“Crossing the borders of own culture, stepping on frontiers”: Textbooks and intercultural communication

Abstract

The article presents the results of an analysis of English textbooks used in Sweden and Poland and addresses questions related to their intercultural dimension. The textbooks were subject to content analysis performed with a tool created specifically for this study and providing both qualitative and quantitative data. The findings show some significant differences between textbooks used in the two countries, highlighting the ways Swedish textbooks promote issues related to an intercultural perspective and showing the relative drawbacks of the Polish sample in this respect. The comparative character of the analysis allows for reflection on the role of textbooks in crossing intercultural borders with regard to teaching particular values in different cultural contexts as well as improvements that might be made in this field. The conclusions resulting from the comparative analysis may prove both useful and inspirational for textbook authors and teachers and, in many ways, innovative in the context of promoting intercultural values in education.