‘These Are My Photos of When I Was Little’: Locating Media Arts in the Primary School Curriculum

‘Media arts’ has been included as a fifth area of the arts for the new Australian Curriculum which will become mandatory learning for all Australian children from pre-school to Year Six (Y6) from 2014. The current curriculum design is underpinned by an approach familiar to media educators who combine creative practice and critical response to develop students’ media literacies. Media arts within the Australian Curriculum will place Australia at the forefront of international efforts to promote media education as an entitlement for all children. Even with this mandated endorsement, however, there remains ongoing debate about where to locate media education in school curricula. Historically, media education in Australia has been approached through diverse curriculum activities at the secondary school level. These include the critical literacy objectives of subject English; vocationally oriented media and technology education or ICTs education; and Arts courses using new media technologies for creativity. In this chapter we consider the possibilities and challenges for media arts, specifically for primary school student learning. We draw on empirical evidence from a research project that has trialled a media arts curriculum with students attending a primary school in a low socio-economic status (SES) and culturally diverse community on the outskirts of Brisbane, Queensland.