I started thinking about the topic of this post last Thursday, when I read Lindsay Clandfield’s article on course books and the curse of celebrity in the Guardian Weekly online. The article reminded me (because my brain works in chaotic ways) of Scott Thornbury’s Window-dressing vs cross-dressing in the EFL sub-culture, published more than ten years ago, but still relevamt and easily accessible via Scott’s website. And that in turn reminded me of Althusser’s seminal essay Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, which I keep returning to ever since I first read it in my early twenties.
The topic is, of course, the subject-matter of English Language Teaching materials, and more specifically, the ideological content of such materials. Lindsay writes about how international celebrities have permeated the world of ELT course books in the last 20 years or so and makes the valid point that this kind of material does not conform to many educators’ ideas of what education is about; clearly, he is thinking about educators with a more critical attitude to what education should be about, and in fact implies, in his last paragrpah, that he believes education is about thinking critically about the world we live in and making more sense of it. Lindsay is, of course, right: the inclusion of international celebrity culture in teaching materials may be motivating in some contexts, appreciated even, on a superficial level, by many learners, expedient insofar it makes it easy to present and practise language based on a common core of shared (albeit stereotypical) cultural knowledge, but the inclusion of and constant allusion to celebrity culture is also an ideological statement that the course book writers, editors and publishers are not just making but also imposing upon the users of the course book (teachers and students), who may not necessarily consciously subscribe to the underlying ideology.
However, as Scott Thornbury put it 11 years ago, ideology is not just present in the content that is included in course books, but also in the content that is, conspicuously or surreptitiously, excluded from them. Scott’s point is that the total absence of any allusion to GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans) culture in coursebooks is also ideological, especially given the fact that a lot of ELT practitioners, including publishers, authors, teacher educators and teachers, are in fact members of the GLBT community. The forced invisibility of gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans people in ELT materials is still evident 10+ years later, even though GLBT professionals in the ELT world are now a lot more visible, as are GLBT people in general in most of the countries where these materials are used. I am not saying (and nor was Scott) that it is easy to include GLBT role models in ELT materials (although it is clearly easy to include characters that might be GLBT); but I am saying that the reason why most course book content is bland, vapid, uncontroversial is because publishers cannot afford to have absolutely anyone object to their content (there are, for instance, at least two publishers’ guidelines that state the word bacon cannot be included in any ELT material, lest teachers and students in Moslem countries be offended) and, at the end of the day, the educational value of course books is indeed subordinate to their market value, as far as publishers are concerned.
Which brings me back to Althusser’s views on ideology and the ideological apparatuses of the state. In brief, Althusser holds that the reproduction of the relations of production, i.e. the capitalist relations of exploitation, is achieved via the Repressive State Apparatus (the legislature, the police, the army, etc) as well as the Ideological State Apparatuses (communications, culture, religion, school, etc), both of which function both by repression and by ideology. The dominant Ideological State Apparatus is, of course, the educational state apparatus. The ideological manner in which education works to reproduce the given relations of production is, in Althusser’s words, via
an ideology which represents the School as a neutral environment purged of ideology (because it is …lay), where teachers respectful of the ‘conscience’ and ‘freedom’ of the children who are entrusted to them (in complete confidence) by their ‘parents’ (who are free, too, i.e. the owners of their children) open up for them the path to the freedom, morality and responsibility of adults by their own example, by knowledge, literature and their ‘liberating’ virtues.
In this light, the ideological nature of the ELT materials I have been talking about becomes clearer:
- Nothing can be included that could be considered ideologically or culturally sensitive, because ELT materials must appear to be non-ideological; however, the appearance of non-ideologicalness is, in actual fact, merely the perpetuation of the ruling ideology which typically masquerades as a non-ideological norm.
- Content that is included must be harmless; but by “harmless” is meant harmless to the ruling ideology. Thus, the life of David Beckham is perfectly accaptable content; so are Madonna’s charitable acts; so is universally recognised “high culture,” such as Victorian literature or the paintings of the Great Masters. But nothing that is remotely critical of the supposedly non-ideological ruling ideology, whether in terms of discourse (e.g. atheist views) or of action (e.g. gay “families”), can even be alluded to, on the grounds that ELT materials must be neutral, must not take sides!
The practical reasons why non-harmless material simply does not make it to the course books that are published are an excellent illustration of how this particular ideological apparatus, ELT publishing, functions both by ideology and by repression. Publishers will simply censor any material that is culturally or ideologically powerful: this is a repressive mechanism that has been put into place precisely so that the ideological content of ELT materials can be controlled. The market (the people who will consume the books, i.e. directors of studies and teachers with decision-making powers) will reward, and therefore reproduce, these ideological choices precisely because they appear to be non-ideological. Thus, nothing is problematised, the process of reproducing the relations of production continues stronger, and educators are reduced to mere agents of an ideological struggle they may not even be consciously aware of.
May 23rd, 2010 at 10:15 pm
“…at the end of the day, the educational value of course books is indeed subordinate to their market value, as far as publishers are concerned.”
Dear George,
You have made a series of very powerful statements in this post, pretty well damning to the machinery which produces educational ELT material and, hence, regulates the ideologies or lack thereof, which permeate the material with their presence or absence.
I find material produced in this way quite bland myself and recently commented in a similar vein on Lindsay’s guest post on Scott Thornbury’s blog on C for Coursebooks.
“…and educators are reduced to mere agents of an ideological struggle they may not even be consciously aware of.”
I find this a very saddening but true observation; indeed most are not even aware… and thus remain neutral or uncommited or, even possibly indifferent.
This has become all the more of a nagging issue in my mind in recent years, especially with regard to the material we have had to use with our adult refugee classes.
Coursebooks such as Headway and Cutting Edge or even the newer Face to Face (published by three major British publishers respectively: OUP, Pearson and CUP) all exhibit the ideologican mindsets of a western society which to my refugees from Afghanistan is as alien as theirs might appear to the west – but the power is not in their hands, of course.
And so teachers have to spend time on the Beckams of this world and a western and very UK focused life-style of clean cut, healthy and affluent happy people, none of whom had to travel in the hull of a boat packed like a rat for two weeks in order to be treated as something less than human.
May 24th, 2010 at 1:07 am
Dear George,
Excellent post!!!
I thouroughly enjoyed “…the appearance of non-ideologicalness is, in actual fact, merely the perpetuation of the ruling ideology which typically masquerades as a non-ideological norm.”
This prevailing non-ideology is what governs our way of life, indeed. It can, also, be seen in the classroom, where teachers are “required” not to rock the boat and deviate from the norm. Topics ought to be superficial, yet approached solemnly, in a surrealistic manifestation of pure pretention. Mr. Bunuel would be really proud of most teachers as well as teacher trainers today.
However, I do feel VIPs should be used in classrooms. I have seen some of the most inventive, imaginary use of language when reading sarcastic, let alone disparaging, articles on well-known celebs and their sheer lack of cultural impact.
I do accept the fact that publishers wish to keep their sales rate as high as possible and that is why they actually publish coursebooks with “harmless to the ruling ideology” content. The question is why do teachers use them while claiming they are useless?
May 24th, 2010 at 7:15 am
Hello, George.
A very interesting post – though a little too “left” for my liking.
Just for background – I teach EFL to elementary school kids in Taiwan, but I’ve taught elsewhere, including ESL in Australia (my home).
Here are some random thoughts which your article brought to my mind:
- GLBT doesn’t appear in school textbooks generally, let alone ESL ones, so you can’t single out individual publishers without targeting those that produce texts for other school subjects as well.
- I’m not convinced there is a place for discussing GLBT in elementary school. In fact, sex education is not offered in many places until later, let alone it’s various forms. You have to consider age appropriateness here.
- I doubt if religious schools or religious-based countries would buy such texts if GLBT or other “sensitive” subjects were included. Publishers are businesses – their motivation is making money, not ensuring the inclusion of every shade of viewpoint (though, admittedly, they play it safe in the centre).
- If you are going to include GLBT why stop there? What about different political and religious ideologies? What about indigenous perspectives and culture? What about texts on people with physical or mental disabilities? My point is that there is just not enough room in the curriculum to include everyone and everything. Perhaps some features on people doing some good in the world (e.g. helping the poor, raising environmental awareness, making breakthroughs in various fields) could counterbalance the movie and pop stars.
- I think what is more important than slavishly following celebrities or “cleaner than thou” models, is to ask (a) what do students NEED when they come to an English-speaking country or interact with English speakers, and (b) what is useful for them to learn.
As an aside, I would like to agree with Marisa about the selection of texts. I have had to teach in Australia using Headway and Cutting Edge, which was difficult because I didn’t always know the people they were talking about, why they were chosen, etc. I couldn’t relate it to my Australian lifestyle at all. Unfortunately, we are slow at developing our own alternatives that are packaged in such a way as to make them valuable to ESL schools.
Finally, at the end of the day, a good teacher will use a variety of resources (print, multi-media, on-line, their own experiences, etc) in assisting learners, and will not restrict themselves to just the text as their only source of content.
Thanks for reminding me of the need to bring critical analysis to my work in the classroom.
Greg.
May 24th, 2010 at 10:30 am
Hi, George!
Great post which has already ignited an interesting conversation! Here’s my contribution:
In my early years of teaching I had to comply with a long list of rules and regulations of the language school where I was working. Among them there was one which the school owner particularly favoured: “under no circumstances should religion, politics or sex be discussed in class”. Needless to say, my students and I always took the risk and found ways to break it and have interesting discussions on the very issues.
The publishers, like the school owner in my example, seem to favour the same rule and in their effort to sell they avoid GLBT, bacon and anything else that might not be “politically correct”. The teachers, though, who are in close contact with a particular group of people, in a specific part of the world can easily use the photo of the happy Beckams, for instance, to discuss and/or criticize contemporary life-style, compare family models etc., or the pictures of food in the coursebook can lead to discussions on dietary habits of people around the world.
As far as I’m concerned learning a language goes hand in hand with learning the culture of the people who speak it. Therefore the photo of the Beckams or the Obamas doesn’t bother me. On the contrary, it gives me the opportunity to have very interesting conversations with my students who are informed enough to compare these celebrities to the local ones and express their views in favour or against them.
In other words, any sort of ideology in any kind of ELT material doesn’t have to be supported by the teacher – in most cases it’s not the teacher who chooses the material he/she teaches anyway! Anyway it’s the teacher’s critical thinking that can make the difference so the key here is a well-trained and informed teacher, isn’t it?
Ansa
May 24th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
I have only one comment at the moment, to all this Politically correct Bullshit. When did we stop being able ‘to call a spade a spade’as my dad would say. Will formulate my thoughts more and be back.
May 27th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Well, it looks like some well-informed and balanced discussion there from Heidi.
Glad I was’nt holding my breath for her thoughts.
July 11th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
George,
Please blog more, so that I might finish downloading your brain.
Yours most seriously,
Jonathan
July 18th, 2010 at 12:03 am
My sincere apologies to all for not replying to your comments earlier – it is not that I did not read, appreciate and value them, but simply that it has been an incredibly busy couple of months at work, which almost made me decide to abandon this blog. I also felt that it would have been unfair to have just said “thank you for your comment” without doing justice to the points that many of you raise and I really did not think I had time for more than that!
Anyway, having returned to the blog today, and having decided to … resurrect it, I thought I might as well, even after so long, address some of your comments.
Dearest Marisa,
First of all, kudos to you and the teachers at CELT Athens for the work you are doing with the refugees! I think the only thing I have to say is that the issue of the use of these “international” materials with groups such as the refugees at CELT Athens needs to be explored and discussed much more extensively. How about a joint blogpost some time soon?
Alexander,
With you I feel slightly less guilty as you, too, seem to have abandoned your ELT Ponderings! I like your idea of a “critical reading” (i.e. mockery) of the celebrity content! And I, too, find that a lot of the discourse that takes place in the EL teaching (and, often, training) classroom is indeed typical of the surrealist comedy genre!
As for the teachers who continue to use these materials, this is a discussion that deserves another, rather long I suspect, blog post, but it does, I think, have to do on the one hand with the way ideology interpellates us, as Althusser would put it, turning us into a lumpen ideological proletariat and on the other with the actual material conditions of production that have de facto turned us into a suppressed proletariat.
Dear Greg
Welcome (even if I’m two months late in saying so)! It is indeed left, I do not think it could be any other way.
I just wanted to clarify that I am neither saying ELT is the only area where content decisions are deeply ideological nor am I saying that I would not advocate more inclusive content in general. With regard to LGBT though, the mere fact that we are talking about the invisibility of one in ten people, quite a few of whom may be dejected young students in our classes, makes their inclusion, even as mere allusions, more urgent than the inclusion of indigenous cultures.
Dearest Ansa
I’m sure you would have found ways to be more inclusive and more critical in your own teaching and I agree that a critical attitude on the teacher’s part may be the only solution. I am just worried that many of us may not feel confident enough or competent enough to step outside our ideological role.
Dear Heidi
I have no idea what spades we are not calling spades here and I do not know what the politically correct bullshit you refer to is. Unfortunately, you never came back to clarify. Hoping you will. Unlike Greg, I must say I have been holding my breath … a little!
Dear Jonathan
Request granted. Let me know when you’ve downloaded all of it (there isn’t much left), so I can retire!
November 25th, 2011 at 8:44 am
I learned lot of ideas here, Just to clear my side I agree on involving GLBT community to be part of English Language Teaching.