Media and Information Literacy in school libraries in Portugal: mapping practices to improve policies

Abstract

In a study published in 2011 that analysed the state of Media Education in Portugal (Pinto et al., 2011), school libraries (SL) were identified as emerging contexts in the promotion of media literacy in schools. Since then, several libraries have asserted themselves as such, extending their work in the field of Media and Information Literacy (MIL). The publication of the first edition of the referential Learning with the school library, promoted by the School Libraries Network (Conde, Mendinhos and Correia, 2017, 2nd ed.), and the Media education guidance for pre-school, basic and secondary education, approved by the Ministry of Education in 2014 (Pereira et al., 2014) may well have contributed to this enlargement. In addition, in-service teacher training in this field may also have helped MIL find a place for development in SL. In order to understand the current situation of media literacy in the context of the SL, a quantitative study was conducted based on an online questionnaire applied to the teacher-librarian (T-L) population in mainland Portugal. The final sample consists of 743 T-L, which represents 53% of the population. The data reveal an attention to this area mainly focused on the dangers and risks of the Internet and social networks and the use of media as resources for learning. They also expose the need for integrating MIL in initial teacher training and to invest more in in-service training programmes, aiming to consolidate MIL in school but also to broaden its approaches, themes and implementation strategies.