Representation of cultures and communities in a global ELT textbook: A diachronic content analysis

Abstract

This study examines the representation of cultures and communities in the world across five editions of New Headway elementary level textbook (NHE). It conducts a diachronic content analysis to explore how the representation of cultures and communities has evolved in NHE across five editions since its first edition’s publication in 1993. Adapting Kachru’s model of concentric circles for data analysis, we utilized Yuen’s adaptation of ACTFL’s (1996) standards for language teaching via the categories of persons, perspectives, products, and practices. Our findings mainly indicate that the Inner Circle has maintained its dominance in NHE’s content over five editions. We found that there was an imbalance favoring European cultures against non-European cultures in the Expanding Circle. On the other hand, Expanding Circle / Non-European and Outer Circle are underrepresented with around 10% of the textbook content. These findings show that NHE’s cultural focus is on the Western, European, and Anglo-American world of English-speaking communities. Such an imbalance in representation of world cultures leads us to conclude that NHE’s writers do not sufficiently raise English learners’ global cultural consciousness since there has been little engagement with multicultural view of English language varieties. We invite teachers, learners, and material developers to critically approach, analyse, revise, and/or adapt textbook content as discursive constructions which shape the imagination of cultures and communities.

The Representation of Race in English Language Learning Textbooks: Inclusivity and Equality in Images

“…We chose the level of books in line with Keles and Yazan's (2020) argument that introductory books are “likely to be the first formal English‐medium cultural resource for language learners” (p. 4). Moreover, because of our focus on images, we draw on the commonly held belief that lower‐level language learners tend to draw more on visual resources than higher‐level learners do (Risager, 2018).…”

“…If a culture or group of people are misrepresented or underrepresented in a textbook, then a learner from that culture or group may become indifferent to the learning material (Anya, 2017). Alternatively, learners from different cultures or groups may fail to critically engage with it in terms of reflecting “on their own cultural values, meaning[s], and practices in relation to those of others” (Keles & Yazan, 2020, p. 4). In other words, a lack of inclusivity can lead to passive (transmissive) rather than active (transactional) modes of learning (see Gollnick & Chinn, 2021).…”

“I Preferred to Take Another Activity From the Textbook”: An Activity–Theoretical Study of Learning to Design Language Teaching Materials

“…From a curricular‐artifact viewpoint, Tomlinson and Masuhara (2013), for example, found that the six popular global coursebooks they analyzed reflected traditional language teaching views, with a strong emphasis on controlled practice and a weak communicative orientation. Likewise, scholars seeing textbooks as cultural artifacts have raised important concerns about the increasing presence of neoliberal discourses and values (Copley, 2018; Gray, 2012); the erasure of the working class (Gray & Block, 2014), different sexualities (Gray, 2013), and ethnic minorities (Toledo–Sandoval, 2020); and the overrepresentation of the white middle class (Dendrinos, 1992) and of inner circle cultures (Keles & Yazan, 2020)—all of which raise questions about the educational value of the content of these materials.…”

Linguistic Means of Constructing the Image of Japan in Pedagogical Discourse

“…Согласно концепции Т. А. ван Дейка, учебные пособия как ключевой жанр педагогического дискурса формируют знания людей о мире, общие социальные отношения, идеологии, основные нормы и ценности [Dijk 2001]. Подобного мнения придерживается и ряд зарубежных ученых [Canale 2022;Keles, Yazan 2020;Re-imagining… 2019]. Т. ван Леувен в качестве одной из задач учебников называет «сохранение эмоциональной "преданности" обучающегося» 1 [Leeuwen 1995: 86], а потому материал в них должен быть подобран и изложен таким образом, чтобы заставить реципиента дискурса чувствовать себя комфортно в процессе обучения.…”