Developing a literary reading design with multicultural youth literature in the subject Danish

Submitted by: Nadia Mansour
Abstract: The subject of Danish Literature in the Danish public school has a central position in creating access to cultural stories and tools so that the students can see their own lives valued in the school setting and to be able to see their own position in a wider and more reflective perspective (Holmen, 2011). As we are experiencing an increasing student diversity in the Danish public school, where children with different ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds is attending school, multicultural education and 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 (Banks, 2007; Gitz-Johansen, 2006; Mansour, 2015).
This paper is a study on how the Danish public school can cope with and acknowledge ethnic diversity in the Danish society. The study is both a theory based study which aims for developing and contextualizing theories about multicultural literature in a Danish context, and an empirical intervention study, which aims to create a design for reading multicultural literature in the subject Danish.
The theory based study contributes 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 two stylistic categories that are relevant for multicultural literature. In that sense this project defines a new understanding of multicultural literature by analyzing and mapping literature published in Denmark. The thematic categories are characterized by a mimetic logic, in that multicultural literature reflects multicultural issues in a society within a nation. For instance multicultural literature reflects the question of multiple identities and cultures and deals thematically with cross-cultural experience, hybrid cultural identity and integration issues. The stylistic level reflects a multicultural society with the impurity of language as a result mixing several languages and dialects. Multicultural literature does not require the presence of all the categories, but it will be the combination of the characteristics that in each case determines the character of the text.
The intervention is based on a mediated discourse analysis with an intervention with text defined as multicultural in three different classroom settings in 8. grade (Jones & Norris, 2005, Scollon, 1998, Meyer, 2001). One of the classes is located in a little school with only white ethnic Danish children. The second class is located in a school in the second biggest city in Denmark, Aarhus, and it has the national average of 15 % students with different ethnic background than Danish. The last class is located in a ghettoized area and has 97 % students with different ethnic backgrounds than Danish. The empirical intervention study focuses on which possibilities for positioning (Blackledge & Pavlenko 2004) the students have, when the multicultural youth novel “Haram” (Aamand, 2017) is used in classrooms. In the empirical study the focus is how students negotiate meaning, identities and culture through the dialogues about literature, and interviews with the three teachers before and after the intervention (Tanggaard & Brinkmann, 2010). In the interviews I focus on what, how and why the teacher chooses the reading design. I ask them if the student backgrounds has any influence on how they choose to work with and read multicultural literature. The second interview is a focus group interview, where I ask the teachers to evaluate the design used in the intervention. I also ask them to reflect on their students work with “Haram” (2017). Was it different from reading other literature?
Using empirical video observations in the three classrooms, the students individual writing exercises and the interviews, my 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.
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. In the empirical study, I use a mediated discourse analysis (nexus analysis) (Scollon, 1998) to study how negotiations of reading modes and reader identities are characterized in three 8.grade classes with pupils with diverse cultural backgrounds when multicultural texts are embedded in the didactical setting.
References:
Aamand,K. (2017): Haram. Gyldendal 2017

Banks, J. A. (2007): Educationg citizens in a multicultural society. Teachers College Columbia University New York and London.

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.

Gitz-Johansen (2006): Den multikulturelle skole – integration og sortering. Roskilde universitetsforlag.

Holmen, A. (2011): Den gode gardner og ukrudtet. Om minoritetselever i grundskolens danskfag. I: Haas, C. (red): Ret til dansk. Uddannelse sprog og kulturarv. (31-115) Aarhus universitetsforlag.

Jones, R. H., & Norris, S. (2005): Methodological principles and new directions in MDA. In: S. Norris & R. H. Jones (red). Discourse in Action. Introducing mediated discourse analysis London Routledge.

Mansour, N. (2015): Student diversity and content of the literature curriculum. A study of the potentials of multicultural literature in the Danish public schools. Master thesis Aarhus University, DPU.

Meyer, M. (2001): Between theory, method, and politics: positioning approaches to CDA. In: R. Wodak & M. Meyer (red). Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (14-31). London: Sage Publications.Scollon, R. (1998): Mediated discourse ad social interaction. A study of news discourse. Addison Wesley Longman Limited 1998.

Scollon, R. (1998): Mediated discourse ad social interaction. A study of news discourse.
Addison Wesley Longman Limited 1998.

Tanggaard, L. & Brinkmann, S. (2010): Interviewet: samtalen som forskningsmetode. In: S. Brinkmann, S, & Tanggaard, L. (eds) Kvalitative metoder- en grundbog. (29-53) Hans Reitzels Forlag.