Imágenes de Hispanoamérica : Un análisis crítico de material didáctico de ELE

This paper investigates how Latin America and its cultures are represented in textbooks on Spanish as a foreign language. The study aims at investigating how much attention and of what type is dedicated to Latin America in the investigated material, whether the textbooks contribute to giving a varied and nuanced image of the Spanish-American cultures and how this relates to the educational goal of promoting an intercultural competence.A qualitative method of analysis has been applied in order to carry out the analysis of three textbooks for intermediate levels of language studies: Caminando 3, Alegria and De acuerdo.The results of the investigation show that the investigated textbooks mostly present a simplified, ethnocentric, homogenized and sometimes postcolonial image of the Spanish-American cultures. Texts where the culture constitutes the context and not the subject can promote a process of identification and consequently an intercultural competence.The study’s main conclusions show that Spanish-American cultures are underrepresented in the investigated material and that a non-native perspective dominates in the majority of the texts. This combined with the lack of variety and profundity, may have consequences for the promotion of an intercultural competence and for teachers’ work with textbooks and cultural content.

”Varför tar man för givet att feminismen måste vara sekulär?” : En studie om muslimska feminister i svensk kontext

The purpose of this study is to examine how two Muslim feminists perceive themselves to betreated by the Swedish majority society and within the secular feminist movement. Thesurvey was conducted using qualitative method with a total of two interviews. For the study'stheoretical perspectives, I have used postcolonialism and postcolonial feminism. The result ofthe survey and the analysis show that the informants say that they face an image of Muslimwomen as considered being under oppression. The informants believe that this stereotypicalimage has its origin from the colonial period. The question that is most important for themwithin feminism is to be treated as a feminist and as a Muslim without being questioned. Theyfeel like it's hard to identify with the Swedish secular feminism, but they also feel that thegroup of Swedish secular feminists have a difficulty identifying themselves with Muslimwomen too. Consider this, one of the informants does not feel welcome among Swedishsecular feminism while the other one never had an interest in becoming a member of itbecause she did not consider them to strive for the same goal as herself. The informantsclaims that there are opportunities for them to speak in the public debate, but as Muslimfeminists they are facing a bigger struggle.

A Quinta Essência de Agustina Bessa-Luís : la saveur aigre-douce de Macao

In the narrative A Quinta Essência Agustina Bessa-Luís proposes an original reading of the Portuguese postcolonial History, by reinvesting the topics of the intercultural relation and the meeting with the Other. In fact, in the troubled context of April 1974, the character of Jose Carlos Pessanha expatriates towards the East, more precisely towards Macao, one of the last Eastern colonies of the Portuguese colonial Empire. However, the characteristic of this tour of rediscovery of the East is that it makes the destiny of a character in search of himself coincide with the questioning of a country still looking for its own identity. Thus, in this voyage backwards into the Luso-Eastern History, the Author draws the portrait of a Nation-Empire split between the desire of incarnating this “genetic superiority of the Occident” and the fascination for the culture of the Other, symbolizing an “excess of otherness” (B. of Sousa Santos) in the Portuguese identity. Macao, will be the territory of an “entre-deux” and an intercultural circulation, as well as an emblematic ground to the expression of the “ambivalent and hybrid” position (colonizing/colonized) of Portugal in the Occident. As a consequence, the uncomfortable “non-inscription” (J. Gil) and the “nomadism” (Deleuze/Guattari) which characterizes José Carlos Pessanha, would be a reflection of yesterday’s and today’s Lusitanian epopee.

Svenska för invandrarskap? : Språk, kategorisering och identitet inom utbildningsformen Svenska för invandrare

The overall purpose of this thesis and the four independent studies it builds upon is to examine how categorizations and identity positions are constructed and negotiated in the educational program Swedish for immigrants (SFI) both historically and among participants in the program at the beginning of the 21th century. The analytical focus is on the discourses that frame the development of the SFI program with a specific interest in categorizations and identity in relation to gender, language and national belonging. The empirical material includes historical texts (curricula, commission reports, public inquiries, political propositions, laws) from 1965 to 2010, as well as approximately 95 hours of audio and video recorded data and ethnographic field notes from five SFI classrooms. The results are presented primarily in the four articles but partly also in the thesis itself. Our analysis in the first study, that takes a sociohistorical perspective as a point of departure, indicates shifts in discourses with regards to the categories and aims of the educational program, thus, making certain identity positions more accessible than others at specific times. Using the approach of nexus analysis, the theoretical framework employed in the second study approaches language policies n terms of a dialectical elationship between policy and the learning that takes lace in the language focused classroom. Feminist and postcolonial frameworks re employed ore pecifically in the third and fourth studies. The historical nalysis presented in article three shows how the categories of “immigrant” and Swedes” ave been produced and negotiated in discourses on gender and gender quality in the SFI program since the early 1970s. The fourth study highlights he omplex relationship between gender equality and integration policies, as well as he perception of gender equality as a central part of Swedishness”, negotiated in he everyday conversations in the SFI classroom. Overall, the results illuminate he circulation of discourses both cross ime and between policy and classrooms. oreover, it contributes to a critical discussion about the intersection of language, ender and national elonging in the negotiation of boundaries between insiders and outsiders in Swedish society.

Tillhörighetens gränser : Internationell adoption och ursprungets betydelse i svensk utredningsretorik

Boundaries of belonging: transnational adoption and the significance of origin in Swedish official rhetoric This article explores how the category of ‘transnational adoptees’ in Sweden is constructed in two Official Government Reports (SOU). The article is inspired by poststructuralist perspectives on welfare and social categorization, and draws from a postcolonial and feminist theoretical framework. ‘Transnational adoptees’ as a category is understood as constituted through discourse, and given meaning in different contexts. In the reports, a fundamental importance is attached to the fact that individuals with a background as transnationally adopted have been separated from their birth family and country of birth. It is argued that mental problems and a split identity are consequences to be expected from the separation. (Re)connection to the origin is therefore considered to be crucial for the well-being of the group. The article concludes that this line of reasoning is based on a specific logic of blood and roots, in which ‘transnational adoptees’ are understood as belonging to their countries of birth, rather than Sweden. The logic of blood and roots can be read as a form of racialized othering, but also as a discursive exclusion of ‘transnational adoptees’ from Sweden as an imagined, national community.

Nationella minoriteter i historieundervisningen : bilder av romer i Utbildningsradions program under perioden 1975-2013

In 2000 when Sweden signed the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities the Roma minority became one of the acknowledged national minorities in the country. It meant that the rights of the Roma mi-nority would be safeguarded and the knowledge of its history and culture would be spread. In that context, the Swedish school, with its founded as-signment of democracy, was given an important role. The education was to communicate the multicultural values of the society and to make visible the history and culture of the Roma minority. The school books used in teaching today do not meet these demands. The view of the Roma minority given in school books is often inadequate and simplified. The present study will therefore examine a different type of edu-cational material used in schools and teaching, The Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company‟s programs of history and social studies regarding the Roma minority. Starting in postcolonial theory as well as critical dis-course analysis the study examines how the picture of the Roma cultural and ethnic identity in the Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company‟s material has been displayed and possibly changed during the period of 1975 to 2013. The results show a picture of Roma which, both in form and content, con-sists of some clearly demarcated discursive categories. The obvious continui-ty of the categories gives a picture of static and invariable Roma identity. At the same time this unambiguous picture is broken both by giving the existing discourses new meaning and also adding new discourses. The complexity and nuances become more prominent and the Roma identity is integrated in common Swedish history telling. The changes in the view of Roma, given by the Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company, can mainly be explained by the change of the Swedish immigration and minority policy and, as a conse-quence of this, the change of the school‟s mission regarding knowledge communication of Sweden as a multicultural country.

Étude critique sur le rôle de la femme dans Les Soleils des indépendances d’Ahmadou Kourouma

Sur la base des travaux de Simone de Beauvoir Deuxième sexe I et Deuxième sexe II, et d’autres articles importants, une analyse sur la condition et la conception des femmes dans Les Soleils des indépendances a été effectuée dans le but d’étudier l’image de la femme postcoloniale africaine en général, et ivoirienne en particulier comparativement à celle d’avant l’indépendance. En examinant les conditions de la femme dans Les Soleils des indépendances d’Ahmadou Kourouma nous nous sommes retrouvés confrontés à certaines idées telles que la soumission, la société patriarcale, la femme traditionnelle, la femme moderne, la liberté, la femme comme mère mais aussi comme objet et victime des atrocités liées aux coutumes et traditions. Malgré l’accession de la Côte d’Ivoire à l’indépendance cette condition n’a pas été améliorée, et c’est ce que l’auteur dénonce indirectement et peut-être inconsciemment.