www.jsser.org

Journal of Social Studies Education Research

Sosyal Bilgiler Eğitimi Araştırmaları Dergisi

2017: 8(1), 69-92

Developing Globally Minded, Critical Media Literacy Skills

Jason Harshman1

Abstract

The transnational movement of people and ideas continues to reshape how we imagine places and

cultures. Considering the volume of information and entertainment delivered and consumed via mass

media, global educators are tasked with engaging students in learning activities that help them develop skill

sets that include a globally minded, critical media literacy. Grounded in cultural studies and framed by

Andreotti’s (2006) theory of critical GCE and Appadurai’s (1996) concept of mediascapes, this article

examines how eleven global educators in as many countries used films to teach about what they considered

to be the “6 C’s” of critical global media literacy: colonialism, capitalism, conflict, citizenship, and

conscientious consumerism. How global educators foster globally minded, critical media literacy in their

classrooms, the resources they use to teach about perspectives too often marginalized in media produced in

the Global North, and how educating students about media informs action within global citizenship

education is discussed. Findings from the study revealed that the opportunities to interact with fellow

educators around the world inspired teacher’s to revisit concepts such as interconnectedness and cross-

cultural learning, along with shifts in thinking about how to teach media literacy by analyzing the coded

messages present in the resources they use to teach about the world.

Keywords: critical literacy, global education, films, mediascapes.

Introduction

Technologies that include Netflix, Youtube, Hulu, satellite television, tablets, and

smartphones, to name a few, have democratized production and consumption, as well as provided

cheaper and quicker access to information and entertainment in some parts of the world.

Researchers argue that because of this increased access, many U.S. students are more likely to

learn about history and the current state of the planet by engaging with film and web-based media

outside of a classroom rather than reading books or conducting primary source research in one

(Stoddard & Marcus, 2010). As more avenues of access become available and cultures are

deterritorialized, social studies teachers are faced with challenges and opportunities to include

more voices and perspectives when teaching about culture, conflict, and citizenship in our global

society (Appadurai, 1996; Gaudelli & Siegel, 2010; Merryfield, 1998). Already charged with

developing civic literacy, social studies educators are well positioned to utilize films as texts for

1 Assist. Prof., University of Iowa, jason-harshman@uiowa.edu

mailto:jason-harshman@uiowa.edu

Journal of Social Studies Education Research 2017: 8(1), 69-92

building critical thinking, disrupting how students imagine the world, and including voices too

often marginalized by media produced about the Global South in the Global North.

Using films that elevate counter-narratives within world history is an important, but rare

approach when developing students’ global perspectives. Relying upon Richard Attenborough’s

film Gandhi (1982) to teach about India’s fight for independence or Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk

Down (2001) to teach about East Africa or post-Cold War U.S. foreign policy, instead of films

produced in the places where the events one is teaching about transpired and/or that center on

perspectives that disrupt narratives that favor the Global North, tend to perpetuate a colonizer’s

gaze. Based on data drawn from a research project that included educators from around the world,

this article couples theory and practice to answer the question: How do educators teach about

perspective to develop globally minded critical media literacy skills? Findings from a five-month

study that utilized on-line discussion forums to bring 120 International Baccalaureate (IB) teachers

in 36 countries together revealed that educators used films to: (1) help students think more

critically about images and messages encoded in media; (2) introduce the perspectives of those

who are often marginalized in films produced in the Global North to develop perspective

consciousness and a critical lens for analyzing inequity within global systems; and (3) prompt

students to reflect on media production and consumption habits away from school as a way to self-

evaluate their media and civic literacy skills.

The positionality of the teachers who participated in the study is also considered, since

participants came from countries that have been, and to some extent still are, colonizers and

colonized. Participants shared that because the discussion forums gave them opportunity to interact

with educators who teach a similar curriculum but live in different parts of the world and are from

different cultural backgrounds, the importance of context and perspective when teaching about

people and places became clearer to them. Data analysis revealed that teachers in the Global South

tended to challenge the ways in which narratives were constructed and the degree of criticality

used to analyze films more often than teachers in the Global North. Teachers in the Global South

not only discussed problems they see with films, but offered alternatives to better capture the

perspectives of people who live in the areas and who deal with the issues teachers identified as

part of the IB curriculum. These perspectives—which IB teachers agreed are not often included

within discussion of film and other texts—provided new ways of thinking about how to teach about

inequality and power dynamics within a shared curriculum.

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Data show that across the history, English, science, art, and civics courses that were

represented in the discussion forums, the most frequently discussed global issues were capitalism,

citizenship, and colonialism, along with concepts related to conflict and consuming media. Yet,

how the teachers approached the issues and the films they use differed, and the discussion forums

provided space for deep discussions about experiences related to these global issues, and the

shaping of their own perspectives and biases. These “6 C’s”—capitalism, citizenship, colonialism,

conflict, and conscientious consumerism—provide a framework that global educators can employ

when they teach critical thinking skills related to global issues and media consumption. The films

that teachers used, the questions and concepts they presented to students, and what these practices

mean for the future of critically minded global education and digital media literacy are discussed

below.

Cultural Studies and Critical Global Education

Teaching students about culture and its complexities, while trying to provide a conceptual

understanding with which they can work, is a “messy” endeavor (McRobbie, 1992). Teaching

about culture is further complicated because the expedited movement of people and ideas in our

global age means that cultures “have their locations, but it is no longer easy to say where they

originate” (Hall, 2006, p. 164). As “an interdisciplinary endeavor concerned with the analysis of

cultural forms and activities,” cultural studies can inform the work of global educators, because

like critical global education, cultural studies provides theoretical tools for analyzing the power

relations “which condition [the] production, circulation, deployment and, of course, effects” of

culture (Bennett, 1998, p. 60).

For IB teachers and global educators alike, teaching for global mindedness, or world

mindedness as the concept is referred to within the IB curriculum, comprises “a frame of reference,

or value orientation, favoring a worldview of the problems of humanity, with mankind, rather than

nationals of a particular country as the primary reference group” (Sampson & Smith, 1957).

Developing global mindedness also involves a willingness to be open-minded (Merryfield, 2012)

and continual reflection upon why and how people come to have a different perspective of global

systems and global issues (Case, 1993; Hanvey, 1976; Tarman, 2016). Pertinent to the geopolitical

dynamics present within this study—where participants teach as well as the production sites of the

films they used—is Andreotti’s (2006) distinction between soft and critical GCE.

Journal of Social Studies Education Research 2017: 8(1), 69-92

When analyzing the “justification for positions of privilege (in the Global North and

South),” a “Soft GCE” tends to focus on tropes about the North that emphasize “development, [a]

harder work [ethic], better use of resources, and technology,” whereas a “Critical GCE” approach

includes analyzing systems of oppression that examines how people and nations “benefit from and

[execute] control over unjust and violent systems and structures” that disproportionately

disadvantage the Global South (Andreotti & Pashby, 2013, p. 426). Critical examination of these

global systems requires including people from a spectrum of places and social positions, however,

despite their best intentions, educators often use films to teach about the world that are produced

by American and European companies and often wrought with biases and incomplete narratives

of historical events or contemporary global issues (Merryfield, 1998). Interested in the extent to

which global educators think critically about media resources used in the classroom, this article

features the films and strategies used by educators in countries still scarred by colonialism, yet

largely absent from work in global education. Attention is given to the questions and strategies

used to analyze the content of films, as well as the significance of who directs, produces, and stars

in a film.

Culture and Media Studies

Media constitutes the whole range of modern communications—television, cinema, video,

radio, Internet, music, magazines, and games—and media texts are the programs, films, images,

websites, and more consumed by mass audiences (Buckingham, 2003, p. 2). Meaning making

through media is an on-going process of encoding and decoding messages that are widely

distributed because the codes are often learned at an early age (such as racism, sexism, and

“othering” more broadly) and thus reach near universal or “naturalized” meaning (Hall, 2006, p.

165). The symbols and “naturalized” codes embedded in films and television programming that

are often passively consumed by audiences have, over time, combined to form a mass or popular

culture that works to build consensus around shared values and beliefs. Consequently, the

(re)presentations of people, time, and place that are presented to us in school or that we consume

at home and in public spaces shape how we imagine the world, what we purchase, and what we

come to accept as “normal” behaviors.

The development of a media and culture industry during the twentieth century combined

to form a dialectic between economic production and social and cultural production (Giroux, 2011,

p. 22). Adorno argued that a “non-spontaneous, reified, phony” ideological mass or popular culture

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had been manufactured by the culture industry so that “the subliminal message of almost all that

passed for art was conformity and resignation” (Jay, 1972, p. 216). While critiques of Hollywood’s

role as a homogenizing force have not elapsed, according to Giroux (2011), a more contemporary

analysis of the relationship between media and mass culture finds that industrial capitalism has

infiltrated education since society and schools have became saturated with media technology and

consumerism (Giroux, 2011, p. 23). Concern with the manufacturing of an Americanized mass

culture that is disseminated through media—what Hoggart termed “shiny barbarism”— frames

this discussion about why the use of film to teach about global issues in schools must include

analysis of the production process as well as the product.

Theorizing Global Media Consumption through “scapes”

As global communication networks expand, “the processes of so-called free and forced

migrations are changing the composition, diversifying the cultures and pluralizing the cultural

identities of the older dominant nation states…and indeed the globe itself” (Hall, 1999, p. 16).

Appadurai’s (1996) mediascapes, ideoscapes, and technoscapes help us understand that “as the

shapes of cultures grow less bounded and tacit, more fluid and politicized, the work of cultural

reproduction becomes a daily hazard” (p. 45), thus requiring a critical global media literacy

education aimed at ensuring that the subaltern speak and are heard in social studies classrooms

(Spivak, 1988).

The suffix “scape” “allows us to point to the fluid, irregular landscapes…that are

constructed according to perspectives formed across multiple, intersecting networks” (Appadurai,

1996, p. 3). It is important to see “scapes” not as the physical wires, satellites, or other means by

which information and signals are transferred (although these play a role), but the political,

historical, and linguistic situation of individuals across interconnected networks that influence how

they imagine the world. Therefore, we understand mediascapes to be transmitters of images that

are embedded with “codes” that serve to reify the meanings mass media outlets want to convey

about people, places, cultures, events, and ideas (Appadurai, 1996; Hall, 2006). Similar to

Anderson’s (1991) discussion of the formation of “imagined communities” through print culture,

mediascapes disseminate information digitally and, due to a growing rate of accessibility, erase

distance to provide a sense of connectedness for people around the world who may never meet in

person. Regardless of the medium, consumers must recognize that information can be manipulated

Journal of Social Studies Education Research 2017: 8(1), 69-92

to highlight differences as part of a national and transnational project undertaken by nation-states

and media producers to mold ideologies for political purposes (p. 15).

Politicizing media images to counter ideologies that aim to undermine state power

constitute ideoscapes (p. 36). Important to understanding the function of ideoscapes is that they

are flexible and often the meaning ascribed to an image, idea, or place differs from how they are

received. Increased accessibility due to technoscapes—the fluid, global configurations that include

high and low, mechanical and informational technologies that move across multiple boundaries

(p. 34)—furthers the reach of ideoscapes, but the views and voices included remain inequitable

and disproportionately from the Global North. As multinational media conglomerates such as Time

Warner, News Corp, The Star Media Group, Naspers, to name a few, continue to expand globally,

examining transnational mediascapes, ideoscapes, and technoscapes is important for

understanding how power holders shape ideology and manipulate culture through media.

Methodology

Discussion forums were identified as the most appropriate tool for conducting research

because in order to discuss teaching about global perspectives, it is important to include as many

educators from as many places as possible (Harshman & Augustine, 2013). A benefit of online

research is a high level of participant interaction, leading to greater emphasis on participant

perspective and a decrease in researcher bias, therefore increasing the credibility of the study

(Gaiser, 2008). The flexibility afforded by the use of asynchronous communication compared to

in-person interviews meant participating teachers could focus on topics they found interesting or

relevant to their teaching responsibilities and avoid those that were not (Hewson & Laurent, 2008;

Kazmer & Xie, 2008; Wang, 2011). Since exchanges in the forums often generated new topics

under the general research questions, participants, rather than the researchers, determined whom

they interacted with, what topics they focused on, and what new topics they were interested in

pursuing (Harshman & Augustine, 2013).

Participants

Representatives of the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) at The Hague

contacted 150 teachers about participating in the study and 120 in 36 different countries agreed to

participate. A four-person research team was organized at a large Midwestern University in the

United States to create, facilitate, and troubleshoot the online discussions and produce a research

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report based on data generated within the forums for the IBO. Upon giving consent, each

participant was randomly assigned to a discussion forum of 10-15 teachers based on

recommendations that small groups are more conducive for conducting on-line discussions so that

participants do not have to navigate an exhaustive number of messages (Mann & Stewart, 2000).

Although assigned to a discussion group, participants could read posts in any forum and one forum

was designated for Spanish speakers so as not to privilege English as the only language in which

one could participate. The Spanish language forum included participants from the United States,

Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, and Ecuador and a translator was hired to help facilitate

discussions and transcribe forum posts. All of the teachers featured in this article were part of one

of the twelve discussion forums that were used during the study.

Table 1

Participant Demographics.

Teachers (*all

names are

pseudonyms)

Birth

Country

Location

of school

Subject(s) taught

Martin Canada Taiwan Environmental Science

Vijay India India Theory of Knowledge,

Humanities

Joyce England England Humanities

Marlene Hungary Hungary Art

Betty Ghana Ghana Theory of Knowledge

Nadine India India History, Civics

Shawn United

States

United

States

Economics

Angela China Canada History, Global Issues

Luis Dominican

Republic

Costa

Rica

Humanities

Maria Colombia Colombia Literature

Llana Brazil Brazil Art

Data Analysis

Triangulation, or the use of different sources of information during research, enhances the

validity of the research as well as the accuracy with which the participants’ descriptions of their

lived experiences is represented (Moustakis, 1990). Data were drawn from written responses by

teachers to questions posed by the researchers and fellow participants in the discussion forums,

one-on-one Skype interviews with participants who volunteered to speak with a researcher about

ideas generated around media literacy and resources, a review of lesson plans and resources posted

Journal of Social Studies Education Research 2017: 8(1), 69-92

by teachers to the discussion forum, and email correspondence between teachers and researchers

that included an exit reflection on one’s participation in the project. In total, participants

contributed 1,465 messages over the course of five months, with six participants volunteering to

participate in one, thirty-minute Skype interview after their respective on-line sessions concluded

(Augustine, Harshman, & Merryfield, 2015).

Discussion posts, emails, interview transcripts, and resources posted to the forum were

collated and identifying data such as names and schools were replaced with pseudonyms to protect

confidentiality. The country in which the participants teach, the types of schools in which

participants work (public, independent, international), and the subject(s) they teach were

maintained. Using the constant comparative method of content analysis, the researchers coded the

data and organized it into categories of tentative findings. Categories were initially created in

relation to the first part of the research question—How do educators teach about perspectives?—

and what emerged included: cross-cultural learning, analyzing stereotypes, multiple texts, self-

reflection, guest speakers, inquiry and research, use of films and other media, and interacting with

people in the community. Interested in pursuing the role of media in the classroom and how

teachers develop critical literacy skills by teaching with media, the initial categories were further

analyzed to develop new categories to answer the second part of the research question: How do

teachers develop globally minded critical media literacy skills? While teachers identified music,

books, online news sources, blogs, and Youtube videos as tools for teaching perspective and

literacy skills in tandem, films were clearly the preferred means for teaching these skills and

concepts.

The categories that emerged from data drawn from twelve discussion forums were

compared by the researchers for inter-rater reliability on interpretation of data into emergent

categories. Categories on how teachers conceptualize and teach about perspectives using films that

emerged include: open-mindedness; attitudes and values such as empathy, respect, and caring;

perspective consciousness; and cross-cultural learning. Closer analysis, however, revealed that the

geographic location of the teachers was important to evaluations of films because teachers living

in areas of the world that had been or remain under colonial structures—which also constituted the

areas of the world that IB teachers living in the Global North more often associated with global

issues such as poverty, conflict, human rights, injustice, etc.—raised questions and offered points

that were more critical of films identified as “good resources” for teaching about global issues.

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This led researchers to pursue how participants, in discussing the tools and strategies they use to

teach for perspective building and critical media literacy, also engaged one another in a critical

analysis of the films they recommend and use in their classrooms to accomplish these goals within

the discussion forums.

Analysis of categories and examples shared by participants showed that teachers tend to

highlight what I am calling “6 C’s” when using films to teach for and about perspectives and

critical global media literacy: colonialism, capitalism, conflict, citizenship, and conscientious

consumerism. The questions and conceptualizations provided in Table 2 are derived from analysis

of discussions between participants on how they use films to teach about global issues while

building media literacy skills and, within those discussions, points raised that challenged the way

in which narratives about “others” were presented. The recommended questions were generated

from a synthesis of lesson ideas shared by teachers in the forums, one-on-one Skype interviews on

how films are used to teach concepts and skills pertinent to developing critical media literacy about

global power dynamics, and the questions participants asked each other regarding the films and

media sources they use.

Table 2.

Teaching and Learning Critical Global Media Literacy Skills

“Six C’s” Conceptualization Recommended

questions

Colonialism

(including neo-

colonialism and anti-

colonialism)

Beyond political and economic

forces, cultural hegemony operates as a

neocolonial force that can cause people to

compromise cultural practices, take actions

to resist the “soft power” of culture, and/or

engage in practices that demonstrate cultural

hybridity. Colonialism should not be treated

as a backdrop or relegated to the past when

viewing films, but understood as a constant

presence across time and place.

How is power

distributed in the film?, Who

are the writers, directors,

producers, and stars of the

film?, What stereotypes did

filmmakers rely upon to

represent a people or place?

How does the film

making process operate as a

colonizing force and/or provide

agency?

Capitalism In addition to discussions of wealth,

poverty, and who and what constitutes the

middle class, issues of labor, property,

access, scarcity, freedom of choice, and the

significance of transnational global

institutions, including Hollywood,

Bollywood, Nollywood, and more, can be

analyzed.

How are issues of class

and inequity depicted or

ignored in the film?, How does

global capitalism directly or

indirectly affect the characters

and plot lines?, What myths

regarding capitalism are

portrayed and/or disrupted in

Journal of Social Studies Education Research 2017: 8(1), 69-92

the film?

Conflict Examine macro and micro-level

systems and institutions, as well as person

vs. person, person vs. self, person vs. nature,

and person vs. technology. All other aspects

of this table can be explored through this

lens.

How do issues and

people change over time within

the film?, What are the counter

arguments to the narrative

presented in the film?, Are the

solutions presented in the film

sustainable, responsible,

ethical, and inclusive?

Citizenship Citizenship includes, but is not

limited to, issues of civil and human rights,

belonging, inequality, mobility, “othering”,

and privilege. Films can be used to evaluate

how citizenship and belonging is engaged or

denied based on intersections of geography,

gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, language,

religion, history, ability and disability, age,

class, culture, and institutions.

Who is represented in,

and absent from, the film?,

What statuses and identities are

privileged and marginalized in

the film?, In what ways is

citizenship presented as being

local, national, and/or global,

and for whom?

Conscientious

Consumerism

Critically self-reflect on preferred

sources of information and entertainment,

including examination of what takes place

“behind the scenes” to create the film and

one’s connectedness to the issues presented

in the films.

What and who did the

narrative(s) presented in the

film leave out?, What sources

and new information are

needed to develop a more well-

rounded perspective on the

issues depicted?, What roles do

viewers play in perpetuating

and/or what are the viewer’s

responsibilities for minimizing

the issues and concerns viewed

in the film?

The online forums provided space for teachers to start new discussion threads around topics

they were interested in pursuing, thus decentering the role of researcher as facilitator. Data

collected over the five month study revealed that teachers in the Global North, though working to

improve student understanding of the world, often relied upon resources about the Global South

that were not produced in those areas of the world. The opportunity for teachers in the Global

North to interact with teachers who lived and taught in the countries depicted in the films and other

media sources they used to teach about global issues provided more context and sometimes counter

narratives to the perspectives included in the films teachers in the Global North described in the

discussion forums as “insightful” and “balanced.” As a result, participants were simultaneously

discussing how they teach for critical global media literacy while engaging in cross-cultural

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learning experience that assisted in their own perspective building and critical media literacy.

Findings

Films are often used as a “visual textbook” to convey what happened in history or to teach

historiography, as well as prompt analysis of the accuracy and reliability of the images and

narratives students are bombarded with in and out of a classroom (Gaudelli & Siegel, 2010;

Russell, 2012a, 2012b). Also considered to be an entertaining way of presenting content

information, films, as texts to be interpreted, help students develop literacy skills applicable

beyond the classroom (Kaya & Çengleci, 2011). Further, as the production of visual entertainment

has become decentered, allowing more people to create and distribute videos, as well as low-

budget motion pictures and documentaries, more perspectives on global issues are available for

consideration. Although covering all perspectives and angles of a global issue is not possible in a

given class session or even school year, introducing students to different ways of thinking about

the world so that they can develop a skill set as critically minded consumers of global media is

possible.

For Joyce, an IB Humanities teacher in England, students “can engage in the global

community by striving to be informed through a variety of sources of information; [particularly]

their home media and that which they can access from abroad.” Similarly, Marlene, who grew up

in Hungary when it was under Soviet occupation and is now an IB Art teacher there, emphasized

the importance of “looking for voices not typically included in curricula and mainstream media”

so as to consider global issues for multiple perspectives that include people across the socio-

economic spectrum. According to Martin, an IB Environmental Science teacher in Taiwan, in

order for educators to teach about global mindedness, they must be aware that much of our

academic knowledge and news reflects a western perspective and is limited by cultural

assumptions.

Understanding people different from us seems more necessary because of the world’s

increasing globalisation and our own interconnectedness with it but to create genuinely global

students we need to be genuinely global teachers.

The essence of Martin’s argument couples Andreotti’s call for critical perspectives when

teaching and learning about the world with Appadurai’s theoretical discussion of the distribution

of power and privilege through media and information technology. By teaching about biases within

Journal of Social Studies Education Research 2017: 8(1), 69-92

media, as Martin suggests, globally minded educators not only reflect upon their own media

consumption habits, but help students develop similar habits of mind and skills as part of critical

global media literacy education. The remainder of the article discusses the three most common

issues addressed by teachers across their respective courses—global capitalism, colonialism, and

citizenship—and how the approaches taken by IB teachers in the study generated the

aforementioned framework that can inform how social studies educators use films to teach about

and for critical global media literacy.

Teaching About Capitalism with Films

For Betty, a Theory of Knowledge teacher in Ghana, discussions about capitalism and

poverty are often colored by the privilege most of her students possess. Betty posted in a discussion

forum that it is not uncommon for her students to “comment negatively on people’s poverty as

self-inflicted or generalize the reasons of poverty. Therefore, my task as a teacher seems to [be to]

work on clarification on the variety of reasons of poverty and the privilege of other factors such as

education, socioeconomic circumstances, etc.” Betty’s post led Nadine to share a few resources

she uses to teach about poverty, including websites (mostly produced in the Global North,

including the BBC and the Media Awareness Network), the value of using Youtube, and her use

of Bollywood produced films. However, it was her use of a film about an Indian family produced

by a branch of the Walt Disney Corporation located in India that included the most detailed

discussion.

Nadine’s choice of the film Do Dooni Char (2010) is significant because it was the first

Disney International film produced in India. In this film the family patriarch and main character,

Santosh Duggal, must balance family honor and multiple jobs—including the familiar trope of

working at a call center in India—as Santosh tries to become more “western” by purchasing his

own car. Although produced and directed by Indian filmmakers, life for people in the city of Delhi

(where most of the movie was filmed) appears destitute. Part commentary on income inequality in

India, cultural norms are also called into question as problems are created and resolved when

characters, to an extent, compromise Indian culture by comsuimg what represents Western culture

(i.e. clothing, a car, music, etc.). In fact, comparing the presentation of India in Do Dooni Char

with Disney’s depiction of nineteenth century India in Around the World in 80 Days (2004), as

was suggested by the research team in the discussion forum, not only reveals the continued

presence of colonialism in the more contemporary Disney film, but a troubled narrative that favors

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cultural binaries instead of hybridity created through cross-cultural and technologically mediated

exchanges (Appadurai, 1996; Bhabha, 1994).

To learn more about how Nadine uses a film, a Skype interview was conducted after the

discussion forums concluded. Recognizing that the film is incomplete and depicts only a certain

sector of India’s population, Nadine uses the story of Dhirubhai Ambani, the founder of Reliance

Industries—the largest corporate conglomerate in India and located only five miles from where

Nadine teaches. Nadine stated that it is well known that the man who became the CEO of

Reliance—a company ranked 135th on the 2014 Forbes Global 2000 list—was born into extreme

poverty (Chen, Murphy, & Bigman, 2014). Ambani achieved a place of power and great wealth

not because of where he went to school, according to Nadine, but how he received it and what he

did with it. Through this local example, students discuss the extent to which upward mobility is

possible in India and whether such opportunity is equally accessible for everyone, and compare

their research with the narrative presented in Do Dooni Char. Most students, Nadine reported,

point out that while capitalism may allow some people to advance in society, the film does not

address the social hierarchies and cultural traditions around class, gender, and religion in India that

prevent all people from doing the same. Some students in her classes see the compromises that

Santosh and his family are willing to make with regard to their cultural practices as necessary in

order to advance in society, while others thought that the film is just a modern version of how

globalization can destroy local cultures and economies. Some of the questions listed in Table 2

were generated from the examples Nadine shared as part of her work with students on developing

deeper understandings of how neo-colonialism operates as an oppressive force, the complexity of

cultures, and different forms of resistance against poverty and cultural imperialism across time and

place.

Nadine’s discussion of how she teaches about the intersection of culture and capitalism

prompted Shawn, an IB Economics teacher in the United States, to share how he uses the

documentary film The End of Poverty (2008). Narrated by American actor Martin Sheen, the film

interjects images of slums in South Africa and Latin America with interviews with Nobel Prize

winning economists and scholars Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, as well as activists from

Venezuela, Brazil, Kenya, and Tanzania. For Shawn, this film is a useful tool for not only teaching

students about the causes of institutionalized poverty around the world, but also fostering critical

media literacy through consideration of questions that require them to analyze who was involved

Journal of Social Studies Education Research 2017: 8(1), 69-92

with the production and distribution of the film: an American narrator, scholars and academics

who are not currently living or working in the areas discussed in the film, and a director, Phillippe

Diaz, who has produced a number of films about neo-colonialism and the Global South, and

activists seeking to end the damaging effects of global capitalism. Shawn’s approach reflects

Appadurai’s discussion of infoscapes and mediascapes because he used the film to teach critical

thinking not just about global issues, but about how media is constructed and distributed, and how

points of view are privileged depending on who tells the story. Shawn also exemplifies the need

for teachers to alert students to the fact that even the best intentions to include discussion of global

systems and oppression can be incomplete if one relies upon films produced in the Global North

to teach about the Global South because they too often perpetuate and fail to critically address

another example of the “6 C’s” framework: colonialism.

Teaching About Colonialism with Films

Colonialism and the “soft power” of media culture have not only marginalized the voices

of many people, but from a cultural studies perspective, as Nadine, an IB History and Civics

teacher in India pointed out, “colonization has had a major impact on how we see our culture and

our rigid traditions. It hasn’t enabled people to think beyond the social norms that have been laid

down by the community and that is one of the reasons that this social disparity between classes

still exists.” As a tenth grade history and global issues teacher in Canada, Angela encourages her

students to think of the world as being made up of “many different economies that create many

different worlds, all in one.” To help her students understand the perspectives of colonizers and

the colonized with regard to global economics, Angela uses a case study and films to study Jamaica

and Ethiopia. The film Life and Debt (2001) focuses on attempts at decolonization as well as the

continued control exerted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over Jamaica when the

country “tried to open markets to trade, particularly bananas, and how that has basically been

detrimental to Jamaica.”

Angela’s unit also includes a case study on Ethiopia and use of the film Black Gold (2006)

to examine the multiple parties and perspectives involved in the production and trade of coffee in

the world market. When asked during a Skype interview why she uses these films to teach about

poverty, Angela pointed out that a single film does not cover enough and

Jason HARSHMAN

if students are to understand the consequences of their

purchases and the way the world conducts trade, they have

to see people affected by those systems. Poverty has different

levels, not just living on the street. When students see working

conditions and corrupt governments, but the countries involved

practice democracy, they see these types of poverty and how they

are connected. The role it [poverty] plays in developing nations,

so they [students] ask themselves: Do I need this?

While effective teaching tools, Angela admitted that she was conflicted over the fact that

the aforementioned films were produced and distributed by American film companies. Although

the films address the complexities and conflicts of colonialism and capitalism that led to poverty

in Jamaica and Ethiopia, like Shawn’s approach to teaching about mediascapes, Angela goes

beyond the content of film by teaching about who the producers of these films are and the presence

of biases in the storytelling. Angela’s use of questions such as “What stereotypes did filmmakers

rely upon to represent a people or place?” and “How does the film making process operate as a

colonizing force and/or provide agency?” (listed in Table Two), prompts students to analyze the

power structures that shape the codes and scapes involved in the production and consumption of

films.

In response to Angela’s discussion of films and colonialism, Luis, a Humanities teacher in

Costa Rica, shared why he used Blood in the Mobile (2010) to teach about conflict caused by in

the Democratic Republic of Congo over the illegal mining of minerals used to make cellular

phones. According to Luis, this film provides opportunity to “teach students about how complex

global issues are and, as a teacher, why talking about imperialism and colonialism as nineteenth

century topics that disappeared after WWII is just not true. We are still living in a world of

colonizers and colonized and the phones students use literally connect them to those issues.” Class

discussions about Blood in the Mobile included reflection by students on their responsibility as

conscientious consumers since they use phones that contain the very minerals people in the film

dig out of the ground. Luis shared that some of the questions he posed to students included “How

does global capitalism directly or indirectly affect the characters and plot lines?” and “What roles

do viewers play in perpetuating and/or what are the viewer’s responsibilities for minimizing the

Journal of Social Studies Education Research 2017: 8(1), 69-92

issues and concerns depicted in the film?” (see Table Two). Luis’s students also analyze

advertisements sponsored by the corporations mentioned in Blood in the Mobile as part of a

discussion on how mediascapes and technoscapes can be manipulated by power holders to provide

a one-sided narrative about the benefits of globalization and technology. How students consume

and the extent to which they critically examine these codes related to global issues such as

migration, borders, technology, and more, is an integral component of critical global citizenship

(Andreotti, 2006).

Teaching About Citizenship with Films

Maria, a literature teacher in Colombia, believes it is important that students understand

that the hardships people experience in Bogota, Colombia are, in some ways, shared across

multiple places. To accomplish this goal she uses the film Al Otro Lado (“The Other Side”) (2001)

to teach about the complexities of citizenship, emigration, and immigration, with particular

attention to the multiple local and international causes of poverty.

Based on the experiences of three different children who are looking to reconnect with their

respective fathers, the films addresses immigration and citizenship in Mexico, the United States,

Morocco, Spain, and Cuba. This Spanish language film was written and directed by Gustavo Loza,

who was born and still lives in Mexico and not only addresses the push and pull factors often

associated with migration, but also how where a person is and/or who they are effects the extent

to which they possess a sense of belonging and citizenship. Of particular significance to this film

is the issue of gender, as all three children are looking to reconnect with their fathers, providing

students with an opportunity to discuss patriarchy within and across cultures, as well as the

intersection of gender and citizenship through the use of case studies. Maria shared that when her

students watch Al Otro Lado, they discuss national and global citizenship, how national borders

came to be drawn, and how the continued displacement of indigenous peoples around the world

impacts debates about citizenship today.

In response to Maria’s discussion post about Al Otro Lado, Llana, an IB Art teacher in

Brazil, started a new thread on women and citizenship in film. Llana recommended the 2009

Iranian film Zanan-e bedun-e mardan (“Women without Men”) because, as she wrote in the

discussion forum, “it tells the story of how four Iranian women stand up to the oppressive beliefs

and abuses of the men in their lives (mostly relatives) and religion while the country deals with

the political and cultural influence of the United States.” Mention of this film led teachers to

Jason HARSHMAN

recommend two other films about women in in the Middle East. One, entitled Veiled Voices

(2009), is a one-hour documentary about women who serve as religious leaders in Syria, Egypt,

and Lebanon. What makes the film compelling is that although the views of the women in the film

focus on what Islam entails could be considered conservative, their movement to unite women

across the Middle East is interpreted as liberal since they are engaging in resistance against their

exclusion from positions of power by men. The second film recommended by teachers was

Persepolis (2007)—based on the graphic novel published in 2000—because the protagonist in the

story is an Iranian woman seeking to be free of the oppressive manner in which women are treated

despite being citizens of Iran. Set in the late 1970s at the time of the Iranian Revolution, Persepolis

is opposed to the conservative cultural change that is taking place and resists the oppressive nature

of her family, her culture, and her country.

The “6 C’s” of what to address when teaching for critical global media literacy through

film—colonialism, capitalsm, conflict, citizenship, and conscientious consumerism—are present

across all of the films shared by the IB teachers. While the use of films from around the world, and

the development of a critical media literacy to dissect how films are constructed, are positive steps

towards teaching for global mindedness, teachers identified making connections to local issues of

capitalism, colonialism, and citizenship to be a limitation of using films to teach about global

issues. The most often cited reasons for this difficulty is the belief by students that poverty is faced

by people in “other” countries, colonialism ended decades ago, and becoming a citizen requires a

few forms and passing a test.

Discussion

Students are often situated between social studies curricula that prioritize the past and

personal technologies that connect them almost exclusively to current trends and issues. Although

increased access and connectivity to multiple global “scapes” is a reality for some, the existence

of a digital divide between and within the Global North and South means many people are not

equitably represented in classrooms. For Vijay, an IB Humanities and Theory of Knowledge

teacher in India, access to technology and media “are a privilege, not a right [and] coming from a

developing nation, I came to understand that…there is a language power structure: the amount of

quality content varies across languages—English seems to take over in the digital realm. What

happens with those who don’t speak English?” As consumers of digital media, it is important that

Journal of Social Studies Education Research 2017: 8(1), 69-92

students and teachers not only think critically about the messages encoded in a film, but the power

holders who determine what and who is edited out as part of education for digital citizenship

(Goode, 2010).

Teaching about global issues with film, while important, has limits since all films contain

mediated codes that are often incomplete and produced in the interest of advancing a particular

perspective. Engagement by teachers and students in analysis of the “scapes” that operate behind

the scenes (so to speak), and that disseminate the narratives and messages that are present in all

films, is of equal importance to reading for information in literacy education. That is, using a film

to teach about a topic, era, or event in history must be accompanied by discussion of the company

or companies involved in the production of the film, the reliance upon or attempt to disrupt

stereotypes, and the evidence offered to forward an argument, just as one would with any text used

in a classrom. The strategies, conceptualizations, and discussion questions offered by the teachers

involved in this project are part of the broader application of the digital media literacy skills

students need to be prepared to employ when they are away from the classroom (Greenhow, 2010).

Global educators who use some or all of the questions listed in Table Two can create learning

experiences that require students to think deeper about the narratives used to teach about places

and people, as well as those that are not discussed in a visual, audio, or print text.

The teachers who participated in this study illustrate well the benefits of bringing educators

together to converse with people in the places they teach about in order to develop more nuanced

understandings of perspectives and issues. Findings from the study revealed that the opportunities

to interact with fellow educators around the world inspired teacher’s to revisit concepts such as

interconnectedness and cross-cultural learning, along with shifts in thinking about how to teach

media literacy by analyzing the coded messages present in the resources they use to teach about

the world. The absence of a central task in favor of a decentered space allowed participants to

initiate and participate in a range of discussion topics and proved to provide a greater level of

ownership on their part. Many participants shared in post-study reflections that the discussion

forums provided a rare and valuable opportunity to learn from colleagues from around the world;

something that they had not previously experienced. Conversations about environmentalism,

citizenship, and the resources used to teach about global perspectives revealed that educators in

the Global South, by sharing local realities and perspectives on a global issue that fellow

participants taught about, provided insights that even the most well researched films overlooked.

Jason HARSHMAN

The very nature of the on-line group discussions meant that teachers were engaged in the critical

text analysis they all agreed was important for students to complete. The on-line discussion forums

proved to be a valuable tool that not only provided participants with new resources, but challenged

them to re-evaluate how they used films to teach about point of view analysis, power, and media

production.

A limitation to the study, however, was that beyond the biographies, not much time was

spent exploring the relationship that exists, if any, between a teacher’s experiences and how they

approached teaching about a global issue. Building perspective consciousness—a key component

of global mindedness (Hanvey, 1976)—means going beyond the surface of one’s opinion to better

understand the intersecting influences that makeup one’s view of the world. The extent to which

a teacher’s cultural, historical, political, and educational background influenced their decision

making when teaching about capitalism, colonization, citizenship, and other topics discussed

above, was not fully investigated within this project. Future research that brings educators from

around the world together through a virtual discussion forum would do well to ask participants to

reflect on how their life experiences shape their global mindedness, the biases they still possess,

and how these characteristics consciously and unconsciously influence what they choose to include

and leave out of the curriculum. Research that uses on-line discussion forums to pursue these lines

of inquiry would provide opportunities for participants to ask questions and pursue topics that can

help them and others better understand the complexities of cultures, histories, places, and more so

that educators can transfer this type of thinking and work on cross-cultural learning into their

classroom.

The “6 C’s” provide teachers and students with concepts and tools to analyze the messages

encoded in any audio, video, or print text, while also ensuring students consider the importance of

authorship and point of view analysis. The questions and resources provided can also be used to

foster reflection by students on how influences that “emanate from multiple points in the global

system” affect their sense of identity and citizenship, as well as how they imagine the organization

of nations (Pike, 2000, p. 71). Further, this framework aids in the facilitating of critical thinking

exercises that interrogate both the means (“scapes” and technologies) and the messages (codes and

content) that continue to deterritorialize as well as define cultures. Global educators are right to

use sources that allow people to speak for themselves because if “the strangeness of their ways

[are to] become less strange” students need to develop a perspective consciousness that includes

Journal of Social Studies Education Research 2017: 8(1), 69-92

“getting inside the heads of those strangers and looking out at the world through their eyes”

(Hanvey, 1976, p. 165). Supporting students in the development of critical media literacy skills

based in global education is essential to their ability to look beyond the arbitrary divisions used to

organize the world. As we exist in an evermore interconnected and media saturated world, critical

media literacy and global education are integral if students, as citizens, are to become responsible

consumers and producers of information.

Jason HARSHMAN

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