Comperative examination of primary media literacy curriculums and implementations of England and Turkey

The aim of this study is to examine the elementary media literacy education curriculums and implementations comparatively in England and Turkey. The data was obtained from three different sources in this qualitative research designed with a comparative case study research model. The data sources are the British and Turkish media literacyc curriculums, observation data of the media literacy courses in both British and Turkish schools and the semi structured interview records gained from media literacy experts in both England and Turkey. The collected data was analyzed by NVIVO 8 qualitative data analyzing software.Results show that; media literacy education in England is regarded as part of the mother language acquisition and is treated as a language process. However, the knowledge of communication devices and communication processes is more prominent in Turkey in media literacy education. Turkey and England have different media literacy instructional approaches. While Turkey has adopted a protectionist media literacy instructional approach, England has adopted an instructional approach that promotes procuding media.Even though British and Turkish curriculums have similarities with respect to learning objectives in learning domains of language, representation, audience, genre, ideology and media producing, they differ with respect to learning domains of production and cultural understanding. During the compulsory education assessment and evaluation of media literacy studies have a formative characteristic in England. Nonetheless, students? outcomes are not evaluated with a grade in Turkey since media literacy education is delivered as elective courses. But these courses are assessed and evaluated by alternative assessment and evaluation methods and techniques, like portfolios and self assessment.Media literacy education experts in England draw attention to language process while experts in Turkey underline the communication process. However, both countries? media literacy education experts? agree on the fact that media literacy education should be compulsory after preschool education. They also unanimously describe the aim of the media literacy to contribute for more participation to society.The media literacy is a new area in Turkish education system and media literacy curriculum is at the development stage in Turkey. Hence, Turkish authorties should make collaborations with international institutions like European Union or Unesco media literacy movements to structure media literacy curriculum in Turkey.