This paper analyzes the media education component, including Media Studies relating to human rights education, of The Ontario Curriculum Grades 9-12: English, 2007. In the context of this study, media education refers to teaching about media rather than only teaching through media and using media. The relationship of media education and human rights education has not been discussed even though the media exerts a strong impact on our notions of human rights through its conveying of stereotypes, ideologies, beliefs, etc. In The Ontario Curriculum, revised in 2007, this connection appears more explicitly when we contrast it with the curriculum it replaced (The Ontario Curriculum Grades 9 and 10: English 1999, Grades 11 and 12: English 2000). Previous research had focused on education policy and human rights education and why Canadian curriculum failed to bridge the gap between academic knowledge and the real life experiences of the students. Many researchers concluded that Canadian curriculum lacked a citizenship perspective and did not sufficiently address the ability to distinguish facts and opinions. The research question of this paper is "how human rights is located in media education?". Human rights in this context is concerned with the rights that citizen living in the world, including in Canada. This paper analyses this question by examining the relationship between The Ontario Curriculum Grades 9-12: English, 2007 and media education. My study is composed of three parts. To begin, I provide a whole image explanation of The Ontario Curriculum: English in 1999, 2000 and 2007. I then analyzes the description of human rights in the above curricula, and finally I present an argument on how human rights are located in the both curricula. I conclude with a discussion with suggestions for Japanese language education and human rights education. Previous curricula required that students learn about literature and media production as skills, while largely omitting the teaching human rights and citizenship for those living in Canada. By contrast, The Ontario Curriculum Grades 9-12: English, 2007 emphasizes the development of an understanding and interpretation of the values or ideologies represented in media texts as well as literature. Through teaching this curriculum, it is hoped that students can become responsible media users and citizens living in a media society. Human rights embedded within media education possess a variety of meanings pertaining to race, values, beliefs, consumerism and the right to know, as the media aims to represent a wide range of society. These representations, stereotypes, ideologies and beliefs should not be cut off from human rights. As previous researchers have shown, Ontario, home to the most multicultural city in the world, has a need to teach a curriculum that contains the perspectives of a variety of minority groups. It can be said that The Ontario Curriculum Grades 9-12: English, 2007 tries to convey perspectives from many minority groups, and can facilitate the teaching of human rights and global citizenship in the contemporary world.

抄録全体を表示