Are great cities institutions preparing pre -service teachers to teach media literacy? A comparative study

Research shows that the United States is behind most industrialized nations in providing media education even though the U.S. is the largest producer of mediated messages (Phillips, 1998). This research was designed to determine if schools of education located in urban areas are preparing their students to teach media literacy so that urban elementary and secondary students will be able to meet state media literacy education standards and to identify model media literacy education standards which can be used to develop media literacy education curriculum for schools and colleges of education. Two qualitative methods were employed to analyze data, the survey method and content analysis. Instruments were created, based on a literature review, and used to gather data. Professors are implementing media literacy skills in their pre-service teacher methods courses however, they are doing so in very particular areas, specifically access and analysis and evaluation and with that, only certain forms or genres of media are being accessed, analyzed, and evaluated. This research shows that in theory, professors may support the idea of media literacy but they are not associating all areas of media literacy with their courses.