From Convivial to Critical: A Call to Action for Critical Media Studies Pedagogy in Secondary Education

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From Convivial to Critical

A Call to Action for Critical Media Studies Pedagogy in Secondary

Education

Research Master Thesis by Willem Jansen Student number: 10808418

Supervisor: Emiel Martens Words: 20916

University of Amsterdam Faculty of Humanities Media Studies

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Abstract

This thesis is concerned with how education in secondary education in the Netherlands falls short in training critical thinking skills. Neoliberalism causes cultivation and critical thinking to disappear into the background as they cannot be measured or standardized to economic values. By creating a model that contains important critical theories (Bod 2012; Bottomore 2002; Freire 1970; Giroux 1980), used in the critical tradition of Cultural and Media Studies (Kellner & Share, 2007), combined with critical thinking skills (Facione, 2004), the

groundworks of a critical pedagogy are founded. This model is then tested through content analysis of the exam syllabi and questions for the courses History and

Maatschappijwetenschappen (MAW, Social Sciences), which ideally hold the best connection with this critical core. The current curriculum shows to be not critically orientated, and the methodology that is currently dominating in secondary education is positivism, which is defective when not critically evaluated. In the second part of the analyses, classes are observed, and students and teachers are interviewed to find how the mismatch in methodologies is causing problems in the classroom. The standardized formulas and descriptive professional jargon that leads the current curriculum stands in the way of

discussions that because of this only seldom arise. The discussions that do arise show critical reflection from the students in relation to something within their own life-world or from popular culture, resulting in positive feedback by students and teachers alike. In the third of the analyses, film education is proposed as a stepping stone into an intervention based on the critical pedagogy, connecting the theoretical model with the findings in the classroom. However, as the analysis shows, the current film education programs also suffers under the positivist dominance, emphasizing the importance of the intervention that is needed to put a critical pedagogy in practice.

Keywords

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Acknowledgements

The idea for this research has been with me since I encountered critical theory during the Bachelor Media & Culture at the University of Amsterdam. A lot of what I find fascinating or frustrating in our society can be traced back to (a lack of) critical thinking and theory. I am very glad that it was possible to shape this fascination into this thesis. I want to thank the teachers and students, who chose to remain anonymous, that contributed to this research. Thanks Emiel for your generous support and constructive critique over the last year. Our conversations continued to motivate me and you have pointed me in the right direction

multiple times. Lastly, thanks to all the support from my friends and fellow students who were always eager to have fierce discussions about this topic. It really meant a lot.

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1 Introduction

Critical thinking as a skill is getting undervalued in secondary education in the Netherlands. The highest secondary education level in the Netherlands is VWO (Voorbereidend Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs, Preparatory Academic Education) and aims to prepare students for university. In the last three years of this education, students get to pick one, or a combination, of four available study programs: C&M (Cultuur & Maatschappij, Culture & Society), E&M (Economie & Maatschappij, Economics & Society), N&G (Natuur & Gezondheid, Nature & Health) and N&T (Natuur & Techniek, Nature & Technology). Each of these study programs provides specialized courses that should help students prepare for higher education in that particular field. These programs can roughly be divided into two areas of study, i.e. the social sciences and the humanities on the one hand (C&M and E&M), versus the medical, physical, and natural sciences on the other hand (N&G and N&T). Most of the time, students will choose their curriculum based on courses from either the Society or the Nature programs. As the aim of this level of education is to prepare students for university, these two programs can be paired to the different faculties known in academia. The Nature programs, with courses like Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Algebra, connect with the academic studies that are available in the Natural Sciences, while the Society programs, with courses like Arts, History, Social Sciences, (Business) Economics, and Statistics, are divided between the Faculty of the Social Sciences and Humanities.

In the transition from secondary education to academic education, the Nature programs are based on methods that one could refer to as exact sciences. Most of the time, they form a fitting predecessor for what students will encounter when they go on study at the ‘beta’-side of university. However, the methods from the Society programs do not seem to run this transition to the ‘alpha’-side so smoothly, because empiricism dominates the Society programs as well. This sole focus on empiricism leads to positivism, which includes multiple dangers that are known to be countered in the humanities with critical theory. Whereas positivism holds the danger of excessively standardizing results into formulas and truths that get unjustly verified as objective, and are lacking important critical reflection, critical theory can be seen as a tool to question power relations and investigate knowledge production. The shortage of critical theory in the curriculum is a symbol for the lack of importance that is given to critical thinking as a skill, and cultivation as an aim of education (Morley et al. 2014). In this thesis I will argue that critical thinking must become a prominent part of

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education and that a corresponding intervention can be made through a change in methodology in secondary education. My argument is that critical theory should become far more visible in the curriculum. Not only will this make the encounter of critical theory in university feel more familiar to students, creating a stronger base that could lead to better quality of academic studies, but it is also effective to strengthen the public position of the humanities and show the benefits of cultural education as citizenship education that leads citizens to become better critical thinkers. Since this is quite a major statement that involves in its essence the entire education system, this thesis shall highlight cultural education in C&M as an in-depth case study to bring the leading problems to the surface and give a sense of the potential of a critical pedagogy.

Focusing on C&M and the humanities, another trend can be observed that connects to the positivist dominance. The humanities are going through a crisis, following a series of developments in the twenty-first century. The major sign of crisis is that the humanities and the arts are being cut away in education, which limits their growth (Nussbaum 2). The leading ideology behind these cuts seem to go in hand with neoliberalism. In short, the neoliberalist thought is to extend competitive forces to the maximum, downsizing state financing and public service (Peck & Tickell 381). That does not mean governance is rolled back, it can best be described as a mode of governance that “fuse political and economic powers and apply market-based logics to diverse networks of governing actors” (Dahl & Soss 497). For education, this means that learning institutions are increasingly becoming ‘certificate factories’, which train students to become a certain profession. However, not every academic education offers improved chances on the job market, nor is that essentially what education, or a university is for. Universities are originally institutions that train in academic skills, which will help people to become citizens who are able to interpret and research phenomena, may that be in the natural sciences, the social sciences or the humanities (Collini 8). Ultimately, these educations would not only provide citizens with a set of skills, it also has the aim to cultivate these citizens into critical human beings who are able to critically judge how their democracy works (Nussbaum 10). Within neoliberalism, these goals appear into the background, because cultivation cannot be expressed in numbers, making areas of study that do not provide solid economic benefits less important and victim of severe budget cuts. Methodologies that do provide exact numbers, such as positivism, thus relate much better to neoliberalist preferences than hermeneutics and critical theory.

The poor hybridization between positivism and the humanities ultimately leads to humanities fields of study, such as history, arts and (popular) culture, getting downgraded in

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public debate to more or less convivial to talk about, or even a waste of time and especially money. In public discussion this very often leads to the value of the humanities being discussed. Without ‘objective’ results presented as facts, the humanities are often seen as less scientific than the other faculties in academia, and therefore less important. In any case, that is what seems the common thought on these matters, except if one does or did have an education or (work) interest in said fields. This common thought could get substantiated through the sole experience that most people have with cultural education, namely in secondary education. General cultural education in secondary education comes together into the C&M study program, but this program rejects the critical core of the Faculty of the Humanities in favor of positivism. Doing so, students will not find themselves engaging with the theories that lead to reflective skills. Not only is this harmful for the public understanding of cultural education, it is also a missed opportunity to get the most out of cultural education as a tool to train students in these critical thinking skills. These fields of study know rich critical traditions that make them ideal for critical pedagogy, which is not only necessary for C&M students, but for all people. Even though these critical thinking skills are, in theory, already part of the general understanding of what it means to graduate, the ideal enlightening insights cannot be achieved through the current, positivist approaches.

In the theoretical framework of this thesis, the core of the humanities will be explored with regard to hermeneutics, critical theory and positivism. It is already visible that positivism is not suited as an approach that should dominate throughout all of the education system and curricula. By diving into cultural education and the relation between C&M and the Faculty of the Humanities, this chapter will give more insights on the importance of critical theory for cultural education specifically. To do so, this chapter shall work towards a model based on core authors and influencers for critical theory within the Faculty of the Humanities. The focus will lie especially on what a critical pedagogy could mean and have always meant over the course of democratic and academic history, moving all the way back to the Ancient Greeks. As critical theory matured with the Frankfurt School, with Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, and later Habermas as most prominent scholars, this movement naturally summarizes most of essentials of this model. It could be said that the Frankfurt School later became the Cultural Studies discipline, and once again later the Media Studies discipline, which is why this chapter shall build towards this discipline as an example for a critical pedagogy model. As these disciplines used critical theory as a foundation for what began as movements within academia, the core of critical theory can be found in a lot of the principles used in these fields. Furthermore, the Media and Culture disciplines are characterized by their

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interdisciplinarity, which makes it available to all courses and topics that are discussed in secondary education. Aside from these qualities, there has been a growing attention for the fairly new Media Studies discipline in news coverage and in extracurricular courses, such as film education programs. This grants the opportunity to explore these developments and intervene where necessary by setting course into a critical pedagogy that is based on the Media Studies discipline. There are already some voices that support the view on a critical media education, especially towards critical media literacy that focuses on critical reading and making media texts (Hobbs & Jensen, 2009; Kellner & Share, 2007). By combining these models with found principles of critical theory that came together over the course of history in the Cultural and Media Studies disciplines, a new model can be presented in this chapter, one that can function as a guideline in establishing a broader Media Studies pedagogy.

The model will contain several methods that should be visible in C&M, such as discourse analysis of meaning and representation, semiotic textual analysis, and political economy analysis. The main argument to use these methods in the model is that they give a direct counter for the abundance of definitions that are present in the current positivist pedagogy. In the second chapter, this model will be compared to the content of the national exam syllabi 2020 for VWO History (Geschiedenis) and VWO Social Sciences (Maatschappijwetenschappen, or MAW from here on), which could be seen as the core courses of the C&M curriculum. These syllabi are available online1 and hold the national requirements to pass the exam, making them more valid as a research object than study books, since these are optional to every school and available from multiple distributors. The syllabi are produced by an organization that functions as a governmental administrative body called the College voor Toetsen en Examens (CvTE, College for Tests and Exams). Members of the CvTE are teachers and experts who part-time work to create the national Central Exams and make sure the requirements are in line with the law. In 2020, MAW will start a new module that sets the tone for the next couple of years, which should thus be up-to-date with the most recent developments in these fields. For History, the syllabus changes a little bit every year or so, based on small modifications in what students will have to know with regard to certain periods. Overall, this module has not changed much over the last years (the last major changes were made in 2015) and there are no signs that changes will happen soon. Through content analysis, it shall become clear what and how exactly this methodological break between C&M and the humanities comes into being. The aims and requirements that are visible in the current

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curriculum lean on a large set of definitions and only briefly mention the skills that they want students to have, without specifying what it means to have such skills. Furthermore, the syllabi and exams fail at finding methodologies to suit these aims, because, in the end, they summarize a bunch of definitions of abstract professional jargon, which can be tested easily through standardized questions. This chapter expresses concerns about how this lack of reflection on the subject matter is actually presented in the obligatory student material, how this results in the forms of exam questions, and how critical theory could fit these gaps or alter the syllabi even completely to actually train students in the aspired set of critical thinking skills.

Mixed methods seemed most fitting for this research. After the content analysis in the second chapter, the third chapter will combine observations with semi-structured interviewing of students and teachers. The benefit of mixing qualitative research with a quantitative research method, such as observations and interviews, is that it strengthens the qualitative findings of the complexity of the phenomenon that is researched (Williams 70). While this part is exploratory and the aim is not to create a large data set, the small group of participants does allow to set ground on which an intervention could be based and fix errors in the findings that were made entirely on content analysis of the syllabi. The observations also help to give insights about how the syllabi formed the actual education in the classroom. It would be too easy to justify a critical pedagogy as an intervention solely based on what was missing in the syllabus. The found problems must cause for some sort of friction in the classroom as well, making these problems more explicit. For this part, I observed two VWO exam classes and one HAVO exam class during their class hours of History and VWO over the course of one week when they were preparing for their final exams. HAVO (Hoger Algemeen Voortgezet Onderwijs, Higher General Secondary Education) can be described as the school level that is less academically focused than VWO and more practically focused towards practicing a profession. The reason I also observed a HAVO class is because they have already implemented the new module for MAW. Aside from that, there should be quite some differences between the content of HAVO and VWO based on that they either prepare for university or for a profession. However, this turned out not to be the case, further supporting the dominance of positivism and practical results above cultivation.

In all classes, the teacher tried to bring some life to the dry substance of the syllabus. However, when discussing the central exams of the students, it became clear that there was frustration and incomprehension between student and teacher that was caused by the positivist methodology. As the students need to learn these fixed set of definitions, the teachers are

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limited in how far they can take their own approach and dive into the fascinations of the students, while the students need to stay in line with their answers and explorations to meet the requirements made by CvtE. That had an negative effect on the course of the classes, as it ended a lot of the vivid and in-depth discussions that arose when discussing topics that appealed to the students, which were in almost all the cases examples from popular culture and media texts. Through these observations, it became clear that a Cultural and Media Studies pedagogy would not only offer room to implement more critical theory as methodology into the curriculum, but also use the research objects to spark initial discussions and critically cover a lot of the topics that should be discussed in these classes. Essentially, the findings of the observations served as a stepping stone to set the direction of the interviews.

With the next method, interviews, it was possible to collect data about the motivations, views and experiences of the students and the teachers, elevating the idea of a critical Media Studies pedagogy to give it a multi-dimensional perspective. This method suited the aim of this chapter, because it can function as an exploration of the attitudes towards hypotheses and the participants can expand on their answers before diving into my findings (Arksey & Knight 32). I interviewed thirty students in pairs about their experiences with the current curriculum and their view on education, as well as ask them about what they personally want to achieve with their education and when they find education most useful. Again, the money-aspect that can be related to neoliberalism came back in their motivations, but also a call for cultivation could be found, even though they would often express their dissatisfaction with how cultivation is currently brought to them in the current pedagogy. Then, I interviewed four teachers who teach in one or both of the courses that were observed. The interviews took around half an hour on average and the questionnaire of the interviews (in Dutch) is included in Appendix A. The first part of the interview is concerned with their position in school and history as a teacher. After that, the teachers motivated why they think cultural education is important for students and what problems they run into when teaching these courses. In the third part of the research I gave them three of the statements that were structured after the findings of the content analysis of the syllabi and exam questions, to which they could respond. Most of the answers in the second part of the interview came back when discussing the statements, all in all positive towards the idea of a critical Media Studies pedagogy, but also skeptical against these kinds of educational reforms for it would have been tried before and it would mean that the education system must break with CvtE as well. Nevertheless, the call to action was deemed necessary by students and teachers alike.

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The fourth and final chapter dives into a provisional alternative method through content analysis of the lesson methods that are already available in film education. As I will have argued in the previous chapters, Media Studies can become the bridge, the medium, between teacher, student and methodology, providing the currently missing critical theory as a tool to spark discussions and train students in thinking critically. In the current education landscape, the principles for a kind of pedagogy that makes use of popular culture have already started to gain popularity, with film education programs becoming more widely available and media literacy courses providing extracurricular substance. Two of the main film education distributors in the Netherlands, Movies That Matter and the Netherlands Film Festival, are very actively occupied with creating more content that suits these courses. Unfortunately, this trend also seems to go in the wrong direction, falling into the same positivist traps as the rest of the curriculum. Many of the education methods that are provided are focusing on either standardized elements on screen or about the filmgoing experience, making these programs a ‘fun’ distraction, rather than a journey into critical thinking. In this chapter, these programs shall be discussed, as well as textually analyzed through the available lesson sheets. This can then be linked back to the established ideal aim of critical media literacy education, to see where it holds up, and more importantly, where it does not and where intervention is needed.

In the end, this thesis sets out to call for action in secondary education in the Netherlands, and in a more general way in other parts of the world as well. There must be paid more attention to the benefits and qualities of critical education with regard to the humanities, which are essential for democracies and all their partaking citizens. To do so, this paper offers an overview from what seems to be a network of interrelated problems and societal trends. This overview can serve as an access point into an intervention for cultural education, secondary education and even the entire education system. With many ongoing developments in the education system, it is time to stop accelerating uncritical, mindless trends, and critically reflect on the many problems that arise inside and outside the classroom because of this lack of critical pedagogy. By introducing Media Studies as a bridge between the already standing pillars, this thesis could open way to pull the humanities, and education, out of crisis.

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2 Theoretical Discussion

This chapter is an exploration of the critical core of the Faculty of the Humanities. The core of the Faculty of the Humanities lies at preserving, researching and critically questioning

humanistic artifacts (Bod 2). That is inherently more difficult to characterize as a nature of teaching, and thus to explain the value of, than with the natural sciences, which are more graspable in terms of ‘discovering’ truths (Collini 60). Discovering truths in the humanities seems troublesome, because all descriptions used to validate hypotheses about the human world are constructed through means of language (Collini 60). However, that could be said in the same manner about the natural sciences that ultimately work just as systematically. What the humanities do, in fact, is challenge assumptions about the human world through

experienced judgment (Collini 64). In contrast to a general understanding, methodologies of the humanities are not solely build on history, but try to find, compare and interpret patterns found in similar or different contexts (Bod 5). A powerful tool to do so is critical theory, which became a large part of the humanities with the development of the Frankfurt School movement in the beginning of the 1920s far into the 1960s, later developing into Cultural Studies and Media Studies. Critical theory can be described as “a reflective theory which gives agents a kind of knowledge inherently productive of enlightenment and emancipation” (Geuss 2). The essence of the philosophical character was criticizing positivism and

empiricism to formulate an alternative methodology to study society (Bottomore 28). Hence, if an education would prepare students for the Faculty of the Humanities, it must include this prominent methodology that has been part of the humanities for almost a century now. The tradition from which the School derived could even be traced way back, to Antiquity. Through the historical exploration of these concepts, it is possible to establish the

groundworks for a theoretical model that can be used to analyze the current curriculum of C&M, as well as provide an alternative pedagogy based on the methodologies that are discussed in this chapter.

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2.1 The Humanities and Critical Theory over the Course of History

2.1.1 The start of hermeneutics and Socratic questioning

The humanities study the expressions of human mind, the practices of human culture, and by doing so keep works alive from the past and the present, teaching those works to new

generations and critically interpreting those works and humanistic artefacts (Bod 2). The humanities differ from the social sciences in that the social sciences try to study humans in their social context from a more empirical stance. This empirical stance can be linked to the aim to find ‘objective truths’, which is heavily influenced by positivism (Giroux 330). On the other hand, the humanities try to find truths from a more hermeneutic approach, for example through tools as critical theory (Nussbaum 7). The start of the humanities can be traced back to places all over the Ancient world, from Greece to India to China. They can be seen as a “pursuit of a system of rules” for underlying heuristics, analogies, or proportions in

observable phenomena, such as linguistics, history, music, literature, logic, or the arts (Bod 71). The patterns that were found changed soon enough from descriptive to prescriptive, and then transformed into normative rules, making it different from the natural sciences in which regularities are never prescriptive (Bod 71). However, these regularities found in observations do impose themselves on new observations, whether in the natural sciences or the humanities, thus altering the observations (Bod 72). The normative rules thus cannot be seen as objective, and this has to be taken into account when analyzing the phenomena. It is clear that

hermeneutics, as the theory and methodology of interpretation, were already present and called upon at the very start of scientific research and citizenship education. Nevertheless, this did not turn out to be the most convenient method, since deduction, in Antiquity, was not as prominently developed as it was in the sciences (Bod 72). Critical theories in academia, as far as one could name these rhetoric and logic methods as such, were limited to the Aristotelian theory of syllogism: “A discourse in which, certain things having been supposed, something different from the things supposed results of necessity because these things are so.” (Aristotle 2) Through this kind of analysis of an object, it was possible to make statements about the conditions of an object with a necessary return to the object itself, grounding the dialectical method that is a major part of critical theory. With dialectics, it is important to find a truth in different perspectives through reasoned arguments.

One important quality of the Aristotelian deduction strategy that contributed to the dialectical method was the concept of the ‘enthymeme’, which showed different plausible

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truths for the same premise, based on a particular audience, making a division in historical and fictional examples (Bod 59). This could perhaps be seen as the start of heuristics as methodology, exposing the multiple sides and asking questions about the established, and normative system of rules. Plato also propagated this dialectical method, believing that dialogue between people of different perspectives could achieve an understanding of both ways, rather than rejecting one perspective as true and another as false (Bod 59). In terms of education, the humanities in this period, especially the hermeneutic approach, was supported by a Socratic pedagogy, in which the status of the speaker does not count; only the nature of the argument (Nussbaum 50). The method was posed to critically examine tradition and authority, reflecting on the content that is being produced (Nussbaum 48). Education was thus not training, but a quest for cultivation, and intelligence was viewed as an extension of ethics that could help citizens live ‘a good life’ (Giroux 229). Nussbaum argues that the Socratic model does not go very well with social sciences if that would mean that the goal would be economic growth, leading to standardized tests and impatient pedagogies (48). Socratic thinking is, and has been since the start, a powerful ally in democracy, as it shows multiple perspectives and weapons itself against demagogues that try to manipulate citizens in thinking simplistic, and positivist, about humanist matters. The start of the humanities with the Greek philosophers thus developed the foundations of the tools to question these modes of rationality, making them valuable for these kinds of education (Giroux 332). Even though democracy in Antiquity could maybe be seen as far from perfect, for instance with issues of inclusiveness, it still required citizens to critically reflect on the dominant ideology.

2.1.2 The loss and the return of hermeneutics

The biggest changes with regard to this cultivating education in which ideally everything was open for discussion came in the Middle Ages. With the rise and falling of feudal and totalitarian regimes, citizens were asked in lesser amount to think about their state and mode of governance than they were in democracy. In this period, methodologies known in the humanities became less critical in Christian Europe, for instance with historiography that followed the ‘biblical coherence principle’ to interpret history, often leading scholars to find what they a priori seemed to ‘know’ (Bod 85). Arguably, this is a dark chapter in the history of the humanities when looking at critical theory. If the most prominent thinkers do not have the freedom to think, what truths could they possibly find? Also within the Islamic world, the principle of isnad gained ground as a tool to determine the reliability of a source (Bod 92). With a well-defined series of rules, isnad-historiography formalized source and textual

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analysis with empirical motivation, but had its origins from religious endeavors (Bod 93). That means that while the idea of finding the truth through a set of rules, these rules were not to be questioned and as they were heavily under the influence from religious paradigms, the results were not critically analyzed. In some ways, the errors that could occur analyzing through these methods, would later again cause problems with the positivist-approach in the twentieth century, and still has its effects on education today. However, there were still sounds of critique to be found in the Islamic world. Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) expressed in his sociologically analyzed source principle: every source has to be critically compared in regard to the social context and the laws that control the society, thus refuting myths (6). His methodology has much to do with another key aspect, next to dialectics, namely discourse analysis, which tries to analyze how knowledge is produced. Besides that, this period shows mainly the flaws of uncritical humanities, flaws that in some ways are still present today.

Biblical coherence was partially challenged when Lorenzo Valla (1406-1457) created a method of textual criticism that was the first to have precise criteria: the principle of chronological consistency, logical consistency, and linguistic consistency (Bod 147). This methodology would start a methodological movement towards genealogy, in which knowledge would be sorted based on the period where the knowledge was first produced (Bod 150). Genealogy would later become a central part of Michel Foucault and his critique, i.e. his archeology of knowledge (2.1.3). As will be argued later, Foucault seeks out to understand history as being produced within a period, and criticizes the positivist statements that can be made with regard to this statement (198). However, in the Early Modern Age, biblical criticism served a different academic purpose, as it could be seen as the start of humanism and goes hand in hand with the Scientific Revolution. It was further elevated by Spinoza, who turned it into a political philosophy (Bod 171). In Theological Political Treatise (1670), he theorized about religion and how it holds authority and exercises power over men through theological concepts, providing a new method to read these texts that he claimed not to be absolute (ix). These methods of text criticism had far-reaching implications and represented the beginning of the Enlightenment, when thinkers started to build on ‘rationalism’ (Bod 171). Dialectics and hermeneutics became prominent methodologies, advocated by Descartes, who criticized the original logic theories (Bod 192). Central to Descartes’ methodology is doubt, and seeks for truth by doubting the reality of the knowledge that is presented through analysis (xvii). This trend of rejecting what is presented as normative is central to critical theory, as was seen with the critical pedagogy of Socratic questioning. All in all, these trends worked towards a more formalistic approach, in which theories could be recorded and evaluated with

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precision (Bod 242). These developments also made it possible for positivism to develop more strongly, as shall be discussed in the next paragraph.

2.1.3 The rise of positivism and critical theory

The next major development in historiography and the triangle of positivism, hermeneutics and critical theory, would be the source criticism from Leopold van Ranke (1795-1886). His historism tried to establish an objective history by critically engaging with every known source, which resulted in a more systematic discipline (Bod 251). However, this could not hold up, since every age being controlled by a set of ideas about how objectivity can be pursued (Bod 252). That idea grounds epistemology, that would later be used by Foucault to develop his archeology of knowledge (2.1.4). Epistemology could be defined as the study of the nature of knowledge, concerned with what serves as justification and lies underneath the rationality of belief. Epistemology would not counter the objective trend that continued in the social sciences, where positivism became big. Auguste Comte (1798-1859) wanted to trust solely on deduction (Bod 254). Even though this would later be drastically rejected by the Frankfurt School, it was inspiring for Karl Marx, who inspired much of the writers from the Frankfurt School. Marx famously broke down history into phases in the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1847), the first one being a primitive society and the last one to be communism. While trying to determine the course of history, Marx’ pattern turned out to be more ideological than historical, and it was his dialectical interpretation that became important for critical theory (Bod 256). Marx followed Hegel’s historical dialectic, according to which all changes in history would emerge from the synthesis of two extremes (Hook 18). The specific relation between the phases were oppositional and interactive, thus making it possible to logically interpret facts as movement and flow (Hook 65).

Marx’ dialectics, combined with the developments of genealogy and epistemology and the upwards movement of positivism in the social sciences, could be described as the scientific base for the Frankfurt School, that started in the 1920s and continued well after the Second World War (Bottomore 13). The Frankfurt School became known as an important critical movement with theories on society and culture, because “of its focus on the intersections between technology, the culture industries, and the economic situation in contemporary capitalist societies.” (Kellner 2002; 31) Central to the formation of the School was Max Horkheimer’s critique on positivism, namely that it treats active human beings as mere facts; it conceives the world only as immediately given in experience; and has trouble distinguishing fact from value, hence the line between knowledge and interests becomes thin

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(196). Against this method, the Frankfurt School developed the dialectical Ideologiekritik. Ideologiekritik holds three theses. The first is that radical criticism of society and of its dominant ideology are inseparable; the second is that it is not moralizing, it is not judging an ideological consciousness as unpleasant, but rather as false; the third is in which it is inherently different from natural sciences as it requires changes in the epistemological views we have from traditional empiricism (Geuss 26).

As pedagogy, the Frankfurt School also continues the dialectical tradition, aiming to change society by connecting and mapping power relations, cultural forms, and social movements and struggles (Kellner 2003; 57). By analyzing and proposing structures, citizens should become able to think and rethink the landscape, or democracy, they live in (Kellner 2003; 58). A key text that covers these systematic analyses is The Culture Industry by Adorno and Horkheimer. These analyses were the first to show how ‘culture industries’ in the center of leisure activity are agents of numerous societal phenomena, mediating the political reality on economic, political, cultural and social effects (Kellner 2002; 32). The culture industry, or mass culture, holds positive and negative effects, can block or promote freedom, but never in an immediately available way (Adorno 2). The culture industry organizes ‘free’ time and is so deeply integrated in society that it provides myths to dominate and pour subjects in the capitalist ideology (Adorno 9). It makes it near impossible to have societal realization, because, by defeating reflection, it holds the illusion that empiricism can reveal enough of our life world (Adorno 11). With these analyses, it was the first time that popular culture became object of research, starting a tradition that developed further with Cultural Studies (2.2). The preferred method was content analysis, which could provide Ideologikritik by searching for these underlying modes of knowledge production in aesthetics (Adorno 15). However, critique itself can become part of the culture industry, or victim of the dominant ideology, making mapping a very hard practice. These thoughts later became prominent in the theory of post-modernism, which would go as far as to claim that forms of aesthetics could only be degraded to a repeated product of the culture industry, part of the bubble that dominates culture (Jameson 14). That is not to say that critical theory is useless and powerless in a realm of cultural industries. Aesthetics, dialectical criticism, genealogy, all insist on a moment of truth that show the ideology, that could position the subject outside of its place in society, creating meaning, insights or raising awareness of the modes of knowledge that are presented (Adorno 18-19).

The model of critique is not the prescription for all work in the humanities, but it did have its effect in university where it became a distinguished operation in researching, aiming

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to unmask false assumptions (Collini 77). This has been termed ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ that now finds its way at the core of academic education, stimulating scholars from different backgrounds to engage in an intellectual exchange with accepted methods (Collini 78). Arguably, it is critical education that is most valuable for citizens in a democracy, where the meaning of life is a topic of reasonable disagreement of citizens who all come from different backgrounds (Nussbaum 9). A nation that seeks to promote a democracy that is dedicated to promote opportunities for its citizens should enable education focused on critical thinking about political issues; to understand other perspectives and complex personal issues, judge political leaders, and see one’s own world as a complicated structure (Nussbaum 25-26). Critical theory in education certainly feels like an obligatory part of the curriculum. It is therefore also actively vouched for by educationalists, such as the post-colonial academic Paulo Freire, who calls it essential for the ‘democratization of culture’ and an open society, because it goes hand in hand with the ability to intervene in reality in order to change it (37). Freire, who made the efforts to give voice to oppressed groups, may it be marked by race, ethnicity, sexuality or class, used critical theory as pedagogy in order to change society, focusing on these insights which were grounded by Adorno, Horkheimer and the Frankfurt School (Kellner 2003; 57). According to Kellner, these developments can be summarized in three important goals for education, which must be kept in mind for the model in section 2.3:

“(1) Articulating the novel life conditions, subjectivities and identities of the youth; (2) cultivating new multiple literacies to respond to new technologies and the challenges of globalization; and (3) on the basis of these analyses to propose a radical restructuring and democratization of culture.” (2003; 58)

Foucault and Habermas, who also wrote in the tradition of the Frankfurt School, contributed and influenced this line of thinking and remain important for critical theory while it is studied in newer fields of study, such as Cultural and Media Studies. Foucault pledged for a methodological change in our perspective of knowledge, namely to shift to an archeology of knowledge that would allow to study the transformations of knowledge over the course of history, without falling back to cultural totalities, but in the way history constructed itself (9). With Foucault’s archeology it is not so much about finding the truth or ideas as finding the discourse behind the truth and those ideas (81). He suggests that if we study the relation between science and knowledge, ideology will come to the surface (103). A key term in his methodology is discourse. Discourses arrange and naturalize the social world in a specific way and it does this through practices that give form and constitute to the way human subjects can manage their subjectivity on a rational and self-evident level (Alvesson & Karreman

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1128). The use of language is the most frequent form that is studied in this kind of way. With his archeology, Foucault looked to clarify how rules changed over history to regulate discourses. His genealogy takes a look into how particular forces or events shape these discursive practices into unites, wholes and singularities (Alvesson & Karreman 1128). Combine these discourse analyses with Ideologiekritik and you have another methodology, aside from content analysis, that can work in the curriculum model (2.3).

Ideology was also discussed by another main figure of the late Frankfurt School, Habermas. He argues, building on Max Weber’s theory of rationalization, that knowledge can be structurally portrayed, while rationality is less about the possession of knowledge, but rather about acquiring and using it (57). Habermas argued that institutions infiltrated the public sphere and differentiates our knowledge systems and the learning processes of everyday life and communication, making the process of rationalization plural (429). His thoughts led to the theory of communicative action, which aims to do hermeneutic interpretations of our life world through the elements that make our social world possible (Bottomore 62). While in positivist tradition there seems to be a separation of facts (empirical regularities) and decisions (social norms), Habermas contrasts this with a dialectical theory of totality, which is a hermeneutic understanding of this ‘life-world’ (Bottomore 56). Doing so, Habermas does depart from Adorno & Horkheimer’s theory, in that he does try to establish secure foundations for knowledge, or truths, namely a technical interest grounded in material needs and labour, a practical interest in communicative action between individuals and within or between social groups, and an emancipatory interest that questions exercises of power, constituting self-reflection or critical knowledge (Bottomore 57). These questions about knowledge production, power relations and the study of culture industries came together in the Cultural Studies discipline that started in the 1950s and 1960s.

2.2 Cultural and Media Studies

With ‘culture industries’ very much at the core of the Frankfurt Schools critical theory, the theorists belonging to this movement have provided methodologies that were to be used to research social and cultural phenomena. Their critique is a combination of political economy of the media, text and content analysis, and reception studies of the ideological effects of mass culture (Kellner 2002; 32). In this section, the methods that came up in the previous section shall be taken to the next level to see what they meant for Cultural Studies, how part of Cultural Studies developed into Media Studies, and how these disciplines can be described

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today. Again, key authors shall be discussed and the essential methods will be clarified before they can be taken into an outlined model.

2.2.1 Discourse Analysis and Ideology

The Cultural Studies discipline started in the 1950s and 1960s, by critiquing mainly American culture industries (Hall 3). Stuart Hall, sociologist and political activist, became one of the founding figures of the Cultural Studies discipline, supporter of the critical school. With an eye to the present and the C&M curriculum, what is interesting is the break with sociology. If the current education on culture and society in secondary education is victim of positivism, it might have most connections with Community Science, whereas Cultural Studies would better be placed in a Weberian tradition, looking at ‘lived cultures’ (Hall 10). The analyses in the papers by these authors, who were joined by new ones, such as Raymond Williams, were characterized by their analyses of culture in texts and belief systems and institutions (Hall 10). Yet it goes beyond solely texts or artefacts; Cultural Studies sought for, in the tradition of the Humanities, ‘an ideological definition’ that was ‘problematized’ (Hall 14). Ultimately, the movement was about questioning, doubting, the meaning of social formation and cultural power (Hall 15). The Cultural Studies discipline honored the tradition of critical theory, by making it their key methodology, following the humanities tradition. If a curriculum on culture and society, such as C&M, wants to prepare students for academic education, it thus must include what can perhaps be called the most critical of these disciplines, being Cultural Studies.

Content analysis is mostly known as quantitative content analysis, which can be found at the start of statistical analysis. However, Cultural Studies critiques this quantitative content analysis for their naïve treatment of the numbers, namely that there are very few

methodological, epistemological or ontological questions raised about the statistical results (Pickering 90). Traditional quantitative methods that showed a connection to positivism were rejected, and replaced with qualitative methods that would help interrogate the particularities of culture, rather than its generalities (Pickering 92). This antipathy against statistics must not be accepted as completely valid, since also a suspicion against this antipathy is needed. It may be better to say that statistical numbers should not be trusted on their own, but can still be used for inclusion in more reflexive, interpretative, thus hermeneutic research (Pickering 94). It is thus of importance that in a C&M curriculum, there must be looked at quantitative methods with extreme care, and sought for hermeneutics and epistemology as a part of this method, turning them ideally into qualitative methods.

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Discourse analysis is very frequently used in Cultural Studies. Its search for how knowledge and power relates through language clearly suits the critical stance of Cultural Studies. It must be said, however, that there is an important role also for the researcher’s pre-given position, showing the ‘dangerous’ side of audience research (Pickering 150). Besides that, the concept of discourse changes between methods and fields, making it hard to give a clear definition (Pickering 155). These flaws also provide opportunities. In line with the thought that these different interpretations provide insights in the production of knowledge, these flaws do also ask for critical self-reflection of the person who wants to work with the content. Positioning oneself and motivations make a reader increasingly a textual construct (Pickering 158). That causes discourse analysis to be a productive method in finding the very ground of an argument. Where do these assumptions of text come from? It provides a way into textual analysis, for instance the style of a cultural product (Pickering 158).

Self-reflection and discourse analysis thus both need to become part of the model to study culture. What stands out in Cultural Studies is the relation between social practices and

ideologies, a dichotomy that was coming under the attention through the works of Foucault (Hall 25). Stuart Hall incorporated Foucault’s and other critical theorists into the discipline. Foucault’s discourse analysis allowed Hall to study discursive practices through popular cultural forms. Along with Raymond Williams, Hall followed up on the work of Gramsci, who drew analogies between the forms of narrative and hegemony, or the predominance of a group within a society (Hall 259). In these works of fiction there were suggested relations to be found with the common sense (Hall 260). Instead of locating these discursive practices in high culture, or clear hegemonic superstructures, this opened way for Hall to study popular culture and the culture industries. His work contributed a lot in the concept of ‘identity’ as a construct, making his work, and Cultural Studies in general, also a part of gender studies. In addition, Stuart Hall’s popular culture analysis characterized the importance for media in Cultural Studies. Following earlier Frankfurt School scholars like Walter Benjamin, Hall’s work enabled legitimate research on mass culture. Whereas Benjamin’s work contributed to film studies, Hall’s work can be mainly connected to television and audience studies, yet all of them have in common that they opened up the way towards a more recent field of study: Media Studies.

2.2.2 Media and Representation

Lots of what the Cultural Studies discipline meant for the academic world can be seen as inspiration for the field of Media Studies. However, where Cultural Studies originally could

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be somewhat seen as the follow-up for the Frankfurt School, Media Studies, in its more recent form as a discipline, seems to have developed critical theory further from this relation with the Frankfurt School. Media Studies broke with the model of ‘direct influence’ by focusing on the in-between, the media, yet stayed on the ideological dimension of the media as a research object (Hall 104). Second, in terms of content analysis, this break meant that the

problematized ‘audience’ research could be turned into a reading of texts, of encoding and decoding (Hall 105). In short, the concern of Media Studies is “the role which the media play in the circulation and securing of dominant ideological definitions and representations” (Hall 105).

Stuart Hall created a model of Encoding/Decoding to analyze the construction and deconstruction of messages (see figure below)

In this model, he moved beyond the linearity of message exchange that was assumed in earlier methods (Hall 117). Still in line with Ideologiekritik, Hall’s theory builds on the apparatus theory. Walter Benjamin, one of the members of the original Frankfurt School, actively vouched for this in his aesthetic theory, where he argues that the apparatus holds the mechanics of representation (camera and editing), through which the media are created to represent an ideological reality (235). However, Hall argues that the discourse must also be translated into social practices, into a form of appearance that can be decoded (117-118).

Aside from this model, another key aspect of Media Studies is representation. Hall described two systems of representation: mental representations and language. “Meaning depends on the system of concepts and images formed in our thoughts which can stand for or ‘represent’ the world, enabling us to refer to things both inside and outside our heads.” (Hall et al. 17). These mental representations must be expressed, which grounds the second system,

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containing of signs that can be words, sounds or images containing meaning (Hall et al. 18). Culture and media are inherently connected here.

“One way to think about ‘culture’, then, is in terms of these shared conceptual maps, shared language systems and the codes which govern the relationships of translation between them. Codes fix the relationships between concepts and signs. They stabilize meaning within different languages and cultures.” (Hall et al. 21)

Representation and media was also discussed by Noam Chomsky, academic known in a broad array of fields. His contribution largely goes out to the political economy side of the table, which is also a part of the exam syllabus for MAW (Chapter 3). Instead of looking directly to the cultural form, Chomsky pointed towards the institutions. He, together with Edward S. Hermann created the ‘propaganda model’, describing the purpose of the media for society. This model regards mass media as a system for communicating ideology, which means that propaganda is needed to reach individuals in a society where there are major class conflicts (1). The propaganda model focuses thus on the inequality of wealth and power, and how this effects mass-media interests and choices, analyzing mass-media firms, advertising, experts that are funded, religion as a control mechanism (2). The results are insights in

newsworthiness, the agendas of the elite parties that dominate mass media and the construction and beliefs that are manipulated (2).

With Encoding/Decoding and the Propaganda Model, the methods that were founded in the first chapter can be put to potential. Coming back to Kellner’s three principles, the Media Studies makes it possible to (1) articulate novel life conditions and identities by analyzing how they are constructed, (2) look at technology at the center of the analysis rather than a ‘direct influence’, making it possible to adapt when new technologies arise, (3) provide insights in political economy to restructure democracy. Furthermore, Habermas’ technical, practical, and emancipatory interests suit these methodologies in quite the same manner, making Media Studies an ideal final stop before making a model for critical cultural pedagogy.

2.3 A Critical Pedagogy Model 2.3.1 Critical Media Literacy

Before introducing and discussing the structured model that can, as I will argue, serve as a checklist, I want to make the difference between media literacy education and a critical Media Studies pedagogy clear. In some aspects, media literacy education could be considered a part

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of what I propose with Media Studies pedagogy, but it moves away from it as a course to implement it in the whole curriculum as a methodology. Media literacy is often referred to as the practice of critically analyzing and learning to create one’s own messages in different (audiovisual) media (Hobbs 16). Even though that is certainly part of it, I want to incorporate media in a larger sense to the curriculum. Besides that, with this definition, the ‘creating’ part of messages would be left out, making the pedagogy not as pragmatic. With a focus on media text creation, it would still move towards a standardized way of teaching, that could be checked against certain definitions. Such interventions would easily be trapped in the ‘fun to do’ corner, instead of the aspiring lessons they could be.

Attention for media literacy education grew a lot in the 2000s and continued to grow with the rise of popularity of social media, since debates on Internet and media usage, and concepts as privacy part of the daily news coverage. It is suggested that media literacy education must defend people against negative media influence (Hobbs 19). However, the ‘how’ in this education is still under debate. Scholars have not found the right tools to implement media literacy education in the curriculum, and it is now sometimes provided as extra-curricular, or not at all. In addition, when lesson methods are provided, for instance with film education, the approaches that are used are not in line with the aims of media literacy education. Courses in the media literacy education thus suffer from the same problems as the rest of the curriculum; they are not focused on critical thinking. Kellner & Share merged these and other concepts from specifically ‘critical’ media literacy into a list of principles:

“(1) Recognition of the construction of media and communication as a social process as opposed to accepting texts as isolated neutral or transparent conveyors of information;

(2) Some type of semiotic textual analysis that explores the languages, genres, codes, and conventions of the text;

(3) An exploration of the role audiences play in actively negotiating meanings;

(4) Problematizing the process of representation to uncover and engage issues of ideology, power, and pleasure;

(5) Examination of the production and institutions that motivate and structure the media industries as corporate profit seeking businesses.” (12)

Kellner & Share, Hobbs and other authors in the field have called for action on this educational field; it drastically asks for a critical intervention. However, even if these

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the current uncritical methodology. The interventions would be much more productive to tackle the problem at the methodology, hence with a critical Media Studies pedagogy. This pedagogy would shift what is already there at the curriculum to a methodology that supports the critical theory on the topics that students needed to get educated on. Media literacy can be seen as one of the aspects, and a very practical one for sure. Yet, with the established

theoretical discussion on the critical core of the humanities, the benefits for society and democracy, and the methodologies of the Frankfurt School and Cultural Studies, Media Studies covers a whole lot more than just semantic analysis of media texts. In conclusion, it is not so much about debunking crazy ideas from adults, but rather about establishing an

educational system that is incapable of producing adults that could come up with these crazy ideas in the first place. Taking the aim of critical media literacy, but focusing on the

methodological part would allow a pedagogy to tackle the current lack of critical thinking in the curriculum, instead of leaving just a shallow impression on the students with another convivial project week focusing on the creation of a student film.

2.3.2 A Critical Media Studies Pedagogy for C&M

Taking into consideration the development of critical theory from the start of the humanities until Media Studies, the principles pointed out by Kellner & Share can be developed into a broader model that would serve more general education on cultural and social phenomena, encountered in the C&M curriculum. The aspects to look for are dialectics and Ideologiekritiek with concepts such as life-world and culture industries, which can be brought together under forms of discourse analysis, specifically archeology, genealogy and epistemology (2.1). Further implications of these methods in Cultural and Media Studies can be found through hermeneutic models of encoding/decoding, apparatus theory, representation, and political economy (2.2). It will be all of these that shall be referred back to while analyzing the syllabi and exams for History and MAW in the next chapter. These methods do not have to be named explicitly, because it is mainly their value as a critical theory that is useful for a pedagogy that focuses on critical thinking and cultivation. It is thus of importance to combine these methodologies with specific critical thinking skills.

With regard to critical citizenship, these goals must include the core elements of critical thinking, which should lead to purposeful reflective judgment. Peter Facione, who studied higher education and how it can be appreciated in its cultivating qualities, names six core skills that must be visible, namely interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation (5). For a critical pedagogy, this combination of skills and

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methodologies would not only fit the connection with the critical core of the humanities best, it also trains every student in potentially every corner of society to become a critical citizen. Interpretation focuses on making logical connections between categories of interpretation and decode significance to clarify meaning (5). This logical definition does suit hermeneutics and the start of dialectics with Aristotle and Plato very well. Discourse analysis could fit the ‘analysis’ criteria. According to Facione, it is about finding the relations between concepts and representations to judge phenomena or express reasoning (5). Inference joins in on this quality as well, namely to state hypothesis about these relations, which could be done through semantic analysis, for instance. How to do so is covered by the explanation skill, which can be easily described as stating one’s reasoning in the form of a cogent argument (6).

On the other side of the critical thinking skills there is evaluation, which is not only about checking the reliability of a piece of information based on the source, but also about finding contradictions and recognizing the context of the situation in which something was experienced or perceived (6). Again, this can be connected to dialectics, but also to ethics. Beyond that, it requires someone to doubt certain power relations in order to question what is told to them by authorities. Finally, self-regulation is about bringing doubt to self-consciously monitor one’s cognitive activities (7). With named skills, one should be able to self-consciously understand the process of studying material, but also more broadly, to reflect on their own behavior and thoughts. As a critical citizen, one must be able to reflect on controversial topics that might at first go against one’s own beliefs in order to critically judge the political landscape or social trends. Here, Media Studies does bring another benefit to the table in terms of pedagogical qualities. Since a lot of the topics that are discussed with cultural education are brought to the students through media and not only in school, it would be a great starting point if the research objects would also be media texts. That would show the immediate importance of critically analyzing power relations and learning critical thinking skills, namely through objects they interact with in daily life. All in all, the methodologies, set skills and objects could be summarized in this altered model to function as a guideline to a critical Media Studies pedagogy:

Discourse analysis of the construction of meaning as a social process as opposed to accepting knowledge as isolated neutral or transparent conveyors of information; Some type of semiotic textual analysis that interprets, infers and explains the languages, genres, codes, and conventions of the text;

A hermeneutic and self-regulating exploration of the role oneself and other people play in actively negotiating meanings;

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Evaluation by questioning and doubting the process of representation to uncover and engage issues of ideology, power, and pleasure;

Examination of political economy that motivates and structures the media and other industries as corporate profit seeking businesses.

3 Central Exams

3.1 History 3.1.1 Syllabus

The exam syllabi are provided by CvtE and can be found online. They include information for both the teachers and the students with regard to the Central Exams. The students are

described in these syllabi as ‘candidates’. What skills the candidates are supposed to have and how they must put these skills to work can be found in these syllabi, together with the goals and aims of the course. These goals are divided into domains, and every domain focuses on a specific quality, and is then again divided into different subdomains. The first syllabus that is being discussed in this chapter is History, and in part 3.2 I will turn to MAW. History is the obligatory course for every student in the C&M study program, as well as a prominent field of study within the Faculty of the Humanities. The syllabus of 2019 is mostly based on

‘kenmerkende aspecten’ (characteristic aspects), which have not changed much over the last couple of years, and will not change for at least another year. In the 49 pages of the syllabus, there is a general introduction into the rules of the Central Exams and two domains to be found. The first domain is Historisch denken en redeneren (Historical thinking and reasoning) and the second does not have a specific name, but includes historical context to the historical periods about which most exam question will be. In the end of the syllabi there are two

appendixes, one that includes the schedule of exams for that particular year; the other includes several example questions. These questions will be discussed in paragraph 3.1.2, together with the questions from the Central Exam of 2019.

In ‘Historical thinking and reasoning’ three key elements are named: time,

interpretation and meaning in the present. In this domain CvTE wants to include historical skills, approaches, structural concepts and historical awareness (11). Looking back at the model created in the previous chapter, these elements suit an analysis of the construction of meaning, as well as a hermeneutic exploration of these interpretations. The other principles may join in when discussing the explicit techniques that the candidates should have according

From Convivial to Critical: A Call to Action for Critical Media Studies Pedagogy in Secondary Education