Listen and learn: examining the role of schools radio broadcasting in Scotland's classrooms

Abstract

This thesis presents a historical-cultural geography of BBC schools radio broadcasting in Scotland. Through an interpretive engagement with mixed archival sources materials, it considers the ways in which the BBC researched, produced, and transmitted radio broadcasts to classrooms across the nation, positioning the medium centrally in children’s primary and secondary education. When tuning in to radio programmes, children were exposed to different voices and sounds from across the nation, and as such, were encouraged to understand Scotland’s past and present, and its place in the world, through differing subjects on the curriculum. By focusing on four different and interrelated themes for analysis, this thesis examines the regulation, production, transmission, and reception of BBC schools radio programmes across Scotland. First, it examines the new media landscape into which schools radio emerged, and the ways in which broadcasts were shaped and regulated by specialist councils and committees. Second, it explores how diverse lesson content was crafted for radio, and how producers incorporated various methods of audio production to engage listening children by bringing the outside world into the classroom. Third, it traces programme content from geography, and geography-adjacent, radio series to analyse the ways that lessons taught children about their country, thus constructing a unique geographical imagining of Scotland. Fourth, it investigates how classroom teachers and their pupils were intended to receive these lessons, absorb the material, and apply it to activities within and beyond the classroom. As an integrated piece, this thesis highlights the significance of listening and learning from radio as it distinctively engaged children with sound, simultaneously shaping new social imaginaries where radio directed pupils’ understanding of nationhood, citizenship, and geography.