Dannelse og dissonanser: En normativitetskritisk undersøgelse af det danskfaglige curriculums subjektkonstruktioner specielt med henblik på italesættelsen af køn og etnicitet

Translated title of the contribution: Bildung and Dissonance: a Normativity-critical Investigation into the Curriculum of ‘Danish' Especially Concerning the Constructions of Gender and Ethnicity

Mons Bissenbakker Frederiksen

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Abstract

Reading a series of governmental documents issued during the period of 2003-6, this dissertation investigates the constructions of subjectivity and Bildung as they appear in the curriculum of the school subject ‘Danish.' The dissertation asks, How and with what consequences is subjectivity constructed in the curriculum of ‘Danish?' Taking the identity categories gender and ethnicity as its starting points, the analysis poses the three following sub questions: 1) How does the Danish curriculum conceptu­alize and manage ethnic and gender-based identity and difference?, 2) How does the late modern concept of Bildung play into the ways in which gender and eth­nicity are conceptualized in the curriculum?, 3) What is the relationship between the democratic ideals that the curriculum of ‘Danish' understands itself to perpetuate and the ways in which the curriculum conceptualizes the ethnic and gendered identity categories?

The analysis is inspired by poststructuralist theory, specifically Foucauldian power analysis, (queer)feminist gender theory, and postcolonial theories on ethnicity con­struction. These theories are presented in the first section of the dissertation. The first section also contains a presentation of the concepts of Bildung that are dominant within the Danish curriculum. The presentation concentrates particularly on the late modern Bildung concepts: Narrative self construction and competence formation.

The second part of the dissertation contains deconstructive and comparative readings across the Danish curriculum texts. My analyses show that the texts understand gender to be a phenomenon which condition the educational preferences and talents of pupils and teachers. My analyses also show that the curriculum texts generally acknowledge and approve of an ethnically differentiated classroom. At the same time, however, the texts on more levels discursively construct pupils of ethnic minorities as ‘other' to the school subject ‘Danish.'

Reflecting on the analysis results, the third part of the dissertation compares the similarities and differences between the constructions of gender and ethnicity and discusses the relation between these categories, the late modern concept of Bildung, and the democratic ideals. This leads to the conclusion that a conflict exists between on the one hand the curriculum's ideals of equality through demo­cratic inclusion and on the other hand the marginalizing and hierarchy-establishing tendencies within the material. It is shown that the curriculum's use of the late modern Bildung concepts risks supporting these essentializing and marginalizing structures.

Translated title of the contributionBildung and Dissonance: a Normativity-critical Investigation into the Curriculum of ‘Danish' Especially Concerning the Constructions of Gender and Ethnicity
Original languageDanish
Place of PublicationKøbenhavn
PublisherMuseum Tusculanum
Number of pages284
Publication statusPublished - 2008

Keywords

  • Faculty of Humanities
  • Bildung
  • gender
  • ethnicity
  • subjectivity
  • power

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