Using critical pedagogy in the teaching of English in Sweden as an approach to highlighting xenophobia

Abstract: The aim of this essay is to contribute to the field of research for language teachers in order to raise the awareness of the Education Act concerning the fundamental values which enforce an equal education for every student. Research made by the National Agency for Education presents results were the fundamental values are not incorporated satisfactorily into the daily teaching but rather dealt with separately as a deviation from the ordinary teaching which is not the intention of the Act. This issue has been the inspiration for this study where the format of an essay has been the channel to investigate how the aims of fundamental values together with the syllabus can be achieved through each other without compromises. The material presented in this essay has been selected to suit the needs of the courses English 5, 6 and 7. With the focus to highlight xenophobia and confront racist opinions with knowledge and discussion, a case that caused attention in both Swedish and international media has been chosen due to the heated debate about immigration and segregation that followed. The event was a riot called ‘Stockholm riots’ which caused an unrest that lasted more than a week in the end of May 2013. The data has been analysed through the lens of critical pedagogy which aims to expose social inequality and with multimodality as an approach for considering the whole ensemble of mediums utilized to construct a message, using international media TV-channels and news articles to understand the international depiction of the events. Due to the scope of the study, only excerpts of the analysis is displayed to exemplify how teachers can break down a story/issue to be implicated in the classroom, looking at how immigrants are portrayed in this controversial issue.