Educational Alternatives, Volume 19, 2021

Abstract: The international comparative ICILS studies of 2013 and 2018 find a more receptive media use and a more skeptical attitude toward media among German teachers than among their international colleagues. There is a plethora of explanations for this. Based on the results of an ongoing research project at the Ludwigsburg University of Education and the Technical University of Dortmund on the media habitus of pre-service teachers, a reconstruction of this media moralization typical for German teachers is presented. The paper briefly recalls recent international findings on teacher media use and then presents some partial results from a survey of four cohorts since 2019 with different fields of study at Ludwigsburg University of Education. Media use habits, attitudes towards the future professional handling of media in school, and expectations of school media education of pre-service teachers were surveyed. The results reveal a media pedagogical “gap of beliefs.” While current pre-service teachers as digital natives show a positive attitude towards media use in their private lives, they adopt attitudes of the currently active generation of teachers concerning their future professional field, as we can prove in current international studies. Finally, the article proposes a reconstruction of these empirical results based on Pierre Bourdieu’s “theory of capitals” as well as the concepts of “media habitus”, “media pedagogical habitus”, and “vocational habitus”.