Memoire Online - Globality in the global textbook: principles and applicability

In order to cease the opportunity that comparison of results provide when studying representation, the image of Whites, Blacks, Asians, and diverse characters (which is a category adopted by the researcher to encompass the few and different persons found in the content) will be analysed before discussing them.

The analysis of the results show that the white race is the predominant social component in H/I. Numerically, Whites are present in 257 pictures, which means 87% of the total number of pictures compared to Blacks (4%), Asians (3%), and diverse characters (6%)..

Generally, the representation of racial minorities shows bias not only in terms of roles and topics dealt with but even in terms of numbers. Figure 5 illustrates the difference in frequency of mention for racial minorities.

The dominance of Whites could be controversial as it may confirm the claims of Phillipson (1992), Pennycook (1994), and Canagarajah (1999) who contend that global coursebooks are «ethnocentric» in the sense of favouring the white race. Such possible problem may result in resistance of content as shown by Canagrajah (1999). Canagarajah (1999) showed that learners change the dialogues in the coursebook to make them express their local concerns instead of western ones. Such behaviour could show a kind of resistance to foregrounding white man's concerns at the expense of coloured peoples' ones.

To illustrate this dominance in details, Appendix D summarises the results concerning representation of Whites. Figure 6 focuses on the numerical presence of Whites across the units.

As shown in Appendix D, these roles include singer, father, lawyer, clown, businessman, mother, athlete, daughter, and eccentric individual. Such roles cover family life, work, and entertainment.

Considering these results and the findings in Figure 5, the claim of «ethnocentricity» could be confirmed especially, as shown in Figure 5, that Blacks represent only 4%, diverse characters 6% and the Asians 3% of the total number of pictures. Apart from the ideological and imperial reasons, and may be aims, behind this fact, such finding could be also explained by the use of target language culture in H/I. Had the coursebook been locally designed, the

writers would not face harsh criticism as far as representation is concerned. The claim is so as localisation of coursebooks could be advantageous for avoiding interpretations of misrepresentation.

The content analysis shows that Blacks were represented only 13 times in H/I. The numbers for each unit along with the roles and topics related to Blacks are summarised in Appendix E. The focus on the numbers of black people in each unit shows that they are absent in 8 out of the 12 units constituting the whole coursebook. Figure 7 is meant to be stated in order to illustrate the distribution of Blacks across the units.

5







	3 3




2









	0 0 0 0	0 0 0 0

The roles that Blacks occupied in H/I are internet fan and athlete (unit 1), child, passerby, and basketball players (unit 2), teenager (unit 4), boxers and secretary (unit 7), flight attendant (Unit 8), poor child (Unit 8), food provider (unit 8), young man (unit 11). They are characterised by being limited to passive roles or decorative ones compared to the roles assigned for Whites (see Appendix D). This limitation in representation characterises also the topics where Blacks are mentioned. These topics are wonders of the world, Olympic Games, happiness, job, sport, teens, boxing, appointment, winning the lottery, charity, and trainers.

Similarly, the content analysis shows that Asians are represented only in nine pictures in the coursebook, which might legitimates saying that the representation of the Asians is also characterised by reductionism. Appendix F summarises the number, the role, and the

topics related to the Asians in H/I. The partiality characterising the representation of the Asians in this supposedly global coursebook is shown in Figure 8.



2				2		2			2
		0	0		1		0	0		0	0	0
Number of Asians	12 9 6 3 0

The numerical reductionism that characterises the image of Asians (only 9 pictures) was matched by the roles assigned to them, as the limited number of pictures of Asians logically brought about limited kinds of roles assigned for them.

In fact, Asians are depicted to be fulfilling only these roles: celebrity and internet fan (unit 1), businessmen (unit 4), friend (unit 5), student visitor and brother (unit 6), smiling woman and serious man (unit 9), and secretary (unit 11). Such limitation in terms or roles affected also the topics in which the Asians were mentioned, which are: goodwill ambassador, wonders of the world, manners, arranging to meet, student visit, correspondence, kinds of personalities, and jobs.

None of these roles are negative but the problem is that they do not represent Asians in other diverse roles like the prestigious and power jobs assigned to Whites. Such a partiality

and «ethnocentricity» in representation may produce resisting attitudes towards the coursebook as H/I is used across the globe.

Contrary to the Asians, the roles and topics assigned for Whites (see Appendix D) are characterised by diversity because they cover the various situations of life. Some of these roles are family members, workers, business persons, lawyers, athlete, police officers, painters, actors, alcoholic people, thieves, singers, and teenagers. This image certainly encompasses some negative situations (such as alcoholic people and thieves) but «authenticity» and the necessity of familiarising learners with the real world is not this time beaten by positive inclusivity recommendations. This means that the writers found no problem representing men in situations such as thieves, eccentric individuals, and alcoholic people (see Appendix C) probably because there were no predefined guidelines imposing on publishers to represent Men in positive images.

Moreover, other diverse characters have been marginalised in terms of numbers (18 pictures), roles, and topics. As clarified in Chapter Two, the category `diverse characters' refers to Arabs, Muslims, Native Americans, people with health problems, and a man wearing a Scottish kilt. All of these people make up only 6% of the total number of persons in H/I. Being a minority, they were grouped together to constitute a category that shares the fact of being numerically misrepresented.

Indeed, the coursebook encompassed only 18 references to diverse characters. These characters were mentioned to fulfil specific roles in specific topics that are summarised in Appendix G.

Arabs and Muslims were mentioned only as talking, sitting, and when dealing with manners. Such image could, turn, result in learners' resistance and feeling of alienation that

hinders their effective learning. This possible resistance may not be necessarily verbalised as it could figure out in learners' silence (Canagarajah, 1999).

In turn, Native Americans were mentioned only in the context of a folk tale where a character fulfilling the role of a warrior runs away when hearing the voice of a crying baby, whereas, issues pertaining to the historical injustices suffered by the Red Indians are not mentioned. One explanation for this state of affairs could be that the publishers are less sensitive to including Americans appropriately due to the competence of ESL coursebooks in the American market. It could be also that the publishers wanted the coursebook to stay a British book. Another possible interpretation could be publishers' concern in preserving the «hegemony» of «aspirational» (Gray, 2002) issues in the content of global coursebooks.

Additionally, people with health problems were mentioned four times and only in the context of just the possibility of receiving charity. The focus in the instances where this group was mentioned was on the possibility of giving them money if one wins the lottery. None of the problems or pains of people with health problems are discussed seriously and directly in the coursebook. Such decorative representation of this group might deepen their alienation as they cannot find themselves in the content.

Discussing the findings as to representation of minorities, it could be said that the publishers of global coursebooks are enjoying a kind of freedom in representing Men in the content. Such freedom is absent, nontheless, with Blacks or Asians who are not depicted as thieves and alcoholic (see Appendices E and F) so as to possibly evade charges of racism. Nevertheless, racial bias is revealed in the limited numbers and kinds of the roles and topics assigned for non-white minorities.

In fact, Blacks are depicted only as internet fan, athlete, child, passer-by, basketball players, teenager, boxers, secretary, flight attendant, poor child, food provider, smiling child,

and young man. Blacks are never depicted in H/I as, for example, business persons, painters, and writers (see Appendix E), which might provide the learners with the stereotypical idea that Blacks do not fulfil these prestigious roles.

Hence, the «globality» of the coursebook can be questioned if one considers that Blacks constitute an important racial class not only in America and Britain but also around the globe while in H/I they are represented only 13 times compared to Whites represented 257 times. The feminists, in fighting for preserving the positive image of women in coursebooks, imposed guidelines on publishers and claimed that women do not learn effectively when the coursebook is biased against them, which was taken into consideration by publishers, as Gray (2002) claims. By analogy, Blacks may not learn effectively with a biased coursebook. This is the dilemma of the global coursebook; that is, it can not practically cater «appropriately» for a global audience characterised by diversity.

The same conclusions apply to the image of Asians who are depicted in the pictures as celebrity, internet fan, businessmen, friend, student visitor, brother, smiling woman, serious man, and secretary. This limitation in number (9 pictures) as well as in roles and topics (see Appendix F) does not really reflect the reality characterising the use of English around the world. Graddol (2000) argues that Asia, for demographic and commercial reasons, is where the future of English will be decided; therefore marginalising Asians reduces any connection with the desired or pretended «globality».

In conclusion, the attempt of writers to be inclusive as far as the content of the coursebook was found to be partial. Women were shown in diverse situations but the problem lies in the authenticity of the image the writers drew for them at the global level. Racial bias was found to be characterising the representation of different races in terms of numbers, role, as well as topics. Such bias favoured Whites over the other groups (such as

Blacks, Asians, Arabs, Muslims, and Native Americans). Such failure on the part of the publishers to be inclusive and fair in representing the audiences of the global coursebook could be explained by the diversity of the global audiences. This certainly does not suggest that the global diversity is an excuse for the writers to misrepresent people. Instead, this shows the impracticality of perfect representation of globally diverse people. Based on the results found in this study, it could be said that it is impractical to preserve the principle of global inclusivity of various minorities in ELT global coursebooks, which shows that the notion of «global» is vague and unrealisable.

In the following section, the concern will be the extent to which the tendency of the writers of the coursebook to avoid «inappropriate» issues is successful.

In-depth analysis of H/I shows that the PARSNIPs that Gray (2002) mentioned (i.e. issues that are not to be talked about in the global coursebook) are not, in fact, totally avoided. Appendix H demonstrates the existence or absence of controversial topics in the coursebook. Topics that are avoided were assigned the letter «A», topics that are present were marked with the letter «P», and topics that are treated with caution were marked with «TC».

The analysis of the coursebook shows that some controversial topics were avoided, others were tackled with extreme caution, and others were mentioned several times in the material throughout the units.

Globality in the global textbook: principles and applicability

4.1.2. On racial balance