What is a Native American, an Aborigine and a Maori? A comparative analysis of three English subject textbooks for Norwegian upper-secondary schools

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the visual and textual representation of indigenous cultures in three English subject textbooks for Norwegian upper-secondary schools. The current study focuses on theories of dynamic cultural understanding, descriptive cultural understanding and structural binarism. The aim is to examine how English subject textbooks affect the development of upper-secondary pupils’ understanding of indigenous populations represented in the textbooks through images and texts by and about indigenous cultures. The main method in the study is textbook analysis, which requires a combination of both qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches, where the qualitative approach is applied to give an extra dimension to the qualitative approach. The main methodological approach in the study is the hermeneutical analysis, also known as the descriptive analytical method, which is a qualitative approach allowing for an in-depth study of the content of texts and images in the textbooks. The quantitative content analysis was applied to examine the range of texts and images resigned to indigenous cultures in the different textbooks. The qualitative content analysis was applied to formulate analytical points directed at the texts and images of the different textbooks. The results from the study revealed that all three textbooks have a tendency to compare indigenous cultures to the majority of the population or other ethnic groups in the different countries. Additionally, the textbooks tend to focus on the negative side of the history and the traditional and conventional characteristics of the indigenous cultures. The results also revealed that the textbooks tend to focus to a large extent on oppositions and distinctiveness of indigenous cultures. Thus, the visual and textual representation of indigenous people in the three English subject textbooks for Norwegian upper-secondary schools do not promote to a sufficient degree the desired cultural understanding and intercultural competence and therefore contradict with the cultural aims in the English subject curriculum, national curriculum and other official documents.