Master’s thesis,
as part of the program Cultural Sociology at the University of Amsterdam. Submitted on the 8th of July, 2019, Amsterdam.
Looking Beyond Symbolic Violence
An Explorative Research on the Potential Relevance of Documentaries in Vocational Education
© Nichon Glerum Nichon Glerum
Student: Maartje Meulenbeek (10813586) maartjemeulenbeek@gmail.com First supervisor: Olav Velthuis
Second supervisor: Bowen Paulle Word count: 20.094
Foreword
I have written this master’s thesis in collaboration with IDFA Education to explore the potential relevance of documentaries is vocational education. It furthermore represents the final stage of my master Cultural Sociology at the University of Amsterdam. For the last six months, I have
extensively investigated my research topic, but I could not have done this on my own. Therefore, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped me during the writing process. First, I would like to thank my first supervisor Olav Velthuis for giving me the freedom to pick my own research topic and his extensive feedback. Second, I would like to thank Bowen Paulle for agreeing on being my second supervisor and his very relevant literature suggestions. I would like to thank IDFA, for giving me the permission to approach respondents on behalf of IDFA and for taking my ideas and results seriously. Furthermore, I would like to thank my respondents, both teachers and students, for welcoming me at their schools and sharing their ideas. Finally, I would like to thank all people who have helped me by giving me advise, proofreading my thesis and correcting my mistakes. I could not have done this without them.
Summary
IDFA submitted a funding application to Fonds21’s vocational education program on the 8th of April to further develop and expand her program for students of vocational education. According to Fonds21, students of vocational education have less chances to come into contact with arts and culture because of both their social environment and educational level. Cultural education usually does not have a standard place in the vocational education curriculum and few programs appeal to the experiences and perception of students of vocational education. Correspondingly, IDFA’s Education department experiences reaching and motivating students of vocational education as difficult. Furthermore, the regular festival is mainly visited by people with a background in higher education. Inclusivity is one of IDFA’s priorities, besides talent development and innovation. This year, IDFA appoints education as a fourth priority, because according to IDFA, education is key in reaching a more culturally diverse audience. Especially reaching more students of vocational education would make IDFA’s audience more diverse.
I have written this thesis in collaboration with IDFA’s Education department, where I work as an intern from mid-February until mid-July, to explore the potential relevance of documentaries in vocational education. I explore the potential relevance of documentaries for IDFA, teachers of vocational education and students of vocational education. In this way, I hope this research contributes to IDFA’s first program especially developed for students of vocational education. Because of my internship, I used ethnography as my main research method. As part of my ethnography, I interviewed teachers of vocational education who visited a school screening with their class or school in 2018 and tested options for the school screenings 2019 with students of vocational education. I interpreted my data from a sociological perspective, using Bourdieu’s cultural reproduction theory.
Despite the ideal of the meritocracy, social background still influences scholastic
achievements. Bourdieu’s cultural reproduction theory explains unequal scholastic achievements between children from different social backgrounds with reference to cultural capital. This brings into light the possible risk of wielding symbolic violence in cultural and citizenship education. From a Bourdieusian perspective, showing, at least slightly, highbrow documentaries which require certain levels of cultural capital to students of vocational, who might never had the change to require these levels of cultural capital would amount to symbolic violence. On the other hand, when the right teaching methods are used, cultural and citizenship education could equip students with powerful knowledge and have an emancipatory effect. Furthermore, IDFA’s method of testing options with students of vocational education gives them a voice in the program composition and in this way reduces the risk of symbolic violence.
IDFA’s motivation to appoint education as a fourth priority comes from her organizational as well as artistic logic. Education resonates with various subsidies and funds IDFA depends on for her survival and especially expanding the vocational education program resonates with IDFA’s ideal of spreading and inclusivity. According to IDFA, creative documentaries can broaden the horizon of students, develop the 21st-century skills critical thinking and media literacy and make them critical and conscious citizens. These statements are grounded in various sources on cultural education in vocational education and documentary as an educational tool. Most teachers I talked to visited an IDFA school screening as part of citizenship education and want to show their students different worlds in order to make them more conscious of society. Their mission corresponds with IDFA’s mission to broaden the horizon of students, but in a more modest way. They advised not make the program too complex, to make the teaching material concrete and to keep the themes as close to students as possible.
The screenings with students of vocational education show how IDFA documentaries do not necessarily appeal to students of vocational education. The reactions of students varied from
modestly positive to very critical, which indicates that they do not just accept anything that is being presented to them as legitimate culture as well. Furthermore, the screenings show how films that address heavy and current topics usually work well, which corresponds with the recommendations of the teachers I spoke to. While high cinematic quality is the main criterium for the regular festival program, social urgency appears to be a more important criterium for students of vocational
education. Especially when IDFA relates cultural education to the future profession of students of vocational education, documentaries can have a purpose. After all, students of vocational education are no longer in secondary education and are learning a profession. Because of the complicity of vocational education, a special vocational education program is still no tailor made program. However, this research shows the importance of exploring the needs of teachers and students of vocational education and the ways in which cultural education suppliers can take up on these.
Table of Content
1. Introduction p. 6
2. Theoretical Framework p. 9
2.1. Introduction p. 9
2.2. Educational Inequality and the Ideal of the Meritocracy p. 9 2.3. Bourdieu’s Cultural Reproduction Theory p. 10 2.4. Symbolic Violence in Cultural and Citizenship Education p. 11 2.5. The Division Between Low and High Education p. 13
2.6. Conclusion p. 14
3. The Rise of IDFA’s Vocational Education Program p. 16
3.1. Introduction p. 16
3.2. The Two Logics of IDFA p. 16
3.3. IDFA’s Funding Application to Fonds21 p. 19
3.3.1. Documentary as an Educational Tool p. 20 3.3.2. Documentaries in Vocational Education p. 22
3.4. Conclusion p. 25
4. The Perspective of the Teacher p. 26
4.1. Introduction p. 26
4.2. Methodology p. 26
4.3. The Experiences of Teachers of Vocational Education p. 27 4.4. The Motivations of Teachers of Vocational Education p. 29 4.5. The Recommendations of Teachers of Vocational Education p. 31
4.6. Conclusion p. 33
5. The Selection Process p. 34
5.1. Introduction p. 34
5.2. Methodology p. 34
5.3. The Composition of IDFA’s Education Program p. 36
5.3.1. A Thousand Girls Like Me p. 37
5.3.2. Flavours of Iraq and Swatted p. 38
5.3.3. The Two of Us p. 39
5.3.4. Gracious, Guaxuma and Tungrus p. 40
5.3.5. Gracious and The Sniper of Kobani p. 42 5.3.6. The Man Who Looked Beyond the Horizon p. 44
5.4. Conclusion p. 48
6. Final Conclusion and Discussion p. 50
Bibliography p. 54
Appendix p. 57
1. IDFA’s Vocational Education Program Flyer p. 57
2. Semi-Structured Interview Schedule p. 59
3. Questionnaire p. 61
1. Introduction
Students of vocational education have less chances to come into contact with arts and culture because of both their social environment and educational level. Cultural education usually does not have a standard place in the vocational education curriculum and few programs appeal to the experiences and perception of students of vocational education. However, the pleasure and the professional and personal skills cultural education could provide are just as important for students of vocational education as for their peers in secondary education (Fonds21, 2018). These statements come from Fonds21’s funding program ‘Cultural Education for Students of Vocational Education’. With this funding program, Fonds21 hopes to stimulate cultural organizations to develop programs especially for students of vocational education. Fonds21 emerged from SNS REAAL Fonds, which was founded in 1998 by bank and assurance company SNS REAAL. The donation budget, with which Fonds21 supports various non-profit projects focused on arts and culture and youth and society, still comes from SNS REAAL (Fonds21, 2019). The statements of Fonds21 represents the starting point for this master’s thesis, written in collaboration with IDFA (International
Documentary Festival Amsterdam).
From mid-February until mid-July, I work as an intern at IDFA’s Education department. In addition to the screenings for audience and professionals, every edition of IDFA includes over a hundred school screenings. These screenings are non-profit and only open to the older pupils of primary education, pupils of secondary education and students of vocational education. Students of vocational are a difficult target audience for IDFA. In 2018, approximately 2.000 students of vocational education visited a school screening in comparison to 8.000 pupils of secondary education. Corresponding with the statement of Fonds21 that few programs appeal to the experiences and perception of students of vocational education, IDFA experiences motivating students of vocational education in the theatres as difficult. To further develop and expand her vocational education program, IDFA submitted a funding application to Fonds21’s vocational education program on the 8th of April. In this thesis, I will explore the potential relevance of documentaries in vocational education for IDFA, teachers of vocational education and students of vocational education. By obtaining an extensive understand of the potential relevance of
documentaries in vocational education, I hope to contribute to the development of IDFA’s vocational education program.
The renewal of the school curriculum and the position of cultural education are much discussed topics. Sir Ken Robinson, for example, acquired international fame with his TedTalk from 2006, wherein he pleads for an educational system that focusses less on academic and more on creative skills. This creates momentum for organizations like IDFA that offer cultural education.
IDFA picks up on this from different motivations. In the policy plan 2017-2010 (p. 4), IDFA appoints inclusivity, talent development and innovation as the main priorities of the organization. During the evaluation of IDFA 2018, IDFA addressed the importance of inclusivity, which translates into reaching a culturally diverse audience. The numbers of 2018 show that the regular festival was mainly visited by highly educated people. Moreover, the annual report of IDFA 2018 (p. 13) shows that more than half of the visitors were 45 years or older and more than half of the visitors lived in Amsterdam. These numbers do not exactly reflect inclusivity. According to IDFA, education is key in reaching a more culturally diverse audience. Therefore, IDFA appointed education as a fourth priority of the organization. Especially expanding the vocational education program would make IDFA’s audience more diverse.
My internship at IDFA Education gave me access to a cultural organization that provides cultural education for students of vocational education. I participated as a group member, because my core assignment was to assist in the selection for the school screenings for IDFA 2019.
Therefore, I used ethnography as my main research method. Bryman (2012, p. 432) describes ethnography as immersing yourself in a group for an extended period of time. Wacquant (2015, p. 5) advocates for enactive ethnography, which means that researchers act out (elements of) the phenomenon they are researching. According to him, this gives researchers a deeper understanding of the studied phenomenon. To get a deeper understanding of the potential relevance of
documentaries in vocational education, I wrote down all my observations and experiences concerning the development of the vocational education program.
Roach (2014, pp. 40-41) addresses a relevant paradox in anthropological fieldwork; one must participate fully to understand, but not participate too fully, in order to prevent losing objectivity. Inspired by postmodernism, post-colonialism and critical theory, ethnographers increasingly have critiqued the norms of distance, objectivity and neutrality entailed in the insider/outsider division. They transformed participant observation into a method of observant participation, wherein researchers participate more deeply and fully as an insider and then
reflexively observe themselves as participants as well as observing the other people involved. I used the method of coding to analyze the data I gathered using observant participation. Coding entails closely analyzing field notes and transcripts through memo writing and giving labels to bits of data that seem to be of potential relevance (Bryman, 2012, p. 568; Silverman, 2014, p. 119). I first developed a theoretical framework to interpret my data from a sociological perspective.
In chapter two, I will present my theoretical framework, wherein I will introduce Bourdieu’s cultural reproduction theory by outlining educational inequality and the ideal of the meritocracy in the Netherlands first. Subsequently, I will explain Bourdieu’s cultural reproduction theory and his understanding of pedagogic action as symbolic violence and apply this to cultural education and the
division between low and high education in the Netherlands. During my internship, the main activities concerning the development of IDFA’s vocational education program were the funding application to Fonds21 and the selection process for the vocational education program. Therefore, I used these ethnographic moments to structure my thesis. Because IDFA’s application to Fonds21 and the selection process for the IDFA school screenings 2019 were extensive processes, including multiple intertwined steps, the structure of my thesis reflects this complexity. I will start at the beginning; with IDFA’s funding application to Fonds21. In chapter three, I will elaborate on the motivations of IDFA to appoint education as a fourth priority and to further develop and expand her vocational education program. Further, I will elaborate on the writing process and the various sources we used to substantiate the vocational education program. In this way, I explore the potential relevance of documentaries in vocational education for and according to IDFA.
As part of my internship and the development of the vocational education program, I conducted interviews with teachers of vocational education that have visited an IDFA school screening with their class or school in 2018. I will present and analyze the interview data in chapter four. In this way, I explore the potential relevance of documentaries in vocational education for and according to teachers of vocational education. In chapter five, I will elaborate on the selection process for the vocational education program. The selection process included several test screenings with students of vocational education. During these screenings, we showed students options for the IDFA school screenings 2019 and discussed them together afterwards. Because the screenings gave me insight into the attitudes of students of vocational education towards IDFA documentaries, I used this method to explore the potential relevance of documentaries in vocational education for students of vocational education. Although I used different research methods, all data are essentially part of my activities at IDFA Education and therefore part of my ethnography.
The IDFA school screenings take place in various theatres in Amsterdam during the festival in November. IDFA Education furthermore works together with different theatres around the Netherlands and in this way extends her reach to areas outside of Amsterdam. I will therefore focus on the potential relevance of documentaries in vocational education in the Netherlands. Relevance in this sentence means the value my respondents attach to showing or watching documentaries. Vocational education in the Netherlands consists out of four levels, ascending from one to four. Because the IDFA school screenings are open to all levels of vocational education, I will focus on all levels of vocational education. Two weeks before handing in this thesis, we heard that the funding application to Fonds21 has been honored, which led to a special vocational education program [Appendix 1]. This thesis sets forth the story of how IDFA’s first program especially developed for vocational education unfolds.
2. Theoretical Framework
2.1. IntroductionIn this chapter, I develop an interpretive framework that I will use throughout my thesis. It gives me a sociological lens through which I will explore the potential relevance of documentaries in
vocational education. I explore the potential relevance of documentaries in vocational education from a Bourdieusian perspective using his cultural reproduction theory. To introduce this theory, I will first outline educational inequality and the ideal of the meritocracy. Secondly, I will explain Bourdieu’s cultural reproduction theory and his proposition that all pedagogic action is symbolic violence. Finally, I will apply this to cultural and citizenship education and the division between low and high education in the Netherlands.
2.2. Educational Inequality and the Ideal of the Meritocracy
Van de Werfhorst & Mijs (2010, p. 409) distinguish four core tasks of education; to offer equality of opportunity to children with different backgrounds, to efficiently select and sort students by their abilities and interests, to provide skills relevant to the labor market and to provide commitment to and skills relevant to active citizenship. The Inspectorate of Education (2019, p. 5) concluded that from this perspective, the quality of the Dutch educational system is relatively high. Compared to neighboring countries, students are able to find a job quickly after they have graduated and personal development and citizenship education receive increasingly more attention from the government and schools. On the other hand, students score less well on language and numeracy skills and the performances of schools differ greatly. Throughout this thesis, I will use selection with equal opportunities, allocation, qualification and socialization to evaluate the relevance of documentaries in vocational education.
According to van Daalen (2010, p. 15), the Dutch educational structure is shaped by the concept that students have little time to acquire as much knowledge and skills as possible and that relatively homogenous classes suit this objective best. Therefore, pupils of primary education are allocated by means of a centralized final test and teachers’ advice to different levels of secondary education. VMBO prepares students in four years for vocational education. HAVO and VWO prepare students in respectively five and six years for higher education. According to the Expectorate of Education (2019, p. 18), students with an equal test score receive different final advises, based on their parents’ level of education. Teachers give students with parents with a degree in higher education higher advises compared to students with parents with a degree in
vocational education at level one or two. This does not coincide with the core objective of education to offer equality of opportunity to children with different backgrounds. Furthermore, it contradicts the modernization thesis. According to the modernization thesis, evaluation based on social background will no longer be accepted. The ideal of the meritocracy involves a society, wherein people are appreciated based on personal commitment and educational achievements (Tolsma & Wolbers, 2010, p. 239). Educational expansion has decreased the influence of social background on educational achievement, however, educational opportunities for children from different social backgrounds are still unequal (Ibid, p. 240).
An influential perspective on educational inequality within the rational choice tradition is relative risk aversion. According to this theory, students take their parents’ educational level and social position as a point of reference for their own aspirations. Avoiding downward mobility is the most important motivation in educational decision-making (van de Werfhorst & Hofstede, 2007, p. 392). Because students tend to strive for an educational level that is at least equally as good as the educational level of their parents, social background influences educational achievements.
However, from a sociological perspective, relative risk aversion does not fully explain educational inequality.
2.3. Bourdieu’s Cultural Reproduction Theory
According to the cultural reproduction theory of Bourdieu, cultural capital is the most important indicator for educational achievements (van de Werfhorst & Hofstede, 2007, p. 393). In order to explain unequal educational achievements between children from different social backgrounds, Bourdieu focused on the unequal division of capital in society. Cultural capital, like economic and social capital is inherited by children from their parents. It entails familiarity with the dominant culture in society, its cultural codes, modes of conduct and use of language. This familiarity affects one’s habitus; one’s system of predispositions, including values and motivations. Because the dominant culture corresponds with the culture of the educational system, children from middleclass families perform better in school compared to children from less advantaged social backgrounds (Ibid, p. 393). Children who are familiar with the dominant linguistic styles, aesthetic preferences and styles of interaction have a lead in the Dutch education system. Students who did not obtain a similar socialization and are therefore not familiar with the dominant culture will experience school as a hostile environment. In the context of Bourdieu, parental participation in highbrow culture was the most important indicator for cultural capital. In contemporary Dutch context, parental reading behavior is a more important indicator for cultural capital (de Graaf, de Graaf & Kraaykamp, 2000, p. 107).
All forms of capital have the capacity to produce profits and to reproduce itself in identical or expanded form (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 15). According to Bourdieu, an often overlooked function of education is the reproduction of the social structure (Ibid, p. 17).
“Transmission of cultural capital is no doubt the best hidden form of hereditary transmission of capital, and it therefore receives proportionately greater weight in the system of reproduction strategies, as the direct, visible form of transmission tend to be more strongly censored and controlled.” (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 19).
Dutch policy has reduced financial barriers in education, by making it largely free of cost (de Graaf et al., 2009, p. 93). In this way, the Dutch government, at least partially, controls the profits
produced by economic capital and subsequently the reproduction of economic capital in education. According to van de Werfhorst & Mijs (2010, p. 417), cultural capital tends to have a stronger impact on educational achievements compared to financial resources. Because the acquisition and transmission of cultural capital is more disguised than the acquisition and transmission of economic capital, cultural capital functions as symbolic capital. This means it is unrecognized as capital, but recognized as a legitimate competence (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 18). The symbolic character of cultural capital explains why, despite the ideal of the meritocracy, social background still has an influence on educational achievements. Below, symbolic violence as a process of cultural reproduction will be explained and applied to cultural and citizenship education.
2.4. Symbolic Violence in Cultural and Citizenship Education
“All pedagogic action is, objectively, symbolic violence as so far as it is the imposition of a cultural arbitrary by an arbitrary power” (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977, p. 5).
Symbolic violence is a complex process of cultural reproduction, wherein both victims and agents are unconscious of wielding or submitting to it (Bourdieu, 2001, p. 246). The process entails the imposition of meaning by the dominant groups in society. These groups have the power to impose meanings and to impose them as legitimate by concealing the underlying power relations (Watson & Widin, 2015, p. 659). Pedagogic action entails education in the broadest sense, including formal education. Formal education reproduces the dominant culture, contributing thereby to the
reproduction of the social structure (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977, p. 6). Formal education creates a selection of meanings that are worthy of being produced. This selection represents the culture of the dominant groups in society and is arbitrary, because it cannot be deduced from any universal
Watkins (2018, p. 48) rethinks the proposition that all pedagogic action is symbolic violence. According to her, pedagogic action has the potential to equip individuals with means for social access and transformation. Pedagogic action in this sense is symbolic violence only as so far as students from disadvantaged backgrounds acquire little powerful knowledge that gives them access to various educational and vocational opportunities and increases mobility (Ibid, p. 49). In other words, pedagogic action is symbolic violence only if it fails to meet the core objectives of education for all students. From this perspective, not all pedagogic action is symbolic violence. Furthermore, if the right teaching methods are used, education could have an emancipatory effect. An important view that emerged from Bourdieu’s proposition on the arbitrary nature of school knowledge and its role in the reproduction of the social structure, is to give students a greater voice in the curriculum design as a way of countering educational inequalities (Ibid, pp. 48-49). According to Powell, Smith & D’Amore (2017, p. 735), school-based music education in the UK often implements and enforces a Wester bourgeois aesthetic. This is an example of symbolic violence in cultural education,
because it reinforces and normalizes power relations. The authors advise a student-centered approach in which music education reflects what young people know and understand as arts and culture. In this way, cultural education connects what students learn with who they are and who they will become (Ibid, p. 736). The method of giving students a voice in educational program and a student-centered approach could potentially reduce the risk of symbolic violence in cultural
education.
According to Gielen (2015, p. 143), subjects like Art History teach students to recognize the canon and its various style characteristics. Furthermore, students learn to acknowledge the canon, because the history of the canon is always the history of the elite. Placing Rubens above graffiti or Bach above progressive rock means placing a superior culture above an inferior one. Art has no intrinsic value (Ibid, 146). Therefore, teaching students the canon entails teaching them a cultural arbitrary. This is something cultural organizations like IDFA have to keep in mind. Their selection might reflect the taste of the cultural elite, which might not correspond with the perception of students of vocational education. By imposing the selection as legitimate culture to students of vocational education, cultural organizations risk wielding symbolic violence.
Inequalities in education are not only related to economic or cultural capital, but also to citizenship knowledge and skills. According to the Dutch Inspectorate of Education (2019, p. 17), education is positively associated with different forms of civic knowledge and participation, like voting and volunteering. As students of secondary education come from higher social backgrounds and attend HAVO and VWO, they have more knowledge about citizenship, consider political participation to be more important and are more confident about their citizenship skills. This is problematic, because the engagement gap presents a challenge to the democratic ideal of political
equality, the representative democracy and social cohesion (Witsche & van de Werfhorst, 2016, p. 368). One of the core tasks of education is to provide commitment to and skills relevant to active citizenship. When education fails to meet this core objective, because students from less-advantaged backgrounds are negatively sanctioned for not having the required civic knowledge and skills, this would amount to a situation that is similar to symbolic violence. Furthermore, because students from advantaged backgrounds have more learning opportunities to acquire civic and political knowledge and skills at home, students from less-advantaged backgrounds rely more on learning opportunities at school. Several studies have shown a compensatory effect of citizenship education for students with less civic learning opportunities at home (Ibid, p. 371). This coincides more with the idea that education can equip students with powerful knowledge. The following section will elaborate more on the division between low and high in the Dutch educational system and how this affects cultural and citizenship education in vocational education.
2.5. The Division Between Low and High Education
According to van Daalen (2010, p. 8), education is an important source for prestige and cultural capital. VMBO students are at the bottom of this hierarchy, even though they form 60 percent of all students in secondary education (Ibid, p. 7). One standard dominates, which is the cognitive
standard and students in higher education are at the top of this hierarchy. The division between low and high education is deeply embedded in the Dutch culture and corresponds with the division between headwork and handwork, thinking and doing and theory and practice. Therefore, the division between low and high education and the difference in appreciation appear to be self-evident (Ibid, p. 16). This indicates the reproducible character of the educational system, because cultural capital is inherited by children from their parents and positively influences scholastic achievements, which are a source for prestige on their own.
Kuipers & van den Haak (2014, p. 193) find no evidence for a cultural gap or polarization between two clearly defined groups like in the United States. Nevertheless, social-cultural
differences are the most important social division line in contemporary Dutch society. Cultural preferences and values of the dominant groups have a higher status and therefore function as means of distinction. These cultural preferences and values are mainly established by social background and education (Ibid, p. 195). According to van Daalen (2015, p. 546), Dutch academics and journalists tend to imagine society as dichotomous by focusing only on the two ends of the social spectrum and thereby excluding most students of vocational education from their analyses. However, this image is a simplification of reality. People with a level one or two degree of vocational education are usually considered to be lowly educated. From all students of vocational
education, 75 percent finishes an education at level three or four. Students of vocational education form a heterogeneous group in terms of education, economic status, class consciousness and cultural orientation. Moreover, the division between practical and theoretical education becomes less and less relevant in the 21st-century, because every job nowadays asks for certain skills and a certain degree of general development (Ibid, p. 554). Nevertheless, the low/high division is still present in the Dutch educational system.
According to Robinson & Aronica (2015, p. 38), the idea that smart students go to university and that vocational education is a second-rate choice is one of the most undermining problems of the Western education system. Students who fall short in terms of academic skills often blame themselves. Because of the standardized and scientific character of the final test for pupils of primary education, the test score appears to be an objective measurement of qualities and skills (van Daalen, 2010, p. 9). However, from a Bourdieusian perspective, all school knowledge is arbitrary. This means that school tests measure the knowledge and skills the sociocultural elites consider to be important. Bourdieu (1999, p. 4) talks about positional suffering as the painful experience of people who occupy and inferior position in a prestigious and privileged world. Their relatively low position in society is higher in social space overall, which makes the experience all the more painful.
Complaining would provoke criticism, because, after all, they could be worse off.
2.6. Conclusion
Despite the ideal of the meritocracy, social background still influences scholastic achievements. Bourdieu’s cultural reproduction theory explains unequal scholastic achievements between children from different social backgrounds with reference to cultural capital. This brings into light the possible risk of wielding symbolic violence in cultural and citizenship education. Because students of vocational education are at the bottom of the educational hierarchy and, from a Bourdieusian perspective, education reproduces the social structure, it is unclear whether showing students of vocational education IDFA documentaries would make their situation better or worse. Showing, at least slightly, highbrow documentaries which require certain levels of cultural capital to students of vocational, who might never had the change to require these levels of cultural capital, would
amount to symbolic violence. Furthermore, developing a special program for students of vocational education would not actually change anything on the level of the reproduction of the social
structure, but it would give the impression that lots is being done for them and that when students are not paying attention, they are not even grateful. On the other hand, when the right teaching methods are used, cultural and citizenship education could equip students with powerful knowledge and thus have an emancipatory effect. This, at least partially, depends on the motivations and ideas
of cultural organizations concerning cultural education in vocational education. The motivations of IDFA to further develop and expand her vocational education program will be explained in the following chapter.
3. The Rise of IDFA’s Vocational Education Program
3.1. IntroductionIn this chapter, I will explore the potential relevance of documentaries in vocational education for and according to IDFA. Drawing from my observations and experiences as an intern at the
Education department, I will explain IDFA as an organization and her motivations to appoint education as a fourth priority. Subsequently, I will elaborate on IDFA’s application to Fonds21, for which we used various sources on documentary as an educational tool and cultural education in vocational education. In this way, I hope to clarify and illustrate the motivations, ideas and
approach of IDFA concerning the development and expansion of the vocational education program.
3.2. The Two Logics of IDFA
When I started my internship, I was the only intern in an office consisting out of more or less 30 permanent employees. The festival always takes place in November, towards which the office expands with more or less 50 temporary employees and interns. The education program has to be final in June, so that teachers have the possibility to register their class or school before the summer holidays. This is long before the regular festival program is final and therefore, the school
screenings are selected from the previous festival program. This is also the reason why the Education department is the only department with an intern from February until July.
Besides the Board, IDFA has eleven departments. The program department is, as the name suggests, responsible for the festival program. DocLab is IDFA’s new media department and organizes an exposition on interactive non-fiction storytelling during the festival. The Industry department focusses on activities for professionals. During the festival, filmmakers and producers can pitch their plans to potential financers at IDFA Forum. Docs for Sale is IDFA’s market for finished documentaries and focusses on selling new documentaries to programmers and distributers. IDFA Bertha Fund supports filmmakers and documentary projects in developing countries and makes up a department on its own. The Production and IT department is responsible for the course of the festival. The other departments are Marketing and Communications, Development, Finance, Human Resources, Office and Education.
The Education department is concerned with the school screenings that take place during the festival, Docschool Online, various educational events throughout the year and IDFAcademy. For the school screenings, IDFA’s Education department tries to organize as many Q&A’s with filmmakers in the theatres as possible. For every film in the education program, IDFA’s Education
department furthermore develops educational material, which elaborates on documentary as a film genre and the themes and form of the film. The Education department develops the educational material collaboration with various teachers from their network. After the festival, all films in the selection for the school screenings are added to Docschool Online. This is IDFA’s online
documentary database, through which teachers get free access to over 130 children’s documentaries and corresponding educational material. IDFAcademy is the only component of the Education department that focusses on professionals by offering international training programs for up-and-coming documentary talents.
During my internship, the Education department had four employees, excluding me as an intern; Head of Education, IDFAcademy Producer, Education Coordinator (my internship supervisor) and Education Producer. The Education Coordinator and Producer are exclusively concerned with students. This already indicates the slightly uncomfortable position of education as a fourth priority of IDFA. Inclusivity, talent development and innovation are priorities all
departments can consider in their decision-making processes. Education, defined as focusing on students, has a different level of abstraction. It makes little sense for departments that focus on audience or professionals to continuously consider students in their decision-making process. I distinguish two types of motivations to appoint education as a fourth priority of IDFA.
First, IDFA as an organization works from an artistic logic. Although not all employees are substantively engaged with film in their daily working activities, everyone in the organization has a certain passion for film. Therefore, film in all its shapes and forms is a much discussed topic in both work related and non-work related conversations. IDFA as an organization focusses on the creative documentary. In the policy plan for 2017-2010 (pp. 6-7), IDFA explains creative documentaries as documentaries of high cinematic quality that express the vision of their creator. Other criteria are social urgency and accessibility; documentaries have to reflect the time period in which they are made and be accessible to a wide audience. According to IDFA, documentaries are the conveyers of ideas and opinions in the domains of society, science, technology, politics and culture. Unlike current event columns and journals, creative documentaries offer personal visions and
considerations of a complex social reality. These statements and observations show how IDFA’s artistic logic is embedded in the organization.
From this view, IDFA formulates her mission in the application to Fonds21 as “to generate as much attention and audiences for creative documentaries as possible”. This corresponds with the ideal of spreading culture, which stems from the idea that cultural participation positively influences individual development and society in general. From the end of the 18th century, institutions and organizations have exponentially adopted the principle that arts and culture have to be accessible (Westen, 1990, p. 7). Expanding the education program resonates with making creative
documentaries accessible to a wide and diverse audience, which corresponds with inclusivity as well. Especially expanding the program for vocational education resonates with inclusivity, because the regular festival screenings mostly attract people with a background in higher education.
However lofty the mission of spreading culture may be, IDFA, like any organization, works from an organizational logic as well. To begin with, IDFA is permanently looking for funding. The idea to expand the program for vocational education emerged in response to Fonds21’s vocational education funding program. Funding programs like this bring in money for IDFA as an organization that is largely dependent on subsidies and funds. In order to work from an artistic logic and make creative documentaries accessible to a wide audience, IDFA needs financial support and to persist as an organization. Expanding the education program resonates with various subsidies and funding programs that in their turn resonate with the ideal of spreading culture. In the policy plan for 2017-2020 (p. 16), IDFA promised to reach 49.000 students with the school screenings and Docschool Online in 2020. According to IDFA’s annual report of 2018 (p. 11), IDFA reached 34.000 students with the school screenings and Docschool Online in 2018. This means IDFA has to increase the number of students visiting a school screening or watching documentaries through Docschool Online with 15.000 in two years. IDFA wants to establish this increase mainly by expanding her vocational education program. The vocational education funding program of Fonds21 would enable IDFA to offer a special vocational education program, something IDFA has never done before.
Figure 1 shows part of the program flyer for the IDFA school screenings 2018. Every year, IDFA Education sends program flyers to all teachers within IDFA’s network. The flyers contain all the information teachers need to register their class or school for the school screenings. IDFA has built up this network of teachers over the years. This year, and around 300 teachers of primary, secondary and vocational education received a program flyer. Figure 1 shows the composition of the film blocks for secondary education and shows how the films for the higher classes of secondary education are recommended for vocational education as well. According to IDFA, documentaries enable teachers of secondary as well as vocational education to discuss tricky topics. Documentaries furthermore provide their students with media savviness.
Figure 1
3.3. IDFA’s Funding Application to Fonds21
Before I started my internship, I had a telephone conversation with my internship supervisor about the practicalities concerning my internship and potential ideas for my internship research. Out of this conversation came the idea to relate it to IDFA’s funding application to Fonds21. This year, IDFA submitted a general funding application to Fonds21 written by the Development department to which the application to Fonds21’s vocational education funding program was added. The funding application to Fonds21’s vocational education program was written by both the
Development department and the Education department. Me and my internship supervisor focused more on the content of the vocational education program and the Development department focused more on the budget and communication with Fonds21. During the writing process, which took up almost three months, our contact person at Fonds21 was willing to give us feedback once, which was already more than we expected. The feedback was relatively positive, however, we were all
relieved when de Development department eventually received the call that the application was honored.
The application to Fonds21’ vocational education funding program was rejected last year, because according to Fonds21, it had not been informed enough. According to IDFA, the
application lacked substantiation, because the departments had little time to write out the application. Therefore, I spent a large part of the first couple of months of my internship on collecting and reading literature for the application. On the advice of IDFA, I had a look at the website of LKCA, which continued to be a dominant source for the funding application. LKCA (Landelijk Kennisinstituut Cultuureducatie Amateurkunst) is a national knowledge center for cultural education. They describe cultural education as learning about and with arts, cultural
heritage and media (LKCA, 2019). In their publication A World of Possibilities. Cultural Education in Vocational Education they address the importance of cultural education in vocational education. Although we did not refer to any other publications in the funding application, we used various sources to substantiate the relevance of documentaries in vocational education.
3.3.1. Documentary as an Educational Tool
Last year, the intern at IDFA’s Education department wrote her thesis on documentaries and the development of media literacy. I used her thesis as a starting point for my academic literature study on the potential relevance of documentaries in vocational education. According to Frank (2013, pp. 2021-2022), the most important distinction between documentary and other non-fiction film genres is the self-reflexive character of documentaries. The documentary maker needs to tell a credible story and at the same time entertain the audience. These two requirements create a dilemma, because the average experience does not entertain. Therefore, documentaries show exceptional experiences and do not represent reality. This quality asks for a critical audience. If the
documentary maker succeeds in both telling a credible story and entertaining the audience, documentaries can actually change the way we think by making unfamiliar experiences familiar. Other academic literature I found on documentaries and film education support these arguments.
Showing documentaries is a form of film education, which is about visual literacy; the ability to discern meaning in visual images. In other words, film education is about understanding the language of film. According to Barbot, Randi, Levenson, Friedlaender & Grigorenko (2013, p. 167), identifying what is seen and more complex activities of questioning, analyzing, categorizing and interpreting call upon many aspects of cognition, the practice of which could support the development of writing and other creative skills. Essentially, every film is a documentary, because it provides evidence of the culture that produced it. However, usually documentary and fiction are
distinguished as two separate film genres (Nichols, 2001, p. 1). Documentary addresses the world in which we live in rather than a world imagined by the filmmaker. This does not mean documentaries are a reproduction of reality, because they represent a particular view of the world (Ibid, p. 20). IDFA uses the complex relationship between documentary and reality to address objectivity and subjectivity or fact and fiction in the educational material.
During my literature study I furthermore noticed the stunning amount of literature concerning the renewal of the school curriculum. In the Netherlands, the knowledge and skills pupils and students should learn in formal education are prescribed by law – the curriculum. (Curriculum.nu, 2019). According to the Dutch Inspectorate of Education (2019, p. 5),
technological developments, globalization and digitalization change our world, society and labor market. Therefore, the core question for academics, politicians and educational experts is how education should prepare students for the future. Most literature concerning the renewal of the school curriculum addresses the 21st-century skills as a way of adjusting the school curriculum to the 21st-century.
Figure 2 shows a model of the 21st-century skills. The model is drawn up by SLO1 and Kennisnet2 and shows eleven key competences for the 21st-century; critical thinking, creative thinking, problem solving, computational thinking, information skills, ICT basic skills, media literacy,
communicating, collaborating, social and cultural skills and self-regulation
In his dissertation Remixing the Art Curriculum, Heijnen (2015, p. 12) addresses the acknowledgement of the 21st-century skills by policy makers. According to him, skills associated with cultural education like creativity, critical thinking and problem solving have been embraced by policy makers as key competences for citizenship in a post-industrial economy. Furthermore, artists are model employees for the 21st century, because successful careers in both the arts and knowledge economy require similar mind sets and competences. Last year, IDFA used media literacy and in a less explicit way critical thinking skills to address the educational relevance of her program for pupils of secondary education and students of vocational education. As figure 1 shows, IDFA mentioned media literacy explicitly in the program flyer. Media literacy was introduced in 2005 by the Council for Culture as the entirety of knowledge, skills and mentality citizens need to
consciously, critically and actively participate in a complex, changing and fundamental medialized world (Christoffels & Baay, 2016, p. 32). Critical thinking is about evaluating arguments and formulating and supporting opinions. This requires certain thinking skills, like reasoning
effectively, formulating, interpreting, analyzing and synthesizing information, identifying when there is insufficient information, asking relevant questions, reflecting critically on one’s own learning process and being receptive to alternative opinions (Ibid, p. 35). As the following section will show, various sources address the importance of implementing the 21st-century skills in the vocational education curriculum.
3.3.2. Documentaries in Vocational Education
As I had already learned from Fonds21, cultural education is a mandatory part of primary and secondary education, but not of vocational education in the Netherlands. According to LKCA, cultural education can be included in the vocational education curriculum as a way of developing the 21st-century skills and citizenship education (Bulk et al., 2017, p. 5). Additionally, since 2016 vocational education works with electives that are an integral part of the curriculum and schools can fill in themselves, for example with cultural education (Ibid, p. 28). With the launch of the MBO Card in 2016, students of vocational education furthermore get discounts on different cultural activities (Ibid, p. 6). We used these developments in the application as a way of showing the
1 SLO is a national knowledge center that focusses on the development of the school curriculum (SLO, 2019). 2 Kennisnet is a public organization that focusses on education and ICT (Kennisnet, 2019).
acknowledgement of cultural education in vocational education by policy makers and the opportunities this creates for IDFA to expand the vocational education program.
The Future Begins Today: 21st-Century Skills in Vocational Education, a publication
ECBO3, addresses the importance for vocational education to adjust the curriculum to the 21st century. Because of automatization and outsourcing, many routinized jobs will disappear and more jobs will rely on social and creative skills (Christoffels & Baay, 2016, p. 5). The former Dutch minister of Education, Culture and Science underlines this argument. According to her,
technological developments and globalization mainly effect the middle section of the labor market (Bussemaker, 2014, p. 4). Therefore, people have to be flexible, social, creative and must continue learning throughout their lives (Ibid, p. 1). Not all academics agree on the necessity of teaching 21st -century skills, however. Bol, Eller, van de Werfhorst & DiPrete (2019, p. 28) question their
importance, by showing the positive effects of having a specific education. According to the authors, an educational system that provides a clear pathway to the labor market results in higher wages and lower unemployment rates for people who end up in matching occupations.
According to LKCA, the development of the 21st-century skills is not the only way to include cultural education in vocational education. Cultural education can be included in the curriculum as a way of developing relevant skills for active citizenship as well. According to Witsche & van de Werfhorst (2016, p. 367), concerns about social cohesion as a consequence of increased individualization and the alleged decline in civic engagement of young people have made citizenship education a policy priority in various countries. Since 2008, citizenship education is a mandatory part of vocational education in the Netherlands. The subject has four dimensions that function as guidelines for citizenship education teachers; the political-legal dimension teaches students to participate in political decision-making, the economic dimension teaches students to function on the job and consumption market, the social dimension teaches students to be active citizens and vital citizenship teaches students to reflect on their lifestyle and health (Bulk et al., 2017, p. 39).
During the second week of my internship, I visited a gathering at the Rijksmuseum organized by LKCA for citizenship education teachers of vocational education. My internship supervisor regularly visits gatherings concerning cultural education in and around Amsterdam, when she considers the themes or activities to be interesting or useful for the development of IDFA’s education program. During the gathering, the importance of a revaluation of craftsmanship was addressed several times, by offering cultural and citizenship education that corresponds with the future profession of students of vocational education. The Rijksmuseum, for example, offers
workshops for students in the construction sector, wherein they explore linework in paintings. Elaborating on this, IDFA Education could focus on filmmaking and bring Audiovisual students into contact with filmmakers from IDFA’s network. However, the real specialization of IDFA is organizing a film festival.
Relating cultural education to the education type of students of vocational education corresponds with the options given in LKCA’s A World of Possibilities. Cultural Education in Vocational Education. According to LKCA, besides personal development, cultural education can function as an extension of the curriculum and focus on the future profession of students of
vocational education (Bulk et al., 2017, p. 67). We used this idea to structure the vocational education program in the funding application to Fonds21. Route A focusses on all students of vocational education and the development of critical thinking skills. Route B focusses on
professional development and corresponding professional ethics for students within the Care and Welfare sector of vocational education. According to my internship supervisor, many IDFA documentaries address topics, with which students in this sector will be confronted in their future profession, for example immigration and education. Route C focusses on talent development of a small group of Audiovisual students and consists out of two parts; by bringing students into contact with experts within the documentary industry, they learn how to develop a film plan and trailer and by visiting IDFA’s DocLab exposition, they learn about the developments within the field of new media.
We furthermore used the concepts vision, mission and strategy to structure the funding application to Fonds21’s vocational education program. IDFA is continuously looking for funding and therefore quite specialized in the writing of funding applications, especially the Development department, and it seemed as a natural given to write the application using these concepts. In the general funding application to Fonds21, IDFA states to “believe in the strength of creative documentaries”. In the application to Fonds21’s vocational education program, IDFA Education formulates her mission as to broaden the horizon of students and enable them to understand the world from different perspectives. This corresponds with the educational qualities Frank (2013) ascribes to documentaries. According to IDFA, for many students, a visual source is more powerful than a linguistic source and the genre leaves room for discussion about forms of representation and manipulation. Therefore, watching documentaries enables students to become critical and active citizens, which is essential in our media-dominated society.
In the funding application to Fonds21’s vocational education program, IDFA takes over the statement of Fond21 that students of vocational education have less chances to come into contact with arts and culture and adds that they especially have less chances to come into contact with documentaries, partly because cultural education has no standard place in the curriculum. The
mission to bring students of vocational education into contact with documentaries as well
corresponds with IDFA’s ideal of spreading culture. The statement of Fonds21 can be supported by the numbers of IDFA 2018; the regular festival was mainly visited by people with a background in higher education and around 8.000 pupils of secondary education visited a school screening in comparison to 2.000 students of vocational education. Because inclusivity is one of IDFA’s priorities and IDFA has to increase the number of students she reaches, students of vocational education are an interesting group for IDFA to focus on. Although IDFA did not explicitly take over the statement of Fonds21 that few programs appeal to the experiences and perception of students of vocational education, the desire to develop a program which would enable IDFA to motivate students of vocational education was an important motivation during the writing and selection process.
3.4. Conclusion
The audience demographics of the regular festival and experiences of IDFA Education with
students of vocational education indicate that students of vocational education have less changes to come into contact with creative documentaries and that IDFA documentaries do not always appeal to students of vocational education. This chapter shows how IDFA appoints education as a fourth priority and submits a funding application to Fonds21’s vocational education program from her artistic as well as organizational logic. Especially expanding the vocational education program resonates with IDFA’s ideal of spreading and inclusivity. The writing process of the funding
application to Fonds21’s vocational education program shows how IDFA responds to developments within the educational field and financing world. The following chapters will elaborate on the methods we used, besides the literature study presented in this chapter, to get a better understanding of the potential relevance of documentaries in vocational education.
4. The Perspective of the Teacher
4.1. IntroductionIn this chapter I will explore the potential relevance of documentaries in vocational education for teachers of vocational education. Using interviews as a research method, I explore their experiences and ideas regarding the IDFA school screenings. We used the information presented in this chapter during the writing process of IDFA’s application to the vocational education funding program of Fonds21 discussed in the previous chapter and the selection process for IDFA’s vocational education program discussed in the following chapter. Before I will present and analyze the interview data, I will elaborate on my methodology.
4.2. Methodology
IDFA attaches much value to the feedback and ideas of teachers. After all, they are the ones who register their class or school for the school screenings. After the previous festival, IDFA already asked teachers for feedback, however this was not an extensive project. Because IDFA values the feedback and ideas of teachers, IDFA allowed me to approach teachers of vocational education using the list of applications for the IDFA school screenings 2018. Furthermore, I was allowed to offer them two free tickets for IDFA 2019 as a thank you. Using this selection method, all my respondents met my most important criterium, because they all have visited a school screening during IDFA 2018. In this way, they can reflect on their experiences during the interview.
Using the list of application for the IDFA school screenings 2018, I approached various teachers of vocational education via email. Five teachers responded to my interview request. I ended up talking to seven teachers, because one teacher kindly invited two of his colleagues to the interview. Two respondents work at schools outside of Amsterdam and I interviewed one of them by phone. The other interviews all took place at the schools where the respondents work, because I wanted to make the interviews as convenient as possible for my respondents and I liked the idea of seeing and experiencing the atmosphere of the schools. After conducting five interviews, the answers I received started to show similarities and I decided focus on my other research methods. Table 1 gives an overview of my respondents. In order to protect their privacy, the names I use in this research are fictitious. The Education column refers to the education type of the students my respondents teach.
Table 1
Pseudonym Sex Subject Education Level
Luke Male Citizenship Administration 4
Lauren Female Citizenship Administration 2
Merel Female Citizenship Business 4
Eva Female Media Design Audiovisual 4
Melissa Female Citizenship Facility Management 4
Amira Female Citizenship ICT 2, 4
Magriet Female Citizenship Business 2
Using the expertise of teachers of vocational education, IDFA can adapt her program to their needs. In this way, knowledge is produced in collaboration and the results are interesting for all parties involved. Because this perspective gives my respondents an advisory role, the interviews were set up more as conversations. I did structure the interviews using a semi-structured interview schedule [Appendix 2]. Most likely, only teachers who are positive about film education responded to my interview request and visited a school screening in the first place. However, the aim of this research is not to produce a grand theory, but to explore the potential relevance of documentaries in
vocational education from different perspective and thereby contributing to the development of IDFA’s vocational education program. Further, I have chosen not to approach teachers of
vocational education that did not visit a school screening, because my internship supervisor and I agreed that this would probably not add interesting information. We questioned if teachers would have a clear reason not to visit IDFA, because schools have limited time and budget and are therefore forced to choose between different cultural activities.
4.3. The Experiences of Teachers of Vocational Education
Last year, teachers of vocational education could choose between three options: Watani My Homeland, Echoes of IS and Over the Limit. In Watani My Homeland, the German filmmaker Marcel Mettelsiefen follows a family with four young children living in Aleppo, Syria, a city largely destroyed by the civil war. The father risks his life every day as a commander in the Free Syrian Army, fighting against Assad’s regime. When he is turned over to IS, the mother decides to flee. Together with her children she travels to Germany, where they have to adapt to a foreign culture. Out of the three options, the 51-minute-long film was by far the most popular one with over 30 bookings. Luke, Eva and Amira visited Watani My Homeland and all three teachers were
Syria is an abstraction for his students. Through a film like Watani My Homelend they can really see what is going on. According to Luke, the film spoke to his students, because many of his students are Muslims and could recognize themselves in the extensive family. Luke also mentioned the fear of the girl when she has to go to a new school in Germany as something his students could recognize themselves in.
During the interview with Amira, she told me that her students liked the film, because they could sympathize with the family. Her ICT department consist mostly out of guys and the film incited them to think about whether they would stay in Syria and fight for their country or flee with their families. According to Amira, most of her students experienced the film as heavy, especially the students with refugees in their family or circle of friends. One guy in her class had actually fled from Syria himself, something she did not know when she registered her class. This worried Amira slightly and before the film, she had asked the guy in question whether he wanted to see or skip the film. He chose to see the film and afterwards he told Amira that he had relived everything, but that he did not mind, because he likes to see the experiences of other refugees. Afterwards, Amira and his classmates were allowed to ask him anything about his experience.
Melissa, with whom I conducted a telephonic interview, visited Echoes of IS. According to Melissa, her students thought the film was impressive, but also a bit confusing. She dedicated this to the fact that the film shows different perspectives. In Echoes of IS, the Dutch filmmaker Tessa Louise Pope portraits twelve people who have been affected by IS. The film was offered as a special; students watched a couple of portraits and subsequently had a conversation with several thematic guests. Melissa especially considered the conversation afterwards as useful for her students. According to her, many of her students say something just to have an opinion and conversations like this learn them to think about what they are actually saying. This corresponds with watching documentaries as a way of developing critical thinking skills, because students learn how to formulate and support opinions.
Melissa introduced the film shortly by showing the trailer and explaining to her students why they had to go to IDFA. She did not use the corresponding educational material, because she had other things she needed to discuss in class. Afterwards, she did ask her students what they thought of the program. Magriet visited Echoes of IS as well. She was the last teacher I interviewed and works at a VMBO school that offers various vocational education types at level two. In this way, students can obtain a diploma at level two within two years after they have graduated from secondary education. Most of her students then continue their education at various education types at level four. Magriet introduced the film extensively by showing a documentary about one of the people portrayed in the film. According to her, her students were disappointed by the fact that they only got to see three short portraits and that the rest of the program consisted out of talking. They
would have preferred to watch more portraits. Afterwards, Magriet used the educational material. The educational material consists out of watching the other portraits online. For every portrait, students have to write down what their first reaction was, which questions they still have and how it feels to place oneself in someone else’s position. According to Magriet, her students were quickly tired of writing. Therefore, she always gives her students a more “creative” assignment, for example making a poster. According to Magriet, this also helps them to process information better.
These examples show the different approaches and experiences teachers of vocational education can have regarding the same program.
4.4. The Motivations of Teachers of Vocational Education
As table 1 indicates, most teachers I interviewed visited the IDFA school screenings as part of citizenship education. Melissa related the visit to the social dimension of citizenship education. As a citizenship education teacher, she wants to show her students something different than the
Netherlands. According to her, citizenship education has to do with your view of the world.
“If we have such a documentary, that has to do with foreign countries, then you see what is happening in the world? And not only in the Netherlands. Under what conditions people have to grow up? Yes, I try to put it into such a context. That they become conscious of society.”
According to Luke, student can learn more from documentaries than from fiction films, because although some things are manipulated, documentaries show more facts.
“Students live in a world wherein everything they see is made more beautiful. Documentary shows normal people with normal lives and that everything is not always easy.”
Magriet gave a similar description of documentary as an educational tool.
“[…] it is not an actor who is just wants to pretty, it is the cold hard truth, this is it”
The distinction between fiction film and documentary seems to be of great importance to Luke and Magriet. Their answers indicate that students do not only live in a media-dominated world, but also in a world wherein much of what they see is made more beautiful, which documentaries can, at least partially, counter balance. Melissa addressed the relevance of film education in general. According to her, students are continuously on their phones, on which they also watch films. Therefore, according to Melissa, you might as well deploy film as an educational tool. This
