Teaching Relationship Concepts Using Media Clips

Abstract

The benefits of using film clips in Marriage and Family Relations classes are numerous. They can be used to teach new concepts, initiate discussion, and assist students in developing perspective taking, an important component in feminist pedagogy and in developing critical thinking skills. Suggestions for classroom utilization are included, as well as methods for gathering film clips and information about copyright issues. The appendix includes numerous examples of family related themes, movies in which the clips can be found, descriptions of the scenes and the approximate length of each clip. From the broadcast of Saturday morning cartoons and Sesame Street, to the purchased disks of Professor Einstein and the various Disney creations, children at a very young age are entertained and educated through the visual arenas of television, film, VHS and DVDs. These forms of media follow children into adolescence and young adulthood and continue to be a major source of entertainment and education throughout their lives (Steyer, 2002). In addition to the myriad hours of entertainment at home, a friend's residence or in the theater, the visual realm of entertainment media provides educators with an easily available pedagogical tool. Perhaps the abundance of visual stimuli is the reason that college students have become more visual in their learning (Hosley, Gregg, Weng & Montemayor, 1998). Educators in various disciplines, such as education (Diez, Pleban, & Wood, 2005), history (Sprau, 2001), counselor education (Higgins & Dermer, 2001), and religion (Marshal, 2003) are capitalizing on this visual learning style by incorporating the use of film in their teaching repertoire (Marshal, 2003). In the family studies discipline, articles related to teaching pedagogy and the use of film highlight such areas as family systems (Hudock, Gallagher, and Warden, 2001), stepfamilies (Leon and Angst, 2005), social class (Seery, Cobb, Harpel, and Herzog, 2002), and poverty (Roberts, 2003). There appears to be great potential in using film to help teach a variety of marriage and family relationship concepts in an educational setting. The purpose of the current article is to expound upon past efforts to promote the use of film pedagogically by describing (a) the benefits of using film clips in the classroom to teach marriage and family relationship concepts, (b) examples of clips that have been used in Marriage and Family Relations classes to demonstrate marriage and family relationship concepts, and (c) legal aspects of using copyrighted movie clips in an educational setting. Pedagogical Benefits of Using Film Clips in the Classroom