A study of the potentials of multicultural literature in the Danish public school
Submitted by:
Nadia Mansour
Abstract:
Context: The use of multicultural literature is seen as a necessity to help students from diverse ethnic groups see themselves valued and equal in the school setting, an is seen as an advantage for academic and social success for the students from ethnic minorities. This paper is a study on how the Danish public school can cope with and acknowledge ethnic diversity in the Danish society. The study investigates the use of multicultural literature and focuses on which possibilities for positioning (Blackledge & Pavlenko 2004) the students have, when this literature is used in classrooms.
Aim: This paper is both an empirical study and a theory based study. In the empirical study the focus is on how students negotiate meaning, identities and culture through the dialogues about literature. In this empirical study the aim is to develop a design for reading multicultural literature, where teachers in the subject Danish are able to choose literature where minority students are mirrored in order to acknowledge diversity in the society, and at the same time use instructional strategies in the classroom without connecting specific literature to individuals.
This study is also a theory based study where the aim is to contribute to the existing definition of multicultural literature, formulated by Mingshui Cai and Rudine Sims Bishop (1994), where multicultural literature is defined as literature written by minorities with an insider perspective. In order to develop a new definition of multicultural literature, where culture and identity is seen as fluid, dynamic and changing notions depending on the context in which they appear, this study presents five thematic categories and three stylistic categories that are relevant for multicultural literature.
Key questions: What kind of literature can be defined as multicultural literature in a national context? How could it be possible to create a model/design for reading multicultural literature in the subject Danish?
Theoretical framework: Using the existing definition of multicultural literature (Cai & Bishop 1994), and migration theory (Frank 2008), selected literature are analyzed to categorize and develop a new theoretical definition of multicultural literature.
References:
Blackledge, Adrian and Pavlenko, Aneta (Ed.) (2004): Negotiation of Identities in Multilingual Contexts. Clevedon, Buffalo, Toronto, Sydney: Multilingual Matters LTD.
Cai, M. Bishop, R, S. (1994): Multicultural Literature for Children: Towards Clarification of the concept. In: Dyson, A, H. (eds) The need for story. Cultural Diversity in Classroom and community. (pg 57-72) 1994 by the National Council of Teachers of English.
Frank, S. (2008): Migration and Literature. Günter Grass, Milan Kundera, Salman Rushdie, and Jan
Kjærstad. Palgrave Macmillan.