Cultural Representation: Digital English Language Learning Portals in Denmark

The background for the study is the increasing orientation towards intercultural competence in foreign language education taking place in Denmark and around the world. This orientation made its mark on curriculum development in Denmark with the 2012 Teacher Education Reform and the Danish School Reform (Svarstad, 2016). From 2016/2017 digital learning platforms were introduced in all Danish schools and municipalities. In this process digital learning portals for all school subjects were designed by the major Danish textbook publishing houses. Texts and media representation in Danish ELT textbooks and digital learning portals are mainly based on global popular culture and elements of Landeskunde (Risager, 2018, Svarstad, 2016). Thus, I argue that a Cultural studies approach that explores broader issues of intercultural competence and interculturality is central to the study of cultural representation and the teaching of interculturality. Interculturality in this study is understood as a non-essentialist supra-concept that integrates different aspects of cultural life in society and in the world: diversity and complexity, identities and subjectivities, the many different kinds of intercultural encounters and discourses about all these things in everyday life, in the media, in education and in politics (Risager & Svarstad fortcoming). This presentation sheds light on Cultural studies and representation (Hall, Evans & Nixon 2013; Risager 2018; Svarstad 2016, 2018) in culture themes designed for ELT digital learning portals in lower secondary school in Denmark. I will point at the potentials of a Cultural studies approach to interculturality in ELT by focusing on what I believe to be three of its key concepts: intersectionality, othering and subtextuality (Svarstad, 2016, 2018). The three concepts complement each other and support a discursive approach to culture learning (Svarstad, 2016). I wish to address implications for teacher education as well as the design of culture themes on learning portals.References APA Style:Hall, S, Evans, J. & Nixon, S. (2013) Representation. Second Edition. London, SAGE Publications.Risager, K. (2018) Representations of the World in Language Textbooks, Bristol, Multilingual Matters.Risager, K & Svarstad, L.K.(forthcoming) Verdensborgeren og den interkulturelle læring [The Global Citizen and Intercultural Learning], Frederiksberg: SamfundslitteraturSvarstad, L.K. (2016). Teaching Interculturality:Developing and Engaging in Pluralistic Discourses in English Language Teaching, Ph.D Thesis, Århus University PressSvarstad, L.K. (2018). A Cultural Studies Approach to Intercultural Encounters and Interculturality. In Daryai-Hansen. P., Søndergaard Gregersen, A., Jacobsen, S.K., von Holst-Pedersen, J., Svarstad, L.K. & Watson, C. Foreign Language Education: Between topic and educational theory. Copenhagen: Hans Reitzel Publishers (I-book).