Addressing cultural diversity in literature education through culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP)

With large-scale migration, nations, communities, and schools find themselves urgently needing to address issues of diversity. For literature education to be culturally responsive, which entails assisting students in navigating diversity and ambiguity, teachers and students need to recognise, utilise and respectfully query the diverse cultures they identify with, encounter or may encounter. To enable such education, I argue that inspiration can be taken from culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP). However, to recontextualise this American pedagogy in a Swedish setting, local contexts must be recognised, with three aspects in particular to be considered. Firstly, CRP focuses in part on race, and Sweden as a society likes to think of itself as ‘colorblind’, which can contribute to teachers feeling uncomfortable with dealing with issues related to race and diversity. Secondly, essentialist views of race and cultures must be avoided. Thirdly, teachers need to offer literature education which acknowledges how aesthetic aspects of literature can result in readers empathising with some people while distancing themselves from others. Literary features such as estrangement can also help us see what we take for granted and open our eyes to what we are blind to.