The Complexity of Learning to Teach News Media in Social Studies Education

Abstract

This research reports on data generated through an initial teacher certification program for secondary social studies teachers that introduced a specific and program-spanning focus on news media literacy. Growing out of the urgent need for pedagogies that address and promote critical engagement with the kinds of news media sources upon which civic decisions are made, our project follows teacher candidates from their initial certification coursework through the culminating student teaching semester. Our work with teacher candidates over this time was explicitly intended to intervene in and develop teacher candidates’ understandings of news media literacy, its place in social studies education, and related pedagogies. However, what resulted, and what we present throughout this paper, was also an intervention in our own understandings of the significant constraints and complexities of addressing these issues in teacher education.