Representation of Indigenous Peoples in textbooks for year 8-10

Abstract

The aim of this thesis has been to examine the extent to which EFL textbooks succeed in meeting the guidelines set by LK20 about Indigenous peoples in the English subject after year 10. The thesis basis derives from theoretical approaches to culture, representation, both visual and textual, as well as representation of Indigenous peoples and Piaget’s theory of cognitive development and how it relates to representation. The thesis also draws upon the basis of what a textbook in education is and what it implies, as well as what the curriculum has set as guidelines on Indigenous content. To analyse how authors and publishers have chosen to include Indigenous peoples in their EFL textbooks I chose mixed methods, incorporating both quantitative and qualitative methods. The methods chosen were content analysis and multimodal critical discourse analysis. Content analysis allows the researcher to analyse the contents of texts, both quantitative and qualitative. While a multimodal critical discourse analysis allows the researcher to study both visuals and text in ways language, with signs and symbols, are taken advantage of by authors in order to represent. The findings implies that some textbook does a better job than others when it comes to meeting the guidelines set by the LK20 curriculum. And even though all the textbooks include Indigenous peoples they do not always give a complete and in-depth representation on who Indigenous peoples are and what their culture, history, and societal life entails. An important finding was that the Norwegian Indigenous people are hardly mentioned in some textbooks, and not present at all in others, despite them being explicitly present in competence aims in LK20. That is why it is important for teachers to be critical of the textbooks used in education and that they do not necessarily mirror the guidelines set by LK20. And for teachers to add materials in addition to the textbook when necessary, in order to follow the guidelines set by the curriculum.