Title:
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Exploring attitudes to moving image media education in Northern Ireland post primary schools
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This mixed methods research provides insights into the current statutory provision for Moving Image Media
Education (MIME) in NI's post primary curriculum. The advocacy document which promoted its curriculum
inclusion, lA Wider Literacy: The Case for Moving Image Media Education in Northern Ireland' (NIFTC/BFI,
2004), argued that moving image is crucial to our understanding of literacy in the 21st century, where print
based literacies are being superceded by multiliteracies.
This research illustrates how far the advocacy document has impacted on current curriculum practices by
providing a snapshot of the existing provision and dissemination of MIME in NI's post-primary schools. The
perspectives of teachers and other associated stakeholders, involved in the delivery of MIME, indicate that
there are challenges and misconceptions associated with MIME as a new literacy.
The research reveals eight enabling factors are pre-requisites to MIME becoming a curriculum imperative:
(i) agreed pedagogy, (ii) agreed policy, (iii) research, (iv) strategic unity of purpose among stakeholders, (v)
funding mechanisms, (vi) appointed post-holders inside and/or outside school, (vii) supportive senior
management teams and (viii) ongoing CPD - pedagogical and technical training.
'A Wider Literacy' has had its successes. Northern Ireland is the only region in the UK to offer Moving
Image Arts at GCSE and A Level, and to have MIME as a statutory part of its KS3 curriculum. However, it is
clear it is not universally accepted as "applicable in all subjects" (NIFTC/BFI, 2004, p.5), as intended.
Moreover, it seems unlikely that MIME will become a curriculum staple until it becomes a compulsory part of
all initial teacher training courses and is officially endorsed by DENI as an essential teaching and learning
strategy. Until then this multiliteracy will remain "contentious in terms of classroom practice and teacher
education" (Carrington and Robinson, 2009, p.3).
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