Successfully implementing media education in schools with non-school partners

New study on educational partnerships and online tool published

Schools and their partners consider their cooperation in the media education of children and young people to be successful, but would like more support. This is shown by the new study "Educational Partnerships between Schools and Non-School Media Education Actors" published by the FSM.

For the first time, the opportunities and problems of cooperation between schools and non-school educational institutions, media educators, non-profit associations or companies were examined here. The study is available at www.medien-in-die-schule.de/bildungspartnerschaften.

The study pays particular attention to the framework conditions of the collaboration and analyzes the different partners, their goals and expectations. The extracurricular actors bring important competencies as a supplement to the school. These include expertise in new media developments, a close relationship to the lifeworld of children and young people, specific production techniques, technology provided, and often also financial resources from grants.

There are clear ideas about ideal cooperation: for example, they want the topic of media education to be firmly anchored in the school, they want the partners to have an understanding of the school as a learning space, and they want their professional and media education skills to complement each other. It is also important to the interviewees to focus on the needs of the children and young people.

From the point of view of those involved, problems arise when there is a lack of or different understanding of media education or media competence. Structural conditions also influence whether and how an exchange about the goals of cooperation takes place.

In order to facilitate cooperation between schools and their non-school partners in the future and to avoid typical difficulties, the FSM provides an online tool. The questionnaire points out important aspects as well as contents, exchange and connecting points. The tool is available at http://www.medien-in-die-schule.de/onlinetool/.

The study was commissioned by the FSM and carried out by JFF - Institute for Media Education in Research and Practice together with JFF-Berlin-Brandenburg by means of an online survey among the various stakeholders and a survey of experts.

The project was supported by the Auerbach Foundation, Google Germany and klicksafe.

Suggested citation for the study:

Brüggen, Niels; Bröckling, Guido; Wagner, Ulrike (2017): Bildungspartnerschaften zwischen Schule und außerschulischen Akteuren der Medienbildung. Published by FSM - Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle Multimedia-Diensteanbieter e.V. Berlin. 2017. Available online at: www.medien-in-die-schule.de/bildungspartnerschaften