Views of EFL Instructors and Learners on Political Compounds in EFL Textbooks

Dincay Koksal *, Omer Gokhan Ulum **
* Department of English Language Teaching, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkey.
** Department of English Language Teaching, Mersin University, Turkey.
Periodicity:January - March'2020
DOI : https://doi.org/10.26634/jelt.10.1.16573

Abstract

Language ideologies are the practices of culturally, socially, and historically shaped views, images, and attitudes toward language. The political characteristic of English is certainly a sort of cultural hegemony, embodying the use of the target language into experiences, interpretations, and reciprocally confirmed assumptions. This study aims to discover the views of Turkish students and teachers on the inclusion of political compounds in English as Foreign Language (EFL) textbooks. One who studies phenomenological issues may inquire how an experience is like for those who experience it. Accordingly, this study is based on a phenomenological research design which supplies consciousness of phenomenon or facts by making individuals get closer to the world around. The results of the study show that users of the related textbooks bear negative views on the representation of political issues in both global and local EFL textbooks. Further, textbook users need to be involved in the preparation of curriculum and have the freedom and right to express their ideas on the content of textbooks and curriculum. Thus, teachers, lecturers and policy makers should develop new policies on the representation of political topics in both EFL and ESL settings.

Keywords

Culture, Language, Ideology, Politics, EFL.

How to Cite this Article?

Koksal, D., and Ulum, O. G. (2020). Views of EFL Instructors and Learners on Political Compounds in EFL Textbooks. i-manager's Journal on English Language Teaching, 10(1), 45-56. https://doi.org/10.26634/jelt.10.1.16573

References

[1]. Alford, J. R., Funk, C. L., & Hibbing, J. R. (2005). Are political orientations genetically transmitted? American Political Science Review, 99(2), 153–167. https://doi.org/ 10.1017/S0003055405051579
[2]. Altemeyer, R. A. (1998). The other ''authoritarian personality”. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 30, 47–91. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60382-2
[3]. Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). Discourse in the novel. In M. Holquist (Ed.). The Dialogic Imagination (pp. 259-422). Austin: University of Texas Press.
[4]. Beck, P. A. (1992). Party Politics in America (8 ed.) New York: Harper Collins.
[5]. Bensimon, E. M. (1995). Total quality management in the academy: A rebellious reading. Harvard Educational Review, 65(4), 593-612.
[6]. Bobbio, N. (1996). Left and Right: The Significance of a Political Distinction. University of Chicago Press.
[7]. Britzman, D. P. (1991). Practice Makes Practice: A Critical Study of Learning to Teach. New York: State University of New York Press.
[8]. Bunderson, J. S., Van Der Vegt, G. S., Cantimur, Y., & Rink, F. (2016). Different views of hierarchy and why they matter: hierarchy as inequality or as cascading influence. Academy of Management Journal, 59(4), 1265-1289. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2014.0601
[9]. Butler, J. (2003). Judith Butler. In G. A. Olsen, & L. Worsham (Eds.), Critical Intellectuals on Writing (pp. 42–52). Albany: State University of New York Press.
[10]. Carney, D. R., Jost, J. T., Gosling, S. D., & Potter, J. (2008). The secret lives of liberals and conservatives: Personality profiles, interaction styles, and the things they have behind. Political Psychology, 29(6), 807-840.
[11]. Carrier, P. (2018). The nation, nationhood, and nationalism in textbook research from 1951 to 2017. In E. Fuchs, & A. Bock(Eds.). The Palgrave Handbook of Textbook Studies (pp. 181-198). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53142-1
[12]. Carsey, Thomas M., & Geoffrey C. Layman. (2006). Changing sides or changing minds? Party identification and policy preferences in the American electorate. American Journal of Political Science, 50(2), 464–77.
[13]. Conover, P. J., & Feldman, S. (1981). The origin and meaning of liberal/conservative self-identification. American Journal of Political Science, 25, 617–645.
[14]. Converse, P. E. (2006). Democratic theory and electoral reality. Critical Review. 18(1-3), 75–104. https:// doi.org/10.1080/08913810608443662
[15]. Denzau, A. D., & North, D. C. (2000). Shared mental models: Ideologies and institutions. Elements of Reason, 23-67.
[16]. Duckitt J. (2001). A cognitive-motivational theory of ideology and prejudice. In M. P. Zana (Ed.). Advances in Experimental Social Psychology vol. 33, (pp. 41–113). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
[17]. Erikson, R. S., & Tedin, K. L. (2015). American Public Opinion: Its Origins, Content and Impact. London, New York: Routledge.
[18]. Fairclough, N. (2013). Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language (2nd ed.). London, New York: Routledge.
[19]. Farrokhi, F., & Mahmoudi-Hamidabad, A. (2012). Rethinking convenience sampling: Defining quality criteria. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2(4), 784-792. https://doi.org/10.4304/tpls.2.4.784-792
[20]. Feldman, S. (2003). Values, ideology, and the structure of political attitudes. In D. O. Sears, L. Huddy, & R. Jervis (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology (pp. 477-508). New York: Oxford University Press.
[21]. Feldman, S., & Johnston, C. (2014). Understanding the determinants of political ideology: Implications of structural complexity. Political Psychology, 35(3), 337-358.
[22]. Foucault, M. (1980). Truth and power. In C. Gordon (Ed.), Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977 (pp. 109-133). New York: Pantheon Books.
[23]. Fuchs, D. & Klingemann, H. D. (1990). The left-right schema. In MK. Jennings, & JW. van Deth (Ed.). In Continuities in Political Action: A Longitudinal Study of Political Orientations in Three Western Democracies (pp. 203–34). Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter
[24]. Giroux, H. A. (2011). On Critical Pedagogy (1 ed.). USA: Bloomsbury Publishing.
[25]. Giroux, H. (2018). Pedagogy and the Politics of Hope: Theory, Culture, and Schooling: A Critical Reader. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429498428
[26]. Greenberg, J. & Jonas, E. (2003). Psychological motives and political orientation—the left, the right, and the rigid. Psychol Bull, 129(3), 376–382. https://doi.org/10.1037/ 0033-2909.129.3.376
[27]. Habermas, J. (2018). The New Conservatism: Cultural Criticism and the Historian's Debate. John Wiley & Sons.
[28]. Hayton, R. (2016). Constructing a new conservatism? Ideology and values. In G. Pecle, & J. Francis (Eds.). Conservative Renewal: The Limits of Modernisation (41-57). UK: Manchester University Press.
[29]. Huang, S. Y. (2009). Global English and EFL learners: Implications for critical pedagogy. The Journal of Asia TEFL, 6(3), 327-350.
[30]. Jost, J. T. (2006). The end of the end of ideology. American Psychologist, 61(7), 651–670. https://doi.org/10. 1037/0003-066X.61.7.651
[31]. Jost, J. T., Federico, C. M., & Napier, J. L. (2009). Political ideology: Its structure, functions, and elective affinities. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 307-337. https:// doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163600
[32]. Jost, J. T., Nosek, B. A., & Gosling, S. D. (2008). Ideology: Its resurgence in social, personality, and political psychology. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(2), 126-136. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6916.2008.0007 0.x
[33]. Jost, J. T., Glaser, J., Kruglanski, A. W., & Sulloway, F. (2003). Political conservatism as motivated social cognition. Psychological Bulletin, 129(3), 339–375. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.129.3.339
[34]. Karakas, A. (2019). An analysis of the high school english curriculum in Turkey from an Elf perspective. imanager's Journal on English Language Teaching, 9(2), 1- 10. https://doi.org/10.26634/jelt.9.2.15512
[35]. Kincheloe, J. L., & McLaren, P. (2002). Rethinking critical theory and qualitative research. In Y. Zou, & E. T. Truba (Eds.). Ethnography and Schools: Qualitative Approaches to the Study of Education (pp. 87-138). USA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1007/ 978-94-6091-397-6_23
[36]. Leonard, P., & McLaren, P. (2002). Paulo Freire: A Critical Encounter. Routledge.
[37]. Levno, A. W., & Pfister, G. G. (1980). An analysis of surface culture and its manner of presentation in first‐year college French textbooks from 1972 to 1978. Foreign Language Annals, 13(1), 47-52. https://doi.org/10.1111/j. 1944-9720.1980.tb00740.x
[38]. Marsh, A. (2016). Political Action in Europe and the USA. Springer.
[39]. McLaren, P. L. (1988). On ideology and education: Critical pedagogy and the politics of empowerment. Social Text (19/20), 153-185. https://doi.org/10.2307/ 466183
[40]. McLaren, P. (2015). Life in Schools: An introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of Education. Routledge.
[41]. Mendoza, S. (2019). Bilingual education: Segmented assimilation or selective acculturation. i-manager's Journal on English Language Teaching, 9(3), 1-5. https://doi.org/10.26634/jelt.9.3.14997
[42]. Motyl, M. (2016). Liberals and conservatives are (geographically) dividing. Social Psychology of Political Polarization, 7-37. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315644 387-2
[43]. Nisbet, R. (2017). Conservatism: Dream and Reality. Routledge.
[44]. Norton, B., & Toohey, K. (2004). Critical Pedagogies and Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[45]. Pennycook, A. (1998). English and the Discourse of Colonialism. London, New York: Routledge.
[46]. Rathbun, B. C. (2007). Hierarchy and community at home and abroad: evidence of a common structure of domestic and foreign policy beliefs in American elites. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 51(3), 379-407. https:// doi.org/10.1177/0022002707300842
[47]. Reagan, T. (2005). Critical Questions, Critical Perspectives: Language and the Second Language Educator. Greenwich, Connecticut: IAP.
[48]. Rosenberg, A. (2018). Philosophy of Social Science. Routledge.
[49]. Rosenberg, M. (1956). Misanthropy and political ideology. American Sociological Review, 21(6), 690-695. https://doi.org/10.2307/2088419
[50]. Seargeant, P. (2008). Language, ideology, and 'English within a globalized context'. World Englishes, 27(2), 217–232.
[51]. Sharp, R. (2017). Knowledge, Ideology and the Politics of Schooling: Towards a Marxist Analysis of Education. Routledge.
[52]. Shook, N. J., & Fazio, R. H. (2009). Political ideology, exploration of novel stimuli, and attitude formation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(4), 995-998. https:// doi.org 10.1016/j.jesp.2009.04.003
[53]. Sidanius, J. (1978). Intolerance of ambiguity and socio-politico ideology: A multidimensional analysis. European Journal of Social Psychology, 8(2), 215–235. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420080207
[54]. Stevens, S. T., Anglin, S. M., & Jussim, L. (2015). The political self. In F. Guay, D. McInerney, R. Craven, & H. Marsh (Eds.). Self Concept, Motivation and Identity: Under pinning Success with Research and Practice (pp. 57-81). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
[55]. Tollefson, J. W. (2007). Ideology, language varieties, and ELT. In J. Cummins, & C. Davidson (Eds.). International Handbook of Language Teaching (pp. 25-36). Dord recht: Springer
[56]. Tritt, S. M., Peterson, J. B., Page-Gould, E., & Inzlicht, M. (2016). Ideological reactivity: Political conservatism and brain responsivity to emotional and neutral stimuli. Emotion, 16(8), 1172-1185. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000150
[57]. Viereck, P. (2017). Conservatism Revisited: The Revolt Against Ideology. Routledge.
[58]. Webster, D., & Kruglanski, A. (1994). Individual differences in need for cognitive closure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(6), 1049–1062. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.67.6.1049
[59]. Wildavsky, A. (2018). A world of difference: the public philosophies and political behaviors of rival American cultures. In Cultural Analysis 1st ed., (pp. 53-74). New York: Routledge.
If you have access to this article please login to view the article or kindly login to purchase the article

Purchase Instant Access

Single Article

North Americas,UK,
Middle East,Europe
India Rest of world
USD EUR INR USD-ROW
Online 15 15

Options for accessing this content:
  • If you would like institutional access to this content, please recommend the title to your librarian.
    Library Recommendation Form
  • If you already have i-manager's user account: Login above and proceed to purchase the article.
  • New Users: Please register, then proceed to purchase the article.