem in all five countries seems to be loosenetworking between different organisations. Describing thesituation in Austria, Thomas A. Bauer uses the metaphor ofa “country of mountains” to portray the landscape of mediaeducation, which is characterised by mostly small local or re-gional initiatives (the mountain peaks) that lack close ties toeach other as well as a coherent framework (Bauer, ).

In French–speaking Belgium, media education historicallystemmed from a movement of pioneer practitioners, who en-thusiastically organised various activities in and outside ofschools and laid the foundation for what progressively cameto be known as media education. Other important actors inthe field are youth organisations and movements which in-tegrated media education in their global vision of individualand social education; civil associations which are concentratedon prevention activities (on school dropout, drug abuse, cul-tural exclusion, etc.) and include media education into theirpedagogical model; cultural associations (theatres, book clubs,movie clubs etc.), as well as trade unions and professionalassociations. Funding comes mainly from regional and com-munity–level authorities and is mostly aimed at the HigherCouncil for Media Education, which supports resource centres,for the school system, for media programmes produced bythe public media sector, and for continued and lifelong educa-tion initiatives. Each year, private foundations (e.g. the Evensfoundation) award prizes for best practices.

In Germany, among the most visible initiatives of recent yearsis No Education without Media!, which published a manifest in (KBoM ) that dramatically depicted the need for reme-dial steps in the field of media education, both in scholarly per-spective and in the context of practical action, and that addressedpolitical decision–makers with specific recommendations. Theinitiative is tied to The Society for Media and Communication(Gesellschaft für Medien und Kommunikation), a non–profit pro-fessional organisation for media education. The Society connectsinterested and committed persons from scholarly and practical


fields of work, facilitating the exchange of information and standsfor the advancement of media education and media competencyin the society. In , the society issued a National Report onMedia Literacy, which was commissioned by the Federal Min-istry of Education (BMFSFJ ). With its annual conferenceForum Communication Culture (Forum Kommunikationskul-tur), workshops, publications and projects, the society accentsessential topics in media and democracy education, respondswhere there is a need to act and initiates best–practice projects.In recent years, they have published several green papers andpublic statements on current media education policies.

In Italy, since the early s many efforts of civil societyorganisations have been invested in overcoming the fragmenta-tion of media education’s initiatives, primarily by connectingprofessionals active in different fields. Most active in this respectare The Italian Association for Media Education and Commu-nication Studies (founded in ) and Zaffiria (founded ).The first consists of a network of about people includ-ing academic scholars, school teachers/educators and mediaprofessionals based all over Italy. The Association’s activities en-compass the publication of the Journal MED – Media EducationStudies (Parola & Ranieri, ); the elaboration and dissemina-tion of instructional guides on media education (Ceretti, Felini& Giannatelli, ; Parola, Rosa & Giannatelli, ; Felini &Trinchero, ); and the delivery of media literacy educationtraining, especially through a dedicated Summer School onMedia Education that has taken place every summer since .

In Slovenia non–governmental organisations as well playan important role in the media education field through theirproject work. However, there is no non–governmental organ-isation (public institution or private company) which system-atically develops and offers courses on media education forstudents, which indicates an underdeveloped area in Slovenia.Organisations dealing with media education usually operatein the fields of human rights, non–discrimination, global edu-cation and active citizenship, while media education is rarely


considered as the main topic. Nevertheless, these organisa-tions pursue media education by addressing various publicsand through various activities, such as workshops, seminars,discussions, voluntary and community work, research etc. Themarginalisation of the topic is seen in the lack of institutionalsupport to such NGO projects and programmes, leaving theirimplementation more or less accidental or dependent on moti-vation of individual schools and teachers.

.. Private actors

In Austria, Belgium and Italy private actors have also been iden-tified, which in recent years have begun to enter public schoolsthrough media education. As was observed in Belgium, com-panies pursue their marketing interests by funding “connectedclassrooms” or organising teacher training sessions on inter-active technologies. The analysis from Austria has shown thatactions funded by private companies are usually of local scaleand concentrate on production techniques. In Italy, the increasedinvolvement of private media and global ITC corporations inschools is part of the process of digitalisation of the Italian school.Recently, Samsung founded and promoted the project SmartFuture with the aim of introducing their technological devicesin Italian schools along with a dedicated “technology integrationmethod” developed by the academic research unit Cremit (Ri-voltella ). The cooperation of private companies with schoolsraises concerns about the marketisation of media education andthe whole educational process. The question to be solved is un-der what conditions does such cooperation take place. In Italyseveral media companies (RCS Media Group, Poligrafici Publish-ers and Il Sole Ore) have launched a project called Newspapersat School (Quotidiano in classe) with the aim of developing a qual-ity news culture and of reducing the gap between news mediaand young people’s media cultures.


. Conclusions: (Dis)connections between policy and prac-tice in media education approaches

The analysis of the five national cases has revealed four commonareas, where policy interventions in the field of CMIE are needed.These concern problems with the conceptual framework, thesecondary placement of the course(s) in the school practice, thelack of teachers’ competences and training and underdevelopedassessment tools in the field of citizenship education.

Especially the fields of citizenship and intercultural educa-tion are politically contested, which can be seen from year–longand heated debates in different European countries. Policiesand the curricula usually at least on declarative level complywith the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EuropeanUnion. Within this general framework, there are howevermany variations and contested conceptualisations. Some Eu-ropean countries have in recent years made progressive stepsforward in reconceptualisation and placement of citizenshipeducation in the curricula (e.g. Austria, Belgium). However, ithas also been observed that citizenship education is increas-ingly framed in cultural (e.g. Italy) or even nationalistic terms(Slovenia). Citizenship education curricula are as well regu-larly criticised for their normative approach and too narrowunderstanding of politics in terms of representative democracy.

Media education is to the least extent vivid in Slovenia, whilein Austria, Belgium, Italy and Germany policy developmentsshow positive trends, even though the misunderstanding ofmedia education simply as digital literacy is still present. Mostloosely defined in policy documents and included in the curric-ula is intercultural education; its principles are often in collisionwith more or less explicit nationalism and ethnocentrism an-chored in various policy documents. Intercultural educationstill approaches “the Others” as a problem and is too oftennarrowed to language learning.

The section on main actors in the field of media educa-tion has first and foremost pointed out the crucial role of


non–governmental/civil society organisations and committedindividuals in professionalisation of media education and in thisrespect the need for adequate funding of their activities. Someof our country cases (e.g. Belgium, Italy) have anchored fund-ing programmes in various policies which can be considered asexamples of good practice. The increased entrance of privatecompanies into schools requires regulation, in order to bringthe economic interests in frames of media education policiesand prevent the marketisation of media education.

The general objectives of the EU and national policy doc-uments include respect of human rights, fostering of intercul-tural dialogue and promotion of solidarity. Lacks have how-ever been identified in this chapter in implementation of theseprinciples in the curricula and school practice. Citizenship, me-dia and intercultural education are in everyday practice oftentreated as a secondary issue. The implementation of CMIEmostly depends on the commitment of individual teachers, theinitiatives by special interest groups and non–governmentalorganisations. Our research has identified the need that CMIErequires recognition and support by policy makers, in particu-lar in countries where no systematic funding is in place for thenon–governmental sector.

Our findings show that there are gaps in ensuring the qualityof CMIE in schools. The effectiveness of a cross–curricular ap-proach has often been questioned and in countries where thisis not yet the case, the implementation of individual courseson CMIE should be considered. A need for adopting regula-tions on qualifications for teachers in this field and for teachertraining on CMIE has been identified. Teacher training shouldaim at increasing the understanding of mediatised societiesand increasing their intercultural competences. Funds shouldbe ensured for continuous development of resources, whichcan be used in the teaching practice. Also, rapid changes inEuropean societies call for ongoing adaptation of curricula.

Citizenship, media and intercultural education are politi-cally contested fields and it is of particular importance that


policy makers acknowledge and follow the concepts developedby experts from academia and practice. In the field of citizen-ship education, ethnocentric and nationalist conceptualisationsshould be reviewed and critically reflected, and the understand-ing of politics widened.

Our research has proven that media education has to putmore emphasis on critical information reception and produc-tion, and reflections of media industry, social justice, (anti)racism,questioning of political and media authorities. Alternative mod-els of design and distribution as those promoted by the opensoftware movement should be part of a pedagogical approachto media at school.

Also, the comparative analysis has confirmed the need forintercultural education receiving more attention (or: gettinga more visible place) in the curricula, while integration mea-sures for immigrant children should not concentrate only onlanguage learning. Special attention should be devoted to cul-tures of immigrant children in the educational process. Fur-ther, measures for children from different socially deprivedcontexts should be included in the legislation to a higher ex-tent. Efforts are needed that lead to increased awareness of theconsequences of structural and institutional inequalities. Whileculturally sensitive and competent teachers and peers mightpromote minority students’ educational success, this will notsuffice in abolishing institutional inequalities, including thosereproduced by the educational system.

Last but not least, many objectives from the educationalpolicy documents (e.g. human rights, solidarity, tolerance, cre-ation of a more just and cohesive global society) are in sharpcontrast with national and EU policies and actions in otherfields, especially if we observe the discourses and recent leg-islative measures adopted on migration. Current mainstreampolitics on several occasions has legitimised hate speech anddelegitimised the professional field of citizenship, media andintercultural education, which disempowers teachers in theireveryday practice. Teachers and schools cannot solve the prob-


lems of contemporary societies alone and without a change inthe political field.

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http://www.elmmagazine.eu/articles/slovenia-shapes-up-intercultural-adult-education


Theorising and designing mediaand intercultural education

A Framework and Some Guidelines

M R, F F∗

. Introduction

Schools, today, are increasingly multicultural with classes beinginhabited by students with different cultural backgrounds. Atthe same time, these students belong to a generation who areintensively using digital technologies and social media to accessinformation and connect with each other. If, on one hand, thisreflects what is happening on the side of the students, on theother hand, the attention to teachers’ preparation and trainingon media and intercultural education is still limited (see Chap-ter ). Moreover, since media and intercultural education arenot embedded in the curriculum, there is also a lack of goodpractices that teachers could refer to in order to transformtheir professional practices (Parola & Ranieri, ). With thisin mind the MEET project aimed at developing educationalmaterials to be used by teachers for promoting critical mediaunderstanding among students and creative media practices as

. This chapter has been jointly conceived by the authors and its contentsare the result of a common work of theoretical and methodological investigation.Only for the purposes of this chapter, Maria Ranieri edited sections and , whileFrancesco Fabbro edited sections and . The introduction was jointly written byboth authors.


Maria Ranieri, Francesco Fabbro

well as intercultural communication competences and aware-ness. In order to clarify the theoretical and methodologicalpremises of the learning scenario design, we decided to elabo-rate a conceptual framework useful to identify possible learningobjectives across media and intercultural education. Media andIntercultural Education Framework (MIEF) is the name of thisconceptual framework and it resembles a taxonomy of learningobjectives (Ranieri & Fabbro, ). Its elaboration was not amere academic exercise. Very often media literacy educationis confused with a more instrumental view of media and tech-nologies in schools (for example, using media and technologiesto teach about disciplines like languages, sciences, history etc.)or also with developing information technology proceduralskills (Parola & Ranieri, ). Intercultural education, instead,is sometimes assimilated to folkloristic educational activities,losing the dimensions related to the pluralist understandingof cultures and to communication/interaction. MIEF shouldhelp teachers better identify relevant and pertinent media andintercultural education objectives avoiding misleading overlap-ping and focusing on meaningful goals. In parallel, we alsofound it of crucial importance to provide teachers with someguidelines to design media education for intercultural classes,thus increasing the impact of MEET’s approach and encouragepossible scaling up of MEET educational contents. In this chap-ter, we present and discuss both MIEF and the guidelines as astarting point for the co–design of the learning scenarios thatwere implemented and evaluated within MEET and whoseresults are presented in the next chapter.

. Media and Intercultural Education for Citizenship

.. Media Literacy Education

The expression media literacy began to circulate in the th

century, especially in the United States where curricula on

Theorising and designing media and intercultural education

television literacy were implemented in schools. Until recently,the use of this formula was rare in Europe, Canada or Australia,where alternative labels like “media education” or “educationaux media” were preferred. Currently the term media literacyhas largely been adopted in the European lexicon, as evidencedby several sources such as institutional documents, conferences,scientific publications and so on. According to Buckingham(), media literacy is the result of media education whichis defined as the teaching and learning process through whichthe ability to “read” and “write” the media and make active andaware use of it is promoted. In fact, media literacy includes bothcritical understanding of media through analytical processesand creative practices of media production allowing children toexpress themselves. Specifically, Buckingham () indicatesfour main categories for media analysis and understanding:Production, Language, Representation and Audience.

The first category, Production, entails a reflection around as-pects related to the production of the media and to the industrythat governs it, soliciting students’ questioning on issues like:what technologies are used to produce and distribute mediacontent? What are the professional roles involved? Who ownsthe media? What are the laws that regulate the production anddistribution of media? The second category, Language, refers tothe importance of understanding the rules of media grammarand how they generate meanings. Since media are based ondifferent languages and communication codes, determiningtheir meanings, students must be encouraged to analyse anddeconstruct media texts through the analysis of the differentlanguages that characterise them (verbal, bodily, visual, etc.).The third category, Representation, refers to a concept whichhas always been at the core of critical reflection on media inthe history of media education. The basic idea is that mediadoes not reflect reality in a transparent way, but reproduces itaccording to ideological values and visions, policies or moralsof those who control them. To this purpose it is crucial to ques-tion the intentions that lie behind the representations, issues


related to partiality vs. objectivity, how certain social groups arerepresented and so on. Lastly, the fourth category is Audience:recent studies on audience have questioned the dominant viewof the role of the public when using media, pointing out thatthe public cannot be assimilated to an undifferentiated mass ofeasily influenced subjects, but reflect very sophisticated and di-versified ways of using and interpreting media. Understandingthe way in which the media reach their audience, on one hand,and how the various social groups use and interpret the media,on the other, is one of the main objectives of this area of mediaanalysis.

Focusing on the definition of media literacy in Europe,Celot and Tornero () have underlined that, although theconcepts related to media literacy appear to be unstable and ex-panding, there is a certain consensus on the following definingcategories:

— Access: this concerns the ability to use media, includingboth material access and the immaterial one, meant asthe cognitive ability to adequately use them. Specifically,in terms of abilities it refers to a set of skills rangingfrom the basic skill of reading and writing the media tothe ability to use research and consultation tools. Theconditions for access, encompassing the material andimmaterial component, are not the same for all people,but rely on factors such as age, geographical context,socio–cultural background and so on.

— Analysis: this refers to the ability to read and understandmedia content and opportunities. Reading the mediaentails being able to decode a message in relation to aspecific communicative situation, while understandingthe media means being able to relate a meaning to a con-crete context. The analysis involves a deep understandingof the messages and requires knowledge of appropriateconcepts and categories (taken from semiotics), the useof logical links (before/after, cause/effect), the ability to


determine the genre of a text, the point of view and thesocio–economic interests that it expresses, the intentionof the author, the aesthetic principles and its poetics, andthe contextualisation of the text in the historical–culturalenvironment in which it was produced.

— Evaluation: this consists of the ability to classify me-dia content and opportunities; it also includes judge-ments on the value that a message has for each reader,also in terms of meaning; it entails the ability to iden-tify the ethical, aesthetic and cultural values underlyinga certain message and the comparison between theseand the set of values of the evaluating subject. Varioussub–dimensions are included in the analysis and evalua-tion area, among which the individual’s ability to searchfor and select information and to evaluate it consider-ing its reliability, credibility and truthfulness. This is thearea of critical thinking, an area of major interest formedia literacy. Being able to evaluate and appropriatelyuse different sources is of crucial importance, includ-ing verifying their reliability and value, contextualisingthem according to the context where they were pro-duced, highlighting their ideological dimensions, evalu-ating their structure and coherence.

— Communication and creative production: this includes theskills that are necessary to create and produce messages,using a variety of expressive codes (from written to au-dio–visual or digital codes), and to disseminate them.Other skills related to this area are: understanding thecharacteristics of the audience to whom the message isaddressed and being able to adapt the message to the au-dience in order to capture and maintain attention; beingable to organise a sequence of ideas in an effective and at-tractive discourse storyline. This area is further enrichedby the th century theoretical reflection on the notionof communication and its ethical–political implications.Specifically, Habermas stressed the pragmatic nature of


communication capacity, pointing out that it representsthe necessary universal component that allows peopleto interact according to shared rules. As such, this skillallows citizens to be active and participate in the publicsphere, and therefore must be equally distributed.

In the US, a prominent role in the debate on the meaningsassociated with media literacy education has been played byRenee Hobbs (), who defined “digital and media literacy”as the ability to: «() make responsible choices and access infor-mation by locating and sharing materials and comprehendinginformation and ideas, () analyse messages in a variety offorms by identifying the author, purpose and point of view andevaluating the quality and credibility of the content, () createcontent in a variety of forms for authentic purposes, makinguse of language, images, sound, and new digital tools and tech-nologies, () reflect on one’s own conduct and communicationbehaviour by applying social responsibility and ethical prin-ciples, and () take social action by working individually andcollaboratively to share knowledge and solve problems in thefamily, workplace, and community, and participating as a mem-ber of a community» (p. VII–VIII). This definition is based onthe traditional approach to media literacy, that we mentionedabove, entailing access, analysis, evaluation and production, butit integrates it with reflection and action highlighting the con-ceptual links between media and digital literacy, on the onehand, and ethical, civic and social dimensions, on the other.In addition, it emphasises the integration of media analysisand production as a holistic approach to media literacy edu-cation, an approach that should reduce the risk of distrust orof a certain cynicism towards the media, which is a potentialpitfall of media literacy education when approached in tooindividualistic and rationalist ways (Ranieri, Fabbro & Frelih,).

Lastly, for the purposes of this chapter, another relevant ref-erence is Kellner and Share’s () work, where the expression


“critical media literacy” is suggested to be used, thus enlargingthe traditional concept of literacy to include different types ofmass communication and popular culture (see also Gee, ;) and deepen «the potential of education to critically anal-yse relationships between media and audiences, informationand power» (Kellner & Share, , p. ). This requires thepromotion of «skills in analysing media codes and conventions,abilities to criticise stereotypes, dominant values, and ideolo-gies, and competencies to interpret the multiple meanings andmessages generated by media texts” (ibid.). In such a way, criti-cal media literacy helps people «to evaluate media content, tocritically dissect media forms, to investigate media effects anduses, to use media intelligently, and to construct alternativemedia» (ibid.).

To sum up, the development of media literacy skills involvesa process which can be described in four main phases. At afirst level, the material and cognitive access to the media pre-vails as a necessary, still not sufficient, condition for medialiteracy. At a second level, a media literate citizen must beable to critically and deeply understand the mechanisms thatgovern the media landscape and this requires a commitmentto the analysis and evaluation of media content and contextsas well as their opportunities and limitations. At a third level,we find the productive–creative component: the new digitalmedia have enormously increased the opportunities for cre-ating and producing messages, but there is no deterministicrelationship between media diffusion and increase in creativeproduction and active participation. Therefore, as a last stepmedia education should promote learning opportunities aimedat encouraging both the reflection on one’s own conduct andcommunication behaviour and the active participation of citi-zens in the new digital landscapes (Mihailidis, ; Mihailidis& Viotty, ; Ranieri, Fabbro & De Theux, ).


.. Intercultural Literacy Education

As we have seen in Chapter , intercultural education is nota new topic for the European education system. Since ,through several publications, the Council of Europe has de-veloped a European model of intercultural curriculum play-ing a pioneer role and raising great interest among scholarsand teachers during the eighties and nineties (Campani, ).While the debate on intercultural education was very rich,the European national governments never fostered social, cul-tural and educational policies encouraging multiculturalismand, today, there are no traces of intercultural education inthe curricula at mainstream level. Nevertheless, globalisationprocesses as well as the “human flow” — to mention the filmby the contemporary Chinese artist Ai Weiwei — leaving theirnative lands to land in Western countries, call for reconceptu-alising intercultural education in this new and wider context(Coulby, ) as well as for preparing teachers and educatorsto teach in classes where students with different cultural back-grounds coexist. If answering the question «What should bemeant by intercultural education today?» is beyond the scopeof this chapter, defining the concept of intercultural compe-tence or literacy is crucial for our argument. In fact, a betterunderstanding of the components included in this competenceshould provide the ground to support teachers in the definitionof learning objectives in the areas of media and interculturaleducation. There is a wide and multidisciplinary literature onintercultural competence and similar constructs: scholars withdifferent backgrounds have provided diverse definitions or alsoused different terms. As a result, there are several definitionsand models, some more broadly shaped and others more fo-cused on a specific aspect. All this makes the task of answeringthe question «What is intercultural competence?» challengingand complex.

Following the review carried out by Perry & Southwell(), we present below the main conceptual models used


to define intercultural competence, starting with interculturalunderstanding, which includes constructs from the cognitive(knowledge and awareness) and affective domains, then mov-ing to intercultural competence, which building on intercul-tural understanding also encompasses behaviour and commu-nication.

— Intercultural understanding

Intercultural understanding comprises both cognitive andaffective components (Hill ). The cognitive element refersto knowledge of one’s own culture as well as knowledge ofother cultures (Hill ), including similarities and differencesbetween them. This component is crucial, but it is not suffi-cient, since intercultural understanding also requires positiveattitudes towards other cultures, such as empathy, curiosity andrespect (Arasaratnam & Doerfel, ; Deardorff, b; Hill,).

Moving to the affective element, the expression “intercul-tural sensitivity” (Straffon, , p. ) has been used to indi-cate a person’s affective response to intercultural difference. Infact, intercultural sensitivity has been meant either as the affec-tive aspect of intercultural communication competence (Chen& Starosta, ) or as the subjective (phenomenological) expe-rience of cultural difference (Bennett ). This is an importantelement of intercultural competence (Hammer, Bennett andWiseman ), since an increase of intercultural sensitivitycorresponds to an increase of intercultural competence.

— Intercultural competence

Although in the last years several different definitions ofintercultural competence have been elaborated with no agree-ment among the various scholars on a unique understandingof the concept (Deardorff a), all definitions recognise thatthis competence includes «the ability to interact effectively


and appropriately with people from other cultures» (Perry &Southwell, , p. ). By calling into question the concept ofinteraction, it is clear that intercultural competence has to donot only with knowledge about culture/s but also with com-munication skills and behaviour. Looking at specific definitionsor models, they are often formulated in terms of knowledge, at-titudes, skills and behaviours. For example, according to Lustigand Koester () intercultural competence involves knowl-edge, motivation, verbal and non–verbal communication skillsas well as appropriate and effective behaviours. Similarly, in hisdefinition Byram () includes attitudes, knowledge, skills ofinterpreting and discovery, interaction skills and critical aware-ness. Even Heyward (, p. ) refers to similar elementslike «the understandings, competencies, attitudes, languageproficiencies, participation and identities necessary for success-ful cross–cultural engagement». Hiller and Wozniak ()emphasise behavioural flexibility, communicative awareness,knowledge discovery, respect for others and empathy, whileBennett (, p. ) underlines similarities among the differ-ent definitions, observing that most of them include «a set ofcognitive, affective and behavioural skills and characteristicsthat support effective and appropriate interaction in a varietyof cultural contexts». Other scholars tend to see interculturalcompetence as a process. For example, in Deardorff ’s (a)model certain knowledge and attitudes are placed at the baseof a pyramid as a starting point for the development of inter-cultural competence: at a first level a series of knowledge andcomprehension, including self–awareness and skills, are posed;then, at a second level, informed frames of reference involvingempathy and an ethno–relative view are included. Interculturalcompetency relies on these foundations.

— Intercultural communication

As reported by Perry and Southwell (), extensive re-search exists about the communication component of intercul-


tural competence. Looking at intercultural competence fromthis point of view entails incorporating culture into commu-nication theory, which is a complex task that has been accom-plished in many different ways (Gudykunst et al., ). As afirst approach to the issue, we can observe that interculturalcommunication «occurs when large and important cultural dif-ferences create dissimilar interpretations and expectations abouthow to communicate competently» (Lustig & Koester, ,p. ). That said, it is not clear whether this competence couldbe transferred to other contexts since it is highly relational andsituational in the sense that it is not an individual attribute butrather a characteristic involving more individuals (Lustig &Koester, ). However, some features can be identified. Forexample, Matveev and Nelson () emphasise interpersonalskills, team effectiveness, cultural uncertainty and cultural em-pathy, while Arasaratnam and Doerfel () suggest empathy,intercultural experience/training, motivation, global attitudeand ability to listen well in conversation.

.. The Media and Intercultural Education Framework

MIEF identifies four frames reflecting both media and inter-cultural education aspirations, and for each frame indicatesspecific educational objectives. Teachers and researchers canadopt this framework to identify relevant educational objec-tives for teaching media education in intercultural contexts(Table ).


Tab

le.

The

Med

iaan

dIn

terc

ultu

ralE

duca

tion

Fram

ewor

k(M

IEF)

.

Med

iaed

ucat

ion

unde

rsta

ndan

dan

alys

eM

edia

educ

atio

ncr

eate

and

refle

ct

Fram

e1

Fram

e2

Inte

rnat

iona

ledu

catio

n.Re

c-og

nize

and

Dece

ntre

1.1

Unde

rsta

ndth

ere

latio

nshi

pbe

twee

nth

em

edia

and

re-

ality

,and

how

med

iacla

imto

‘tellt

hetru

th’a

bout

the

world

2.1

Reco

gnise

your

own

(diffe

rent

)int

entio

nsan

dbe

expl

icit

abou

tthe

m,t

heau

dien

cean

dth

eim

pact

,whi

lebe

ing

able

toex

plai

nan

dju

stify

your

com

mun

icativ

eap

proa

ch1.

2Cr

itical

lyex

amin

eth

epr

oces

sof

med

iare

pres

enta

tion

toex

pose

and

disc

uss

issue

sof

ideo

logy

,pow

eran

dpl

ea-

sure

2.2

Ackn

owle

dge

that

audi

ence

sm

aybe

dive

rse,

inclu

ding

socia

l,ge

nder

and

cultu

rald

iffere

nces

,tha

tthe

ym

ayre

-sp

ond

indi

vers

ean

dun

pred

ictab

lewa

ys,a

ndwh

yth

isca

noc

cur

1.3

Iden

tify

the

(un)

repr

esen

ted

voice

san

dvie

wpoi

nts

inth

em

edia

2.3

Deve

lop

awar

enes

sto

ward

slin

guist

ican

dcu

ltura

lcon

-ve

ntio

nsan

dth

ewa

ysth

ese

can

bepl

ayed

with

,cha

lleng

edor

subv

erte

d1.

4Q

uest

ioni

ngho

wm

edia

(mis)

repr

esen

tspe

cific

socia

lgr

oups

thro

ugh

inac

cura

tean

d/or

offe

nsive

mes

sage

s,fo

rex

ampl

eal

ong

the

lines

ofge

nder

,rel

igio

usaf

filiat

ion

and

ethn

icity

2.4

Mas

tert

hera

nge

ofre

sour

ces

and

tool

sth

atar

eav

ail-

able

tocr

eate

mea

ning

,acr

oss

diffe

rent

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. Media Education Design Principles for Multicultural Con-texts

Along with MIEF, we developed related guidelines for support-ing teachers to design and implement inclusive media edu-cation practices. These guidelines combine the principles ofUniversal Design for Learning (UDL) (Meyer, Rose & Gor-don, ) with a more contextualised approach based on so-cio–cultural educational practices (Vygotsky, ). The ideaof adopting (and adapting) the UDL approach came mainlyfrom the need to un–standardise the curriculum. As we willsee below, UDL is a strategy to help all learners learn (whichreflects a universalistic view) through personalisation (whichpoints out the value of diversity) rather than standardisation.This is consistent with Sleeter’s (, p. ) argument for mul-ticultural education: «the main problem is learning to valuepoints of view and accumulated knowledge that is not domi-nant and has been routinely excluded from the mainstream».As a consequence, Sleeter () questions the role of standard-isation as a means to overcome inequalities and claims thata standardised curriculum corresponds to institutionalising aunivocal definition of a well–educated person. On the contrary,in a democracy dealing with global challenges and culturaldiversities we need a «marketplace of ideas and a diversity ofperspectives» (Sleeter, , p. ): «Diverse funds of knowledgemeans that everyone does not learn the same things. Allowingfor development of diversity in expertise can serve as an intel-lectual resource for constructive participation in a multiculturaldemocracy and a diverse world» (Sleeter, , p. ). Enrichingand broadening the current curriculum, thus un–standardisingit, is of crucial importance in the multicultural approach.

Coming more specifically to UDL, it consists of a set ofconcrete suggestions that teachers from any domain can applyto their practices in order to help students better access andtake part in meaningful learning opportunities. This approachis based on the idea that, as shown by much empirical research,


learners respond to instruction in very different ways: individ-ual differences play a pivotal role in learning, while they areoften overlooked both in research and in instruction. On thecontrary, the UDL framework deals with these differences asan important focus to design effective teaching. The generalprinciples of UDL are grounded in a variety of research in-cluding the fields of neuroscience, the learning sciences andcognitive psychology. As for neuroscience, the three UDL ba-sic principles are rooted in the idea that our learning brainsare composed of three different recognition networks, whichin the UDL guidelines have been reported as representation,strategic, which has been assimilated to action, and affective,which corresponds to engagement. An important role in theguidelines is played by concepts such as Zone of Proximal De-velopment, scaffolding, mentors, and modelling, as well as theseminal works of Piaget, Vygotsky, Bruner, Ross, Wood andBloom.

In an attempt to conjugate media literacy education withinclusive strategies for teaching and learning, MEET guide-lines adopted and adapted the UDL framework by stressingthe relevance of socio–cultural aspects and emphasising theinfluence of contextual factors: briefly, considering learnersas social actors rather than as cognitive monads. Media andcultural diversity are crucial components of this wider perspec-tive of teaching and learning, crucial components that mustbe reflected in instructional practices. This led to reshape theUDL principles integrating them with a broader understand-ing of the influence of socio–cultural aspects, including mediaand cultural diversity, on learning, while keeping the relevanceof scaffolding. Therefore, representation in MEET guidelinesis meant as a construct which is not built into a person’s sin-gle mind of a rich, white student, but as a mediation between

. In the field of media literacy education, similar approaches have been under-taken by Friesem () and Dalton () with a specific focus on teaching medialiteracy education to special needs students.


the subject and the reality strongly affected by power rela-tionships. Action, instead, has been rephrased into Expressionwhich is the typical action that people undertake when activelyusing the media or communicate in a multicultural context. Atthe same time, underlying the social nature of learning pro-cesses, MEET principles connect the affective dimension tocommunity building processes in a clearer way: while personal-isation/individualisation is important to help all students accessand participate in relevant learning activities, students’ engage-ment meant as a cultural and political process to take part ina community is fundamental to move from being a studentto becoming a citizen, which is the final aim of media literacyeducation.

In the next paragraph, we will describe MEET guidelinesand provide examples of activities to better highlight how teach-ers and educators can implement them addressing interculturalissues through media literacy education.

. MEET guidelines: principles and examples of practices

.. Scaffold for students’ understanding

A first set of guidelines concern the facilitation of students’ crit-ical understanding of media and intercultural/democratic rela-tions in contemporary society. The suggestions offered withinthis area centre on ensuring access, including physical access,to cognitive resources, developing knowledge about media,cultures and societal issues, and fostering a critical approach tomedia representations of reality.

Provide alternative material to enhance perception

— Offer alternatives for auditory information (e.g. writtentranscripts of videos or auditory clips; use emoticons,symbols, or visual analogies to point out emphasis and


prose style; provide visual and/or emotional descriptionfor musical interpretation).

— Offer alternatives for visual information (e.g. providewritten or spoken descriptions for all images, graphics,video, or animations; employ tangible equivalents suchas tactile graphics).

Box . Example from the LS «Challenge violence and play your rights»,Unit .

The teacher lets the students listen to the audio of the movie trailer Reign of Assassins. Thenthe teacher asks the students to guess the genre of the film and which feelings the sound elicits.Afterward the teacher shows the full trailer (with audio and visuals) and asks the studentsto explain how the images (visual language) and the words (verbal language) represent theviolent actions, as well as which role violence plays in the story and what emotions the trailerelicits. Here the teacher integrates the students’ answers with more detailed observations onthe audio–visual language (e.g. shots, word choice, style of editing, special effects, etc.) and itsnarrative functions

Provide language options

— Clarify vocabulary (e.g. teach essential vocabulary wordsin advance, especially in ways that promote connectionto the learners’ experience and prior knowledge; high-light how complex terms can be explained by simplerwords; embed support for vocabulary such as hyperlinksor footnotes containing definitions).

— Promote understanding across languages (e.g. make allkey information in the dominant language (e.g., English)available also in first languages (e.g., Spanish) of learn-ers with limited–English proficiency; provide electronictranslation tools or links to multilingual glossaries onthe web).

— Illustrate through multiple media (e.g. present key con-cepts in written form with an alternative form such as


illustration, diagram, video, comic strip, storyboard, pho-tograph, animation, etc.).

— Be sure to use culturally sensitive media (e.g. select il-lustrations, diagrams, videos, comic strips, storyboards,photographs, animations, etc. taking into account stu-dents’ cultural references — including youth culture,family culture etc.).

Box . Example from the LS «Questioning news media representations ofthe “others” through video–reporting», Unit .

The teacher briefly presents four/five short videos of different media products (e.g. a newsreport, a social advert, a short animated film, etc.) representing the lives of immigrants andrefugees. The class is organised in groups of four to watch the videos and carry out a criticalanalysis activity by using a dedicated worksheet with some guiding questions. Each group willanalyse two videos. The same video has to be seen by at least two groups to facilitate peerevaluation.

Provide context and guidance for critical understanding

— Activate or supply background knowledge (e.g. anchormedia education key concepts such as representation,language, production, audiences, to students’ experienceby activating relevant prior knowledge about media;build bridges to concepts with relevant analogies andmetaphors; suggest connections to other school sub-jects).

— Highlight patterns, critical issues, key ideas, and relation-ships (e.g. emphasise key ideas; draw conceptual maps,give multiple examples and cues to underline criticalissues and significant patterns; highlight existing skillsand knowledge that can be used to analyse and evaluatemedia).

— Guide understanding (e.g. provide multiple entry pointsto a lesson by exploring key concepts through dramatic


works, arts and literature, film etc.; break down infor-mation into smaller elements; progressively release addi-tional information; provide clear analytical frameworks).

— Maximise understanding (e.g. incorporate explicit op-portunities for review and practice; provide templatesand concept maps; offer occasional opportunities to re-visit key ideas and linkages between theory and practice;embed and compare new ideas in familiar ideas and con-texts by employing analogy, metaphor, drama, music,film, etc.).

— Enable the contextualisation of media analysis and pro-duction (e.g. provide concrete opportunities to explorethe themes or issues that media address, the needs anddesires they claim to fulfil, and the functions they servein people’s everyday lives (group discussion, role play,etc.); encourage consideration of wider historical, social,economic, cultural, political and geographical questionsconnected to media practices).

— Encourage (cultural) decentralisation (e.g. provide op-portunities to analyse and discuss non–hegemonic (me-dia) narratives and viewpoints; to compare familiar andunfamiliar (media) narratives/practices).


Box . Example from the LS «Building a diverse and democratic commu-nity», Unit .

The teacher announces a role–play game and invites 7 students to volunteer as actors. He/she does not say anything about the content and individual characters. The game is mime.Student–actors go with the assistant to a separate room. They have 20 minutes for preparation.The assistant distributes the instructions for the role–play and students decide who will playwhich role. The name of each role is stuck on the back of each participant. Teacher divides therest of the group in smaller groups of 2 or 3 people and explains them that they will have therole of journalists/media representatives. Each group represents a different medium (e.g. qualitynewspaper, tabloid press, local newspaper, minority medium etc.). The groups examine on theInternet the content of the medium they will be representing and are looking for examples ofstereotyping (text, video, picture). For each case, they complete the table and prepare to reporttheir findings to the class. After 20 minutes, the actors return to the classroom and play outthe incident. The game can be repeated, if students want. Each medium has the possibilityof asking one participant one question about the incident. Then student–journalists write ashort report about the incident, taking into account the specifics of the medium they represent.During the time when journalists write their reports, the actors go to a separate room and writeon the sheet with their names the answers to the following questions: – How did you feel inthe role you played? – How would you feel and how would you react if you were actually in thissituation? All students go back to the classroom and sit in a circle. First, the journalists read theirreports. Each team shows the front page (or an example of a printed issue) of the newspaper itrepresents. All reports are read one after another and are not commented on. Then the teacherreads the actual article. A discussion follows on why various media report differently about thesame situation. Representatives of the media report on the cases of stereotyping that werefound during the analysis of the media content. Then, players are asked to say what they havewritten about their experience and to evaluate how each medium has reported them.

.. Scaffold for students’ expression

A second set of guidelines refers to the facilitation of students’ability to express themselves (with and without media) in mul-ticultural contexts, as well as their capacity to evaluate theirown learning. The suggestions offered within this area focuson promoting students’ capacity for media making as well asfostering their communication capacity in multicultural con-texts. Moreover, some insights are pointed out on facilitatingstudents’ ability to evaluate themselves, widening the range ofopportunities for evaluation. Evaluation, in fact, has relevantsocial implications. Good scores mean being inside the schoolsystem, while bad scores could entail being out of the school.


In school contexts strongly marked by social problems, eval-uation has important implications for inclusion and calls forstrong responsibility on the side of the teachers in enabling stu-dents to express themselves in a variety of possibilities. There-fore, rather than asking all students to show their learningthrough the same means, teachers should allow them to use“their languages” and their ways of representing and expressingknowledge.

Facilitate media making

— Adapt media languages and practice to students’ com-municative skills and habits (e.g. replace overly demand-ing media productions/practices with more sustainableones; progressively integrate familiar and novel medialanguages and tools).

— Guide the initial acquisition of media production abili-ties (e.g. engage students’ in a trial and error process, of-fer multiple ways to learn how to use a new media tool,for example written guide, video tutorial, and direct in-struction; combine essential instructions on media pro-duction with hyperlinks to more advanced/professionalprocedures).


Box . Example from the LS «In my own words», Unit .

The teacher presents the wordle with the keywords collected in unit 2. Each student picks up aword that he/she thinks is important to foster the idea of an open and unbiased society. Studentscan also choose other new words, if they wish to. Afterwards the teacher divides the class ingroups of 4 or 5 students and each of them tells the chosen word to their classmates of his/hergroup. Then each student in turn takes a small ball, throws it to a classmate while saying outloud the word chosen by the classmate who catches the ball. Then, the latter student explainswhy he/she chose that word. Preferably s/he gives a concrete example why this word/behaviouris important and how it can be put into action in our everyday lives. The game continues untileverybody has had a turn. During this phase the teacher goes around and observes the differ-ent groups. If necessary, he/she gives advice, asks questions to lead the students to sharpentheir statements and go from general ones to more personal or more concrete examples. Af-ter this first round of brainstorming the class gets together and the teacher introduces andexplains basic audio–visual language techniques. Teacher outlines basic rules of composition(headroom, golden rule etc.). With the help of the tablet and projector as well as screenshotsfrom the students’ recordings from unit 2, the teacher shows what pictures should (or shouldnot) look like, how a person is presented when recorded, what to keep in mind when choosingthe background and the perspective. The teacher also explains what to pay attention to whenrecording sound. At this stage students are also provided with a hand–out summarising thebasics of video shooting. Next the students get back in their groups and think of how their state-ment–video can be best visualised. Therefore, they organise their video shooting accordingly(i.e. location, sequence of the filming, who shoots whom, who throws to ball to whom, etc.).They also must think about how they will end their video. Where is the ball going? Is there amessage for the audience in the end? How to best visualise this? The students then make afirst test shoot at a location of their choice. Again, during this whole process the teacher goesfrom group to group to give individual feedback.

Encourage the development of opinions and arguments

— Promote active and reciprocal listening (e.g. encourageeveryone to speak and listen to each other, suspend the“evaluative approach” to students’ opinions unless thelatter comply with the rules of mutual respect).

— Guide the formulation of solid arguments (e.g. requirestudents to support their arguments with evidence andexamples, encourage the making of connections acrossmedia education concepts or relevant topics such ashuman/equal rights and multicultural society).


Box . Example from the LS «Migration between Media Narratives andDigital Storytelling», Unit .

The teacher invites students to discuss whether, how and why the film–documentary “Blueeyed” impressed them. After the teacher chairs a brief discussion among students in whichthey are invited to talk about stereotypes, prejudices, social inequalities and various cases ofdiscrimination in Slovenia, in their environment and at their school. Teacher splits the classinto 6 groups (4–5 students in each group). Then, s/he invites them to think about the fourdifferent situations that they have experienced or that they know through the media. Specifically,each group is asked to report on a paper sheet one or more of the following experiences: 1.experience of a situation in which you have (or somebody else has) behaved discriminatively orhave (has) used violence 2. experience in which you were (or somebody else was) the victimof violence or discrimination 3. experience when you have (or somebody else has) witnesseda situation of discrimination or a violent situation, but you did not react 4. experience whenyou have (or somebody else has) witnessed some discriminatory or violent situation in whichyou intervened. After ending this activity, the spokesperson of each group shares the situationsidentified with the class. During the presentations the teacher makes students reflect on thevarious strategies to cope with discrimination and violence. S/he also provides some definitionsof discrimination, as well as Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Provide (self )evaluation tools sensitive to the students’ culturesand expressive skills

— Provide differentiated models of (self ) assessment strate-gies (e.g., role–playing, assessment checklists, video play-back, peer feedback).

— Negotiate (self )evaluation (e.g. offer opportunities todiscuss the main criteria of (self )evaluation).


Box . Example from the LS «Challenge violence and play your rights»,Unit .

The teacher observes that the two news items proposed in the previous unit illustrate how onsome occasions human rights are violated even in democratic societies. Indeed, sometimessome social groups are discriminated and/or they do not benefit from equal rights, for examplebecause of their nationally and/or economic status. After, teacher invites students to presenttheir ideas of videogame to their classmates. Specifically, each couple of students, who workedtogether in the previous lesson on the ideation of the game play, specify: – Which news iteminspired them; – What the game story is; – Which character(s) of the story the player(s) canchoose and – What the purpose of the game is. At the end of each presentation all the studentsevaluate each idea of videogame through a dedicated rubric. This evaluation aims at selecting4 ideas of videogame that will be developed.

.. Scaffold for students’ engagement

A third set of guidelines relates to the facilitation of students’ en-gagement in the community building process and their criticalparticipation in the democratic life of the school. The sugges-tions provided within this area focus on nurturing students’motivation through authentic learning activities and proposingmulticultural resources; they also point out to promote cooper-ation among students and the building up of community–basedprocesses in the school to encourage participation, engagementand empowerment.

Provide incentives to enkindle interest

— Optimise relevance, value, and authenticity (e.g. designactivities and utilise sources of information which areculturally suited and socially relevant to learners’ back-ground in terms of social, cultural, ethnic, gender differ-ences).

— Design authentic and significant learning activities (e.g.provide tasks that allow learners to communicate to realaudiences; propose tasks that stimulate active participa-tion, exploration and experimentation; elicit personalresponse and self–reflection on content and activities;


include activities that foster the use of imagination tosolve new and relevant problems, or to make sense ofcomplex ideas in creative ways).

Box . Example from the LS «We are all equally different», Unit .

The teacher presents the video “Hinter uns mein Land / Behind us: my country”. Afterwardsthe students think about the following questions: What is this video about? How did the videomake you feel? Who are “the others” in the story? Who is “we”? Why did someone producesuch a video? What is the intention of this video? They first share their feelings and ideas inpairs with their seatmates and then discuss with the teacher and the whole class. Next theteacher presents the video “Omar Ali – Wer bin ich?/ Who am I?”. After watching the clip, thestudents receive a worksheet to fill out in groups of 4 or 5. As the video covers lots of differentaspects, it might be helpful for the students to watch it a second time. After they have filledout the worksheet the groups present their findings and discuss them with each other. Next thestudents search for videos on the Internet that they know and that they think are similar, showingsimilarities between cultures rather than things that separate and that send out a positive signaland would be worth sharing. The teacher picks up some examples, they watch them togethervia the projector and have a brief discussion.

Ensure opportunities for sustaining participation and coopera-tion

— Cultivate formative feedback (e.g. provide feedback thatencourages perseverance and focuses on the develop-ment of efficacy and self–awareness; encourage the useof specific supports and strategies in the face of chal-lenge; provide feedback that is frequent, timely and spe-cific; ensure that feedback is substantive and informativerather than comparative or competitive).

— Open multiple paths to taking on responsibility (e.g.adopt roles in group work to students’ passions andskills, create (sub)groups with clear goals, roles, andresponsibilities; balance individual and collective respon-sibility).

— Enhance cooperation at various levels (e.g. support op-portunities for peer interactions and supports; encour-


age open dialogue and sharing of experience betweenteachers and students).

— Create expectations for group work (e.g. by addressing areal audience through media productions)

— Create a respectful and supportive classroom climate(e.g. offer strategies to cope with potential discomfortand conflicts; vary the social and affective demands re-quired for learning or performance, the perceived levelof support and protection, and the requirements forpublic display and evaluation; involve all participants inoverall class discussions).

Box . Example from the LS «Questioning news media representations ofthe ‘others’ through video–reporting», Unit .

In groups the students have to plan their activity as (video)journalists in relation to the topics thatemerged in their poster. Simulating the activity of a newsroom, they decide the specific topicof the video–report, they agree on a plan for action, they check skills and tools, they preparequestions, they define the characteristics of their product. They also check the features of theirmobile phones (e.g. recording, video recording, editing) and teach each other how to use themto video–record interviews. The activity of collecting (video) information through interviews withpeople in the street is carried out in and out of school as an additional lecture or as homework,depending on the situation.

Embed engagement into a process of community building

— Improve awareness of relevant issues affecting the schoolcommunity (e.g. use media productions and practice inthe classroom to address the entire school population,for example to raise awareness of certain forms of dis-crimination (racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.) or tofoster intergenerational and intercultural dialogue).

— Support full participation in the social and political life ofthe school (e.g. orient brainstorming and debates towardthe identification of actions to “make a difference” in the


school community, link participation in classroom activ-ities to a wider democratic involvement in the schoolcommunity; include students in decision–making pro-cesses at some level in the classroom and/or the school).

— Build alliances between the school community and ex-ternal organisations advocating intercultural dialogueand equal rights (e.g. invite representatives of NGOs,media professionals or political activists to speak abouttheir work experience, encourage circulation of studentproduction among other audiences outside the schoolcommunity, for example at festivals on the local, nationalor international level).

Box . Example from the LS «Building a diverse and democratic commu-nity», Unit .

A group of students (testing group) who were not involved in the project is invited to join theclass. One spokesperson of the class briefly introduces the idea of the podcast and plays thepilot episode. The testing group evaluates the product and then leaves the classroom. Theirevaluation notes are collected and followed by a discussion:– Were the aims of the podcast achieved?– Are improvements needed?

. Conclusions

This chapter provided an overview of the leading pillars whichinspired the MEET design of media education activities for inter-cultural classes. These pillars were the Media and InterculturalEducation Framework (MIEF) as well as the MEET guidelinesfor inclusive design of media literacy education practices. As wehave explained, MIEF is rooted in two main traditions, that ismedia education and critical media literacy studies, on one hand,and intercultural education with a specific focus on interculturalcommunication and competence, on the other. The combination


of both perspectives led us to define a taxonomy of media andintercultural education aimed at supporting teachers and edu-cators to better identify possible learning objectives for mediaeducation projects. The MEET guidelines are, instead, the resultof an adaptation of the UDL principles, incorporating in thisapproach, which is strongly oriented towards neuroscience andcognitive psychology, a socio–cultural understanding of teachingand learning processes and looking at students not only as learn-ers but also as social actors and future citizens. Through thecombination of these perspectives, we gathered three principles,that are: scaffolding students’ critical understanding of mediaand intercultural/democratic relations in contemporary soci-ety; scaffolding students’ ability to express themselves (with andwithout media) in multicultural contexts, as well as their capacityto evaluate their own learning; and finally scaffolding students’engagement in the community building process and their criticalparticipation in the democratic life of the school. Moving fromMIEF and the guidelines, six learning scenarios of media andintercultural education have been co–designed by teachers andresearchers from three partner countries, i.e. Germany, Italy andSlovenia. The learning scenarios are based on original contentsdeveloped within the MEET project and previous adapted con-tents from “Media Education against Discrimination – A guidefor teens” and “Media Literacy modules for teachers and edu-cators”, both developed within the EU project “e–Engagementagainst Violence” (–). The MIEF and the guidelines al-lowed us to reshape the pre–existing contents under a differentlight, that is emphasising equity and tolerance within a widercontext where media literacy education is seen as a pedagogicalstrategy to encourage intercultural communication and promotesocial justice. The learning scenarios were implemented in thethree countries. In the next chapter, we describe more deeply thelearning scenarios and the results of the implementation phasein order to evaluate the overall impact of MEET activities onteachers’ professional development and students’ participationand learning.


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Researching on Mediaand Intercultural Education

A Comparative Analysis of Resultsfrom Three European Countries

M R, F F, A N∗

. Introduction

This chapter presents and discusses the results of the implemen-tation of the six Learning Scenarios (LS) developed within theMEET project with the aim at promoting young people’s me-dia, intercultural and citizenship skills. As mentioned in Chap-ter , the LS were designed and tested by engaged researchers,teachers and students in a participatory action–research in Ger-many, Italy and Slovenia. The chapter reports the results of theaction–research focusing on the impact that the educationalinterventions (EI) had on both students and teachers. Besidesthe introductory section, the chapter includes three more sec-tions. The first illustrates the research design adopted, the aimsand contents of the LS, the contexts of the educational inter-ventions and the research tools used for data collection and

. This chapter has been jointly conceived by the authors and its contentsare the result of a common work of methodological and empirical investigation.Only for the purposes of this chapter, Maria Ranieri edited sub–sections ., .and .; Francesco Fabbro edited sub–sections ., ., . and Andrea Nardi editedsections . and . and .. All authors jointly edited sections and . In addition, theempirical data reported in this chapter are based on the following national reports:Mayer (); Ranieri, Fabbro & Nardi (); Šori & Frelih ().


Maria Ranieri, Francesco Fabbro, Andrea Nardi

analysis. The second presents and discusses the findings relatedto the impact of the EI on students’ understanding of mediaand intercultural relations, their expression with or withoutthe media as well as their engagement in processes of mul-ticultural community building. The last section outlines andcomments the findings about the impact of the EI on teachers’media literacy skills, their intercultural–understanding skillsand their ability to teach media literacy education in intercul-tural contexts. The chapter ends with a conclusive paragraphsummarising the main affordances and constraints of MEET’sEI.

. Research design

MEET project revolves around the co–design and the imple-mentation of LS about critical media literacy in interculturalcontexts, as well as the evaluation of their impact on teach-ers and students. As anticipated, the EI were carried out inGermany, Italy and Slovenia according to a common researchstrategy, namely a participatory action–research (Kemmis &McTaggart, ; Stringer, ).

.. Co–design of the Learning Scenarios

The overall research process of MEET is characterised by a“participatory approach” since it actively involved several actors(i.e. teachers, students, cultural mediators, headteachers, asso-ciated partners), especially in the elaboration of LS. The graphbelow (Figure ) summarises the mains steps through whichresearchers in each country cooperatively developed the LS, aswell as the people involved at each stage.

. For more details see Ranieri & Fabbro (a).

Researching on Media and Intercultural Education

Figure . MEET co–design and experimentation process through ac-tion–research (Note: O stands for Output, while LS for learning scenario).

Although the LS were based on similar theoretical andmethodological assumptions (see Chapter ) and deal withmedia and intercultural education–oriented activities, each ofthem has a specific educational aim, foresees the productionof different media outlets and includes a different number ofunits ranging from to . Table below summarises the maincharacteristics of each LS.


Tab

le.

Lear

ning

Scen

ario

(LS)

.

Lear

ning

Scen

ario

No.U

nit/

Tim

ePa

rtner

(Cou

ntry

)Ti

tleof

the

LSAi

mM

edia

prod

uct

1LS

6/1

2ho

urs

med

ien

and

bild

ung.

com

(Ger

man

y)

We

are

alle

qual

lydi

ffere

ntRa

ising

awar

enes

son

the

pres

enta

tion

ofre

ality

inm

edia

and

radi

calis

atio

nPh

oto–

post

er

LS2

6/1

2ho

urs

Ger

man

y–

med

ien

and

bild

ung.

com

Inm

yow

nwo

rds

Raisi

ngaw

aren

ess

ofho

wpo

litica

lcom

mun

ica-

tion

work

s.Es

pecia

llywh

ende

alin

gwi

thth

eiss

ueof

mig

ratio

n

Vide

ost

atem

ent

LS3

6Un

its12

hour

sUN

IFI(

Italy)

Chal

leng

evio

lenc

ean

dpl

ayyo

urrig

hts

Raisi

ngaw

aren

ess

ofdi

ffere

ntus

esan

dfo

rms

ofvio

lenc

ein

video

gam

esan

dde

velo

pmen

tof

the

abilit

yto

chal

leng

evio

lenc

eag

ains

tdi

sad-

vant

aged

and

mar

gina

lised

indi

vidua

lsor

socia

lgr

oups

Vide

ogam

ede

sign

LS4

7Un

its18

hour

sUN

IFI(

Italy)

Que

stio

ning

news

med

iare

pres

enta

tions

ofth

e“o

ther

s”th

roug

hvid

eo–r

epor

ting

Deve

lopi

nga

critic

alun

ders

tand

ing

ofne

ws,p

ar-

ticul

arly

refe

rring

tofa

kene

wson

ethn

ican

dcu

l-tu

ralm

inor

ities,

and

supp

orto

fthe

irca

pacit

yto

expr

ess

alte

rnat

ivena

rrativ

es

Vide

ore

porta

ge

LS5

5Un

its7

hour

s30

min

utes

MIR

OVNI

(Slo

veni

a)Bu

ildin

ga

Dive

rse

and

Dem

ocra

ticCo

mm

unity

Deve

lopi

ngsk

illsan

dkn

owle

dge

abou

tlivi

ngin

am

ultic

ultu

rals

ocie

tyan

dsu

ppor

teng

agem

entf

orin

terc

ultu

ralu

nder

stan

ding

Radi

opo

dcas

t

LS6

5Un

its7

hour

s30

min

utes

MIR

OVNI

(Slo

veni

a)M

igra

tion

betw

een

Med

iaNa

rrativ

esan

dDi

gita

lSt

oryt

ellin

g

Deve

lopi

ngcr

itical

fram

ewor

ksan

dkn

owle

dge

ondi

ffere

ntm

edia

repr

esen

tatio

nsan

dlife

situa

tions

conc

erni

ngth

eph

enom

enon

ofm

igra

tion

Digi

tals

tory

tellin

g


Furthermore, each learning scenario entails different class-room activities.

LS – We are all equally different includes the analysis ofphotos and memes through which disinformation about so-cio–cultural minorities spreads in the social media, as well asthe use of dedicated tools to reveal fake news. In addition, inthis LS students are invited to watch and discuss some videosdealing with forms of radicalisation and the life experiencesof migrants. The LS concludes with the production of photoposters including some slogans advocating diversity and toler-ance in contemporary society.

LS – In my own words foresees the analysis of electionposters and campaign commercials. The analysis lingers onhow political propaganda and advertising offer specific rep-resentations of different social groups and how they addressspecific audiences. Furthermore, the LS deals with the produc-tions of students’ video statements for an open and unbiasedsociety.

LS – Challenge violence and play your rights includes theanalysis of videogames and movie trailers staging differentviolent actions. In addition, in this LS young participants engagein the first steps of a videogame design inspired by real episodesin which some human/equal rights are violated or stronglyquestioned.

LS – Questioning news media representations of the “others”through video–reporting starts with an analysis of news media,focusing on their role in generating racist stereotypes. After-wards, it foresees the creation of a series of video reportagesthat seek to represent diversity in alternative ways.

LS – Building a Diverse and Democratic Community foreseessome role–play games on the reproduction of stereotypes inthe media and the simulation of media campaigns advocatinghuman rights. Furthermore, in this LS students are guidedin the production of a radio podcast addressing the issues ofhuman rights and discrimination.


LS – Migration between Media Narratives and Digital Story-telling entails several media–analysis–oriented activities and arole–playing aimed at reflecting on both how media can rep-resent migrants in very different ways and the actual realitiesexperienced by migrants. It also provides students with con-crete opportunities to create a storytelling about migration incontemporary society.

.. Research context and participants

In the countries involved in the action–research, that is Ger-many, Italy and Slovenia, two LS were implemented respec-tively. Each educational intervention (EI) took place in a singlesecondary school, sometimes in the same city while at othertimes in different cities.

Although each school has its own specific characteristics,they were all selected because of some common features, namelythe presence of a significant number of students with migrantbackground and/or with low Socio–Economic Status (SES).

Overall the implementation of LS took about months,specifically between November and March . Thetime span between the first lesson and the last lesson of each EIvaried from context to context, ranging between days (EI )and months (EI ). However, with the exception of EI , thelessons were concentrated in about days (EI , , ) or days(EI , ). The different time span of the EI was mainly due to theadaptation of the lesson planning to the specific school context.In some classrooms the teachers preferred to concentrate theEI in two or three teaching sessions (i.e. hours per teachingsession), while in other cases teachers could not dedicate morethan hours per session. Furthermore, in some cases the timespan was longer because of the closing of the school for theChristmas holidays or because some lessons were suddenlycancelled and rescheduled later due to temporary unavailabilityof the teachers. The table below synthesises information suchas site and period of LS implementation.


Table . Contexts and periods of the educational interventions (EI).

EducationalInterven-tion

Title of the LSimplemented

School City (Country) Period ofimplementation

EI 1 We are allequally different

Ernst–Reuter–Real-schule plus(Vocationalschool)

Ludwigshafen(Germany)

09–11–2017 /22–11–2017

EI 2 In my own words BerufsbildendeSchule Technik1 (TechnicalInstitute)

Ludwigshafen(Germany)

07–12–2017 /19–12–2017

EI 3 Challengeviolence andplay your rights

Gramsci –Keynes Institute(Gymnasiumand TechnicalInstitute)

Prato (Italy) 13–11–2017 /19–12–2017

EI 4 Questioningnews mediarepresentationsof the “others”throughvideo–reporting

Marconi Institute(ProfessionalInstitute)

Prato (Italy) 01–02–2018 /21–03–2018

EI 5 Building aDiverse andDemocraticCommunity

BilingualSecondarySchool ofLendava(Gymnasium,Vocational andTechnicalSchool)

Lendava(Slovenia)

20–12–2017 /20–03–2018

EI 6 Migrationbetween MediaNarratives andDigitalStorytelling

SecondarySchool ofTechnicalProfessionsŠiška (TechnicalInstitute)

Ljubljana(Slovenia)

12–03–2018 /20–03–2018

In all contexts the EI addressed only a sample of the schoolpopulation. However, it was selected as reflecting the character-istics of the school population in terms of migrant backgroundand SES. students aged – were involved, most of whom


were male. Moreover, almost half of the students had a migrantbackground (Table ).

Table . Students’ characteristics.EducationalIntervention

Number Age Gender Migrant background.

EI 1 22 16–17 F→ 10 M→ 12 1st→ 1 2nd→ 7EI 2 25 17–18 F→ 4 M→ 20 T→ 1 1st→ 4 2nd→ 15EI 3 17 16–18 F→ 6 M→ 11 1st→ 2 2nd→ 3EI 4 27 17–18 F→ 9 M→ 18 1st→ 3 2nd→ 2EI 5 21 17 F→ 14 M→ 7 1st→2 2nd→ 7EI 6 29 15–16 M→ 29 1st→ 9Total 141 15–18 F→ 43 M→ 97 T→ 1 1st→ 21 2nd→ 34

As regards the teachers involved, their average age was years old and most of them had more than years of teachingexperience at school. In addition, most of the teachers werefemale and none of them had a migrant background. All theadult participants had a bachelor’s degree and of them also amaster’s degree. Furthermore, before the EI about two thirdsof the teachers had already had some experience or trainingon media education and/or in intercultural education. Table below summarises the main characteristics of the teachers.

. Students with migrant background include both st and nd generationmigrants. With st generation migrants we refer to foreign born citizens, whilstwith nd generation migrants we mean native born citizens whose parents areforeign born. Countries involved in students’ migrant background were: Afghanistan,Albania, Austria, Romania, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cameroon, China,Croatia, Dominican Republic, Iraq, Iran, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Lebanon, Macedonia,Nigeria, Pakistan, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Slovenia, Thailand, Turkey,USA and ex–Yugoslavia.


Tab

le.

Teac

hers

’cha

ract

eris

tics

Educ

atio

nal

Inte

rven

-tio

n

Num

ber

Age

Gen

der

Mig

rant

back

grou

nd*

Educ

atio

nPr

evio

usex

peri-

ence

/trai

ning

inm

edia

educ

atio

n

Prev

ious

expe

rienc

e/tra

inin

gin

inte

rcul

tura

led

ucat

ion

Teac

hing

expe

rienc

eat

scho

ol

EI1

21→

431→

381→

F1→

M1s

t→0

2nd→

02→

Mas

ter

2→

Yes

1→

Yes

1→No

1→

>10

year

s1→

5–10

year

sEI

22

1→

591→

612→

F1s

t→0

2nd→

02→

Mas

ter

2→

Yes

2→

Yes

2→>

10ye

ars

EI3

31→

361→

621→

621→

F2→

M1s

t→0

2nd→

03→

Bach

elor

1→

Yes

2→

No3→

Yes

2→

>10

year

s1→

5–10

year

sEI

44

1→

491→

411→

311→

393→

F1→

M1s

t→0

2nd→

04→

Bach

elor

1→

Yes

3→

No2→

Yes

2→

No1→

>10

year

s2→

5–10

year

s1→

3–5

year

sEI

52

1→

601→

372→

F1s

t→0

2nd→

02→

Bach

elor

1→

Yes

1→

No1→

Yes

1→

No2→

>10

year

s

EI6

21→

471→

591→

F1→

M1s

t→0

2nd→

02→

Bach

elor

2→

Yes

2→

Yes

2→

>10

year

s

Tota

l15

48.2

6(a

vera

ge)

7→

F4→

M1s

t→0

2nd→

011→

Bach

elor

5→

Yes

6→

No8→

Yes

3→

No7→

>10

year

s3→

5–10

year

s1→

3–5

year

s


Teachers were always supported by MEET researchers whoactively engaged in the teaching activity and took notes aboutthe learning processes.

.. Research questions and methods

MEET empirical research aimed mainly at evaluating the im-pact of the EI on both students and teachers, particularly focus-ing on the following research questions:

Students’ side

a) What is the effectiveness of educational interventionsto develop students’ media and intercultural citizenshipskills?

b) What are students and teachers’ perceptions of the ef-fectiveness of interventions in developing media andintercultural citizenship skills?

c) How did students, teachers and researchers make senseof affordances and constraints of the educational inter-ventions to support the development of students’ mediaand intercultural citizenship skills?

Teachers’ side

a) How did teachers’ involvement in the action–researchcontribute (or not) to developing their media literacyskills?

b) How did teachers’ involvement in the action–researchcontribute (or not) to developing their intercultural un-derstanding skills?

c) How did teachers’ involvement in the action–researchcontribute (or not) to developing their ability to teachmedia literacy education in intercultural contexts?


To answer these questions a “multiple evaluation case study”(Yin, ; Bassey, ) was adopted, based on both qualitativeand quantitative data. In fact, in each country both quantitativeand qualitative tools were used to collect data, according tothe specific phase of the action–research (ex–ante, in itinere andex–post) and the main aim of data collection, that is the impacton students or teachers. Table below provides an overviewof the tools used according to the aim and the phase of theresearch. The main dimensions considered in the tools were:for the impact on students a) the understanding of media andintercultural relations, b) the expression through the mediaabout MEET’s key topics (e.g. tolerance and equity) and c)their engagement in the multicultural community buildingprocess; for the impact on teachers, a) media literacy skills, b)intercultural understanding skills and c) ability to teach mediaeducation in intercultural contexts.

The adoption of a common theoretical and methodologi-cal background allowed us to compare the different researchreports produced at national level to evaluate the results of theEI.


Tab

le.

Dat

aco

llect

ion

aim

sand

tool

s.Ai

mEx

–ant

eto

ols

Initin

ere

tool

sEx

–pos

ttoo

ls

Eval

uatio

nof

the

impa

cton

stud

ents

–Pr

e–te

stad

dres

sing

stud

ents

’me-

dia

and

inte

rcul

tura

llite

racy

skills

(sit-

uate

dte

st)

–Lo

gboo

kfill

edou

tby

rese

arch

ers

and

teac

hers

tota

keno

tes

abou

tth

em

ost

signi

fican

tle

arni

ngev

ents

durin

gth

eim

plem

enta

tion

(ope

nno

tes/

com

men

ts)

–Po

st–t

esta

ddre

ssin

gst

uden

ts’m

e-di

aan

din

terc

ultu

rall

itera

cysk

ills(s

it-ua

ted

test

)

–M

edia

mak

ing

rubr

icba

sed

ona

scal

e0–

3fill

edou

tby

rese

arch

ers

and

teac

hers

toas

sess

stud

ents

’pro

-du

ctio

ns–

Post

–sur

vey

addr

essin

gte

ache

rson

the

impa

ctof

EIon

stud

ents

’lear

n-in

gan

den

gage

men

t(bo

thop

enan

dclo

sed

ques

tions

)–

Post

–sur

vey

addr

essin

gst

uden

tson

satis

fact

ion

and

impa

ctof

EIon

thei

rlea

rnin

gan

den

gage

men

t(bo

thop

enan

dclo

sed

ques

tions

)Ev

alua

tion

ofth

eim

pact

onte

ache

rs–

Pre–

surv

eyad

dres

sing

teac

hers

abou

tpr

evio

usex

perie

nces

and

ex-

pect

atio

ns(b

oth

open

and

close

dqu

estio

ns)

–Lo

gboo

kfill

edou

tby

rese

arch

ers

tota

keno

tes

abou

tthe

lear

ning

proc

ess

(ope

nno

tes/

com

men

ts)

Post

–sur

vey

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Since our database consisted of both quantitative (e.g. scoresfrom the media production rubrics) and qualitative data (e.g.field notes from the logbooks and open answers in the surveys),we adopted a mixed strategy for data analysis, focusing on thesame evaluative dimensions included in data collection tools(see above).

Regarding the quantitative data collected and analysed at na-tional level, the closed answers to the surveys were aggregatedby the UNIFI research team, while the results of the Wilcoxontest, used to compare pre– and post–test results, as well as datagathered through the media production rubric was not furtheraggregated compared to data reported in the national reports.

As far as qualitative data such as the open answers in ques-tionnaires and the filed notes reported in the logbooks areconcerned, each national research team carried out a thematicanalysis (Braun & Clarke, ) of data gathered. Thematicanalysis was essentially “theory driven” (or deductive) becauseeach partner identified the themes according to a commonanalytical framework in which the evaluative dimensions wereestablished a priori consistently with the MEET theoreticalframework, namely the Media and Intercultural EducationFramework (MIEF) (see Chapter ).

Then the findings of such analysis were further analysedand (re)interpreted by UNIFI researchers through a thematicsynthesis (Kavanagh et al., ; Thomas & Harden, ).Specifically, the thematic synthesis built upon some of the prin-ciples and techniques from meta–ethnography (Noblit & Hare,) and grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, ). The “rawdata” for this synthesis are the text from the national reportsthat are labelled by the researchers as “findings” or “results”.However, in our synthesis, similarly to the meta–ethnographicapproach, we elaborated the descriptive themes also by takinginto account the “raw data” included in the primary reports (i.e.extracts from the logbooks and questionnaire open answers).

Besides being “theory driven”, the thematic synthesis wasalso “data driven” (or “findings driven”) because it inductively


identified new themes across the findings of six thematic analy-ses.

Following Thomas and Harden (), we carried out thethematic synthesis of qualitative findings about the impact onstudents through the following four steps.

a) Identifying the findings. The first task is to identify the“findings” of the primary studies and, then, to enterthem verbatim into two different tables reporting re-spectively students’ and teachers’ perspectives.

b) Coding findings. Through common analytical methods,each account of primary studies is assigned to one ormore codes encapsulating its meaning. This conceptualtranslation is both reciprocal and refutational as the con-cepts are identified as supporting (reciprocal translation)or dissenting from (refutational translation) one another.

c) Developing descriptive themes. Either during the pro-cess of generating descriptive codes or once it is com-pleted, the findings are organised into descriptive themes.This involves a constant comparison between descrip-tive codes and the clustering of similar codes, as well asthe identification of similar codes (or concepts) but withdivergent/different implications (i.e. counter–evidence).

d) Generating analytical statements. The analytical state-ments (or themes) take the synthesis “beyond” the con-tent of the primary studies and generate new interpreta-tive conclusions.

As for the thematic synthesis of the findings about the im-pact on teachers, we limited our analysis to the third step,namely the development of descriptive themes.


. Findings from the action–research: the impact on stu-dents

In this section we summarise and compare the main findingsfrom the quantitative and qualitative analysis. First, we will focuson the impact of the EI on students’ understanding of mediaand intercultural relations, second on students’ expression with(or without) media and third on students’ engagement in theprocess of building multicultural community.

.. Students’ understanding of media and intercultural relations

The comparison between the results of pre– and post–test sug-gest that only in two cases (EI , ) did students improve theirunderstanding of media and intercultural relations. This find-ing strongly diverges from the more positive evaluations ofstudents’ media products. It is worth underlining that in themedia production rubric understanding was indicated as thecapacity to «research the topic and media languages beforestarting the media production process». Hence, for this dimen-sion researchers and teachers centred evaluation on a particularphase of the media production process scoring the it with aminimum of =insufficient and a maximum of =very good.

Table . Scores under the dimension understanding.

Educational Intervention Scores 0–3(Median)

EI 1 3EI 2 3EI 3 2.0EI 4 1EI 5 2EI 6 1.5

. Median calculated on – scale; Threshold value = . (sufficient)


According to the evaluators, students’ media productionsgenerally showed a satisfactory (EI ), good (EI , ) or excellent(EI , ) level of understanding. Only in one case (EI ) weremedia productions evaluated insufficient in terms of criticalunderstanding.

If we compare these contrasting results with the quantita-tive findings on students’ perceptions of the benefits of EI forunderstanding, we find that students’ responses mostly tendedto corroborate the positive results rather than the negativeones. Table includes students’ attitudes towards the sentence“Media and intercultural education activities support students’critical understanding of the media and intercultural relations”measured through a Likert scale where = strongly disagreedand = strongly agreed.

Table . Students’ perceptions under the dimension of understanding. State-ment “Media and intercultural education activities support students’ criticalunderstanding of the media and intercultural relations”, Likert scale from=insufficient to =very good.

EducationalIntervention

Strongly agree Agree Uncertain Disagree Stronglydisagree

EI 1 (n=22) 4/22 (18%) 11/22 (50%) 6/22 (27%) 1/22 (5%) 0/22 (0%)EI 2 (n=25) 1/25 (4%) 14/25 (56%) 4/25 (16%) 3/25 (12%) 3/25 (12%)EI 3 (n=17) 0/17 (0%) 7/17 (41%) 5/17 (29%) 2/17 (12%) 3/17 (18%)EI 4 (n=27) 0/27 (0%) 10/27 (37%) 9/27 (33%) 3/27 (11%) 5/27 (19%)EI 5 (n=21) 2/21 (9.5%) 12/21 (57%) 4/21 (19%) 2/21 (9.5%) 1/21 (5%)EI 6 (n=29) 8/29 (28%) 15/29 (52%) 5/29 (17%) 0/29 (0%) 1/29 (3%)Total (n=141) 15/141 (11%) 69/141 (49%) 33/141 (23%) 11/141 (8%) 13/141 (9%)

Specifically, in three cases (EI , , ) most students (about–%) agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “Mediaand intercultural education activities supported students’ criti-cal understanding of the media and intercultural relations”. Intwo cases (EI , ), instead, students’ perceptions were mixedwith a good percentage of students suggesting a lack of impacton their understanding of media and intercultural relations.

Teachers’ perceptions, instead, were generally very posi-tive: / teachers (%) “strongly agreed” and / teachers(%) “agreed” that media and intercultural education activi-


ties support students’ critical understanding of the media andintercultural relations. Table displays teachers’ attitudes to-wards the statement measured through a Likert scale where= strongly disagreed and = strongly agreed.

Table . Teachers’ perceptions for the dimension of understanding. State-ment “Media and intercultural education activities support students’ criticalunderstanding of the media and intercultural relation”, Likert scale from=insufficient to =very good.



EI 1 (n=2) 2/2 (100%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%)EI 2 (n=2) 2/2 (100%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%)EI 3 (n=3) 0/3 (0%) 3/3 (100%) 0/3 (0%) 0/3 (0%) 0/3 (0%)EI 4 (n=4) 3/4 (75%) 1/4 (25%) 0/4 (0%) 0/4 (0%) 0/4 (0%)EI 5 (n=2) 0/2 (0%) 2/2 (100%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%)EI 6 (n=2) 0/2 (0%) 2/2 (100%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%)Total (n=15) 7/15 (47%) 8/15 (53%) 0/15 (0%) 0/15 (0%) 0/15 (0%)

In short, in most cases (EI , , , ) both students’ and teach-ers’ perceptions indicated some improvements in students’ crit-ical understanding of media and intercultural relations, whilstin some situations (EI , ) about % of students disagreedwith this very positive evaluation.

This generally positive trend is consistent with other quali-tative data, including students’ open answers to the post–surveyand the field notes in the logbook. In all schools both teachersand/or students reported a positive impact of classroom ac-tivities on critical understanding of how media (mis)representsocial groups, particularly marginalised groups (i.e. migrantsand refugees). For example, some field notes concerning thefirst unit carried out in one classroom in Prato (EI ) clearlyreported students’ understanding of how two videogames rep-resented migrants and refugees — and the broader view ofmigration — in very different ways. Similarly, in one classroomin Ljubljana (EI ) one teacher noted that students were able torecognise and understand stereotypes of migrants.

Some observations by teachers in Ludwigshafen (EI ), in-stead, focused on students’ understanding of racist ideology


conveyed by some media messages (i.e. memes) about mi-grants and migration. Teachers underlined that students under-stood the dynamic underpinning group formation — the “us”and “them” dichotomy — and leading to construction of theenemy picture grounded on race and or nationality.

The development of critical understanding is also indicatedby students’ awareness of the commercial or political interestsinvolved in media production, that is, broadly speaking, thestrategic dimension of communication. In one classroom (EI), teachers claimed that most students at the beginning of theactivity were surprised about the whole marketing strategybehind campaign commercials and of being a potential targetgroup. After all, in four contexts (EI , , , ) there were stu-dents pointing to the benefit of classroom activities in termsof a greater awareness of the non–transparent nature of newsmedia. Students acknowledged the development of this basicmedia literacy competence with different emphases. In Ger-many several students’ answers voiced an increased awarenessof — and the ability to understand — the state of truth of anews media account. In one classroom in Slovenia (EI ), in-stead, some students’ answers demonstrated even a deeperunderstanding of news media representation. Indeed, some stu-dents’ responses clearly indicate different factors that can affectmedia reporting.

The analysis of qualitative data also allowed us to identifyone constraint, one potential pitfall but some affordances aswell. Starting with constraints, in three cases (EI , , ) teach-ers pointed to the scarcity of time as a major constraint ontheir attempt to promote a critical understanding of mediaamong all students. According to the teachers, time constraintsoften prevented them from implementing effective and/or in-clusive activities to facilitate students’ understanding of medialanguage, representation, system and/or audiences. For exam-ple, teachers observed how some students found it difficult todeeply comprehend the media representations of certain socialgroups. In one case (EI ) teachers reported an unequal (or


inclusive) understanding of migrants’ media representationsamong students during the first lesson where only about halfof the students actually engaged in a critical analysis and dis-cussion of media representation of marginalised social groups.Similarly, in other schools (EI , ), teachers underlined that thelimited time of some lessons limited students’ critical under-standing of fake news and social bots in social media.

Coming to potential pitfalls, one of the most dangerous isthe unintentional promotion of cynical distrust toward newsmedia rather than their critical understanding. This risk wasidentified only in one case (EI ) for certain students’ answersstating that all information vehiculated by news media was al-ways — and in any case — false (or fake). However, lookingat other media education action–research (Ranieri, Fabbro &Frelih, ; Parola & Ranieri, ) or reflections on mediaeducation, distrust and citizenship (Mihailidis, ; Mihailidis& Viotty, ) as well as at some other students’ responsesin this regard (EI , ), it emerges that this risk is far from be-ing limited to an isolated case. Indeed, it can be interpretedas a potential pitfall of any attempt to promote a critical andreflexive understanding of (news) media. The danger of thispotential pitfall of media education is the unintentional encour-agement of cynicism and distrust, qualities that are key to theappeal of conspiracy theories. This is why Mihailidis ()called for a more holistic approach to teaching media educa-tion, based on the integration of media production and analysis,and taking students’ attitudes towards the media seriously intoconsideration.

At the same time, the examination of qualitative findingsallowed us to identify two key affordances of the educational in-terventions, namely a) the inquiry–based learning approach asan effective strategy to promote critical understanding of socialgroups’ media representations; b) critical reflection on mediaproducts as a means to encourage intercultural understanding.

The inquiry–based approach proved to be an effective peda-gogical strategy to promote critical understanding of how me-


dia (mis)represent social groups, particularly marginalised andvulnerable groups (i.e. migrants and Roma). In fact, when con-sidering the several challenges encountered in some contextsto deal with sensitive social issues like migration, questioningresulted much more effective than prescribing. For example, inone classroom (EI ) the issue of migration through media analy-sis was difficult, especially at the beginning since students werereluctant about the topic. Researchers reported the bridging ofmedia analysis and production (Buckingham, ; Hobbs, )and sharing personal experiences about intercultural relationswith teachers or researchers was particularly effective to mitigatestudents’ reluctance to analyse or simply to talk about mediarepresentations. In another school (EI ), instead, researchers andteachers explained how the comparison between different news-papers reporting the same incident was particularly helpful topromote a critical understanding of news media representationsof Roma. According to them, the report from the Roma news-paper brought a different perspective to the debate and a deeperunderstanding of the position of minority groups.

As regards the second affordance — that is, critical reflectionon media products as a means to encourage intercultural under-standing — in two cases (EI , ) some researchers/teachers un-derlined that students started recognising how media contributeto convey specific ideas about social (in)justice and (in)equalityin the broader society when they had the chance to reflect (in-dividually or collectively) on media products dealing with thetopic of migration, and particularly on their media products. Mostimportantly, they observed that pedagogical strategies such asdiscussion or project work were particularly helpful to addressissues of cultural pluralism and equity. For example, in one class-room in Prato (EI ) researchers/teachers underlined how a livelydebate about freedom of speech in the social media effectivelyengaged students in a collective reflection about media ethics.In the school in Lendava (EI ), instead, researchers/teachersunderlined how the design of a campaign for human rights wasparticularly effective to support students’ understanding of cul-


tural pluralism and equity. In this regard, a sort of “learning bycampaigning” process took place.

.. Students’ ability to express themselves with or without the media

From the comparison between pre– and post–test, only in onecase (EI ) did the effect size from the Wilcoxon test indicatestudents’ improvement in their capacity to express themselves(with or without media). Even in this case, the results basedon the Wilcoxon test contrasted with the more positive evalu-ations of students’ media products. The latter was based on apre–defined rubric where expression was meant as the capacityto «brainstorm on possible issues to be faced and media prod-uct to be produced for change», «Individual contribution to themedia production process» and «Content accuracy, originality,and aesthetic attractiveness». Table below summarises thescores students gathered under the dimension expression from= insufficient to =very good.

Table . Scores under the dimension expression.

Educational Intervention Scores 0–3 (Median).

EI 1 3EI 2 3EI 3 2.4EI 4 1.6EI 5 2EI 6 2.55

Students obtained excellent results in Germany (EI , EI )and in one case in Slovenia (EI), good evaluations in one casein Italy (EI) and in Slovenia (EI ), and sufficient in one casein Italy (EI ). However, it must be noted that in the Italiancase (EI) students were faced with video–reporting, thereforewith video production, a challenging activity which requiresnot only specific skills but also time.

. Median calculated on – scale; Threshold value = . (sufficient).


When comparing these divergent results with the quantita-tive findings regarding students’ perceptions of the benefits ofeducational intervention in relation to their capacity to expressthemselves, we can observe that generally students have posi-tively evaluated their experiences in terms of learning and en-gagement, thus corroborating the positive trend found throughthe evaluation of media productions. In fact, students’ percep-tions were positive with / (%) students that “stronglyagreed” and / (%) “agreed” that the learning activitiesled them to an improvement in their capacity to express theirviews (through the media) more efficiently (Table ).

Table . Students’ perception under the dimension expression. Statement«Classroom activities allowed me to express my views (through the media)more efficiently», Likert scale from =insufficient to =very good.



EI 1 (n=22) 1/22 (4.5%) 9/22 (41%) 12/22 (54.5) 0/22 6 (0%) 0/22 (0%)EI 2 (n=25) 3/25 (12%) 8/25 (32%) 8/25 (32%) 2/25 (8%) 4/25 (16%)EI 3 (n=17) 0/17 (0%) 7/17 (41%) 5/17 (29%) 2/17 (12%) 3/17 (18%)EI 4 (n=27) 4/27 (15%) 17/27 (63%) 2/27 (7%) 4/27 (15%) 0/27 (0%)EI 5 (n=21) 0/21 (0%) 5/21 (24%) 6/21 (29%) 7/21 (33%) 3/21 (14%)EI 6 (n=29) 5/29 (17%) 13/29 (45%) 7/29 (24%) 2/29 (7%) 2/29 (7%)Total (n=141) 13/141 (9%) 59/141 (42%) 40/141 (28%) 17/141 (12%) 12/141 (9%)

However, it must be underlined that there were also morethan a third of the students, that is / (%), who werestill “uncertain”, some / (%) who “disagreed” and /(%) “strongly disagreed” with the statement «Classroom ac-tivities allowed me to express my views (through the media)more efficiently». The more encouraging perceptions werefound in EI where / (%) students “strongly agreed” and/ (%) “agreed” with the statement «Classroom activitiesallowed me to express my views (through the media) more effi-ciently», and EI where / (%) students “strongly agreed”and / (%) “agreed” with the statement about expression.At the same time, in EI most students, that is / (%), were“uncertain”, / (%) “disagreed” and / (%) “stronglydisagreed” with the aforementioned statement. Similarly, in EI


about a third of students expressed uncertainty (/ = %)while two students disagreed (/= %) and three studentsstrongly disagreed (/=%).

As for teachers’ perceptions about students’ improvementsin this area, we can observe that they were slightly less positivethan students showing a varying attitude towards the impactof the activities on students’ capacity (Table ).

Table . Teachers’ perceptions under the dimension expression. Statement«Media and intercultural education activities allowed students to make theirvoices heard both in the media and in the classroom», Likert scale from=insufficient to =very good.




Specifically, / teachers (%) “strongly agreed”, / (%)“agreed” and / (%) were “uncertain” that media and in-tercultural education activities allowed students to make theirvoices heard both in the media and in the classroom. Nev-ertheless, no teacher / (%) “disagreed” or “strongly dis-agreed” about the effectiveness of the activities implemented.When looking at differences among the diverse contexts, betterperceptions were found in EI and EI where all teachers“strongly agreed” or “agreed” with the statement «Media andintercultural education activities allowed students to make theirvoices heard both in the media and in the classroom», and EI where all teachers “agreed” on the effectiveness of the learningactivities, while teachers in EI and EI were the most “uncer-tain” with / (%) teachers in EI and / (%) teachers inEI .

In conclusion, in many cases (EI , , , ) both students’and teachers’ perceptions tend to confirm the positive evalua-


tions based on the media rubric. In two cases (EI , ), instead,the perceptions of some teachers or students showed uncer-tainty about the effectiveness of the intervention for improvingstudents’ capacity to express themselves.

Moving to the qualitative findings regarding the impact ofthe EI on students’ expression, we identified one main con-straint that is the danger not to engage students in deeperprocesses of critical learning about the media. This risk seemsdue to an incorrect understanding of what media productionis. Common sense about this issue tends to assimilate mediaproduction to a technical act rather than to a creative processof meaning making, which requires critical understanding andreflection. From this point of view, in more than one case, stu-dents showed difficulties in engaging in more reflective tasks.For example, in Italy, students promptly reacted to carry outpractical activities (taking pictures, shooting videos, etc.), whilewere reluctant to be engaged in more design–oriented activity(EI ).

One might also wonder whether in students’ views mediaactivities are inherently practical rather than also critical in thesense of including reflective processes linked to the understand-ing of what lies behind the media production process. In fact,when students observe that the potential of media productionfor expression and communication is limited, one should askwhether it relies on the actual experience students had or ontheir previous understanding of what media production pro-cesses entails. Briefly, the limitations to deeper processes of criti-cal learning about the media may come either from the anxietyof the product which may bring to emphasise the technicalaspects or from previous understandings of media productionas a technical activity (which is quite common, indeed, as alsoemerged from other studies such as Parola & Ranieri, ).From this point of view, consistently with MEET guidelines fordesigning inclusive teaching of media education (see Chapter as well as Ranieri & Fabbro, ; see also Meyer, Rose & Gor-don, ), the recommendation for future developments is to


provide adequate attention, including time, to the pre–existingknowledge that students have about media education. Unfor-tunately, media education not being a part of the curriculumand a sporadic educational activity, very often limited time isdedicated to the exploration of students’ previous views (seeChapter ).

As far as affordances are concerned, the educational inter-ventions showed two main positive aspects: a) media produc-tion as a pedagogical activity increasing students’ motivationand capacity to express themselves; b) cooperative and peerlearning as a pedagogical means to support students’ capacityto make their voices heard.

Firstly, in almost all cases both teachers and students un-derlined that media production had a positive influence onmotivation and commitment. For example, the experiences ofproducing a video reportage in Italy (EI ) or the creation of aradio podcast (EI) as well as the involvement in a role–play sim-ulating the work of the journalists (EI ) in Slovenia increasedstudents’ motivation. In addition, teachers and researchers ob-served how media production facilitated students’ communica-tion and participation. Specifically, some teachers underlinedhow the production of posters (EI ) or the drawing of games’characters (EI ) improved students’ communication skills, play-ing a pivotal role in the learning process (EI ). For example, inone classroom in Germany (EI ), the teacher explained thatfor some students using the media was easier than expressingthemselves through written or oral language. Similarly, otherstudents in Germany and Italy emphasised how video produc-tion (EI ) or the use of visuals (EI ) or more generally mediaproduction supports and facilitates students’ expression.

In several cases media production also proved to be a meansto increase students’ commitment and participation. Accordingto researchers/teachers the production of a video reportage(EI ) or the creation of a radio podcast (EI ) or even the in-volvement in a role–play (EI ) increased students’ interest,motivation and participation. For example, the production of a


radio podcast in Lendava made students strongly committed tothe task. In this case the researcher/educator emphasised thataddressing a real audience increased students’ motivation to beengaged in the media production process. However, this is notsurprising since it is well known in the literature how the possi-bility of showing an audience the results of the learning processthrough a product makes students feel more committed to thetask.

Another emerging topic relates to the function of mediaproduction in facilitating students’ expression about humanrights. Indeed, the production of game stories (EI ) or thecreation of a media campaign (EI ) were reported by teachersin Italy and Slovenia as a means to improve students’ capacityto express themselves about topics such as tolerance, equityand human rights.

In conclusion, creating a product could be seen as a com-ponent of “a visibility strategy” providing students who areused to perceiving themselves as socially weak and culturallymarginal an opportunity to express themselves with differentmeans, thus increasing students’ participation and inclusion inthe learning process, as well as in the classroom community(Ranieri & Fabbro, ; Meyer, Rose & Gordon, ). Whilethe written word still dominates scholastic culture, the open-ness to news literacies that students are developing in theireveryday life proved to be an important strategy for students’inclusion (Gee, ; ).

As for the second affordance of the educational interven-tions, in several contexts (EI , EI , EI , EI ), teachers andresearchers stressed the importance of working in small groupswhich was felt as facilitating not only better cognitive perfor-mances but also higher levels of inclusion, including both stu-dents with immigrant background and students with specialeducational needs. On the one hand, some teachers and re-searchers and some students highlighted students’ difficulty intaking the floor in collective/public discussion and debate. Forexample, in Italy (EI , E I) some researchers reported that


students did not equally express their opinions in the contextof more collective discussions.

Conversely, in several classrooms (EI , EI , EI , EI ), bothteachers/researchers and students underlined how working insmaller groups facilitated students’ participation in the discus-sion and their expression of personal views. For example, inGermany (EI ), during the activity of creating video statements,working in small groups facilitated students moving from theuse of template to the expression of creative ideas. In Italy (EI), the teacher/educator reported that students showed to bemore spontaneous in expressing their ideas, when they workedin small groups such as, for example, when they had to definethe specific characteristics of their game stories.

.. Students’ engagement in multicultural community building

Only in two cases (EI , ) — both in Slovenia — did the pre–and post–test include an evaluation of students’ engagement inmulticultural community building. In these cases, the resultsof the Wilcoxon test were negative in one case (EI ) indicatingregression, and positive in the other (EI ). However, as regardsthe apparent worsening of students’ engagement, one Slove-nian researcher highlighted how students’ disengagement wasrelated to the filling of the post–test questionnaire itself ratherthan to their engagement in multicultural community building.Indeed, as we will show below, this interpretation is consistentwith the much more encouraging evaluations of students’ me-dia product (i.e. the radio podcast), as well as with the mainlypositive perceptions expressed by students and teachers.

Overall, the evaluations of students’ media practices andproductions indicate the highest level of results for engagementwhen compared to understanding and expression, with a maxi-mum of (Median) in EI , and a minimum of . (Median)in EI (Table ).

. Median calculated on – scale; Threshold value = . (sufficient).


Table . Scores under the dimension engagement.

Educational Intervention Scores 0–3 (Median).

EI 1 3EI 2 3EI 3 3EI 4 2.0EI 5 2.5EI 6 2.75

Since in the media rubric engagement was meant as the ca-pacity to «cooperate throughout the media production process»and «advocate for tolerance and equity» the highly positivemarks assigned to students’ media productions indicate a good(EI , ) or excellent (EI , , , ) level of cooperation betweenstudents during the media production activities and in theirability to advocate — more or less explicitly — equal rights andsocial justice through their media products.

This positive trend is confirmed by the generally positiveteachers’ perceptions. Table reports teachers’ attitudes to-wards the statement «Media and intercultural education activi-ties facilitated students to commit to intercultural dialogue andequity in the school community».

Table . Teachers’ perceptions under the dimension engagement. State-ment «Media and intercultural education activities facilitated students tocommit to intercultural dialogue and equity in the school community»,Likert scale from =insufficient to =very good.




As can be observed in table , / teachers (.%) “stronglyagreed”, / (.%) “agreed” and only / (.%) — both


involved in the EI — were “uncertain” that media and inter-cultural education activities facilitated students to commit withintercultural dialogue and equity in the school community. Inthis regard, the uncertainty of two teachers in EI representsa notable exception to the overall very positive perceptionsexpressed by the majority of teachers.

Differently from teachers, students showed mixed reactionsto the EI under the dimension engagement. The most positiveperceptions were found in the context of EI , and . Here asignificant percentage of students “agreed” (EI = %; EI = %; EI = .%) or “strongly agreed” (EI = %; EI =%; EI = .%) with the statements used to probe the levelof engagement perceived by the young participants, specifically«Classroom activities encouraged me to engage (more thanbefore) in a dialogue with my classmates (or schoolmates)» and«Classroom activities encouraged me to engage (more thanbefore) in the democratic life of the classroom and/or of theschool by advocating equity, tolerance and/or social justice».Table reports students’ attitudes towards these sentences ex-pressed through a Likert scale =strongly disagree/=stronglyagree.

Table . Students’ perceptions under the dimension engagement. State-ments «Classroom activities encouraged me to engage (more than before)in a dialogue with my classmates (or schoolmates)» and «Classroom activi-ties encouraged me to engage (more than before) in the democratic life ofthe classroom and/or of the school by advocating equity, tolerance and/orsocial justice», Likert scale from =strongly disagree to =strongly agree.



EI 1 (n=22) 3/22 (14%) 10/22 (45%) 7/22 (32%) 1/22 (4.5%) 1/22 (4.5%)EI 2 (n=25) 1/25 (4%) 7/25 (28%) 9/25 (36%) 4/25 (16%) 4/25 (16%)EI 3 (n=17) 1/17 (6%) 4/17 (23.5%) 4/17 (23.5%) 4/17 (23.5%) 4/17 (23.5%)EI 4 (n=27) 6/27 (23%) 9/27 (33%) 9/27 (33%) 3/27 (11%) 0/27 (0%)EI 5 (n=21) 1/21 (5%) 9/21 (43%) 6/21 (28%) 1/21 (5%) 4/21 (19%)EI 6 (n=29) 5/29 (17.5%) 19/29 (66.5%) 1/29 (3%) 3/29 (10%) 1/29 (3%)Total (n=141) 17/141 (12%) 58/141 (41%) 36/141 (26%) 16/141 (11%) 14/141 (10%)

Students’ perceptions tend to be positive, though to differ-ent extents, in EI , , and , while several students from


EI and expressed negative reactions. In these contexts, infact, many students “disagreed” (EI = %; EI = .%) or“strongly disagreed” (EI = %; EI = .%) with the allegedeffectiveness of the EI in the promotion of their engagementin multicultural community building.

To sum up, in most cases (EI , , and ) the results relatedto the evaluation of students’ media productions and partic-ipants’ perceptions (whether students or teachers) showed apositive impact of the classroom activities on students’ engage-ment. However, there were also some cases where a significantnumber of students (EI and ) and teachers (EI ) questionedthe positive impact of the educational activities.

Qualitative findings concurred to identify two constraintsand two affordances of EI in encouraging students’ engage-ment in multicultural community building process. They alsoprovided insight, at least partly, into the reasons why in certaincontexts some students were less engaged or did not show anyprogress in this respect.

The constraints of some EI correspond to a) a limited pro-motion of trust in the advocacy of social justice; b) the rational-ist/moral approach to intercultural issues as a potential pitfallin the promotion of students’ intercultural dialogue.

As for the first limitation, in several cases (EI , , , ) smallgroups of students within the classes voiced a general distrustin the advocacy of social justice. Some students claimed thatthey did not feel they were encouraged in the advocacy of socialjustice, tolerance and/or equity or that they were not willingto do it in the future. In this regard, students’ answers suggest ageneral distrust of their personal contribution to the advocacyof social justice. For example, one student in Slovenia (EI )clearly stated that s/he does not believe that his/her actionscould contribute to challenge social injustices. Another studentin Italy (EI ), instead, pointed to the school environment as amajor obstacle in the fight for social justice.

However, some students’ answers indicate how such dis-trust is not understood as a specific limitation of the educational


intervention but rather as a wider distrust or lack of motivationto promote social justice at different levels (classroom, school,local community, society at large).

In two cases a further constraint emerged, namely the diffi-culty (when not the impossibility) of effectively addressing thesensitive issue of migration and to encourage students’ intercul-tural dialogue exclusively through the discussion of the topicor the analysis of how media represent migrants and migra-tion. On the basis of some teachers, researchers, and students’accounts, we interpreted this obstacle as students’ resistance toa rationalist/moral (or counter–propagandist) approach to theissue of migration. Indeed, in the two schools located in Italy(EI , ) teachers and researchers testified students’ resistanceto media education activities on migration, namely the analysisof how media represents migrants and refugees. This resis-tance was particularly evident in one class (EI ) when studentsexplicitly contested the choice of the topic.

In the other classroom, instead, teachers pointed to theanalytical (or rationalist) approach to the issue of migration asthe major obstacle to students’ involvement in the classroomactivity. Interestingly, in this context one student motivatedthe scarcity of dialogue as lack of interest in the interculturalissues addressed across the LS, as well as with the uselessnessof problematising intercultural relations as these latter are notproblematic in his/her personal experience.

On the other hand, qualitative findings indicate two relevantaffordances of the classroom activities, which can contribute tomitigating (or overcoming) the aforementioned constraints.

Firstly, in almost all contexts (EI , , , , ) students’ and/orteachers’ responses allowed us to discover how interpersonalrelations of mutual respect and reciprocal recognition amongstudents were crucial to make the educational interventionsmore inclusive from a social and intercultural perspective. In-deed, in some cases answers from students (EI , EI ) andteachers (EI , EI ) concurred to highlight how interculturaldialogue in the classroom found fertile ground in a climate of


reciprocal acceptance and in the absence of judgement. Forexample, some students from Germany (EI ) clearly statedhow classroom activities allow them to start dialoguing withthe classmates they could not speak to before the educationalintervention.

Even some teachers and researchers confirmed this percep-tion about the positive benefits of classroom activities on thestudents’ ability to communicate within their multiculturalclassroom. For example, in Slovenia, according to the teach-ers, the bi–lingual teaching contributed to further facilitateintercultural recognition and dialogue through peer educationprocesses.

A further affordance consists of specific pedagogical strate-gies, namely media production and role play. Generally, as al-ready stated above, in all contexts such activities provided moststudents with the opportunity to engage authentically with in-tercultural issues, sometimes even where the controversial issueof migration was difficult to address. For example, in EI inSlovenia the role–play about identity and ethnic stereotypes car-ried out in the first lesson, addressed the issue of interculturaldialogue efficiently and fostered the acceptance of otherness (ordiversity). According to teachers and researchers, through therole–play strategy students became acquainted with differentidentities in their group, which reflected and strengthened theunderstanding of multicultural and diverse community.

. Findings from the action–research: the impact on teach-ers

In this section we summarise and compare the main findingsfrom the quantitative and qualitative analysis aimed at measuringthe impact of teachers’ participation in the classroom activities —and in the wider action–research process — in terms of medialiteracy skills, intercultural understanding skills, and their capacityto teach Media Literacy Education in intercultural contexts.


.. Teachers’ media literacy skills

The comparison between teachers’ answers to the question«How would you self–evaluate your level of Media Literacy?»before and after the EI suggests generally positive perceptionsof teachers about the improvement of their media literacy skills.Table reports teachers’ self–evaluation of their media literacyskills before and after the EI.

Table . Impact on teachers’ media literacy skills. «How would youself–evaluate your level of Media Literacy skills?”.


Before thetest

After the test

Low Medium High Low Medium High

EI 1 (n=2) 0/2 (0%) 2/2 (100%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%) 2/2 (100%) 0/2 (0%)EI 2 (n=2) 0/2 (0%) 1/2 (50%) 1/2 (50%) 0/2 (0%) 2/2 (100%) 0/2 (0%)EI 3 (n=3) 1/3 (33.3%) 1/3 (33.3%) 1/3 (33.3%) 1/3 (33.3%) 1/3 (33.3%) 1/3 (33.3%)EI 4 (n=4) 0/4 (0%) 2/4 (50%) 2/4 (50%) 1/4 (25%) 2/4 (50%) 1/4 (25%)EI 5 (n=2) 1/2 (50%) 1/2 (50%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%) 2/2 (100%) 0/2 (0%)EI 6 (n=2) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%) 2/2 (100%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%) 2/2 (100%)Total (n=15) 2/15 (13%) 7/15 (47%) 6/15 (40%) 2/15 (13%) 9/15 (60%) 4/15 (27%)

Overall, in the pre–survey / teachers (%) declared a“low” level, / (%) a “medium” level and / (%) a“high” level of media literacy skills, while in the post–survey/ teachers (%) declared a “low” level, / (%) a “medium”level and / (%) a “high” level of media literacy skills.

When comparing the different cases, lower scores werefound in EI and EI , while higher scores only in EI . In EI, and , instead, teachers declared the same levels of medialiteracy skills both in the pre– and post–survey. According tothese data, in all contexts — excepting EI — we could notfind strong evidence regarding the improvement of teachers’media literacy skills. Qualitative findings, particularly thosebased on the comments by the researchers, indicate that thiswas mainly due to the limited time that teachers had to beexposed to media education activities in the classrooms. Inaddition, teachers’ lack of media literacy skills prevented themfrom fully participating in the classroom activities, suggesting


the importance of integrating such types of intervention withintegrative training activities to be carried out before or inparallel to the EI.

As for the affordances, in some cases (e.g., EI , ), teacherspointed to the variety of teaching methods and to the highquality of the educational materials — especially the videos— as two key strengths in the promotion of their own medialiteracy skills. In particular, the observation of experiencedresearchers–educators in action facilitated the development ofteachers’ media literacy skills.

In other contexts, instead, researchers observed how forsome teachers the educational interventions provided teach-ers with an opportunity to put in practice their pre–existingknowledge about media languages (i.e. audio–visual languageand storytelling) for media production activities such as videoreporting and videogame design.

.. Teachers’ Intercultural understanding skills

Overall, most teachers express positive feedback on the impactof the action–research on their intercultural understandingskills. Indeed, in the pre–survey / teachers (%) declareda “low” level, / (%) a “medium” level and / (%) a“high” level of intercultural understanding skills, while in thepost–survey / teachers (%) declared a “low” level, /(%) a “medium” level and / (%) a “high” level of levelof intercultural understanding skills. Table reports teachers’scoring of their intercultural understanding skills before andafter the EI.

If we compare teachers’ evaluations in the different cases,positive results emerged from the post–surveys in EI , , , and , while results were less positive in EI . Here / teach-ers (%) declared a “medium” level, / (%) a “high” levelof intercultural understanding skills in the pre–survey, whileboth teachers declared a “medium” level in the post–survey.Hence, from this perspective, we can conclude that teachers’


Table . Impact on teachers’ intercultural understanding skills. «Howwould you self–evaluate your level of intercultural understanding?».


Before thetest

After the test


EI 1 (n=2) 0/2 (0%) 1/2 (50%) 1/2 (50%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%) 2/2 (100%)EI 2 (n=2) 0/2 (0%) 1/2 (50%) 1/2 (50%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%) 2/2 (100%)EI 3 (n=3) 0/3 (0%) 1/3 (25%) 2/3 (75%) 0/3 (0%) 3/3 (100%) 0/3 (0%)EI 4 (n=4) 2/4 (50%) 1/4 (25%) 1/4 (25%) 0/4 (0%) 4/4 (100%) 0/4 (0%)EI 5 (n=2) 0/2 (0%) 2/2 (100%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%) 2/2 (100%)EI 6 (n=2) 0/2 (0%) 2/2 (100%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%) 2/2 (100%)Total (n=15) 2/15 (13%) 8/15 (53%) 5/15 (34%) 0/15 (0%) 7/15 (47%) 8/15 (53%)

self–evaluations suggest an overall improvement of the inter-cultural understanding skills in all contexts, except in EI .

Qualitative findings refer to teachers’ understanding of thevalue of cultural plurality and democratic relations in the schoolcontext and in the society at large, as well as their capacity tocommunicate and dialogue across a plurality of cultures. In thecontext of this broad “area of competence” the qualitative anal-ysis of researchers’ accounts (i.e. field notes of the logbooks)contributed to identifying some specific challenges with whichteachers struggle when addressing the migration issue in theirclassroom, namely the difficulty of some teachers to mobilisegenuine student engagement in the discussion about the topicof migration. For example, in one school (EI ) a quite evidentdifficulty to foster students’ talk about migration was detected.Specifically, one researcher observes how during the first les-son neither he nor the teacher were able to facilitate students’expression about the topic of migration.

Of course, this difficulty cannot be read exclusively as amatter of teacher (and researcher)’s lack of intercultural under-standing skills. Nevertheless, the situation also suggests how alack of familiarity with students’ migrant backgrounds and/ortheir feelings about the migration issue prevented the teachersfrom engaging students in the discussion.

Other qualitative findings shed light on the virtuous rela-tion between the EI and teachers’ improvement of their in-


tercultural awareness and fostering intercultural dialogue inthe classroom (EI , ). Again, according to some teachers, theconcrete opportunity to learn from the active listening of theconversational exchanges between students and researchers,as well as from their own direct participation in the discussion,was pivotal in developing a greater ability to address sensitiveissues such as ethnic prejudices and (anti)racism (EI ) and arenovated awareness of students’ cultural diversity.

.. Teachers’ capacity to teach Media Literacy Education in inter-cultural contexts

Overall, almost all teachers declared that their capacity to teachmedia literacy education in intercultural contexts improved atthe end of the EI. In fact, comparing data from the pre–surveywith those from the post–survey, a better picture emerged ofteachers’ skills in this area, although to a relatively limited ex-tent (see Table ). Before the intervention / teachers (%)declared having a “low” level of skills, / (%) a “medium”level and / (%) a “high” level, while at the end of the ac-tion–research no teacher declared having a “low” level, /(%) stated having a “medium” level and / (%) a “high”level of capacity to teach media education in intercultural con-texts. Table reports teachers’ scoring of their capacity toteach media literacy in intercultural contexts before and afterthe EI.

This positive perception of the impact of the interventionreflects researchers’ point of view: in all cases (EI , , , and) an improvement was registered with the exception of onecase in Germany (EI ), where before the action–research /teachers (%) declared a “medium” level, / (%) a “high”level of teaching capacity, while all teachers / (%) declareda “medium” level at the end of the intervention.

Qualitative findings refer to teachers’ ability to carry outmedia and intercultural education activities in the classroom,as well as to re/co–design such activities in order to address


Table . Impact on teachers’ capacity to teach media literacy in inter-cultural contexts. «How would you self–evaluate your capability to teachMedia Literacy? How would you self–evaluate your capability to teach inmulticultural contexts?».


Before thetest

After the test


EI 1 (n=2) 0/2 (0%) 2/2 (100%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%) 1/2 (50%) 1/2 (50%)EI 2 (n=2) 0/2 (0%) 1/2 (50%) 1/2 (50%) 0/2 (0%) 2/2 (100%) 0/2 (0%)EI 3 (n=3) 1/3 (33.3%) 1/3 (33.3%) 1/3 (33.3%) 0/3 (0%) 1/3 (25%) 2/3 (75%)EI 4 (n=4) 1/4 (25%) 2/4 (50%) 1/4 (25%) 0/4 (0%) 3/4 (75%) 1/4 (25%)EI 5 (n=2) 1/2 (50%) 1/2 (50%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%) 2/2 (100%) 0/2 (0%)EI 6 (n=2) 0/2 (0%) 2/2 (100%) 0/2 (0%) 0/2 (0%) 2/2 (100%) 0/2 (0%)

multicultural groups of students. It also concerns their capacityto facilitate the development of students’ media literacy skillsand to encourage intercultural dialogue and mutual respectamong students. In the context of this broad “area of com-petence” the qualitative analysis of researchers’ accounts (i.e.field notes of the logbooks) contributed to identify emergingaffordances and challenges.

Overall, qualitative findings are aligned with quantitativedata, indicating a general positive trend: teachers improvedtheir capacity to teach media literacy in intercultural contexts.Specifically, many teachers declared having discovered or learnednew pedagogical strategies and/or tools to teach in a more in-clusive or intercultural way.

In almost all cases (, , , , ) teachers emphasised how par-ticipation in the testing of the learning scenarios brought themto the discovery and acquisition of new pedagogical strategies.One teacher in Germany (EI ) underlined that the MEET expe-rience encouraged him/her to greater use of media for teachingpurposes. Other teachers in Italy (EI , EI ) and Slovenia (EI ,EI ) pointed out that the collaboration on the implementationof the activities led them to learn new approaches, methodsor tools to teach about the media within intercultural contexts,ranging from video reporting (EI ) to the use of historical mapsof migrations (EI ) or digital storytelling (EI ).


These findings suggest that the approach adopted for theintervention, that is action–research, led teachers to being ef-fectively engaged in the teaching process. At the same time,it seems to indicate that there is a potential at school in termsof “human resources” to carry out such kinds of interventions.Another positive aspect is related to the quality of the teachingmaterial, specifically the learning scenarios which were foundrich and stimulating.

Some challenges also emerged mainly linked to the shortduration of the intervention.

. Conclusions

This chapter reported and discussed the main findings thatemerged from the implementation of MEET Learning Scenar-ios in six schools in Germany, Italy and Slovenia. Almost students and teachers were involved in an action–researchprocess aimed at improving both students’ and teachers’ mediaand intercultural literacy skills for learning and teaching. Arange of qualitative and quantitative data were collected at thebeginning, during and at the end of the action–research fromstudents, teachers and researchers.

Generally, the comparison — based on the Wilcoxon test— between students’ skills before and after the EI providedweak evidence about the positive impact of the classroom ac-tivities on students. Only in one or two cases — depending onthe evaluative dimension at stake (understanding, expressionor engagement) — did students obtain better scores at the endof the activities. Conversely, most of the time students’ mediaproductions developed during the educational interventions(poster, video statement, videogame design, video reportage,radio podcast, digital storytelling) were assessed very positivelyindicating: students’ critical understanding of media and inter-cultural relations; a good capacity to express themselves on keyissues such as migration, human rights, social justice, racism,


etc.; and a strong engagement in the multicultural communitybuilding process at classroom and/or school level. Further-more, in most cases students’ and teachers’ perceptions of theimpact of the educational interventions were consistent withthe positive results of the media production process ratherthan with the Wilcoxon test, the results of which were lesspositive. Specifically, teachers’ perceptions tend to confirm anadvancement of students’ skills in relation to their understand-ing, expression and engagement. On the other hand, students’perceptions about the development of their understanding ofmedia and intercultural relations align with teachers’ positiveperceptions, while the self–evaluation of their capacity of ex-pression and their engagement in the community buildingprocess were much more mixed.

Interestingly, the more nuanced students’ perceptions aresomehow more coherent with the qualitative findings that al-lowed us to identify both specific affordances and constraintsof the classroom activities. An obstacle to the promotion ofan equally good understanding of media among all studentswas the short duration of the educational interventions. Inaddition, two potential pitfalls of media education activitieswere identified in relation to the promotion of students’ un-derstanding of news media and intercultural dialogue. Firstly,in some cases media analysis unintentionally increased a gen-eral sense of distrust toward the news media rather than theircritical understanding. Secondly, an overtly “moral approach”(or “counter–propagandist approach”) to the controversial andsensitive issue of migration limited the engagement of somestudents in a genuine and constructive “intercultural dialogue”.Furthermore, a minority of students voiced a general distrustin the advocacy of social justice reflecting a general distrust orlack of motivation to promote social justice at different levels.In this regard, students’ distrust might be a key challenge toconsider for future educational interventions aimed at engag-ing young people (but also adults) in the cooperative processof multicultural community building.


On the other hand, qualitative findings also indicate sev-eral relevant affordances of the classroom activities, whichcontributed to mitigate (and sometime to overcome) someof the aforementioned limitations. Firstly, in the context ofall educational interventions the pedagogical strategy of theinquiry–based learning was pivotal in the promotion of stu-dents’ critical thinking about the media representations of vul-nerable social and marginalised social groups (i.e. migrantsand refugees). Furthermore, media production activities oftenturned into concrete occasions to learn how to cooperate andto dialogue productively with classmates, as well as how tomake their voices heard in — and beyond — the classroomcommunity. Finally, it seems worth highlighting how interper-sonal relations of mutual respect and reciprocal recognitionamong students (but most of all between students and teach-ers) were crucial to make the EI more inclusive from a socialand intercultural perspective. Although this finding is some-how obvious in itself, in the long term, the distrust expressedby some students could be mitigated through new concreteexperiences of respectful dialogue and solidarity in the class-room. The scarcity of time and the importance of students’affective and social involvement respectively constituted oneconstraint and one affordance of the educational interventionsthat, in their turn, can contribute to explain why most of stu-dents did not demonstrate an improvement of their media,intercultural and citizenship skills through the post–test ques-tionnaires. Indeed, on one hand, the administration of the lattercontrasts somehow, again, with the obstacle of the scarcity oftime and on the other it does create the conditions for an af-fective and social engagement with the task because the test isindividual and probably demotivating for the students. Hence,from a methodological perspective, the investigation of thestudents’ skills through the pre and post–tests did not resultparticularly suitable, especially if we consider the complexityof the expected learning results (i.e. understanding, expressionand engagement).


As regards the impact deriving from teachers’ involvementin the action–research process — and particularly their class-room experience — generally almost all teachers recognised adevelopment of their media and intercultural understandingskills, as well as an improvement of their ability to teach medialiteracy education in intercultural contexts. Nevertheless, somequalitative findings based on both teachers’ and researchers’reflections on the classroom experience were fundamental todetect some obstacles to teachers’ development of their me-dia and intercultural understanding skills. Specifically, in somecases the short duration of the educational interventions, thelow level of media literacy skills of some teachers and/or theirlack of familiarity with the discussion of sensitive and con-troversial issues in the classroom (i.e. migration and mediarepresentations of migrants/refugees) prevented some partici-pants from developing those media and intercultural skills thatare essential to teach media literacy education autonomouslyin their multicultural classroom, at least during the classroomactivities. Nevertheless, several findings pointed out how teach-ers benefited from their participation in the project. In thisrespect, most teachers a) discovered new teaching methods andresources, most importantly inclusive and intercultural peda-gogical strategies; b) consolidated and developed their mediaproduction skills; c) increased their intercultural awareness ofstudents’ backgrounds; d) effectively engaged in the teachingprocess although the level of engagement varied considerablyfrom teacher to teacher, often proportionally to the time spentin the classroom with the researchers and the students.

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Creating a “docutorial” on Mediaand Intercultural Teaching

The MEET Approach

F F, A N, C G∗

. Introduction

This chapter aims at describing the process of design, produc-tion and post–production of the docutorial created within theMEET project. Docutorial is an expression we coined to referto a genre of video which stands between a tutorial providingteachers with guidance on teaching media and intercultural ed-ucation, and a documentary showing the interactions happeningbetween teachers and students during the teaching/learningprocess. This video was part of a multimedia online toolkitincluding both MEET pedagogical guidelines for design andlearning scenarios.

The first section of the chapter outlines the literature on theuse of video for teacher training, which has received increasingattention in recent years for its potential to support teachers’reflective practice. The second section describes the objectivesand the structure of the docutorial, explaining the pedagogicalmotivations that led to the selection of the learning scenarios tobe filmed and the related specific interactions. The third section

. The authors have jointly conceived the chapter, while editing differentsections. Andrea Nardi edited sections and , Francesco Fabbro edited section ,and Cécile Goffard edited section . All authors contributed to the conclusions.

∗ University of Florence, Italy. Média Animation, Belgium.

Francesco Fabbro, Andrea Nardi, Cécile Goffard

focuses on the challenges and critical aspects raised duringthe editing and post–production processes. The chapter endswith some conclusive considerations and recommendations forteachers, educators and researchers on the use of the video todocument educational practices.

. Using audio–visual content for teacher training and re-porting

.. Teacher Training and the Use of Video

Following the increasing popularity of video sharing platformssuch as YouTube and Vimeo, along with Massive Open On-line Courses – MOOC (Breslow et al., ) which are largelysupported by audio–visual contents, the use of digital videois becoming prevalent in teacher training (Calandra & Rich). In the last years, video–viewing has been increasinglyused for in–service and pre–service teachers’ education, aswell as professional development in all subjects, at all levels,and throughout the world (Brouwer, ; Calandra & Rich,; Gaudin & Chaliès, ; Major & Watson, ; Marsh &Mitchell, ; Rossi & Fedeli, ; Tripp & Rich, ).

The increased availability of online videos has prompted re-searchers to question its use for teaching, learning and training,for documentation of good practices, and for enhancing teach-ers’ skills and knowledge. In this regard, which is the focusof this chapter, several authors underlined the transformativevalue of video for professional development (Goldman, Pea,Barron & Derry, ; Calvani, Bonaiuti & Andreocci, )— especially because videos allow professionals to reflect ontheir pedagogical practices (Blomberg, Stumer & Seidel, )— and many studies reported video as a powerful tool to sup-port teachers’ learning and practices (Koellner & Jacobs, ;Santagata, ; Seidel & Stürmer, ).

Creating a “docutorial” on Media and Intercultural Teaching

Hattie () emphasises that the most important factordetermining effective teaching is the quality of the interactionbetween the teacher and the learner. The latter mainly relieson making the teaching–learning process “visible” throughmutual observation. Video recordings of educational interven-tions offer teachers several opportunities for improving theirpractices since they recreate an event which allows them to seethemselves from the outside, through an external eye and/orfrom a different perspective (i.e. student, colleagues, mentors,experts, researchers) (Allen, ).

Other studies focused on the use of video for the analysisof educational practices with the aim of activating and sup-porting the reflective analysis of teachers’ actions (Vinatier &Altet, ). In line with Dewey’s () work, the idea is thatreflection generates a progressive improvement of teachingpractices, also allowing professionals to focus on unperceivedevents of their daily work (Borko et al., ).

Generally, there are four teacher training methods sup-ported by video: video–viewing, where the video is used asboth an object and an instrument of observation and analy-sis; video–modelling, where the video shows the practices ofexperienced teachers in specific situations to provide practicaldemonstration of skills to be acquired; video–coaching, usedas a personal testimony of the teacher(s), which is shared fordiscussion with colleagues or a mentor; and video–making, avital tool for participatory knowledge construction and criticalintegration of technologies in the classroom (Masats & Dooly,). The use of video for microteaching — as an exampleof video–modelling — is one of oldest applications of videoto teacher training. This technique was first developed in at Stanford University (Allen, ) and aims to «train specificteaching abilities» (Calvani et al., , p. ) by videotaping andreviewing short, didactic experiences (– minutes maximum)where the number of students is restricted (–), and each unitdescribes only one teaching ability.


Despite the potential of video, few studies have coveredthe use of specific pedagogical approaches involving its uses(Blomberg, Sherin, Renkl, Glogger & Seidel, ) and there islittle research on how to analyse videos to support real transfor-mations of teachers during class activities (Lussi Borer & Muller,). Moreover, if some studies exist on the use of videofor teaching media literacy (e.g. Hobbs, Donnelly, Friesem& Moen, ) or triggering processes of social change (Swien-cicki & Goodman, ), less is known about the use of videofor intercultural education (Wilkinson, ). And yet, for itspeculiarities, video can be considered as an intercultural tool inso far as it creates a dialogue between the director and the spec-tator(s), leading to the meeting of two different points of view.It also makes the student–spectator aware of being a bearerof a lens on reality, while allowing the teacher to enhance thediversity and background of every student. Coming in touchwith different cultural realities through video also means de-centralising or trying to marginalise their own stereotypes andpreconceptions, as well as relativising their own point of view(Bertoldo, ). The analysis of audio–visual products allowsteachers and students to reflect critically on media discourses,and to analyse positive and negative images, as well as clichéson the others (Niesyto, ). Videos can be used to teachstudents about diversity (Pieterse, ) by increasing theirawareness and offering them the opportunity to deal with di-versity issues that they may never have experienced personally(Lee, Kane, Drane & Kane, ). Videos also allow studentsto look at situations far beyond their classroom, where they canexperiment with specific cultural aspects in different real–lifesituations. From this point of view, audio–visual materials cancontribute to intercultural awareness because they can help tomake students more aware of their prejudices or stereotypes,while also helping them to deconstruct their preconceptions(Soble, Spanierman & Liao, ) through collaborative com-ments and exchanges of criticisms and/or observations ( Jewitt,).


.. Why and how to report teaching practices

The literature review carried out by Marsh and Mitchell ()highlighted a series of video affordances that provide significanttraining opportunities for teachers such as the video capacity ofcapturing and transmitting data that reflects the complexity ofclassroom activities, its immediacy as a communication meansable to provide relevant stimuli for discussion and reflection,and its effectiveness as a teaching tool enabling instructors toshow complex circumstances that can be resistant to verbalrepresentation and which, in any case, can be more clearly andfully demonstrated visually (Marsh & Mitchell, ).

The literature review by Gaudin and Chaliès () identifiedsix different objectives of the use of video for teachers’ profes-sional development: () showing examples of good teachingpractices, () showing the characteristics of specific professionalsituations, () analysing the diversity of classroom practicesfrom different perspectives, () stimulating personal reflection,() guiding teacher training activity (coaching), and () evaluat-ing competences. From this literature review it also emergesthat video–viewing enhances teachers’ motivation, optimisescognition, and improves the overall classroom practice (Gaudin& Chaliès, ).

Therefore, there are many advantages of using video withpre–service and in–service teachers. Videos can help teach-ers have a new understanding of their professional experience,observing first and then giving a professional sense to theclassroom events (Blomberg et al., ). Therefore, support-ing teachers’ “vision from the outside”, videos allow them toreconsider what they did in the classroom (Rossi et al., ),beyond observation, comprehension, anticipation, or prediction(Rivoltella, ) of what happens and what can happen after aspecific teaching action (Altet et al., ). Video observationalso allows teachers to work on their “cognitive dissonance”,that is the distance between what they remember of the lessonand what appears in the video (Gola, ). All these aspects


have a positive influence on teaching practices since they im-prove teachers’ ability to evaluate their work and change theirteaching. Through videotaped lesson–viewing, teachers cana) identify the gap between their beliefs on good teachingand their effective teaching practice, b) articulate the tacit hy-potheses and the objectives on teaching and learning, c) noticeaspects of their teaching that they forget, d) focus their reflec-tions on multiple aspects of teaching in the classroom, and e)assess the strengths and weaknesses of their teaching (Tripp &Rich, ).

For example, through video analysis teachers can focus onvoice tone, facial expressions, body language, postures andgestures, and other elements that tend to be unnoticed (Yang,). By reviewing verbal and non–verbal aspects teachers havethe opportunity to reflect on and adjust their practices. Thisis why videos are also described as a «window into practice»(Zhang, Lundenberg, Koehler & Eberhardt, , p. ), oralso like «a memory that stimulates reflection and individual orgroup analysis» (Paquay & Wagner, , p. ).

Video analysis — for both novices or experts — is a toolto learn how to observe, reflect, and think critically aboutteaching strategies (Masats, & Dooly, ). The video canconvey the complexity as well as the atmosphere of humaninteractions, and video case studies offer opportunities for deepreflection, allowing teachers to adopt a student perspective(Goeze, Zottmann, Vogel, Fischer & Schrader, ).

Therefore, video support forms of “situated learning” show-ing real people in real situations and addressing their attentionto significant events in the classroom, thus helping them iden-tify relevant learning situations in authentic settings (Santagata& Angelici, ). Videos often allow both teachers and stu-dents to overcome the difficulties and ambiguities that char-acterise verbal language, both written and oral, facilitatingdirect and practical observation, and are extremely effectivein communicating emotional states, provoking cognitive andmotivational processes (Seidel, Stürmer, Blomberg Kobarg &


Schwindt, ), and working on the affective and social aspectsof learning (Yung et al., ).

The video is not effective in itself, and the simple visionof the video does not guarantee teachers’ learning (Gaudin &Chaliès, ; Major & Watson, ). In fact, its effectivenesslargely depends on the training approach adopted (Seidel etal., ). The simple footage does not produce any significantoutcomes, but when combined with a clear training strategy itcan make the difference (Gentile & Tacconi, ).

There are also some risks like distraction and cognitive over-load (Clark & Lyons, ). Additionally, video is an elementthat “compels” the user within a given narration, “imposes”a specific point of view, and therefore it must be one of theresources within a larger system rather than the only one (Gold-smith & Seago, ; Kang & van Es, ).

Another relevant aspect is the video format. For instance,systematic reviews on video–based education from the med-ical field, show that video–based learning can be an effectiveteaching/training method for medical students, trainees, andpatients (Ahmet, Gamze, Rustem & Sezen, ; De Leng, Dol-mans, van de Wiel, Muijtjens & van der Vleuten, ). How-ever, the video format is crucial: while narrative formats aremore effective for patients (Abu Abed, Himmel, Vormfelde& Koschack, ), streaming of lectures better suit medicalstudents (Bridge, Jackson & Robinson, ).

In recent years, several authors have developed frameworksfor the analysis and design of educational interventions supportedby video (Altet, Bru & Blanchard–Laville, ; Es & Sherin, ;Masats & Dooly, ; Santagata, ). Observation tools andframeworks help narrow the field of analysis and drive teachers’attention towards specific aspects. Specifically, they support teach-ers to (a) identify what is important in the complexity of a class-room interaction, (b) construct a shared language to characteriseinstruction more precisely, (c) experiment new student–centredinstructional practices, and (d) develop attention oriented to stu-dents and their learning (Calandra & Rich, ). Among the


several frameworks of video design of educational interventions,three dimensions identified by Santagata () are particularlyrelevant to outline the key aspects of a video production pro-cess from a pedagogical perspective. The first dimension refersto the learning objectives to be achieved which can guide theobservation of the teaching practice. The second dimension helpsanalysing the structure of the video, focusing on a) observed sub-ject/object (e.g. only the teacher, interactions between teacherand pupils, or relationships among pupils), b) video duration (e.g.a lesson, some short pieces and so on), c) the use or not of an in-tegrated activity, d) the type of teachers (e.g. experts, novices) andstudents involved, and e) the teaching approaches (e.g. lessons,cases, discussion etc.). The third dimension includes the ques-tions to be asked to the teachers to guide their viewing (Santagata,).

. Designing the audio–visual documentation

.. Aims and structure of the docutorial

Coming to the video realised within MEET, consistently withthe first (i.e. learning objectives guiding observation) and sec-ond dimension (i.e. the structure of the video) identified bySantagata () and just mentioned above, the pedagogicalaims of the video strongly informed its structure. Therefore,this paragraph will concentrate on the specific training objec-tives of the video, its structure and their relationships.

The neologism docutorial is particularly suitable to explainwhy and how the video was created in the MEET context. Onthe one hand, it was intended to show how media educationcan be taught in intercultural contexts to foster democraticcitizenship. Specifically, the video aimed at providing teacherswith a window into teaching and learning practices, that is toillustrate how to implement the pedagogical guidelines in theirprofessional practices and show concretely to teachers how the


learning scenarios can be used in classrooms. In addition, thedocutorial was not conceived as an autonomous video but asthe multimedia component of an online toolkit composed ofsix learning scenarios and pedagogical guidelines. Hence, itwas located within a larger system of activities in which multi-ple elements work together to train teachers’ learning (Kang& van Es, ). On the other hand, the video making pro-cess entailed the shooting of real situations in the classroomduring the implementation of the learning scenarios. The ideawas to show a pedagogical approach through practices, that isto let the guidelines emerge from what happens in the class-room, mainly interactions between students and teachers. Inthis respect, the video also had a documentary intent.

The design of the audio–visual documentation proved tobe truly challenging raising several issues on different — butintertwined — levels, namely conceptual (i.e. how to illustratea pedagogical approach through the video), logistical (i.e. exec-utive production) and aesthetical (i.e. video shooting style).

After a series of online and offline meetings, the consortiumfound some solutions to tackle the several mentioned issues.

Firstly, on the conceptual level, it was decided to structurethe docutorial according to the three main principles of thepedagogical guidelines, namely understanding, expression andengagement (see chapter ). In fact, the docutorial was split intothree video capsules (– minutes each) and an introduction(about minutes) to have shorter videos easier to watch andmore suitable for online dissemination, particularly via socialmedia. Each video capsule was dedicated to the explanation ofone single concept and the related guidelines. Specifically, thevideo capsule about understanding was meant to show the ped-agogical techniques to support students’ critical understandingof media and their recognition of intercultural dimensions ofmedia and society. The video capsule relating to expression wasintended to illustrate teaching methods to facilitate students’

. Available on https://meetolerance.eu/toolkit/.


ability to communicate through the media in multiculturalcontexts, as well as to (self )–evaluate their own learning andparticipation. The video capsule concerning engagement wasfunctional to show the pedagogical techniques to encouragethe multicultural community building process and students’full participation in the social and political life of their class-room, school, or local community. The introductory video,instead, aimed to introduce the overall goals of the projectand explain the main actions developed to enable teachers tounderstand the link between the concepts of media education,tolerance and citizenship in classrooms with the pedagogicalconcepts of understanding, expression and engagement.

As for the executive production, in each country where theclassroom activities took place (Germany, Italy and Slovenia) aprofessional video–maker was involved, while Média Animation,the coordinator of the video production, took care of directionand final editing. Partners agreed on narrowing the video shoot-ing to one classroom per country, including three learning sce-narios rather than six. This choice was consistent with the ideaof the video since the documentary was not about learning sce-narios, but on the specific practices carried out in the classroomin order to facilitate students’ understanding, expression and en-gagement. At the same time, the decision to focus on somelearning scenarios allowed us to cope with the limited budgetand human resources available at national level, as well as withthe time constraints of the overall video production.

In order to share a common understanding of the aestheticof the docutorial, Média Animation provided partners withconcrete examples of educational documentary. Watching anddiscussing the video examples allowed researchers and videomakers to share a common vision of the specific format ofthe video capsules. One example of educational documentaryproduced by Média Animation for UNICEF was particularly

. The video shows a teacher and a group of children attending publicschool in Belgium while carrying out a classroom activity aimed at fostering stu-


inspiring for the style of the video shooting of teachers andstudents’ interactions. Therefore, this example became themain reference for the video makers involved in the nationalteam.

As for the contents of the video capsules, each focusing ona specific concept, Média Animation asked national teams tofilm a series of situations, specifically:

— Researchers explaining how they implemented the con-cept in the pedagogical practices (in native language)or voice–off with the images from one LS (LearningScenario) in one classroom (duration: min.);

— Interactions between teachers and students during theLS experimentation, including their voices (duration: –min.);

— Some extracts of video–interviews to researchers, teach-ers and students showing how crucial understanding,expression or engagement processes were to benefitfrom media education activities (including images ofclassroom activities) (duration min.).

As for the introductory video, an interview (in English) tothe scientific coordinator of the project was made after theend of the video shooting in the schools. The interview servedthe purpose of introducing and explaining the context of theproject, what has been done, how and where. In addition to theinterview Média Animation also planned to use some imagesfrom the three classrooms selected in each country and theschool neighbourhood.

dents’ understanding of equity and fairness in their everyday lives. Available onwww.youtube.com/watch?v=EvvZhWMtRw.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvvZ6hWMtRw


.. Selecting the Learning Scenarios and the units

Before starting the video shooting in class, the six learningscenarios went through a systematic process of analysis car-ried out by the teams of Média Animation and the Universityof Florence. The aim was to select one illustrative learningscenario for each key concept: for example, the learning sce-nario In my own words was chosen to illustrate the concept ofexpression and the related pedagogical guidelines. As a firststep, Média Animation analysed the learning scenarios from alogistical and aesthetical perspective, whilst the University ofFlorence mainly from a pedagogical point of view. The twoanalyses were carried out in parallel through different pro-cedures. Média Animation collected information about thelearning scenarios through a specific template allowing themto identify information on the context where the classroomactivities took place (e.g. type of school, socio–demographicfeatures of the students, number and frequency of lessons),the general contents (e.g. topics, educational objectives, shortdescriptions of each unit), and the main classroom activities(e.g. short description, specific locations where the activitytook place, timing, potential interviewees to comment theactivity).

The researchers of the University of Florence, instead, ex-amined all learning scenarios and then scored each unit on a– scale, depending on the relevance of its specific characteris-tics (i.e. educational objectives, topics, pedagogical methods) tothe concept to be explained through the educational practice.Firstly, two researchers analysed and assessed in parallel thelearning scenarios scoring them through different tables. Then,they collected scores in a single table where disagreement washighlighted in bold. For example, Table below show the scoresfor the learning scenario Challenge violence and play your rights.

Looking at scores in the table, it is clear that this learningscenario is particularly meaningful to explain the concept ofunderstanding.


Table . Scores assigned to the learning scenario Challenge violence andplay your rights.

Unit Understanding Expression Engagement

IT_LS_2_Unit 1 4 2 0IT_LS_2_Unit 2 4 1 2 0IT_LS_2 Unit 3 4 2 0IT_LS_2 Unit 4 4 3 0 1IT_LS_2 Unit 5 2 4 0 1IT_LS_2 Unit 6 1 4 5 2 3

Afterwards Média Animation and the University of Flo-rence’s teams compared and discussed their evaluations tomake a final choice. Lastly, the selection was validated by theteams of MIROVNI and medienundbildung.com.

The learning scenario Challenge violence and play your rightswas chosen to illustrate how media education can facilitatestudents’ understanding of media and intercultural relations,focusing on videogame education and human rights. In my ownwords was selected to show how to facilitate students’ expres-sion through the media in order to make them able to addresscreatively and reflexively relevant cultural and social issues forcontemporary societies. Building a diverse and democratic commu-nity was selected to explain how students’ engagement throughthe media in intercultural communities can be promoted inthe context of their classroom and school.

.. Identification of potentially relevant video shootings

After having attributed each key concept to a learning scenarioand some specific units, the researchers of the University of Flo-rence, MIROVNI and medienundbildung.com identified the po-tentially relevant video shootings to illustrate the pedagogicalguidelines through a template provided by Média Animation. AsTable shows, for each selected unit, the researchers provideda brief description of the classroom activities (second column),


the guidelines implemented through the activities (third column)and a short explanation on how the guidelines were actuallyimplemented (fourth column). Furthermore, the most relevantsituation to illustrate the key concept was highlighted in bold.

This extract shows the (mis)matches between the concreteclassroom activities and the guidelines on engagement. Specifi-cally, the table highlights the mismatch between the key conceptand the introductory activity; and a match between some spe-cific guidelines, the main activity and the conclusion of the unit.Hence, the final presentation and the discussion of results fromgroup work (highlighted in bold) proved to be the most appro-priate to illustrate how to implement the guidelines to promotestudents’ engagement in the community building process.

After this matching exercise, researchers shared their examina-tion with video makers at national level in order to decide whatvideo–shootings would illustrate at best the concrete implemen-tation of the guidelines. On this basis, a pre–shooting list wasprepared including the most important moments to catch duringthe classroom activities, corresponding to actual implementationsof specific guidelines. However, at this stage the planning of thevideo–shooting was inspired by, let’s say, the principle of redun-dancy, including also not strictly pertinent visual materials in orderto ensure getting sufficient content for a meaningful storytelling.Returning to the example above, although the final activity wasindicated as the most appropriate moment to illustrate someguidelines, even the rest of the unit was filmed to provide the edi-tor with some images about what happened before the “crucialmoment”. In fact, both from a pedagogical and a film makingperspective, even “the road” leading to the implementation of theguideline was relevant showing how the teacher accompanies stu-dents’ learning, how students react across the different teachingsequences and what they progressively learn.

Moreover, researchers planned some video–interviews withteachers and students to collect comments on MEET experi-ence. The interviews helped to contextualise the pedagogicalguidelines through students and teachers’ words.


Tab

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.. Filming and selecting (inter)actions and interviews in the class-room

Before starting the video–recording in the all involved classes,the teams of the University of Florence and medienundbil-dung.com shot two pilot lessons in Italy and in Germany. Somevisual materials were sent to Média Animation to receive feed-back on technical and stylistic aspects. In addition, these pilotvideo–shootings allowed us to test the cycle of executive pro-duction from planning to shooting, selecting and sharing.

Once the executive production process was consolidatedthrough the pilot video–shootings, the three teams involvedin the video production started filming in the classrooms. Ofcourse, students and teachers were informed about the videoand their consent was requested. In each context about hoursof classroom activities and about hours of interviews to teach-ers and students were filmed with two cameras. This led to thecollection of about hours of video materials in each school( hours with camera and hours with camera ).

On the one hand, this large amount of video materials guar-anteed a clear and professional documentation of the teach-ing and learning process. The use of two cameras allowedus to catch crucial interactions from a double point of view,which later facilitated a smoother editing of the situation inthe classroom or the interviews. On the other hand, since theproduction plan required to send to Média Animation about hour and minutes of video materials, the selection processat national level was as important as challenging. Indeed, at thisstage researchers and video makers selected and pre–edited hour and minutes out of about hours of video materi-als (Selection ). They were asked to select the most relevantrushes (including shooting of activities in class and interviewsof students and teachers) according to the following criteria:


— The pedagogical relevance of the scene (linked withthe three key–concepts Understanding, Expression orEngagement);

— The balance between media education and interculturaleducation;

— The visual interest of the images (i.e. if the students arein action);

— The quality of the images and the sounds.

Even at this stage the pedagogical relevance of the sceneswas determined by the Guidelines for universal and interculturallearning design in a media culture and society (Ranieri & Fabbro,). A post–shooting document was filled in with symbols(i.e. — meaning “not interesting and no quality”; + mean-ing “interesting and quality”; ++ meaning “very interestingand very good quality”) by each researcher to highlight thepedagogical meaning of the scenes selected and assess themaccording to the level of images’ quality and appeal. For in-stance, the scene where the researcher was introducing thetwo video games (Table , Row ) was selected to «illustratethe importance of using culturally responsive media to fosterunderstanding of students» (Guidelines .) since one of thevideo games presented here was already popular among stu-dents. Another relevant scene is that where students in smallgroups are playing and exploring the videogame Against allOdds (Table , Row and Figure ).


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Figure . Frame from the video capsule titled “Understanding media andcultures”. Available: https://meetolerance.eu/toolkit/understanding-media-and-cultures/.

Beyond the key situations, the post–shooting document alsoincluded some extracts from the interviews with students andteachers (e.g. see Table , Rows & ). Even the interviewswere followed by a short comment on their pedagogical mean-ing: for instance, the interviews with the students selected inTable were appropriate to highlight students’ learning about(media) stereotypes and inequality. Specifically, the interviewwith a female student (see Figure ) was meaningful to explainhow in her experience the discovery of the video game AgainstAll Odds provided the opportunity to develop new knowledgeabout — and understanding of — the phenomenon of migra-tion (e.g. life stories of refugees).

Finally, the selection made at national level included also acollection of outdoor shootings, which were later used in theintroduction of the video capsules to present the context wherethe activities took place.

https://meetolerance.eu/toolkit/understanding-media-and-cultures/



Figure . Frame from the video capsule titled “Understanding media andcultures”. Available: https://meetolerance.eu/toolkit/understanding-media-and-cultures/.

. Post–production of the docutorial

.. Shooting a docutorial in three countries and languages: a collec-tive challenge

In the post–production of the video capsules, the languageappeared to be a real challenge. Indeed, the shooting of theclassroom activities was done in three different countries andin four different languages (since one of the schools selectedin Slovenia was bilingual with students and teachers speakingSlovenian and Hungarian). Yet the director and pedagogicalcoordinator of the docutorial in charge of editing the imagesfor the three countries were from Média Animation and didnot speak any of those four languages. To counter this issue,a procedure was developed with the aim of facilitating theunderstanding of the images shot, whilst restricting the budgeton translation, but also to let the people in the field and involvedin the testing be freer in the shooting.




In addition to this post–shooting document, researchers ofeach country recorded a rough audio description in English ofthe Selection of their rushes to report what was happening inthe classroom but also to translate briefly the key interactions be-tween students, teacher and/or researcher. This audio descriptionwas decisive to let the director and coordinator of the docutorialunderstand what occurred during the process in the classrooms.Most of all it was necessary as one of the ambitions of the docu-torial was to let the voices of the students and their interactionsbe the guiding thread of the video. Indeed, the first idea of thedocutorial was to let the images speak by themselves withouthaving a voice–over guiding the teachers watching the docutorialin the design of pedagogical activities adapted to intercultural con-texts. Unfortunately, this approach was certainly too ambitiousgiven the constraints of the project (language issues and absenceof the director on the shooting scene). Therefore, it was decidedto shoot an interview of the researchers that would support theediting of the video as a common thread explaining step by stepthe method used to foster the students’ understanding, expres-sion or engagement (depending on the testing country). In thisway, we somehow considered the third dimension identified bySantagata () to analyse a video, specifically the questions to beasked to guide teachers’ viewing of the docutorial.

.. Defining cooperatively the storylines to shoot the interviews withresearchers

As the researcher’s interview would articulate the content ofeach capsule, it was crucial to deeply and collaboratively reflecton it, together with the researchers, the director and the coordi-nator of the video production. To prepare the interview, a firstdraft of the storyline was built by the pedagogical coordinator ofMédia Animation on the basis of the Selection of rushes sentby the researchers. This storyline was based on the key steps ofthe methods used to foster each of the three key–concepts andwould guide the interview questions to the researchers.


The storyline of each video capsule was elaborated by thepedagogical coordinator of Média Animation and the film di-rector and discussed in a remote meeting with researchers.The aim of these discussions was, on the one hand, to clarifythe common thread designed by Média Animation for the re-searchers, and on the other hand make sure that the team ofMédia Animation did not misunderstand the pedagogical mean-ing of the scenes selected or their relevance in the developmentof students’ skills.

Each storyline was composed, firstly, by the introductionof the key–concept highlighted in the video capsule and anexplanation on how this particular concept was implementedin the pedagogical practices by the researcher. It also definedthe aim of the learning scenario and gave some general com-ments on the context of the classroom. The storyline alsohighlighted the feeling of the researcher on students’ learn-ing and participation in the beginning of the experimentationand if there was an evolution during the process. Then thepedagogical method used to meet the aims of the learningscenario was summarised and illustrated with the images ofthe classroom activities.

The work of selection of the pedagogical methods thatwould be highlighted in the docutorial had to be made inparallel with the selection of the images. Indeed, each pedagog-ical strategy (or method) had to be illustrated with explanatoryvideo rushes of activities, but it also had to be related to inter-views of students and to come in a chronological order in orderto follow the progression of the students and make sense in thevideo. For each pedagogical method, a table developing theseaspects (link between methods from the guidelines, interviewof students and video rushes) was filled by Média Animationin collaboration with the researchers. Then questions of in-terviews for researchers were designed as a voice–off aimingat showing and exemplifying the connection between the im-ages and the guidelines. For instance, the video–capsule on theconcept “Expression” shot by medienundbildung.com in Ger-


many aimed at highlighting the pedagogical method (Ranieri& Fabbro, ) used to guide students towards a better:

— Expression of their own opinion;— Expression through media (media expression);— Awareness of stereotypes and discrimination.

To illustrate how to achieve those goals, the storyline high-lighted four pedagogical methods, summarised into four key-words among which “example” and “adaptation/progression”.The first keyword “example” illustrated the importance ofproviding students with multiple examples of inspiring mediaproductions (Ranieri & Fabbro, ). The images selected toillustrate this concept were chosen according to the visual inter-est, the variety and the pedagogical relevance of the activities(see Table ). The questions of interview for the researcheraimed at showing the meaning of the pedagogical guidelineand its relevance in fostering student’s expression. For instance,to illustrate the keyword “Example”, the researcher was askedif students tended to relate the examples shown to their ownlives and experiences, as this fosters the expression of students,but also if students linked their personal opinion to the collec-tive production, and if they all agreed on the example shownor if they had to discuss and express their diverse opinions.

For the second keyword “Adaptation and progression”, theresearcher from medienundbildung.com was asked to describethe different steps allowing students to handle a camera andhow to start from the skills and competences that young peoplealready have.

She also exemplified how students became progressivelymore comfortable with the media tool (here the tablet) andwith expressing their opinions and how this confidence wasgained thanks to the gradual progression of difficulty level. Theresearcher also highlighted the different phases that studentswent through to produce the video and how she fostered theprocess of learning by doing.


Table . Extract from the storyline of the concept Expression: “Examples –Provide multiple examples of inspiring media productions”.

Images Example of what re-searcher might say

Testimony of students Concept highlighted

Unit 2 – Students see thevideo “Unbox” about howeasily we put people inboxes.

“The introduction with thevideo “Unbox” providesa media best practice ofanti–discrimination and aninspiring example of mediaproduction for students.”

“It was inspiring” Multiple examples of inspir-ing media production

Unit 2 – Group work: stu-dents discuss a situation inwhich they were put in abox

“After having seen aninspiring example, studentswill make the link betweendiscrimination/stereotypeand personal situation theylived. This exercise is madein small group in order toinitiate a trust climate. Itis also a first exercise toexpress their opinion, firstin a small group, beforeexpressing it in front of acamera.”

Testimony of student (dur-ing class activity) explain-ing a situation in which shewas “put in a box”

Example + guide the initialacquisition of media pro-duction abilities

Unit 2 – Researchers showhow to use a tablet and filma statement

“For students who have aweaker understanding ofGerman, it is important toshow and give examples.Therefore, we showed livehow to film with the tabletand what kind of work wasexpected.”

(Migrant) student explain-ing that speaking in front ofa video, is easier to expresstheir opinion than writing

Example + guide the initialacquisition of media pro-duction abilities

In each testing country, the storyline was a crucial tool toavoid misunderstanding between researchers and video makersand attain a common understanding on the three video–capsulesof the docutorial. The vision “from the outside” of the peda-gogical coordinator and the director was necessary to keep thefocus on the method used, instead of the content. Indeed, thechallenge was to make the method comprehensible to reachunderstanding, expression or engagement, which are abstractconcepts, through concrete and visible images of the activities.

Once the storyline was agreed, an interview of the researcherwas shot locally in each testing country. This interview wouldbe used as the voice off of each video capsule and had to soundsmooth and pleasant. Therefore, it was decided to interviewthe researcher in their mother tongue and to subtitle it after-wards (see Figure ).


Figure . Frame from the video capsule titled “Expressing their own voicesin multicultural contexts”. Available: https://meetolerance.eu/toolkit/expressing-their-own-voices-in-multicultural-contexts/.

In the interview, the researchers had to follow the questionsof the storyline but also to describe factually the activities (seeexample of sheet above) selected by Média Animation (Selec-tion ). By reformulating what happened during the teachingand learning process, the researcher would, as a commenta-tor, make sense of the images shown in the second selectionof rushes and would highlight the “why” of each activity, thepedagogical aim and the method used to reach this aim. Re-searchers were also asked to describe the students’ responsesto the activities and their evolution throughout the learningscenario.

.. Editing and editorial choices of the docutorial

The selection of the images illustrating the methods had to bemade in parallel with the development of the storyline, there-fore working together with the film director, the pedagogicalcoordinator made a second selection of the rushes from Se-lection , keeping only the most relevant pedagogical scenes

https://meetolerance.eu/toolkit/expressing-their-own-voices-in-multicultural-contexts/



and elaborating a common thread to smoothly interconnectthe scenes selected. This second selection of video rushes (Se-lection ) of thirty minutes long was sent to researchers withthe storyline. After shooting the interview, the team from eachtesting country precisely subtitled in English the interview, butalso the images of the Selection and sent these video filesback to the Belgian team. With this accurate translation, thedirector could proceed to the editing of the video and get to afirst draft.

This draft was sent back to the testing countries to collecttheir feedback and discuss some issues raised during the editing.For instance, in the capsule “Understanding” relating the exper-imentation of the learning scenario Challenge violence and playyour rights in a classroom in Italy, following the chronologicalorder the scene did not make sense. Indeed, the capsule aimedat showing that the students were not comfortable speakingabout the topic of migration and that the learning scenariohelped them to overcome this challenge. Unfortunately, keep-ing the chronology was confusing for the viewer because itcomplicated the narrative thread of the video and it would haverequired a longer video to insert the episode of the unease dis-cussion with students between two other pedagogical activities.Therefore, it was decided to invert the chronological order tokeep an easy narrative line (from the problem to the solving ofthe problem) for the viewer. This choice was made after sev-eral discussions between the director of the docutorial and theresearcher of the University of Florence. Indeed, it raised someissues about the documentary: should the docutorial relate theexact order of what happened in the classroom or should theimages be edited in order to facilitate the understanding byviewers of the pedagogical concepts and the methods?

Another issue raised during the editing of the video was thequestion of the representation of the multiculturalism of theclassrooms. In Italy and Germany, the classrooms selected bymedienundbildung.com and the University of Florence werecomposed of visible minorities which made their multicultural


nature obvious for the viewer. But in Slovenia the classroomchosen by the Peace Institute for the docutorial was located in abilingual school and its multicultural character was not visiblefor external viewers who could not speak and/or recogniseSlovenian or Hungarian languages. To solve this problem, itwas decided to specify in the subtitles the language spokenby the protagonists and the researcher explained in the inter-view the specificity of this bilingual school gathering severalcommunities.

The definition of what is an “intercultural” context and howto represent it were implicit in the making of the docutorial.Indeed, should the presence of what we call “visible minorities”be the only aspect that defines the multicultural character of aclass? In Germany and Italy, skin colour is one the main factorsof racism while in Slovenia language is an important factor ofdiscrimination. These questions could not all be solved duringthis phase of the production but they were explored later at thefinal event aiming at disseminating the docutorial (see belowparagraph .).

Finally, once the researchers and video makers had agreedon a final draft, they realised that the method used to fosterthe understanding, expression or engagement of the studentswere not obvious enough. Therefore, it was decided to add adisplay at the end of the video summarising concrete adviceand guidelines contained in the video (see Figure ).

This voice–off was written by the pedagogical coordinatorof Média Animation. She transformed the keywords of the sto-ryline into practical and concrete pedagogical advice, drawinglessons from the pedagogical experimentation shown in thevideo. The voice–off of each capsule was recorded in Englishby a professional actress in order to harmonise the three videocapsules of the docutorial and make the transition betweenthem more consistent.


Figure . Frame from the video capsule titled “Expressing their own voicesin multicultural contexts”. Available: https://meetolerance.eu/toolkit/expressing-their-own-voices-in-multicultural-contexts/.

.. Issues raised by the making of the docutorial

As the making of the docutorial raised several issues, it wasdecided within the Consortium of the MEET project to ex-plore these issues more deeply taking the opportunity of a finalconference aiming at disseminating the project’s results. There-fore, in November , an event was organised in Brusselsto explore the topics of education, interculturality and mediaeducation through and with the documentary.

The idea of this event was to take a documentary as a casestudy and to cross the viewpoints and perspectives of its videomakers and an expert on one of the three topics. These threesessions were called Regards Croisés in French, which can betranslated as “Crossed Perspectives” to emphasise the exchangeof viewpoints through a dialogue. They were prepared by theteam of Média Animation in collaboration with the three ex-perts invited to facilitate the exchanges.

The first session “Crossed Perspectives” was named “Im-ages at school, images of school” to explore the documentaries




about pedagogy and discuss the impact and outcome of thepresence of a camera within a school: What reception is re-served by the students? What kind of social space is given tosee? And more generally, which images of school do these doc-umentaries share? Could documentaries be tools to better un-derstand teaching practices? A way to think about pedagogy?

This session was also an opportunity to discuss the issuesthat were raised by the presence of a camera in school, amongthem the lack of positive representations of young people gen-erally speaking in media and the negative clichés about schooland young people, which can damage their self–esteem. Thedistrust of young people towards media and the exploitationof their image for political aims were also considered as an ex-planation of why it might be difficult to introduce a camera inschools, underlining that young people were usually quite lucidon this potential manipulation they are subjected to. Accordingto the invited filmmaker, taking the time to discuss with youngpeople and to build a relationship of trust with the people shotmight be a solution to counter the suspicion raised by media,but she also mentioned her reflection on her legitimacy as a di-rector to deal with some subjects (as interculturality) accordingto her background. The session also showed the importance ofhaving positive representations of school to break down clichés.The invited teacher who was filmed while teaching, empha-sised the need to keep a trust relationship between teachersand students, especially in vocational schools where studentsare often in difficult schooling situations. He also explained thatin his experience the camera became natural to students anddid not influence this relationship.

The second session explored the issue of the representation

. To approach these questions, Brieuc Guffens (professor invited to IHECS,Communication and Journalistic School of Brussels) was invited with Safia Kessas,co–director of Section Professionnelle () which is a documentary series emergingthe viewer in Rive Gauche a vocational school of multicultural neighbourhood ofBrussels and Abbas Artmus (pedagogical leader of one of the sections of the schoolRive Gauche).


of minorities through documentary questioning the imagesthat could be emancipating or stigmatising. The discussionquestioned the freedom that a filmmaker has when he filmsin an institution and the space for freedom for people filmedwhen they are “locked up” in an institutional context. The el-ements that guide the director’s choices for the selection ofscenes were also examined and how to make the people filmedaware of the image that they will communicate. The inviteddirector also explained that before making his documentary onthe obligatory civic integration programme for immigrants, hewas aware of negative stereotypes of migrants in Belgian soci-ety and that he specifically chose migrants who were literateand educated in their country in order to let the audience focuson other topics less clichés than the usual image of migrants.Nevertheless, there is always a risk that some images and state-ments could be instrumentalised after the release of the movie.He also spoke about the deep bond and the complicity that hedeveloped with the people that are filmed, who became almostco–directors of the movie.

Finally, the third session named “The documentary: a win-dow or a screen of reality?” took a media education perspectiveto question the mechanisms used to represent reality in docu-mentary film. In this session, the speakers questioned the aimsof the documentary, the influence of the camera on the subjectsfilmed, the staging of the reality and the relationship betweenshooting and editing. Two visions were opposed in this session:

. This session “Minorities: emancipating images or stigmatising images?”was facilitated by Abel Carlier (administrator of Wallonie Image Production, anorganisation funding movies in French–speaking Belgium) with as invited directorPablo Muñoz Gomez, the director of Intégration Inch’Allah (), a documentaryshowing the obligatory civic integration programme for immigrants in the FlemishRegion of Belgium.

. This session gathered Pauline David (president of the non–profit organisa-tion Le Petit Ciné, specialised in cinema and documentary education) with YvesHinant and Jean Libon, directors of Ni juge ni soumise (So help me god, ), a docu-mentary following the story of Judge Anne Gruwez, an apparently celebrated andeccentric figure within the Belgian justice system.


the invited expert argued that the writing, the camera work,the choice of the images and the editing were influenced bythe purpose of the directors and therefore showed the realityfrom a certain angle. She also questioned the issue of consentto be filmed for people who are in a difficult position and thelack of control on the image they communicate. On the otherhand, the invited directors defended the idea of not havingan intention or a purpose in the making of the movie if notshowing a part of the reality of . The audience questionedthe directors on the limits to set in what should be shown ornot on the screen and on how to consider the responsibilityand the lack of control of the effects that certain images mayhave on audiences.

. Conclusions

This chapter summarised the main steps in the production ofa docutorial aimed at training teachers and educators aboutmedia and intercultural education. Our specific experience con-curs to recognise the high potential of video as a means oftraining about intercultural education (Niesyto, ; Bertoldo,) and diversity (Pieterse, ). In this regard, the docu-torial is a particularly powerful tool to increase teachers andeducators’ awareness of intercultural relations in a media satu-rated environment. In addition, it offers the opportunity to dealwith diversity issues that teachers may have never experiencedpersonally (Lee, Kane, Drane & Kane, ).

Furthermore, our reflections on the media making processand the exchanges with other professionals in the field of ed-ucational and social documentary raised some specific issuesrelated to the level of involvement of the protagonists in aneducational documentary. As for our docutorial, the protag-onists (researchers acting as media educators, students andteachers) were involved at very different levels. Researchers ac-tively collaborated to shape the docutorial (e.g. first selection of


images, drafting of final storyline) whilst students and teachers,even though they consented to the filming, were not includedin the decision–making process leading to the final product.On the one hand, this limited involvement was imposed bythe complex conditions of the executive production (e.g. thedirector was not on the filming location, limited budget, inter-national network, short duration of the video–capsules). Onthe other hand, the researchers’ stronger decisional power waspivotal to provide a pedagogical lens to select and edit themost relevant situations in the classroom. In addition, students’voices and their interactions with the teachers were present,as well as crucial to offer a window into situated teaching andlearning practices. Nevertheless, the “top–down approach” tothe video design and production raised some broad issues onthe potential instrumentalisation of the young protagonistsfilmed: should we make a documentary about people from anintercultural context or with them? To what extent should the“invisible minorities” be involved in a documentary when thisdocumentary is precisely on the question of the discriminationand interculturality?

Being more aware of — and facing — such issues acrossthe different phases of the media production process is morelikely to improve our future attempts to teach about media andintercultural education through video.

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S J., G S. (), Teaching Youth Media: A CriticalGuide to Literacy, Video Production, and Social Change, College Com-position and Communication, (), .

T T., R P. (), The Influence of Video Analysis on the Processof Teacher Change, Teaching and Teacher Education, (): –.

E E.A., S M.G. (), Learning to notice: Scaffolding newteachers’ interpretations of classroom interactions, Journal of Technol-ogy and Teacher Education, (), –.

V I., A M. (), Analyser et comprendre la pratique en-seignante, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes.


W L. (), A developmental approach to uses of moving pic-tures in intercultural education, International Journal of InterculturalRelations, (), –.

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Y B.H.W., Y V.W.Y., L C., L F.Y. (February ), Towardsa model of effective use of video for teacher professional development,Communication présentée à The International Seminar, York,UK.

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MEET’s Evaluation and Impact

Indicators, Tools and Results

S C, M P∗

. Introduction

According to the standard definition of the Project Manage-ment Institute, a project is “a temporary endeavour under-taken to create a unique product or service” (https://www.pmi.org/about/learn-about-pmi/what-is-project-management)which achieves clearly stated objectives delivering, at its end,measurable results. Following the evolution of the concept ofproject, from the original industrial scope to areas such as so-cial innovation, its final goal is not merely to deliver somethingtangible such as a house or a bridge but also to provide valueto society. Put it another way, a project is defined as an activityaimed at providing “value”.

In such a way the proposers not only commit themselves todelivering something, but also try to answer the question “why”these results are useful for society. A project can be seen as aprocess aimed at solving or mitigating some issues, thereforeit is a process that starts from an “input” and, through specific“activities”, delivers material or immaterial “outputs” as theresults of such activities. The value provided by these outputs

. The chapter has been jointly conceived by the authors who have respectivelyedited the text as follows: Stefano Cuomo edited sections , ., ., .; MartaPellegrini edited sections ., ; section has been jointly written by the authors.


https://www.pmi.org/about/learn-about-pmi/what-is-project-management

https://www.pmi.org/about/learn-about-pmi/what-is-project-management

Stefano Cuomo, Marta Pellegrini

represents the “outcomes” of the project, that is the “benefits”for the community the intervention has been designed for. Ifa project is successful, its outcomes, generally together withsimilar interventions, will contribute to a higher–level goal forthe community, commonly referred to as “impact” (Figure ).

As an example, we can think about the design and develop-ment of a public transportation line where the outputs are thedelivery of the transport infrastructure, while one of the out-comes could be a reduction in traffic congestion to be seen as acontribution having a positive impact on atmospheric pollutionand quality of life.

The measurement of the success of a project is relativelyeasy if limited to the delivery of the outputs and their function-ality, but more difficult if we try to assess the effectiveness ofthe outcomes and their impact on the community. As a furtherconsideration, a project being defined as a time limited activ-ity, it is in practice not easy to evaluate its impact that, for itsnature, needs to be evaluated in the medium–long term, whichis commonly the period after the end of the project itself.

According to these considerations we may understand howprojects can be at risk of being self–referential, meaning the

Figure . Correspondence of the process of a project with EC funding.


success is assessed by delivering outputs but with little attentionto “why” these have been developed.

An effective evaluation of effectiveness, in terms of out-comes and contribution to a higher goal, is therefore a keyaspect in making a research and innovation project an addedvalue for the community.

. Research design

.. Rationale – The Logical Framework Approach

To introduce a methodology capable of moving beyond thesimple assessment of delivered outputs towards an evaluation ofthe value of the project, several approaches have been proposed,also trying to overcome the “paradox” of a project called toevaluate itself after its end.

In particular, the European Commission, in the ’s pro-posed the adoption of Project Cycle Management (PCM) (Eu-ropeAid Cooperation Office, ) characterised by an activeinvolvement of external stakeholders and a final evaluationphase conceived as an input for further ideas (Figure ).

Figure . Project Cycle Management.


In this sense, when a project ends, the evaluation of theactivities acts as an input for a new cycle and starts making along–term evaluation of the impacts possible.

The methodology on which the PCM relies is the LogicalFramework Approach (LFA) (Figure ), originally developedaround the ’s and aiming at formalising the approach byobjective. The overall structure is hierarchical highlighting theprocess from the outputs to the general goal.

The LFA can be summarised through a basic x matrixcalled Logical Framework Matrix (Figure ).

To fully appreciate this approach, it is important to under-stand that it owes its name to classical logic, meaning that theverification of some premises “logically” implies a consequence.In our case the matrix shall be read bottom–up and this meansthat if some premises are true and kept in the project life span(left column) *and* the project achieves specific results *then*the upper line is implied (Figure ).

Figure . The Logical Framework Approach.


In this sense the LFM can be read bottom–up:

— IF adequate inputs/resources are provided, THEN activ-ities can be undertaken;

— IF activities are undertaken, THEN results can be pro-duced;

— IF results are produced, THEN the purpose will beachieved;

— IF the purpose is achieved, THEN this should contributetoward the overall objective.

Or in the reverse way to understand how the project ideacan contribute to the general goal:

— IF we wish to contribute to the overall objective THENwe must achieve the purpose;

— IF we wish to achieve the purpose, THEN we mustdeliver the specified results;

— IF we wish to deliver the results, THEN specified activi-ties must be implemented;

— IF we wish to implement the specified activities, THENwe must apply identified inputs/resources.

Figure . The Logical Framework Matrix. European Integration Office,.


Without going into details, we should note the pivotal con-cepts for a correct design of this approach: logic of interven-tion, definition of assumptions and means of verification of theachieved objectives.

The logic of intervention, deeply related to the core of theproject idea, in LFM is represented as a breakdown of the ac-tivities, results and outcomes and represents what the projectswant to implement and how the different levels of the objectivesare logically related.

The assumptions are external factors, generally not underdirect control of the project, which may influence project imple-mentation and its sustainability over time. These conditions shallbe taken into account as hypotheses which determine the desiredoutcomes of the project, of the specific objective and the generalobjective. We incidentally note that with this approach a contin-uous monitoring of the external factors (assumptions) makes atimely intervention on the LFA possible and an adjustment ofactivities/objectives toward the general goal.

The definition of the intervention logic and assumptionsis the conceptual foundation of the project feasibility. Once

Figure . The “logical” process. European Integration Office, .


recognised as true and “logically” linked in the sense explainedabove, the project can be approved and implemented. Anotherpillar of the LFA is the means of verification of a single activity,result or outcome, since only once these objectives are achieved(i.e. the premises are verified) can we move to the level above(i.e. the consequence is implied).

A project is also defined as a «sequence of complex, con-nected activities» (https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/effective-project-management//ch-sec.html)and, indeed, the complexity is one of the distinctive features of aresearch and innovation project. The complexity implies an in-trinsic difficulty in assessing the overall success of different andrelated activities, therefore a solid methodology of evaluatingthe effectiveness of results is needed for correct implementationof the LFA.

«If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage (or improve)it!» Peter Drucker’s quote is one of the most mentioned inevaluating a complex activity and the second and third columnof the LFM are focused on this task.

The evaluation of the tasks is carried out by defining a set ofIndicators (and their source) by which the performances canbe assessed. The achievement of the indicators is therefore ameasure of the success of the tasks, providing the proof formoving to the upper level of the matrix.

In conclusion, once the Logic of intervention and the (ex-ternal) Assumptions have been approved and consolidated, themonitoring of the Indicators is an effective way for the projectevaluation along its whole life–span. It also provides an objec-tive measure of the correctness of the intervention towardsthe general goal and, at the same time, a powerful tool forthe management of the activities suggesting also, in case ofmissed/delayed achievement of some indicator, the need fortimely intervention.

https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/effective-project-management/9781118016190/ch001-sec001.html

https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/effective-project-management/9781118016190/ch001-sec001.html


.. The Logical Framework Matrix in MEET

According to the request of the European Commission, theMEET project has been designed using the Logical FrameworkApproach, and the Logical Framework Matrix is reported, infull, in Table .

We may notice that the version provided by the EuropeanCommission for this kind of project is slightly different fromthe standard one presented in the previous paragraph, since ithas been designed to better match the structure of the proposal.In particular, while the General Goal corresponds to the “Im-pact” of the project, the “Outcomes” have actually been split intwo parts, so while higher level outcomes are reported underSpecific Objective, the other outcomes — to be evaluated as adirect consequence of the activities implemented in the projectlifespan — are merged with the Results.

With a top–down reading of the matrix, we may see thatthe General Objective (GO) MEET aims at contributing to«Prevent violent radicalisation and promote democratic val-ues, fundamental rights, intercultural understanding and activecitizenship». This can be achieved, according to the LogicalFramework Approach, once we achieve the following SpecificObjectives (SO), namely:

— SO: Improving the acquisition of social and civic com-petences and fostering knowledge, understanding andownership of democratic values and fundamental rights;

— SO: Fostering mutual understanding and respect amongpeople with different ethnic or religious backgrounds,beliefs or convictions, including by addressing stereo-types and promoting intercultural dialogue;

— SO: Enhancing critical thinking, cyber and media liter-acy among children, young people, youth workers andeducational staff.


At the lower level a list of Results (outputs and outcomes) isreported with the corresponding indicators of performance.

It is worth highlighting that, since the outputs are tangible,the related indicators are generally quantitative and thereforestraightforward to measure. On the contrary the indicatorsproposed for assessing the achievement of the outcomes are ofquali–quantitative nature and may need a dedicated methodol-ogy for their appropriate evaluation. The following paragraphsdescribe in detail the analysis of the indicators and the mainfindings of the project evaluation.

.. Proposed indicators for evaluation of activities

The selection of indicators for the evaluation process was basedon the analysis of the Logical Framework in its first two sec-tions: Results and project’s Specific Objectives. For each indica-tor the following features were considered:

a) indicator code;b) brief description as reported in the logical framework;c) number of related WP and activities (one or more);d) delivery date (if not reached) or achievement date (if

already reached);e) nature of indicators (quantitative or quali–quantitative);f ) dedicated strategy to assess the indicators.

As for the first four pieces of information, they have beengathered from the Logical Framework included in “Detaileddescription of the project”. To classify the indicators by theirnature, we distinguished between the quantitative indicators,that could be verified using numbers and quantitative tools (e.g.«number of downloads of learning resources – , each») andquali–quantitative indicators, needing participants’ perceptionsand opinions for their evaluation (e.g. «effective communica-tion and content of educational documentary»). Twenty–oneindicators out of were identified as quantitative, mainly be-


longing to the Results section. Ten indicators ( of the Resultssection, of the Specific Objectives section) were classified asquali–quantitative. Since each part of the toolkit, except forlearning scenarios, was evaluated using an indicator on “effec-tive communication and content”, it was necessary to add anew indicator (R.) regarding the effectiveness of communica-tion and content of learning scenarios.

The categorisation of the indicators by nature is summarisedin Table .

Table . Nature of the indicators.

Nature Indicator Indicator Description

Quantitative R1.1 5 national reports, 1 comparative reportR2.1 6 learning scenarios adapted and testedR3.1 3 national reports and 1 synthesis reportR4.1 1 educational documentaryR5.1 1 set of guidelines for teachersR6.1 1 set of recommendations for policy makersR7.1 1 toolkitR8.1 1 website, 2 profiles, 1,000 visits each in 2 yrsR9.1 5 national events, 80 people eachR9.2 1 final event, 150 peopleR10.1 1 book, 500 copies; 4 papersR11.1 500 copies national language, 1,000 EnglishR13.1 Number of students garnering good learning results at the

end of the media education interventionR14.1 Number of downloads of learning resources (1,000 each)R16.1 Number of relevant stakeholders in the data base (at least

1,000) and contactR17.1 Number of downloads of project resources (1,000 each)SO1.1 Number of educational tools developed at the end of the

project to promote civic competences and human rights (6learning scenarios; 1 toolkit, including 1 theoretical introduc-tion, 1 set of guidelines for teachers, 1 educational video; 1final book)

SO1.2 Number of students involved in the training process (150 atthe end of the project; 1,500 one year later)

SO2.2 Use of learning resources on media education in intercul-tural contexts, i.e. 1,000 downloads of toolkit, learning sce-narios, books, guidelines, video by the end of the projectand 5,000 one year after the end of the project


Nature Indicator Indicator Description

SO3.1 Number of students garnering good learning results at theend of media education intervention (150 at the end of theproject; 1,500 one year later)

SO3.2 Improvement of media literacy education skills in intercul-tural contexts (12 teachers at the end of the project; 3,000teachers one year later)

Quali–quan-titative

R2.2 Effectiveness of learning scenarios

R2.3 Effective communication and content (learning scenario)R3.2 Comprehensiveness and consistency of the analysis (Na-

tional and synthesis reports)R4.2 Effective communication and content (educational docu-

mentary)R5.2 Effectiveness of the guidelines (for teachers)R6.2 Effectiveness of the guidelines (for policy makers)R7.2 Effective communication and contentR12.1 Teachers’ perceptions and evaluation of their capacity to

teach about digital media in intercultural contextsR16.2 Nature and extent of the network endorsed by the projectSO2.1 Reduction of 50% of prejudiced views towards the others in

the school at the end of the project and more generally atlocal/regional, national and European level one year afterthe end of the project

The next step was to design a strategy to assess the indi-cators. The quantitative indicators consisted often in numbersof downloads or reading of certain resources produced by theproject. To reach all the requested indicators, we promoted andsuggested to all partners ways to increase these numbers suchas national events, project presentations in schools, advertise-ments and dissemination of the products.

Given the complexity in verifying quali–quantitative indica-tors, we went further with the analysis of each one to under-stand the most valid and reliable strategy to evaluate them. Inthis analysis the following information was coded for each indi-cator: (i) sources of information (partnership, advisory board,students, teachers, headteachers, policy makers); (ii) partnersinvolved in data collection; (iii) product (if any) which the indi-cator refers to.


Using the last information gathered, we placed the indicatorsin three different categories or types of indicator. Categorieswere as follows: (i) indicators that refer to written products —in this first category we put all the indicators relating to com-munication and content of documents produced during theproject, such as reports or guidelines; (ii) indicators that refer topractical products — in this second category we put all the indi-cators on communication and content of practical deliverablesproduced during the project, such as educational documentaryor toolkit; (iii) indicators that refer to generic goals — in thisthird category we placed all the indicators that do not refer toany products but to more generic aspects, such as the reductionin percentage of student behaviours in schools.

Table shows each quali–quantitative indicator placed in therelated category. It also shows the sources of information usefulin designing the evaluation tools.


Tab

le.

Ana

lysi

sofq

uali–

quan

titat

ive

indi

cato

rs.

Indi

cato

rTy

peof

indi

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s

R2.2

Effe

ctive

ness

ofle

arni

ngsc

enar

ios

(test

edin

the

class

es)

Prac

tical

prod

uct

Stud

ents

R2.3

Effe

ctive

com

mun

icatio

nan

dco

nten

t(le

arni

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enar

io)

Writ

ten

prod

uct

Advis

ory

boar

dTe

ache

rsR3

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mpr

ehen

siven

ess

and

cons

isten

cyof

the

anal

ysis

ofth

ena

tiona

land

synt

hesis

repo

rtW

ritte

npr

oduc

tAd

visor

ybo

ard

Teac

hers

R4.2

Effe

ctive

com

mun

icatio

nan

dco

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tofe

duca

tiona

ldoc

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enta

ryPr

actic

alpr

oduc

tAd

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ard

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hers

Stud

ents

R5.2

Effe

ctive

com

mun

icatio

nan

dco

nten

toft

hegu

idel

ines

for

teac

hers

Writ

ten

prod

uct

Advis

ory

boar

dTe

ache

rs

R6.2

Effe

ctive

ness

ofth

ere

com

men

datio

nfo

rpol

icym

aker

sW

ritte

npr

oduc

tAd

visor

ybo

ard

Head

teac

hers

Polic

ym

aker

sR7

.2Ef

fect

iveco

mm

unica

tion

and

cont

ento

fthe

tool

kitPr

actic

alpr

oduc

tAd

visor

ybo

ard

Teac

hers

R12.

1Te

ache

rs’p

erce

ptio

nsan

dev

alua

tion

ofth

eir

capa

city

tote

ach

abou

tdig

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edia

inin

terc

ultu

ralc

onte

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Gen

eric

goal

Teac

hers

R16.

2Na

ture

and

exte

ntof

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netw

ork

endo

rsed

byth

epr

ojec

tG

ener

icgo

alRe

levan

tsta

keho

lder

sSO

2.1

Redu

ctio

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50%

ofth

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views

towa

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the

oth-

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esc

hool

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een

dof

the

proj

ecta

ndm

ore

gene

r-al

lyat

loca

l/reg

iona

l,na

tiona

land

Euro

pean

level

one

year

afte

rthe

end

ofth

epr

ojec

t

Gen

eric

goal

Teac

hers


.. Design of the evaluation tool

The next phase was to design tools for the evaluation of thequali–quantitative indicators. As shown in Table , differenttools were designed to evaluate the quali–quantitative indicators.Two of them (R. Effectiveness of learning scenarios; R.Teachers’ perceptions and evaluation of their capacity to teachabout digital media in intercultural contexts) were assessedusing a Pre– and post– strategy to measure the difference inscores between before and after the intervention on mediaeducation. Measures and results of these two indicators werewidely described in Chapter . The indicator R. “Nature andextent of the network endorsed by the project” was assessedusing the numerosity of contacts, and geographic proveniencefrom the stakeholders’ database.

For the indicators on written and practical products, wedesigned quantitative questionnaires based on a Likert scale.For the remaining indicator SO. on the reduction of %of the prejudiced views towards the others, we designed asemi–structured interview to the teachers. Since it was notpossible to measure the reduction of the percentage betweenbefore and after the intervention it was reasonable and worthknowing teachers’ perceptions about this topic.

In designing the tools, we started from the sources of infor-mation, namely the target (teachers, students, etc.), with thepurpose of having different kinds of information from them.The main sources were two: advisory board and teachers.

. The evaluation of the indicator R. “Effectiveness of the recommendationfor policy makers” is described in Chapter .


Tab

le.

Tool

sfor

asse

ssin

gth

equ

ali–

quan

titat

ive

indi

cato

rs.

Indi

cato

rTy

peof

indi

cato

rSo

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sSt

rate

gy/to

ol

R2.2

Effe

ctive

ness

ofle

arni

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(test

edin

the

class

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Prac

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prod

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ents

Pre–

and

post

–tes

ton

thre

edi

men

sions

:un

ders

tand

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expr

essio

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gage

men

tM

edia

prod

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nru

bric

R2.3

Effe

ctive

com

mun

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nan

dco

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t(le

arni

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io)

Writ

ten

prod

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Advis

ory

boar

dTe

ache

rsQ

uest

ionn

aire

(Like

rtsc

ale)

R3.2

Com

preh

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enes

san

dco

nsist

ency

ofth

ean

alys

isof

the

natio

nala

ndsy

n-th

esis

repo

rt

Writ

ten

prod

uct

Advis

ory

boar

dTe

ache

rsQ

uest

ionn

aire

(Like

rtsc

ale)

R4.2

Effe

ctive

com

mun

icatio

nan

dco

nten

tof

educ

atio

nald

ocum

enta

ryPr

actic

alpr

oduc

tAd

visor

ybo

ard

Teac

hers

Stud

ents

Que

stio

nnai

re(L

ikert

scal

e)Fo

cus

grou

pwi

thst

uden

tsR5

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fect

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mm

unica

tion

and

cont

ento

fth

egu

idel

ines

fort

each

ers

Writ

ten

prod

uct

Advis

ory

boar

dTe

ache

rsQ

uest

ionn

aire

(Like

rtsc

ale)

R6.2

Effe

ctive

ness

ofth

ere

com

men

datio

nfo

rpol

icym

aker

sW

ritte

npr

oduc

tAd

visor

ybo

ard

Head

mas

ters

Polic

ym

aker

sQ

uest

ionn

aire

R7.2

Effe

ctive

com

mun

icatio

nan

dco

nten

tof

the

tool

kitPr

actic

alAd

visor

yQ

uest

ionn

aire

(Like

rtsc

ale)

R12.

1Te

ache

rs’p

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nsan

dev

alua

tion

ofth

eirc

apac

ityto

teac

hab

outd

igita

lme-

dia

inin

terc

ultu

ralc

onte

xts

Gen

eric

goal

Teac

hers

Pre–

and

post

–su

rvey

ofte

ache

rs’

perc

eptio

nin

the

dim

ensio

nsof

unde

rsta

ndin

g,ex

pres

sion,

enga

gem

ent


Indi

cato

rTy

peof

indi

cato

rSo

urce

sSt

rate

gy/to

ol

R16.

2Na

ture

and

exte

ntof

the

netw

ork

en-

dors

edby

the

proj

ect

Gen

eric

goal

Relev

ants

take

hold

ers

Num

ber

ofco

ntac

tsin

the

stak

ehol

ders

’da

taba

sean

dth

eir

geog

raph

ical

prov

enie

nce

SO2.

1Re

duct

ion

of50

%of

the

prej

udice

dvie

wsto

ward

sth

eot

hers

inth

esc

hool

atth

een

dof

the

proj

ecta

ndm

ore

gen-

eral

lyat

loca

l/reg

iona

l,na

tiona

land

Eu-

rope

anlev

elon

eye

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tert

heen

dof

the

proj

ect

Gen

eric

goal

Teac

hers

Sem

i–st

ruct

ured

inte

rvie

ws


Focusing firstly on the indicators related to written or practi-cal products, the relevant information from the advisory boardconcerns the following aspects: the quality of the communica-tion — clarity and/or comprehensiveness, consistency — andthe significance of the content for the MEET project goals. Therelevant information from the teachers involved in the projectconcerns the following aspects: the quality of the communica-tion — one of the three dimensions: “clarity”, “comprehensive-ness” or “consistency” — and the significance of the contentfor their teaching profession.

Each tool for the advisory board was designed with threeto four dimensions concerning the aspects reported above,and each tool designed for teachers has two dimensions basedon the type of product assessed. All the tools are quantitativeand consist of statements to be assessed using a five–pointLikert scale (: Strongly disagree; : Disagree; : Undecided; :Agree; : Strongly agree). There are three statements for eachdimension.

Since the educational documentary was videotaped in theclassrooms during the intervention, the evaluation team de-cided to conduct a focus group with the students involved toknow their opinions about the educational documentary andwhether they felt represented by the video.

Focusing on the indicators referred to a generic goal, weneeded information regarding the reduction of discriminatorybehaviours or prejudiced views toward the other in the class-room and school involved in the MEET project. We designed aquali–quantitative tool to administer to the teachers. It consistsof four questions: two of them were quantitative and used afour–point Likert scale; two of them were qualitative and gavea more in–depth explanation of the quantitative answers. Theaim was to have a deeper description of the perspectives of theteachers involved in the MEET project.

In brief there were three main types of tools used in theevaluation from the inside of the project:


a) quantitative questionnaires (differentiated for teachersand advisory board) on communication and content ofwritten and practical products;

b) qualitative tools to conduct a focus group with the stu-dents involved in the MEET project on the educationaldocumentary;

c) a quali–quantitative tool on the reduction of discrimina-tory behaviours or prejudiced views toward the other(generic goal).

Table shows an example for each type of tool.

Table . Examples of item or question of each type of tool.

Type of tool Example of item/question

Quantitative tool for writ-ten/practical products

Section 1. Clarity 1.1. It has an adequate technical quality1 2 3 4 51.2. The message is clear 1 2 3 4 51.3. It is engaging for target group (teachers)1 2 3 4 5

Qualitative tool for the focusgroup with the students

Who is the intended audience of this video (e.g. students,teachers, parents)?

Quali–quantitative tool for thegeneric goal

1A) After the conclusion of the MEET project how haveviolent and discriminatory behaviours decreased in yourclassroom? 1 2 3 41B) Justify your answer explaining why in your opinion theMEET project has supported you, and to what extent, therehas been a reduction of violent and discriminatorybehaviours in classroom.

In addition to the evaluation from the inside of the projectfrom the perspectives of teachers and students involved in theproject, the evaluation team also conducted an external evalua-tion from the perspective of international experts in the fields ofmedia education and anti–discrimination. The evaluation tookplace during a round table discussion at the Final Conferenceof MEET in Brussels on November . The materials tobe evaluated were divided in two main areas: (i) the contribu-tions of the toolkit to media literacy and social inclusion; (ii)


“A Comparative Report of National and European Policies onCitizenship, Media and Intercultural Education” and “MEET’sPolicy Recommendations” that are related to the policy level ofmedia education and its role in social inclusion.

. Findings about the evaluation of the project

.. Evaluation from the inside of the project

The evaluation from the inside of the project, which was donefrom the perspective of the advisory board and the teachersinvolved, reported significant results. Overall, the products ofthe MEET project were assessed in a positive way by teachersas well as by the advisory board (Table ).

The analysis of the evaluation of the reports from the per-spective of the advisory board shows that the national reportsare clear (mean ./) and consistent (./). Based on theiropinions, reports are comprehensive (./) of all the impor-tant content and are significant for the goals of the MEETproject (./). On the other hand teachers’ perceptions on theclarity and significance of the national reports for their profes-sion are generally positive — clarity (./) and significance(./). As the results show, the advisory board appreciate inparticular the synthesis report in the dimensions of compre-hensiveness of the content (/) and consistency of the text(./).

On the evaluation of the teacher guidelines, the advisoryboard states that the product is written in a clear way (./) andthe procedures are described in detail (./). In the opinion ofthe advisory board the content is significant for the goal of theMEET project, and the learning design procedures are transfer-able to other contexts also outside the school (./). Teachershave similar perceptions about the teacher guidelines; overall,they think that the content is clear (./) and significant fortheir work (./).


Moving to the evaluation of the practical products — learn-ing scenarios and educational documentary, the advisory boardstates that the learning scenarios are a significant deliverablefor the project, but some partners have concerns about theirclarity and consistency. One partner assesses the clarity as outof , and another partner assesses the consistency out of . Onthe educational documentary, all the partners have a positiveopinion regarding all the dimensions of the questionnaire.

Based on the opinion of the teachers involved, learning sce-narios as well as educational documentary are clear, compre-hensive of all the important content and are significant for theirprofession and their professional development on the topic ofmedia and intercultural education (see Table ).

The Toolkit, that consists of three products (educationaldocumentary, teacher guidelines, learning scenarios), was as-sessed by the advisory board and teachers in three dimensions,usability, coverage and significance. The advisory board findsa suitable level of usability (./) and similar opinions in theother dimensions (./ for coverage, ./ for significance).

Teachers assess the usability of the product positively (./)but have some concerns about its significance for their profes-sion (./). Some teachers, in fact, answered “undecided” formany statements.

Table . Results of the evaluation of practical and written products byadvisory board and teachers.

NationalreportsR3.2

SynthesisreportR3.2

Teacherguide-linesR5.2

LearningscenarioR2.3

Educationaldocumen-taryR4.2

ToolkitR7.2

Advisoryboard

4.7 4.8 4.5 4.5 4.6 4.5

Teachers 4.6 Notevaluated

4.3 4.5 4.5 4.5

Moving to the qualitative evaluation of the educational doc-umentary, focus groups with the students involved in the three


countries (Italy, Germany and Slovenia) were conducted at theend of the project.

Three main questions guided the focus group:

a) Did students understand the aim and content of thevideo?

b) Did students identify the main intended audiences ofthe video?

c) What did students like (or dislike) about the video?

This last question was intended to know whether the studentsfelt themselves represented by the video. In all the countries, themajority of the students think that the aim of the video is toraise awareness about prejudices and stereotypes. Students thinkthat the educational documentary is a product useful for teachertraining for the use of media in intercultural contexts. Somestudents in one of the countries did not identify the main in-tended audience of the video, namely teachers/educators. Theyfirstly said that the video was directed to “everyone”, then thatthe educational documentary is beneficial for young people andstudents as well as teachers. Finally, all the students in the threecountries were very impressed by the making of the video andgenerally liked its structure. All of them liked the summary atthe beginning and at the end of the video and found that thiswas very clear, well made and helpful.

Students’ opinions regarding the way the video representswhat they did during the project is different in the three coun-tries.

In Italy, students think that in the video there is a lack of thevoice of the students: the researcher has too much space in thevideo, while it would have been better to give more space tothe interviews with the students to know their opinion aboutthe activity and more generally about the use of media inintercultural contexts.

In Slovenia and in particular in Germany, the majority ofthe students highlighted the authenticity of the video. It does


not seem like the students are pretending something or actingin front of the camera. Unlike the students in Italy, Germanstudents liked the fact that personal opinions were shown inthe video and that they were able to express their own opinionduring the interviews shown in the video. As for Italian stu-dents, German ones were also a little disappointed about someaspects of the video. When asked about what they disliked orwould have done differently, the majority stated that the videowas too short. That they find it sad that they had done so muchmore during the project and only a short excerpt of all thetopics they worked on is shown in the video (e.g. «The video istoo short, we did much more than what is shown in the video.»,«It’s short, it’s good but a lot has been left out»).

The indicators “Effectiveness of learning scenarios” (R.)and «Teachers’ perceptions and evaluation of their capacity toteach about digital media in intercultural contexts» (R.) wereevaluated using a Pre– and post–survey strategy. Results werediscussed more in depth in Chapter and in the Synthesis Reportof the Testing Phase (Ranieri, Fabbro & Nardi, ). The aimin this chapter is to give a portrait of the evaluation of theproject, showing the main results for each indicator. Pre– andpost–test outcomes were analysed using the Wilcoxon test inthe three dimensions of the survey (understanding, expression,engagement) (see Chapter ). Overall it revealed no statisticallysignificant differences between pre–test and post–test resultsin each dimension, which means that students’ results did notincrease at the post–test compared to the pre–test. Nevertheless,for some interventions there was an improvement of students’understanding, expression and engagement.

Furthermore, if the Pre– and post–test strategy allowed eval-uation of students’ change before and after the interventions, theanalysis of the media products (Photo–poster; Video statement;Videogame design; Video reportage; Radio podcast; Digital sto-rytelling) also allowed us to evaluate students’ engagement dur-ing the interventions. A rubric (scores –) was used to assess themedia production–oriented activities, including the three dimen-


sions of Understanding, Expression and Engagement. Overall,looking at the media making rubric, the results are positive.Unlike the Pre– and post–test results, students’ media practicesand products reached strong and very positive evaluation. Un-derstanding, meant as the capacity to “research the topic andmedia languages before starting the media production process”,reached a median of . among all the six interventions. Expres-sion, meant as the capacity to «brainstorm on possible issues tobe faced and media product to be produced for change», «Individ-ual contribution to the media production process» and «Contentaccuracy, originality, and aesthetic attractiveness», reached a me-dian of . among all the six interventions. Engagement, meantas the capacity to «cooperate throughout the media productionprocess» and «advocate for tolerance and equity», reached ahigher median than the other two dimensions (median of .)(Ranieri et al., ).

A Pre– and post–test strategy was also used to evaluate teach-ers’ perceptions about (i) understanding of media and intercul-tural relations, (ii) expressing ability to express themselves withor without media, (iii) engagement in multicultural communitybuilding. Results were positive for teachers’ perceptions in un-derstanding, expression and engagement. Teachers’ perceptionsin the dimension of understanding were in general highly pos-itive: % of the teachers “strongly agreed” and % “Agreed”that the media and intercultural education activities support stu-dents’ critical understanding of the media and intercultural re-lations. Teachers’ perceptions in the dimension of expressionwere less positive with % of teachers that “strongly agreed”,% “Agreed” and % were “uncertain”. Teachers’ perceptionsabout the level of engagement shown by the students are positive:.% of teachers “strongly agreed”, .% “agreed” and only.% were “uncertain” that media and intercultural educationactivities facilitated students «to commit to intercultural dialogueand equity in the school community» (Ranieri et al., , p. ).

Since the reduction of % of the prejudiced views towardsthe others in the school at the end of the project (Indicator


SO.) was difficult to assess in a quantitative way, we inter-viewed the teachers involved in the project asking them anestimate of the reduction on a four–point Likert scale. To havea deeper view of the class context after the project we alsoasked them to comment on the estimation they expressed.

From the answers we received from three Italian teachers

involved in the project, a mean of . out of was reachedshowing that the MEET project helped the reduction of prej-udiced views towards the others in the intervention schools.Teachers stated that the project helped students to cooperateand build a sense of belonging in the group. Some studentshad the possibility of expressing themselves and their ideas andalso to work with classmates that they did not know well.

Before the MEET project in the classes and more generallyin the schools there was a medium–high level of prejudice to-wards — and disinformation about — the “others”, especiallyimmigrants. Most of the students did not have a clear idea ofthe immigration phenomenon or their idea depended exclu-sively on their families. Teachers stated that the project helpedthe students to develop their own idea about immigration anda critical understanding of intercultural contexts and relations.

Nature and extent of the network endorsed by the project(R.). The assessment of this indicator can be done throughtwo main parameters. The first one is international access tothe web site. From the statistics provided by Google Analytics,the worldwide access to the web site of the project (https://meetolerance.eu/) can be seen as represented in Figures and .

Another parameter is the diffusion of the newsletter. Atpresent the distribution of MEET subscribers is reported inFigure .

The nature of the network addressed is various and involvesall kinds of stakeholders identified by the project such as re-

. The interviews to teachers of the other countries are going to be conductedand analysed by March .

https://meetolerance.eu/

https://meetolerance.eu/


Figure . Access statistics to the web site ( January ).

Figure . Web site visitors by country ( January ).

searchers, educators, policy–makers and teachers, with a par-ticular focus on the latter in light of the expected scaling–up ofthe activities. From this point of view, it is important to high-light the cooperation established with the e–Twinning networkto actively involve a large community of teachers and educa-tors at European level. Specifically, a learning event runningfrom January to February has been delivered to e–Twinning teachers within the eTwinning Learning Space.


Figure . MEET Newsletter subscribers ( January ).

Teachers were engaged in four e–tivities relating to the mainresources of the project such as the Media and InterculturalMedia Framework, the Guidelines for inclusive teaching, thelearning scenarios and the video–capsules.

.. External evaluation (users, stakeholders and policy makers)

The external evaluation was carried out using a focus groupthat involved eight European experts on media education andintercultural education. The focus group was divided into threesessions in which the external experts were involved based ontheir expertise and knowledge.

In the first session, they were asked to comment on theToolkit with a special focus on its contributions to media literacyusing three questions (Saurer & Opratko, ):

a) How can the MEET Toolkit contribute to media literacyamong students?

b) How do you evaluate the integration of digital and on-line resources?

c) What are the Toolkit’s specific merits and/or shortcom-ings in these respects?


The experts evaluated the toolkit as very valuable for thepractical application in media education. In particular theyhighlighted some positive contributions to media literacy. Thetoolkit encourages students to develop critical media literacyinstead of telling students how to use media in a proper way.The different methods used aim at develop a critical under-standing of media and diverse skills. Experts expressed someconcerns about the toolkit, they thought that it is necessaryfor teachers to have a high level of expertise and knowledge.In order to use the full potential of the MEET toolkit, train-ing and ongoing support for teachers is necessary. This mayinclude bibliographical references for teachers as part of thetoolkit, but also teacher training as part of a future follow–upto the MEET project (Saurer & Opratko, ).

In the second session, they were asked to comment onthe Toolkit with a special focus on its contributions to socialinclusion using three questions (Saurer & Opratko, ):

a) How can the MEET Toolkit contribute to challengingexclusion and discrimination?

b) How can the Toolkit contribute to citizenship and inter-cultural education in your country?

c) What are the Toolkit’s specific merits and/or shortcom-ings in these respects?

Experts expressed the specific merit of the toolkit in its abil-ity to foster critical multicultural education, more in generalthe MEET approach of combining media education and socialinclusion is highly valuable. It might be useful to install a con-tact person providing guidance on the toolkit in order to helpteachers feel more comfortable using it.

In the third session, they were asked to comment on thepolicy–related materials using four questions (Saurer & Opratko,):


a) Please give your opinion on the report “ComparativeAnalysis of National and European Policies on Citizen-ship, Media and Intercultural Education” in terms ofaccuracy, comprehensiveness and structure;

b) What are, in your view, the most pressing challengesin the fields of Citizenship Education, Media Educationand Intercultural Education, regarding social inclusionand anti–discrimination in the educational sector?

c) What would you like to challenge or add?d) What would you like to challenge or add to the Policy

Recommendations?

Some experts assessed the Comparative Report very posi-tively, others suggested making it more consistent and strength-ening the critical approach. Moving to the Policy Recommen-dations, experts agreed with the content and added some sug-gestions.

. Conclusions

The overall findings of the evaluation suggest a positive impacton students and teachers involved in MEET. From an inside per-spective of the project, based on the internal evaluation, all theOutputs in the Logical Framework Matrix were achieved andassessed positively by teachers, students and the advisory board.The evaluation of the quali–quantitative indicators shows a highquality of the communication and content of the products (e.g.reports, teacher guidelines, toolkit). Teachers highlighted ahigh level of usefulness of the toolkit for their profession andthe advisory board expressed a notable significance of all theproducts to foster media education for social inclusion.

Pre– and post–test results on students’ understanding, ex-pression and engagement reported no statistically significantdifference, due also to the small sample size which was pre-ferred to pursue an in–depth analysis of students’ performance.


However, the qualitative analysis of students’ media produc-tions showed positive results: in fact, they were of high qualityand were assessed positively. This finding was confirmed bythe teachers who expressed an advancement of students’ skillsin relation to their understanding, expression and engagement.

Coming to the external evaluation, experts of media edu-cation and social inclusion expressed the specific merit of thetoolkit in its capacity to contribute to media literacy and topromote critical multicultural education.

From a methodological point of view, the Project CycleManagement (EuropeAid Cooperation Office, ) states thatthe evaluation of the project shall act as an input for furtherprogramming. In this light the external evaluation and, in partic-ular, the Panel Expert session in the Final Conference providedsome important policy recommendations.

These recommendations, detailed in Chapter , are intendedto be a significant input, also for the European Commission,for programming new actions in this domain.

References

EuropeAid Cooperation Office (), Aid delivery methods. ProjectCycle Management Guidelines, Brussels: European Commission.

European Integration Office (), Guide to the logical framework ap-proach: a key tool for project cycle management, Belgrade: Repub-lic of Serbia Government European Integration Office. MEETProject Website https://meetolerance.eu/.

R R., F F., N A. (), Media education in intercul-tural contexts: an action research for social change. Synthesis Reportof the Testing Phase, MEET Project, Work Package – Deliverable .,Florence: University of Florence.

S B., O B. (), Intermediate report. MEET Project, WorkPackage – Deliverable ., Vienna: University of Vienna.

https://meetolerance.eu/.


Tab

le

.Log

ical

fram

ewor

km

atri

x–

LFM

.

Inte

rven

tion

logi

c/pr

ojec

tsum

mar

yO

bjec

tivel

yve

rifiab

lein

dica

tors

ofac

hiev

emen

tHo

win

dica

tors

willb

em

easu

red

Pro

ject

’sge

nera

lob

ject

ive

(GO

)G

O:

Prev

entin

gvio

lent

radi

calis

atio

nan

dpr

omot

ing

dem

ocra

ticva

lues

,fun

dam

enta

lrig

hts,

inte

rcul

tura

lun-

ders

tand

ing

and

activ

ecit

izens

hip

GO.

“Indi

cato

r1”

:Inc

reas

edaw

aren

ess

abou

tdisc

rim-

inat

ion

issue

san

dfu

ndam

enta

lrig

hts

indi

gita

lco

n-te

mpo

rary

socie

ties

amon

gpa

rticip

ants

atth

een

dof

the

proj

ect(

3,00

0st

uden

ts;5

00te

ache

rs)a

ndre

levan

tst

akeh

olde

rs/p

olicy

mak

ers

one

year

afte

rthe

end

ofth

epr

ojec

t(10

,000

stud

ents

and

thei

rfam

ilies;

3,00

0te

ach-

ers)

GO.

“Indi

cato

r2”

:Red

uctio

nof

viole

ntan

ddi

scrim

ina-

tory

beha

viour

sin

parti

cipat

ing

scho

ols

atth

een

dof

the

proj

ecta

ndm

ore

gene

rally

atlo

cal/r

egio

nal,n

atio

nala

ndEu

rope

anlev

elon

eye

araf

tert

heen

dof

the

proj

ect

GO.

“Indi

cato

r3”:

Polic

ych

ange

sre

latin

gto

scho

olcu

r-ric

ula

one

year

afte

rthe

end

ofth

epr

ojec

t(ex

tent

and

natu

re)

Indi

cato

r1:s

ourc

e1:

stud

ents

,tea

cher

sand

scho

olst

aff

Indi

cato

r1:s

ourc

e2:

relev

ants

take

hold

ers,

polic

ym

ak-

ers

Indi

cato

r1:s

ourc

e3:

data

anal

ytics

rela

ting

todo

wnlo

adof

proj

ects

’del

ivera

bles

;In

dica

tor1

:sou

rce

4:da

taan

alyt

icsof

enga

gem

enti

nso

cialn

etwo

rksit

es;

Indi

cato

r2:s

ourc

e1:

stud

ents

,tea

cher

sand

scho

olst

aff

Indi

cato

r2:s

ourc

e2:

relev

ants

take

hold

ers,

polic

ym

ak-

ers

Indi

cato

r1:s

ourc

e1:

polic

ym

aker

s,re

levan

tsta

keho

ld-

ers

Pro

ject

’ssp

ecifi

cob

ject

ives

(SO

)SO

1:Im

prov

ing

the

acqu

isitio

nof

socia

land

civic

com

pe-

tenc

esan

dfo

ster

ing

know

ledg

e,un

ders

tand

ing

and

own-

ersh

ipof

dem

ocra

ticva

lues

and

fund

amen

talr

ight

sSO

2:Fo

ster

ing

mut

ual

unde

rsta

ndin

gan

dre

spec

tam

ong

peop

lewi

thdi

ffere

ntet

hnic

orre

ligio

usba

ck-

grou

nds,

belie

fsor

conv

ictio

ns,i

nclu

ding

byad

dres

sing

ster

eoty

pes

and

prom

otin

gin

terc

ultu

rald

ialo

gue

SO3:

Enha

ncin

gcr

itical

thin

king,

cybe

rand

med

ialite

r-ac

yam

ong

child

ren,

youn

gpe

ople

,you

thwo

rker

san

ded

ucat

iona

lsta

ff

SO1.

“Indi

cato

r1.1

”:Nu

mbe

rofe

duca

tiona

ltoo

lsde

vel-

oped

atth

een

dof

the

proj

ectt

opr

omot

eciv

icco

mpe

-te

nces

and

hum

anrig

hts

SO1.

“Indi

cato

r1.2

”:Nu

mbe

rofs

tude

nts

invo

lved

inth

etra

inin

gpr

oces

sSO

2.“In

dica

tor

2.1”

:Re

duct

ion

of50

%of

prej

udice

dvie

wsto

ward

sth

eot

hers

inth

esc

hool

atth

een

dof

the

proj

ecta

ndm

ore

gene

rally

atlo

cal/r

egio

nal,n

atio

nala

ndEu

rope

anlev

elon

eye

araf

tert

heen

dof

the

proj

ect

SO2.

“Indi

cato

r2.2

”:Us

eof

lear

ning

reso

urce

son

med

iaed

ucat

ion

inin

terc

ultu

ralc

onte

xts,

i.e.1

,000

down

load

sof

tool

kit,l

earn

ing

scen

ario

s,bo

oks,

guid

elin

es,v

ideo

byth

een

dof

the

proj

ecta

nd5,

000

one

year

afte

rthe

end

ofth

epr

ojec

t.SO

3.“In

dica

tor3

.1”:

Num

bero

fstu

dent

sgar

nerin

ggo

odle

arni

ngre

sults

atth

een

dof

med

iaed

ucat

ion

inte

rven

-tio

nSO

3.“In

dica

tor3

.2”:

Impr

ovem

ento

fmed

ialite

racy

edu-

catio

nsk

illsin

inte

rcul

tura

lcon

text

s

Indi

cato

r1.1

:sou

rce

1:th

epa

rtner

ship,

repo

rtsIn

dica

tor1

.2.s

ourc

e1:

relev

ants

take

hold

ers,

onlin

esu

r-ve

yIn

dica

tor1

.2.s

ourc

e2:

teac

hers

and

scho

olst

aff,

inte

r-vie

wsIn

dica

tor

2.1.

sour

ce1:

parti

cipan

ts,

inte

rvie

ws/fo

cus

grou

pIn

dica

tor2

.1.s

ourc

e2:

relev

ants

take

hold

ers,

onlin

esu

r-ve

yIn

dica

tor2

.2.s

ourc

e1:

data

anal

ytics

rela

ting

todo

wn-

load

ofpr

ojec

ts’d

elive

rabl

esIn

dica

tor2

.2.s

ourc

e2:

relev

ants

take

hold

ers,

onlin

esu

r-ve

yIn

dica

tor3

.1.s

ourc

e1:

stud

ents

,com

paris

onbe

twee

npr

e–an

dpo

st–t

est

Indi

cato

r3.1

.sou

rce

2:re

levan

tsta

keho

lder

s,on

line

sur-

vey

Indi

cato

r3.2

.sou

rce

1:te

ache

rs,i

nter

views

/focu

sgr

oup

Indi

cato

r3.2

.sou

rce

2:re

levan

tsta

keho

lder

s,on

line

sur-

vey


Inte

rven

tion

logi

c/pr

ojec

tsum

mar

yO

bjec

tivel

yve

rifiab

lein

dica

tors

ofac

hiev

emen

tHo

win

dica

tors

willb

em

easu

red

Res

ults

(R)

R1.“

Natio

nala

ndco

mpa

rativ

ere

ports

onm

edia

,citiz

en-

ship

and

inte

rcul

tura

lpol

icies

and

prac

tices

inEu

rope

”R2

.“Le

arni

ngsc

enar

ios

ofm

edia

litera

cyin

inte

rcul

tura

lco

ntex

ts”

R3.“

Natio

nala

ndsy

nthe

sisre

ports

onth

ete

stin

gof

the

lear

ning

scen

ario

s”R4

.“Ed

ucat

iona

ldoc

umen

tary

onte

achi

ngm

edia

educ

a-tio

nin

inte

rcul

tura

lcon

text

s”R5

.“G

uide

lines

fort

each

ers

onte

achi

ngm

edia

educ

a-tio

nin

inte

rcul

tura

lcon

text

s”R6

.“Re

com

men

datio

nsfo

rpol

icym

aker

s”R7

.“To

olkit

”R8

.“Pr

ojec

tweb

site

and

socia

lnet

work

”R9

.“Pu

blic

even

ts”

R10.

“Fin

albo

okan

dsc

ient

ificpa

pers

”R1

1.Le

aflet

R12.

“Incr

ease

dlev

elof

teac

hers

’skil

lsan

dkn

owle

dge

abou

ttea

chin

gm

edia

educ

atio

nin

inte

rcul

tura

lcon

text

”R1

3.“In

crea

sed

level

ofst

uden

ts’d

igita

land

med

ialite

r-ac

ysk

illsan

dkn

owle

dge,

espe

cially

inre

latio

nto

activ

ecit

izens

hip

and

hum

anrig

hts”

R14.

“Use

ofth

ele

arni

ngre

sour

ces

prod

uced

byth

epr

ojec

tand

deve

lopm

ento

ffur

ther

activ

ities”

R15.

“Red

uctio

nof

viole

ntan

ddi

scrim

inat

oryb

ehav

iour

sin

the

scho

ol”

R16.

”Est

ablis

hmen

tofa

com

mun

ityof

prac

tices

onm

e-di

aed

ucat

ion

fore

quity

and

tole

ranc

e”R1

7.“In

crea

sed

level

ofaw

aren

ess

amon

gre

levan

tst

akeh

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Citizenship, media literacyand intercultural education

Reflections and recommendations for policy transformation

B O, B S∗

. Introduction

In the past decade, increased efforts have been made by manystakeholders in Europe to improve citizenship, media and inter-cultural education (CMIE) both in schools and in extracurricu-lar education. One of the aims of these educational subjects is topolitically empower pupils, to raise awareness about diversityand about multiple intersecting inequalities. The current riseof antidemocratic political forces across Europe makes theseefforts even more important and calls for renewed commit-ments. As social inequality, deprivation and insecurity seemto be sources of rising political dissatisfaction, anger towardsthe political elite but also crudity, hatred and aggression to-wards fellow citizens and those depicted as Others, we see aspecific need for CMIE to target multiple social inequalities.This was one important dimension of MEET’s work in devel-oping material for CMIE: MEET’s aim to promote «a criticaland inter–cultural understanding as well as an aware use of me-dia among young citizens in multicultural public schools anddemocratic societies» particularly addresses «economically andsocially disadvantaged youth» in countries with growing het-

∗ University of Vienna.

Benjamin Opratko, Birgit Sauer

erogeneity due to migration. Moreover, hate speech is spreadmore and more through the internet and new social media.Media literacy should thus include the promotion of valuessuch as solidarity, equality, respect and anti–racism.

In the past years, several recommendations on media edu-cation have been released in Europe — going as far back asUNESCO’s Grünwald Declaration on Media Education in ,and including recommendations by UNESCO on Educating forthe Media in the Digital Age in , by the United Nations onHuman Rights Education and Training in , by the Council ofEurope on a Reference Framework of Competences for DemocraticCulture in , by the Interregional Parliamentarian Councilon Digital moral courage in , or by the German Conferenceof the Ministries of Education on Media Education in , onIntercultural education in , and on Human Rights Educa-tion in .

An analysis of the five countries participating in MEET —Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Slovenia — shows a highdegree of diversity in policies, institutional contexts and histori-cal developments with regard to CMIE. This diversity needsto be taken into account especially when policy makers aimto implement reforms at the European level. Thus, the MEETproject developed policy recommendations which are coun-try context sensitive, based on collaboration with teachers andpupils in four countries of the MEET project — Belgium, Ger-many, Italy and Slovenia — and on media tools tested in thesecountries. In order for CMIE to effectively contribute to thepromotion of equity and tolerance, specific environments arenecessary, which include policy–making that is aware of theimportance of education for solidarity and civility, and activecivil society, a democratic media landscape, an equal and sol-idary cultural climate in schools, and, finally trained teacherswith sufficient resources.

. Cf. the description of MEET’s aims on the project’s website:https://meetolerance.eu/#content.

Citizenship, media literacy and intercultural education

This chapter reflects the policy recommendations developedin the MEET project against the diverse backgrounds of CMIEin the MEET countries. It first describes the policy field ofcitizenship, media and intercultural education in the MEETcountries in a comparative way in order to identify similari-ties and differences and to raise awareness for specificities ofcountry contexts (.). Then we present the MEET’s policy rec-ommendations (.) and conclude with some brief reflections onthe common perspective orienting these in the current politicaland cultural climate in the European Union ().

. The policy fields of citizenship, media and interculturaleducation (CMIE) in selected European countries – mov-ing targets

In order to map the policy fields targeted by the recommen-dations developed by MEET, we present their current statusin each of the five countries involved in the project, takingaccount of citizenship education, media education and intercul-tural education respectively. Secondly, we very briefly reflecton the differences and similarities we found in those countries,in order to highlight the variety of contexts in which the policyrecommendations produced by MEET seek to intervene.

.. Austria

All three elements of CMIE — citizenship education, mediaeducation and intercultural education — are currently part ofAustria’s official set of educational principles. They are rec-

. In this section, we draw on internal reports produced by the MEET nationalpartners. The five national reports are: Sauer & Müller–Uri (); Goffard & Vitry(); Friedrich (); Ranieri & Fabbro (); Šori & Pajnik (). We are gratefulfor their permission to reproduce parts of their reports in this chapter.

. The others are “education for the equality of women and men”, ”healtheducation”, “literacy”, “ sex education”, “ environmental education”, “ road safety


ommendations provided by the federal government and shouldinform teachers’ educational practice across all subjects. Withfew exceptions (such as musical education), these principlesare not meant to be taught as specific subjects or courses, butrather transversally throughout the school curriculum. Thisseems to be an adequate approach. However, a number ofcriticisms have been levelled against the principles and theirimplementation (see below).

Citizenship education was introduced as a cross–curricularprinciple in Austria in (cf. Steininger ). Currently, cit-izenship education is implemented as a broad mandate in curric-ula for all school types: Citizenship Education as a Cross–curricularEducational Principle General Ordinance was implemented in by the Ministry of Education and amended the generalordinance from . Citizenship education is also mentionedas one of the key elements for Austrian schools in § of theSchool Organisation Act (SchOG). Besides it is based on theCouncil of Europe Charter on Education for Democratic citi-zenship and Human Rights Education and the UN Conventionon the Rights of the Child. Other links are recommendationsfor Lifelong Learning of the European Parliament and the Eu-ropean Council (Federal Ministry for Education and Women’sAffairs , ). In the school year /, a new combinedsubject was introduced in the th grade of all school types called“History and Social Studies/Citizenship Education”. The newcurriculum for this subject also introduced “competence ori-entation”, which from the school year / is to be con-sidered in other curricula and guidelines. The evaluation andtesting on the pilot phase are not yet public.

When the federal government decided to lower the activevoting age to in , an expert committee developed an am-bitious concept of competence–oriented “political education”that takes into account four different types of competences:

education”, “ economics and consumer education”, “ musical education”, “new tech-nology education” and “ preparation for professional and working environment”.


competence of political judgement, competence of political act-ing, competence in methods related to politics and competenceof political subject matter. As Reinhard Krammer states, thegoal of this newly developed concept of “Politische Bildung”(“political education”) was to «enable students to acquire thecompetences that will enable them to understand politics andtake part in political processes» (Krammer, , p. ). However,these ambitious ideas often fail to be implemented and putinto educational practice. Sander (, p. ff ) identifies twomain obstacles: first, in nearly all school types (with the excep-tion of vocational schools that apprentices only visit for a fewweeks every year), political education is combined with othersubjects, which leads to a dominance of perspectives derivedfrom that subject — in many cases purely historic perspectives.Second (and further enhancing this issue), training for teach-ers oriented towards political education has only really beeninstitutionalised at a university–level. Although a number ofinitiatives working on the issue and producing resources forteachers and students do exist, there is no overarching struc-ture developing political education systematically. Only in was a first professorship on Political Education established atthe University of Vienna.

Media education in Austrian schools is mandated by a de-cree from the Ministry of Education, which was first issuedin (following earlier decrees on film), thoroughly revisedin and again updated in . Since , media educa-tion in Austria has followed the concept of “media literacy”,signifying a break with the long–standing Austrian traditionof a «practically oriented film– and media education based onChristian values, which was designed to “immunise” againstthe influence of (mass) media» (Blaschitz/Seibt, , p. ). Inthe current version of the decree, “media pedagogy” (“Medi-enpädagogik”) is used as an umbrella term for “media didactic”(“Mediendidaktik”) — i.e. education through media — as well as“media education” (“Medienbildung”) — i.e. education aboutmedia (Federal Ministry for Education and Women’s Affairs,


, p. ). The goal of Austrian media education is definedas “media competency” (“Medienkompetenz”). These compe-tencies include technological skills, as well as knowledge ofhow to select and structure media content (ibid.). However,critics note that «in fact it still depends on the engagement ofa single teacher if and in what way young people are dealingwith media at school» (Trültzsch–Wijnen, , p. f ). Since the subject media pedagogy has existed in teacher train-ing programmes at the Universities of Vienna and Innsbruck.At other universities there is no such specialisation. Further-more, Austria has recently incorporated the recommendationsof the digital Agenda for Europe in its development of policyon media literacy as developed by the European Commissionin order to meet the objectives of Europe. The agenda is basedon four pillars: first, it is directed at all students with or withoutmigrant background from primary to secondary school leveland meant to be a separate subject for students between and years. Second, it also includes teacher training. Third, it takeson infrastructural challenges, providing schools with necessarydevices. Fourth, with regard to teacher training, the need forsimple and open teaching and learning material is mentionedas crucial, therefore, plans to offer open educational resources(OER) are afoot.

Intercultural education as well as intercultural learning (In-terkulturelles Lernen) are again established as a so–called teach-ing principle in the curricula of all general schools. Moreover,intercultural learning is included in the general educationalobjectives and didactic principles in primary and secondaryschools. Its stated goal is to contribute to «mutual understand-ing, to the recognition of differences and similarities and to thereduction of prejudices» (Federal Ministry for Education, Sci-ence and Research, ). The aim of intercultural learning asan educational principle is to strengthen students’ interculturalcompetencies. The didactics and methodology rest on encour-aging pupils’ reflection about their own culture, addressingtheir possible prejudices, and on imparting cultural, ethnic and


linguistic diversity as positive characteristics. The educationalprinciple has been criticised from different angles: it consid-ers the existence of heterogeneous school settings of nativestudents and minorities with an immigrant background as anecessary precondition for intercultural learning. Thus, theprinciple is unable to recognise that intercultural learning hasto address all pupils irrespective of the composition of the stu-dent body in the classroom. As Luciak and Khan–Svik havehighlighted, the principle of “intercultural education” is basedon a «static concept of culture that primarily refers to nationalor ethnic characteristics» (Luciak/Khan–Svik, , p. ), andsuffers from a «lack of implementation in everyday school»(ibid., p. ).

The Austrian case reveals several difficulties in implement-ing CMIE in schools: citizenship education, media educationand intercultural learning are not integrated as one compre-hensive or interacting subject but separated and scattered inthe school curriculum. Not being a school subject but only a“principle” results in fragmentation and ignorance towards theissue: CMIE should be everywhere but it is often nowhere.

.. Belgium

The state of CMIE policies in in Belgium needs to be under-stood in the context of the country’s decentralised institutionalsystem. The different communities, which are defined on thebasis of language and territory, enjoy a relatively high level ofpolitical autonomy. Belgium has three types of government(the Federal State, the Communities and the Regions) whichare equal in law but operate in different fields. The communi-ties are responsible for the fields of culture, education, scientificresearch and training, youth aid and sport. Due to this con-text of strong federalisation, the MEET project and this analysiswere confined to the level of French–speaking Belgium, namelythe Wallonia–Brussels Federation.


In Belgium, the voluntary sector and civil society play aleading role in intercultural and citizenship education. Thisis due to the principle of associative autonomy which is de-fined in the Associative Charter, a resolution adopted by theFrench–speaking parliaments (Wallonia–Brussels Federation,Wallonia Region and COCOF) in . It gives autonomy andlegitimacy to the voluntary sector and funds associations andNGOs that have chosen to promote citizenship and intercul-tural education. Additionally, the values of social inclusion andcitizen participation are also at the core of the paradigm un-derlying the state’s approach to media education. Historically,media literacy has been defined as a set of themes or transver-sal key concepts that can be applied across a wide range ofmedia, to be mastered by individuals.

More recent conceptual frameworks for media literacy de-fine it as a set of competencies to be developed by individuals.This framework extends and further specifies common defi-nitions of media literacy as the ability to access, analyse andevaluate, and either communicate or create media messagesin a variety of contexts. It defines media literacy as the com-petencies required to perform different tasks (reading, writing,navigating and organising) on a variety of media considered asinformational, technical and social objects. Media educationis the process that leads to media literacy. These definitionsof media education and media literacy were adopted by theConseil Supérieur de l’Education aux Médias in .

In schools, media education is integrated in different cur-ricula levels of compulsory education, depending on the leveland the school networks. The general approach is to introduce

. In , the French–speaking parliaments (Wallonia–Brussels Federation,Wallonia Region and COCOF) voted a resolution urging them to implement theCharter in the near future. The Charter is therefore still not a decree and cannot yetbe invoked. The work should soon result in a decree making the principles of thecharter effective. https://www.cjc.be/IMG/pdf/doss_lv_ecran.pdf.

. This framework is available online: http://www.csem.be/cadre_de_competences.

https://www.cjc.be/IMG/pdf/doss119_lv_ecran.pdf

http://www.csem.be/cadre_de_competences

http://www.csem.be/cadre_de_competences


media education as a transversal topic and not as a specificcourse. In some primary schools, media literacy is introducedas a specific chapter, with precise objectives and competencies.Quite often, media education is scattered between other classes,such as for instance, languages, history, geographic, ethics, reli-gion, aesthetics and social sciences. Media literacy is howeverpart of the cross–curricular competences framework.

In practice, the effectiveness of implementing media educa-tion relies heavily on the motivation and the specific skills ofteachers. Unfortunately, teacher training on the topic of me-dia literacy is very limited: It usually consists of a few hoursof courses, most often mixed with training about the use ofmedia for educational purposes, which often leads to confusingmedia education with the use of media in educational settings.In terms of in–service training, the different school networkshave the obligation to set up in–service training but it is notcompulsory for teachers to follow specialised training, whichis the case for media education training. Thus, the trainingdepends on the initiatives of the individual teachers and theagreement of school managers.

Belgium — similarly to Austria — has a scattered land-scape of CMIE at schools. Moreover, teacher training is missingwhich limits a successful implementation if CMIE at schools.

.. Germany

In Germany, responsibility for the education system lies primar-ily with the states (Länder). The Kultusministerkonferenz (KMK)— the permanent assembly of ministers of education of theLänder — can issue directives and works closely with the fed-eral government, but has no legislative power. This applies formedia education as well. However, the federal government canoffer national programmes in special subjects, such as mediaeducation, or support the acquisition of technical equipment.Also, the Federal Ministry for Youth (BMFSFJ, see below) rollsout national strategies and programmes for youth work out-


side of schools. Recently, the KMK has published directivesconcerning both citizenship education and media education.In , it published “Strengthening Democratic Education”,which was followed by “Media Education in Schools” in (Drescher , p. ). These recommendations were furtherdeveloped and expanded in the KMK paper “Education in theDigital World” in .

Due to the fact that the responsibility for the educationalsystem in Germany lies primarily with the states, there aredifferent strategies and approaches being applied throughoutGermany. The importance of media literacy has long been ac-knowledged in political and educational circles. In the schoolcontext, the response has been relatively good, for example interms of media applications (tablets, interactive whiteboards)and peer–to–peer projects (media scouts, media compass).This is not the case for youth work outside schools, whichis chronically underfunded, often inadequately equipped andstaffed.

A number of Länder have decided to develop and implementindividual media education strategies and conceptions. Essen-tial elements of these efforts are connecting existing stakehold-ers in media education, coordinating media education effortswith the federal media authorities, which are mandated bythe Interstate Treaty on Broadcasting, funded predominantlyby (household TV and radio) user fees, and charged, amongother things, with the promotion of media literacy. Many of thefederal states offer project and qualification programmes thatare directed towards schools (D, , p. ). However, a re-cent analysis confirms that the implementation of the framingguidelines issued by the KMK and the Federal Ministry for Ed-ucation and Women (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Frauen,BMBF) does in fact vary greatly from one region to another.It refers to the Enquete Commission of the German Parlia-ment on “Internet and Digital Society” (), which found thestatus of implementation to be “generally inadequate” (Wet-terich/Burghart/Have, , p. ). According to the Commis-


sion, media education remains inadequately integrated in thecurricula of the various school subjects.

In Germany, CMIE seems to be characterised by a high de-gree of federalisation and therefore fragmentation and missingcoherence. While political education has been well establishedafter the country’s Nazi past, media education is only weaklyimplemented in school curricula. However, stakeholders fromNGOs and semi–state organisations are actively promotingmedia education, lobbying to integrate the subject in schoolenvironments as well as in teacher training.

.. Italy

In Italy, citizenship and intercultural education in its currentform is the product of a reform implemented by the Ministry ofEducation, Universities and Research (MIUR) in . It trans-formed the subject “civic education”, which had been intro-duced in the s as part of a wider process of democratisationand pacification after the fall of fascism, into the (sub–)subjectCitizenship and Constitution. Located in the fields of history–geo-graphy and history–social science, it is taught for hours peryear (Leg. Dec. September ) and subject to a specificevaluation process. At the conceptual level, it reflects a widenotion of citizenship education in which liberal, republicanand cosmopolitan (or multicultural) ideas of citizenship coexist.Indeed, here the knowledge of duties and rights as well as theformal function of the national institutions are accompaniedby a more active form of citizenship in which participation iscrucial and the cosmopolitan and multicultural nature of citi-zenship is further recognised (Fabbro, ). The most recentschool reform (Law , July ) confirms the presence of“citizenship education” as established in . On an operativelevel, the recent National Plan for citizenship education andeducation to legality (art. L.D. September ) continues astrategy of promoting citizenship education projects in schoolswith partners from civil society and the private business sector.


While the plan does not mention specific pedagogical strategies,in continuity with the document Citizenship and Constitution,active and situated forms of teaching and learning are implicitlyprivileged.

Unlike citizenship education, media education has been vir-tually absent from the Italian school curricula. Media educationis neither designated as a specific subject in the school curricu-lum, nor regulated by a specific authority. However, since thelate s some competences related to media education havebeen progressively included in the official documents releasedby the MIUR. Historically, this has provided some teacherswith the opportunity to carry out media education projects inthe classroom, often in collaboration with civil society organi-sations and academic research institutions. Generally speaking,educational policies focus mostly on the promotion of “digitalliteracy/competence” and “digital citizenship”, whilst the refer-ence to media education and literacy is rather marginal. Unlikeprevious documents, the National Plan for the Digital Schoolof explicitly situates the development of digital compe-tences in a broader media education paradigm. However, thisparadigm is not exhaustively explained and leaves room for(mis–)interpretation.

At present, there is no specific legal framework for MediaLiteracy Education policies and no authority dedicated to mon-itoring media education initiatives in Italy. This has requiredteachers and schools to develop media educational projects thatwere transversal to the disciplines included in the two areasof technology and linguistic–expressive–artistic competences(Felini, ). The lack of a clear political recognition of mediaeducation has therefore contributed to a situation where mediaeducation can feature prominently when and if teachers areinterested in, and familiar with the subject, or it can be almostabsent in cases where teachers are not (Parola & Ranieri, ).

Nevertheless, in the past five years the National Indicationsfor the curriculum and the more recent National Plan forthe Digital School (NPDS, ) seem to suggest a shift from


an instrumental or defensive approach to the educational useof digital media to a more participatory, reflexive and creativeone. Both documents recommend a competency–based ap-proach to digital literacy, drawing on the Recommendation ofthe European Parliament and Council of December (//CE), according to which students should acquirethe ability of critically using new technologies of informationand communication for searching for and analysing informa-tion, for distinguishing reliable and unreliable information, andfor interacting with different people. The NPDS connects theacquisition of digital competences with the term “digital cit-izenship”. Drawing in particular from the st Century Skillsframework promoted by the World Economic Forum, it sug-gests that young citizens «must transform themselves from(media) consumer to “critical consumers” and “producers” ofdigital contents». Hence, digital competence is seen as key toenable a “full, active and informed citizenship”. It seems thatdigital literacy is perceived as a new form of citizenship educa-tion which targets “the citizen–consumer” (Wallis & Bucking-ham, ), or even the “citizen–prosumer”.

At the operative level, one key action of the NPDS con-sists of the creation of «innovative scenarios for the develop-ment of applied digital competences» on the basis of a “com-petency–based teaching paradigm”. The action also foreseesspecific topics and issues to address (Internet Rights, mediaeducation, critical and mindful use of social media, informa-tion literacy, data protection), as well as a heterogeneous setof learning scenarios ranging from digital economy to digi-tal communication and interaction, from data management tomedia making, robotics and digital storytelling. Additionally,the plan includes the establishment of a common frameworkfor students’ digital competences; the creation of a researchunit for st Century Skills; the introduction of computationalthinking (through game–based activity of coding) in primaryschool and the updating of the technological curriculum ofthe middle school. In addition to teacher training on how to


support students’ development of digital and citizenship skills,the NPDS foresees the presence of one trained “animatoredigitale” (digital entertainer or digital edutainer) in each school.Furthermore, the NPDS encourages partnerships between pub-lic schools and different organisations such as civil society or-ganisations, research centres and private companies, especiallyfrom the ICT and media sectors. Regarding the pedagogicalstrategies to be employed, the NPDS strongly recommendsworkshop–based activities oriented by a constructivist modelof learning.

Like media education, intercultural education, while nevera distinct subject in the school curriculum, has received in-creasing recognition for its pedagogical value by the MIUR inthe past ten years. Indeed, lately Intercultural education hasoften been presented as a crucial component of citizenshipeducation.

Historically, the first ministerial guidelines on the inclusionof non–EU students in the school system go back to /,but they provided only very generic rules (Santerini, ).From then up to , the Ministry of Education released documents that refer to some extent to the integration of for-eign students and intercultural education (Capperucci & Cartei,). However, the term “intercultural education” appears inthe title of the official documents only times — in , ,, , and . Conversely, more emphasis is puton the concept of welcome and linguistic education. Indeed,the main common aim of these documents corresponds tothe need to face the “emergency” of integrating pupils withmigrant background into the Italian school system by “solving”their linguistic and learning problems. In short, initially Italianpolicies were just loosely related to intercultural education andstrongly characterised by an emergency approach in which thepresence of non–Italian pupils tends to be framed as a “prob-lem”. In some respects, this approach still persists. The text ofthe last school reform on the one hand claims that “peace andintercultural education” should be enacted in the contempo-


rary multicultural school and on the other hand the concreteintervention announced again focuses mainly on reception andlearning of the Italian language.

In Italy, media and intercultural education has received in-creasing recognition over the last decade. While citizenshipeducation was established after the country’s fascist past andmedia education is rather well established, intercultural edu-cation still has the form of being an “emergency education”targeting mainly the integration of migrant pupils but not theskills of indigenous Italians.

.. Slovenia

Citizenship education became part of the official curriculum inSlovenia in as a compulsory course of hours per year inthe th and th grade of primary schools, while in the th grade,pupils can select the optional subject Civic Culture ( hoursper year). Moreover, citizenship education is considered as across–curricular topic. This means that the topic is includedin different courses in primary and secondary schools as forinstance in Geography, History or Slovenian Language, Soci-ology and Social Sciences. In a reformed curriculum wasadopted which placed citizenship education in the frame of a“common European heritage” of political, cultural, and moralvalues (Šimenc/Sardoc ). The most recent curricular re-form in kept most of the topics, but shifted the emphasisto “patriotic education” and accordingly changed the course’stitle to “Patriotic and Citizenship Culture and Ethics”. Thecurriculum has been criticised and there are also considerableproblems in quality assurance of the educational process. First,it has been noted that the curricula lack theoretical reflectionsabout basic ethical terms (such as good and bad, obligation,justice etc.), which would enable students to deal with im-portant questions of life, society, environment and bioethics(Krek/Metljak , p. ). Second, formal citizenship educa-tion is primarily focused on political participation and political


literacy rather than engaging in civil society and communityvolunteering (Bezjak/Klemencic ). Third, the teaching staffoften lacks qualifications to teach the course (Pikalo et al. ).Fourth, citizenship education is also a target of political in-strumentalisation, when various political parties question, forexample, if the aim of education is rather to form “a Slovenianpatriot” or an autonomous individual.

Media education became part of the curriculum in aswell, but it was introduced as an elective course only (“Educa-tion for the Media”, hours per year). Media education topicsare also included in some compulsory courses, such as Slove-nian Language and Patriotic and Citizenship Culture and Ethics.In secondary schools, there is no separate course on media ed-ucation; students come into contact with the topic as part ofthe courses such as Slovenian Language, Sociology, Psychology,Arts and History. The current curriculum of the course Educa-tion for the Media dates from . Even though it has beenclaimed that Slovenia was one of the first post–socialist Euro-pean countries to adopt such an educational programme in itscurriculum and that it served as a model for other countries offormer Yugoslavia (Erjavec ), from today’s perspective thecurriculum is outdated. For example, the curriculum is mainlyfocused on traditional mainstream media (newspapers, radio,television) and mentions the internet only randomly. The cur-riculum does not directly address issues such as human rights,it does however stipulate a general goal which is to shape activecitizens, and under the topic of journalist ethics the goal is toshape tolerant and respectful attitude toward others. As in thecase of citizenship education, the quality of media educationvaries from school to school and depends on the professionalinterest of individual educators. What is more, policy docu-ments largely ignore the field of media education and thereforedo not adequately address the topic. The White Paper on Educa-tion (Krek & Metljak, ) for example does not provide anyconcrete guidelines for media education.


Intercultural education is not offered as a separate coursein Slovenian schools, but is considered as a cross–curriculartopic to be included in other courses. This form of implementa-tion has its weaknesses as intercultural competences often slipthe attention of teachers and heads of schools (Vrecer, ).While, the White Paper on Education recognises global and in-tercultural education as an important objective of teaching inorder to contribute to a more just and cohesive society (Krek& Metljak, , p. ), it only mentions media education in amarginal way, despite mentioning education for human rights,equity, peace, intercultural understanding and sustainable de-velopment (ibid., p. ). On the obligatory policy level, there isa considerable void in concrete definition of how interculturaleducation should be included in the educational process. Whatis more, actions of current political mainstream in the countryappear to be in opposition to the proclaimed goals of the edu-cational policy documents, such as protection of human rights,solidarity and equity. This is particularly true in respect to mi-gration policies; Slovenia has recently ( January ) adopted anew law on foreigners that has been criticised by national andinternational experts from the field of human rights, includingthe Council of Europe, for breaching international standards ofhuman rights.

After Slovenia’s transition to liberal democracy and marketeconomy, citizenship education was established at schools. Re-cently there is a focus on “patriotic culture and ethics” whichdoes not take into account diversity at schools or in society.Media education is not adequately addressed in the Slovenianschool system — as it mainly focuses on traditional media.The implementation in school curricula is also rather weak. In-tercultural education is established as a cross–curricular topic,which — as in Austria — has advantages but in practice thereis a void in how the issues should be included in Slovenianschools.


.. Comparison

All countries have made efforts to include CMIE in their schoolcurricula in past years. However, the countries took differentroads to integrate the subjects — some established specially des-ignated courses in the school curricula, while others, like Austriaand Slovenia, treat CMIE as cross–curricular topics, running therisk of neglecting systematic coverage of the contents involved.

Teacher training is a sensitive topic in nearly all countriesas resources (money, time) are missing. There is also a lack ofintegrating citizenship, intercultural and media education; inmost of the countries they are treated separately. Thus, in thecontext of rising immigration cultural, religious but especiallysocial diversity is not recognised in most of the curricula.

. The MEET recommendations’ rationale

In conclusion, the policy fields in the five countries participat-ing in MEET exhibit a wide variation regarding their historicaldevelopment, level of institutionalisation, and implementation.However, we have been able to identify a number of charac-teristic challenges facing stakeholders in all five countries forfurther developing and strengthening CMIE in the context ofthe rise of new forms of racism, xenophobia, discrimination, in-tolerance and inequality in Europe. Taking into account the re-sults of the practical testing of MEET learning scenarios, expertknowledge gathered from associate partners in all five coun-tries, and feedback and recommendations gathered from inter-national experts in media education and anti–discrimination ata round table discussion that took place in Brussels during thefinal conference of MEET, we have produced the followingrecommendations that aim to tackle these challenges.

. The experts generously offering their feedback and critical remarks wereFred Carlo Andersen (Østfold University College, Norway), Stefan Bundschuh


As Chapter illustrated, responsibilities for educational sys-tems and policies vary significantly between European states.Therefore, the level on which these recommendations wouldneed to be implemented differ accordingly. For example, inGermany, a federalist system exists that consigns most respon-sibilities for the educational system to individual federal states;in Austria, education matters are split between federal and statelevel; in Belgium, educational systems and policies are dividedbetween communities, while in Italy and Slovenia, most educa-tional responsibilities are concentrated at the national level. Thefollowing recommendations therefore address members of theEuropean Commission and the European Parliament, nationaland regional governments as well as municipal stakeholders,media and teachers’ representatives.

.. Contribute to a political and cultural climate supporting equityand tolerance

. Emphasise intercultural education in integration measures

Research conducted by MEET highlights the relevance of thesocio–political and cultural climate in which citizenship, mediaand intercultural education take place. For media educationto play an active and positive role in processes of integrationin migration societies, all stakeholders have an obligation tocontribute to a positive socio–political and cultural climate intheir respective countries. This includes shifting the focus ofdebates on integration from exclusive attention to languagelearning to learning about diversity, processes of exclusion andinclusion, and increased awareness of structural inequalities,discrimination and racism.

(Koblenz University of Applied Science, Germany), Tanja Oblak Crnic (Univer-sity of Ljubljana, Slovenia), Nicoleta Fotiade (MediaWise, Romania), Petra Grell(Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany), Tanja Popit (National Educa-tion Institute, Slovenia), Santi Scimeca (European Schoolnet, Belgium) and SoniaZaafrani (Initiative for a Non–Discriminatory Education System, Austria).


. Confront ethnocentric, nationalist, culturalist and discrimina-tory discourse and policies

Teachers and schools cannot solve the problems of contempo-rary societies alone and without changes in the wider socialand political field. For CMIE to be able to contribute to thepromotion of respect, human rights, intercultural dialogue, tol-erance and solidarity, it has to be in accordance with broaderefforts to confront discourses and policies that legitimise hatespeech and discrimination. Crucially, these efforts need to aimat a definition of citizenship as a political, not a cultural orethnic term.

. Strengthen public media’s role in media education

Public media should be addressed as an agent in the field ofmedia education and social exclusion. Hence state institutionsshould foster the plurality of media including private but alsopublic media outlets. They should be encouraged and ade-quately funded to provide public media education (such asTV and online programmes, radio, podcasts), especially foryounger audiences.

.. Educational Policies

. Systematically include comprehensive media education ineducation policies

Most policy documents on European, national, and federal statelevel acknowledge the importance of CMIE for the promotionof respect, tolerance, human rights, intercultural dialogue andsolidarity. This comprehensive approach to media educationperceives media education as intrinsically related to citizen-ship and intercultural education. However, CMIE often lacksconcrete implementation strategies, leading to a culture in ed-ucational practice that treats media education as of secondary


importance. In many cases, implementation depends on thecommitment of individual teachers. MEET research has identi-fied the need to recognise comprehensive media education as acore element of educational practice, to systematically includeit in educational policy development, and to devise concretestrategies for implementation on all levels. Testing the MEETLearning Scenarios showed that the short duration of the edu-cational interventions was widely perceived as a key obstacleto developing an adequate and critical understanding of mediaamong students. The systematic inclusion of CMIE in educa-tion policies was also identified as the number one priority taskin a survey among CMIE experts at the MEET final conferencein Brussels.

. Ensure adequate funding for comprehensive media education

Recognition of the importance of CMIE and support by policymakers should include systematic funding of projects for com-prehensive media education. This includes coordinating andproviding funds for third–party providers of media educationin the field of civil society and non–governmental organisations(NGOs), as they can offer specialised knowledge and resourcesin this field, while allowing them to remain autonomous fromstate as well as private business funding, thus bringing the bestsolutions to the field. However, public institutions should notdelegate their responsibilities in the field of CMIE to privateproviders or civil society actors but acknowledge them as corestakeholders of public education efforts.

. Adapt educational policies to include a critical media perspec-tive

to implement CMIE should not restrict media education toa “digital literacy approach”, but adopt a critical perspectiveon digital media. This would include taking into considerationdesign and distribution of digital media, and discussing alter-


native models, such as those promoted by the open softwaremovement. Critical media education should also be compre-hensive, i.e. it should include perspectives of active citizenship,interculturality, equality, tolerance and solidarity. As MEET re-search has shown, this is particularly important when mediaeducation addresses sensitive political topics such as migration,racism and social (in)justice. All processes of policy making andimplementation need to include the expertise of NGOs, civilsociety institutions and scientific experts to develop a coherentcritical approach that informs media education policies.

.. Curricula

. Integrate media education in citizenship and interculturaleducation

Media education is widely acknowledged as an important transver-sal issue, and covered in a broad variety of courses, such aslanguages, history, and sociology. At the same time, the de-velopment of new or revised courses related to citizenshipand intercultural education in many countries offers a uniqueopportunity to integrate media education in the education pro-cess, and connect it to questions of democracy, citizenship andintercultural learning. In countries where no citizenship orintercultural courses exist (such as Austria), they should beintroduced into the curricula.

. Implement individual courses on media education

While treating media education as a cross–curricular topic isimportant, offering individual courses on media education caneffectively complement existing courses. They are an impor-tant element for pursuing the goal to include all students inrelevant courses and provide them with high quality knowl-edge and skills. More specifically, MEET research attested thatparticipatory action–research approaches facilitated valuable


‘training by observing and teaching’ processes. They shouldtherefore be actively promoted in media education courses.This approach to media education allows inclusion of criticalcitizenship and intercultural education.

. Consider compulsory courses on media education

Introducing media education in the school curriculum as acompulsory subject can effectively support comprehensive me-dia education (CMIE) in the long term, as well as the constantdevelopment and improvement of teaching resources. At thesame time, this should not lead to deferring media educationto dedicated courses only, eliminating it as a cross–curriculartopic. Policy makers should be aware of this risk.

.. Schools

. Provide schools with adequate equipment and technicalinfrastructure

In order to implement comprehensive media education strate-gies (CMIE), educational facilities need to have access to tech-nological devices for actively engaging students in the process(such as computers and tablets), as well as infrastructure (suchas fast internet connections).

. Allow space for project teaching and cooperation with thirdparty providers

Cooperation with NGOs and civil society institutions offeringworkshops and training have proven highly effective in com-prehensive media education. The MEET project recommendsfostering, actively promoting and publicly funding such coop-eration and creating room for project teaching supplementingthe regular curriculum.


.. Teacher training

. Adequately organise and fund teacher training on compre-hensive media education

The MEET project identified inadequate training of educatorsas the key obstacle in implementing necessary strategies forthe improvement of comprehensive media education. Testingof the Learning Scenarios showed that initial lack of knowledgeabout media–analysis–oriented activities and a scarce exposureto classroom experience prevented some teachers from devel-oping a satisfactory level of media literacy skills. In order totackle this obstacle, the MEET project suggests four concreteremedies: Allocate sufficient funds for teacher training and forcontinuous development of resources which can be used inteaching practice. Adopt or adapt regulations on qualifications forteacher training on comprehensive media education. Teachertraining in media should include the development of inclusivepedagogical strategies to counter racism, discrimination andinequality, and increased awareness of multimedia teachingtools. Connect teachers and researchers on comprehensive media ed-ucation,as stronger and more continuous cooperation allowsconstant adaption in a rapidly changing field as well as develop-ing co–design skills and knowledge in the area of comprehen-sive media education. And last, but not least, ensure continuousmonitoring and evaluation of teacher training by experts.

. Conclusions

Overall, country variations in the policy field of CMIE acrossEurope proved to be a productive starting point for the MEETproject. On the one hand, these varieties increased the MEETexperts’ awareness of different contexts for implementing CMIE.On the other hand, these differences informed the MEET learn-ing scenarios as well as the policy recommendations. which


acknowledge country differences. There is no “one–fits–allsolution” to an effective implementation of CMIE. Thus, theMEET recommendations have to be seen as a tool which needsto be implemented in specific institutional and discursive con-texts, and which aims at fostering a critical discourse betweenteachers, heads of schools, policy makers, civil society stake-holders and (scientific) experts in the field.

Nevertheless, the MEET results point in one common direc-tion — namely to develop a comprehensive media educationprogramme. This means not focussing only or primarily on me-dia literacy, but including media education in programmes ofcitizenship and intercultural education. Such a comprehensiveapproach might lead to perceptions and practices of tolerance,anti–discrimination and solidarity in the classroom and beyond.The MEET project shows that such a vision needs the joint ef-fort of teachers, heads of schools, policy makers, NGOs, mediaand scientists to counter a chilly and dis–integrative climate ofhate (speech), inequality, intolerance and racism.

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