Abstract :
Media Education, including Media Studies as discipline in its own right and as a
permeating element of other subjects, not least art and design, has enjoyed a
privileged growth in Scotland. However, little is known about this development
outside Scotland. Occasioned by a series of school residencies utilising photographic
and electronic imaging, the paper looks at some of the background to media
education’s promissory growth whilst seeking to illuminate its current status,
especially when set against recently imposed governmental constraints. Despite that
trend, particular emphasis is placed on the ability of media education to vitiate
tendencies towards orthodoxy. At the same time, and in the same context, the paper
takes the opportunity to look at two contemporary issues in art and design
education - the role of critical studies as an underpinning sub-discipline and that of
child-centred expressivity which, at times, have been seen to be irreconcilably
opposite.
