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Häggblom, Charlotta. (2006). Young EFL-pupils
reading multicultural children’s fiction: An ethnographic
case study in a Swedish language primary school in Finland.
Åbo, Finland: Åbo Akedemis Förlag, Åbo
Akademi University Press.
Pp. i + 324 ISBN 951-765-326-3 |
Reviewed by Liv Thorstensson
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
August 20, 2007
Charlotta Häggblom’s book, Young EFL-pupils reading multicultural children’s fiction: An ethnographic case study in a Swedish language primary school in Finland, centers around the following questions: 1) What issues arise when authentic reading material is introduced into the EFL classroom?; and 2) What is the impact on children’s understanding of cultural diversity, and what issues are involved when incorporating a multicultural dimension and using multicultural children’s fiction in EFL teaching?
As Häggblom suggests, this research addresses the lack of scholarly work on foreign language reading and multicultural awareness, as well as the dearth of research of these topics among primary school foreign language learners.
Finland provides an interesting case study of a relatively racially and ethnically homogeneous country experiencing demographic change. “Visible minorities” in Finland are a relatively new, as a country with a small but growing population of immigrants and refugees from Russia, Estonia, Sweden, the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Germany, Iran, Thailand, the UK and China (Tilastokeskus, 2004). However, Häggblom writes that the general attitude of Finns toward immigrants and refugees is one of intolerance and these groups face racial and ethnic discrimination in the workplace, and in daily life.
Government agencies are responding to both the needs of immigrants and refugees and the reticence among Finns in a number of ways. For instance, as a member of the European Union, Finland is required to include a European and multicultural dimension in the Finnish National Curriculum (Utbildningsstyrelsen, 1994, 2004), which has the secondary effect of promoting tolerance in public school Finnish students toward immigrant and refugee populations.
Part I of the book provides the background and methodological considerations for the study, as well as issues in EFL literacy related to the use of authentic texts, including EFL reading, writing and literacy support, group work around text, and responding to content.
Part II addresses multicultural dimensions of EFL and the use of multicultural texts, focusing on issues raised in the classroom and the potential of books for raising multicultural awareness. Specific topics include culture and reading in language teaching, multicultural and antiracist aspects, and teaching perspectives on cultural and multicultural issues.
Häggblom draws her findings from an ethnographic case study she conducted among a year six primary school EFL class consisting of students aged 11-12 in which she was both a teacher and researcher. The study took place at a Swedish minority language school in Turku/Åbo, Finland. An important characteristic of the students in this study is that they themselves are part of a Swedish language minority in Finland, which comprises 5.6% of Finland’s total population. The students had little prior contact with ethnic or racial minorities and were new to reading multicultural literature.
The multicultural reading project, which served as the source of Häggblom’s data collection, took place between August and November, 2000. Students selected from a number of authentic, or unabridged storybooks that centered around the experiences of immigrant and refugee communities in the United Kingdom. As such, the books addressed a variety of topics including racial and cultural diversity, racism and ethnocentrism. Students engaged in class discussions, and kept diaries and vocabulary logs throughout their reading.
Häggblom’s data sources included a field diary, video recordings with children after they had finished reading their books, video recordings of children doing independent work, reading conferences, and the children’s reading diaries.
Although Häggblom overtly acknowledges variables that might compromise the validity and reliability of her findings as a teacher-researcher, her findings and subsequent analyses would likely have been different had she worked with another class. Students may, for instance, have felt pressured to respond a certain way to her queries, and subjectivity may have entered into her analyses of student responses. What is also absent and important to subsequent data analyses is background on the students in this study. For instance, what were students’ socioeconomic backgrounds? What level of education had their parents attained? What were their parents’ attitudes towards immigrants and refugees in Finland? One student in the study was from Denmark. Had others traveled outside of Finland? Answers to these questions may have impacted students’ responses to the texts they read. I also question Häggblom’s length of time “in the field,” and believe that more extensive fieldwork over a longer time period would have yielded more substantial findings.
In the final chapter, Häggblom outlines several implications of her findings for students, teachers and administrators. She concludes that the use of authentic texts in promoting EFL literacy requires reading support and careful consideration of teaching approaches, including the merits of individual versus group work. It also requires consideration of how students might best respond to content, for example, through scaffolding, re-telling, oral or written evaluations of texts, while also monitoring teacher expectations given primary school students’ levels of cognitive development.
Häggblom then considers multicultural dimensions in teaching, including types of multicultural pedagogy relevant to different school settings, and the teaching of culture to monocultural student groups. She also calls for more extensive research on Finland’s progress with regard to teaching multicultural values in schooling. She then suggests elements necessary for discussion of multicultural texts including teaching approaches, and a supportive classroom environment. Although not the focus of her research, Häggblom also briefly considers the challenges of developing and teaching cultural sensitivity in white, majority culture teachers.
In summary, Häggblom’s findings suggest that individualized teaching that provides adequate scaffolding allows young EFL students to read and enjoy longer, authentic texts in the target language. Secondly, it is possible for these students to engage with issues of cultural diversity even when the situation described is beyond their experience.
In spite of a few methodological shortcomings, Häggblom’s work sheds new light on using multicultural texts with young second and foreign language learners as well as on the use of multicultural texts with EFL students in Finland, a country experiencing new growth in its immigrant and refugee populations, and paralleled intolerance of demographic change among many Finns. The book reads well and is well organized, and offers and extensive literature review on literacy and teaching through multicultural texts. Of particular worth is the inclusion of students’ voices, which highlighted both their language learning and understanding of cultural diversity in response to the texts they read. That her participants were Swedish language minorities offers a unique perspective on the use of multicultural texts among students who are themselves members of a minority.
This work will be of interest to second and foreign language teachers, school administrators and teacher educators, and lends itself to comparative studies of EFL students in other countries experiencing relatively new demographic change.
In the end, Young EFL-pupils Reading Multicultural Children’s Fiction is an empirically grounded, well-researched and well-written work that should stimulate and contribute to serious conversation about public education in societies in transition.
References
Tilastokeskus (2004). Ulkomaalaiset ja siirtolaisuus 2003. Foreigners and international migration(Väestö 2004:6). Helsinki: Tilastokeskus.
Utbildningsstyrelsen (1994). Grundernaför grundskolans läroplan 1994. Helsingfors: Utbildningsstyrelsen.
Utbildningsstyrelsen (2004). Grunderna för den grundläggande utbildningen 2004 (Föreskrift 1/011/2004, Föreskrift 2/011/2004, Föreskrift 3/011/2004). Helsingfors: Utbildningsstyrelsen.
About the Reviewer
Liv Thorstensson is a doctoral student of Education at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill whose scholarly interests include second and foreign language pedagogy, immigration and education, and comparative education. She has worked for several years as a English as a Second/Foreign language and French teacher and teacher educator in the U.S., Sweden and Brazil.