Degree
Master of Arts
Program
Media Studies
Supervisor
Dr. Amanda Grzyb
Abstract
This thesis investigates whether or not the Ontario English as a Second Language/English Literacy Development (ESL/ELD) curriculum imparts the critical literacy skills necessary for students to deconstruct the multimedia messages with which the contemporary world is saturated, in order to function as informed, agentic citizens of Ontario society. Using foundations of cultural theory, radical critical pedagogy, and critical race theory, particularly the work of James Paul Gee, Henry A. Giroux, Paulo Freire and Michael Apple, this thesis explores the ways in which the current ESL/ELD curriculum can be found lacking due to its enforcement of the banking model of education, which devalues student experience and enforces dominant Western ideologies. The final chapter recommends an experiential, media literacy-based curriculum that validates student experience and empowers students to become both critics and producers of media texts and culture writ large.
Recommended Citation
Madrenas, Clara R., "Media Literacy and the English as a Second Language Curriculum: A Curricular Critique and Dreams for the Future" (2014). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 2529.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/2529
Included in
Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons, Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons, Other Film and Media Studies Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons