Critical, Creative and Collaborative Learning in a School Film Club: Film Education and Critical Pedagogies in Practice

This dissertation analyses the ways in which critical pedagogies and film education practices in primary schools relate to each other. The current political climate in Britain enforces the quality of state education to be judged through quantitative measurements of performativity and accountability. Within this context, this research aims to reveal insights into how film education relates to and broadens more arts-based practices in schools, advocating to lessen the burden on teachers of numeric evaluations. As the knowledge and data that this dissertation presents are products of the researcher’s situated knowledge and practice within the film education field, this qualitative study is situated within a critical emancipatory research paradigm. Influenced by questions concerning relations between power and knowledge, critical emancipatory research aims to discredit the notion of objectivity in academia. As a case study, this research explores an after-school film club in a North London primary school, guided by the British Film Institute and the Cinémathèque française as part of the Cinéma, Cent Ans de Jeunesse (CCAJ) project. Through observations and interviews with the project’s participants, this study argues that film education is inherently related to critical pedagogies. The combination of the two schools of thought produce a balance of pedagogical ideals that are based on creativity, criticality and collaboration. These ideals are reflected in the CCAJ project and through the act of filmmaking, students, as well as educators experienced a greater sense of autonomy and agency