Exploring an Intersectional approach to intercultural competence with 14-year-old students of English

The paper presents an exploration of an intersectional approach to intercultural competence in lower secondary English classes in Denmark. The presentation is based on the second intervention in a participatory action research project in connection with my doctoral thesis in the school year 2013-2014 (Svarstad, 2015). The intersectional approach is based on Cultural Studies (Agger, 1992; Grossberg, 2010; Hall, 1997; Hall, Evans, & Nixon, 2013; Pickering, 2001; Ryan & Musiol, 2008) and knowledge of social categories and representation, and how these can be taught and discussed in class through an intersectional lens. An intersectional lens allows for the conceptualization of categories to be multiplicative and dynamic and power is foregrounded (Cho, Chensaw, & MaCall, 2013; Dervin, 2014, 2015). Critical discourse analysis (Gee, 2012) is used as a tool in class to analyse of a dispute on Facebook between Miley Cyrus and Sinead O’Connor. Students work with active construction, making connections, social interaction, reflection, responsibility and they do so in a process of noticing, comparing, reflecting and interacting (producing) (Liddicoat & Scarino, 2013). In a spiral process of teaching the teachers, analysing data and engaging in a respectful and open dialogue, three teachers and I collaborated on the scaffolding of eight lessons in which the students worked with the theme Audience, Performance and Celebrities. I wish to discuss how this intervention contributes to the preliminary conclusions of my PhD Towards a Cultural Studies and Critical Cultural Pedagogy Approach to Intercultural Competence in English Language Teaching.