On the remediation, relativisation and ref lexivity of mother tongue education

Abstract

In this article, education is regarded as a medium (Salomon, 2000). i.e. a channel for the transmission of knowledge with its specifically and historically defined form and content. From a media ecology perspective, media are not neutral, transparent or value-free channels for transporting information. Instead, the inherent physical structures and symbolic form of media play a decisive role in the design of what and how information is coded and transferred and hence also how it is decoded. It is the structure of the medium that determines the content and nature of the information. In our digital era this medium, i.e. education, is now being remediated (Bolter & Grusin, 2002). With this point of departure, in this article traditional education is placed on a par with a coherent text in the form of an essay. This implies that what typifies an essay in a transferred sense is characteristic of traditional education based on paper, pencil and book technologies. In a new media ecology context, what is polyvocal, interactive and transient is also becoming characteristic of education in its capacity as a medium. Like all remediation this also offers a promise of reforms and changes in the sense of remoulding, which partly corresponds to all the expectations placed on new media as regards the possibilities to develop education, for teaching and for pupils’ learning. This article aims to indicate and discuss what is identified as a relativisation that appears when schools and teaching are remediated and which manifests itself on three different levels in schools, i.e. regarding: (1) the content of the teaching; (2) the forms of teaching; and (3) the relations in the classroom. The examples are taken from teaching of the school subject Swedish (mother tongue).

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