Cultural representations: culture and teaching materials

Summary of the texts: The Holiday readings cover issues of identity and Othering in cultural representations of groups. Taylor-Mendes’ article examined how different races are represented in textbook images.

Primary colored crew necks and generic jeans come to mind whenever I think of textbook images. Usually a group of white kids with one black guy and possibly an Asian to keep things politically correct. I never noticed the class divide associated with race until it was brought up in Mendes’ article. (Looking back, I see she makes a good point) I have never seen an EFL textbook, but many of Mendes’ claims hold true for my own textbook experience—especially my language books. The article stated that race is split by continent in textbooks. This has been true in my own experience. I remember learning about difference cultures in some of my second language classes, but there were only seven or eight ‘cultures’ that we studied. African, South America, Asian, and Europe were their own collective generalized cultures. I was just trying to learn Spanish at the time, so I didn’t consider the inaccuracy of the photographs and illustrations in the book. The textbook publishers probably wanted to simplify more complex concepts in order to make the learning easier rather than purposely propagating an essentialist ideal. Regardless of intentionality, it seems that solidifying an essentialist worldview is the implicit effect of many textbooks. Each group is divided into their own group with their own people, traditions, food, and language and the differences that make each of these groups infinitely complex in themselves are ignored. Americans eat hamburgers, Asians eat sushi, Latinos eat tacos and wear sombreros. There is little divergence from basic cultural stereotypes. Mendes said it well when she said that, “this kind of world has never existed” (76).

I find it funny that many of the photographs of different cultures in textbook are taken at event celebrating heritage. (A parade, tradition dance, etc.) It would be like taking pictures at a medieval fair and putting those pictures in a textbook in the section on England. While celebrating one’s heritage is good, it never represents an entire culture and often represents a culture that only exists in the past. Despite this, these are the types of pictures that textbooks use to portray and represent different cultures.

The first discussion question in the Mendes article is really compelling. It asks, “What does an English speaker look like?” The image that comes to my mind first is a picture of a white male which I believe is consist with the images in most textbooks. In reality, white males are a minority if all the speakers of English in the world are to be considered. Whites in generally are probably a minority given the rise of English as a lingua franca and the prevalence of English in former British colonies. It would be more accurate to have someone from Indian descent portrayed as an English speaker in a textbook, but this probably will not happen in the near future. There are probably multiple reasons why whites are portrayed as the archetypical anglophones. (Not to mention that it is a Germanic language, and it is hard to get whiter than that) However, I think a major reason is the power relations between race in America. I think the identity narratives that we read a month or so ago are evidence of this.