Living in a ‘digital world’: An ethnographic study of film and adolescent literacy education in rural secondary schools in America

Abstract

This paper explores different ways in which teachers use film as a medium for literacy instruction in secondary settings across different content areas in the American public school system. Three educators participated in an ethnographic interview study serving as a pilot for further enquiry. Educators represented two sites in the southern United States, working in two different subject areas with students aged 12 to 16. Interviews were coded using multiple methods and five themes resulted from the data, focusing on the different ways in which teachers used film-based content, as well as what they observed about their students based on their experiences with film in the classroom.