“Zebra world”: The promotion of imperial stereotypes in a children’s book

Abstract

Learning materials have become significant determinants of quality learning environments for young children. This study presents an example of such learning material in the Finnish context – a children’s book entitled: Bibi muuttaa Suomeen (translated: Bibi Moves to Finland) by Katja Kallio and Maggie Lindholm (2005). The main concern of this article is how the ‘us’ and ‘them’ (Finland vs. Africa) meet or co-exist together in the book, which describes a young girl, Bibi, her life in a ‘traditional’ African village and subsequent move to Finland. The positive intention of the book is to familiarize Finnish children with different cultures and the life of immigrant children. In this study concepts such as ‘Whiteness’, normality and belonging are discussed within a critical approach to intercultural education. The data consist of a focus group interview conducted for student teachers and our own analysis as two experts in the book. The material was analysed with the help of critical discourse analysis and a critical incident approach. The results show that despite good intentions to educate children about immigration and other people in a more positive light, the book serves to maintain the social structure of Finnish society as White, modern and superior to ‘others’ in Africa. It is important that teachers and teacher educators are able to challenge this type of representation of the world and of immigration in children’s books and learning materials.

Keywords

Intercultural education Finland ‘othering’stereotypes racism

Father takes Bibi into his lap and points to a zebra with his finger.

Look at the zebra, my darling. Isn’t it beautiful? It has black and White stripes next to each other. Imagine, if it were only black or White. Just one colour! It wouldn’t be all that extraordinary. The world is like a zebra. (Kallio and Lindholm, 2005, our translation)

Introduction – Bibi Moves to Finland in context

The book under scrutiny in this article starts with the description of an imagined place in Africa called Batuba. In Batuba there is a village where the main character, a five-year-old girl called Bibi, lives with her friend Oba and ‘other village people’. In Batuba, walking barefoot, going on exotic adventures such as climbing trees, playing with insects (grasshoppers) as well as attending traditional festivals and being looked after by others besides biological parents defines the order of the day. When Bibi’s father gets an opportunity to move to Finland for work, Bibi is challenged to leave behind her world as she ventures into an unknown place where ‘everything’ is the opposite of her current reality and wildest expectations.

We chose this book because it has been praised in the media for its good intentions to familiarize Finnish children with immigration and cultural diversity. It is used in kindergartens as multicultural learning material and it is also part of the reading diploma initiative in communal libraries in Finland. This reading diploma project is a collaborative project between communal libraries and public schools to familiarize children with libraries and to motivate them to read. The book is now out of print. With this study, we are proposing that more critical discussion is needed about the kind of material which is appropriate for learning about diversity. As a result of the sudden ‘turbulence of migration’ in Finland in the 1990s (Sakaranaho, 2006: 18), research in the field of multicultural education started in Finland. One of its main objectives was to create more diversity in learning materials (Oikarinen-Jabai, 2011; Rastas, 2005; Talib, 2005). Despite the diverse nature of families and children in Finland, children’s literature, learning materials and media images are still today mainly White, middle class, Eurocentric, and based on the idea of the nuclear family which constructs the ‘normality’ of ‘Finnishness’ for Finnish children (Oikarinen-Jabai, 2011; Souto, 2011; see also Botelho and Rudman, 2009; Bradford, 2009).

The terms intercultural and multicultural education have been widely used in an essentialist sense, referring to the kinds of competencies needed to interact with the others/guests/strangers and to provide practical information about other cultures (Dervin et al., 2011; Phillips, 2007). Bennett and Lee-Treweek (2014) also point out how learning about other cultures has resulted in intercultural education where ‘others’ are tolerated, thus avoiding discussion of racism or ‘Whiteness’ as a norm in predominantly White societies like Finland (Bennett and Lee-Treweek, 2014: 32). Our understanding of education for diversities/intercultural learning is based on the critical turn of the intercultural, as promoted by, for example: Breidenbach and Nyíri (2009); Dervin et al. (2011); Leonardo (2009); Phillips (2007); and Piller (2011). By this we mean education which challenges the structures of normality, power hierarchies and ‘Whiteness’ as taken for granted. Our point of departure for this study is to understand better: (a) the diverse structures for the ‘us’ and ‘others’ binaries; (b) construction of ‘Whiteness’ and normality; (c) the ‘trap’ of ‘good will’ and ‘good intentions’ in complex postmodern societies for children. The terms ‘intercultural’ and ‘multicultural’ appear interchangeably in research, both describing the very vague idea of people from different cultural backgrounds living and interacting with each other (Abdallah-Pretceille, 2006). The focus of this paper is to discuss the meanings of the learning material. We thus decided to leave the interpretations of these buzzwords to the reader. We use both terms as they appear in our data without further definition.

Our aim is to raise awareness of the possible backlashes of intercultural and multicultural learning material, namely the promotion of stereotypes of racial differences. The book under scrutiny discusses race as well as immigration, and we wanted to test how student teachers perceive it. Is there a possibility that educational material and the learning environment, which is claimed to support intercultural learning, can actually strengthen the stereotypical gap between ‘us’ and ‘others’? In the next section we explain in more detail the theoretical framework of our critical perspective on intercultural education.

The trap of good will and binary opposites in education

In this more critical view of the ‘intercultural’ in education, the recognition of imperial power, ‘Whiteness’, and marked (visible) and unmarked (structures creating injustices) and global hegemony becomes important (Fujikawa, 2008). By this we mean that we need to recognize the powers and processes that naturalize local perspectives and how the idea of western versus the ‘others’ has been constructed (Andreotti, 2011; Pratt, 2008). Freire (1970) states that problematizing education is not about expressing and teaching about one’s own worldview, but about setting up a dialogue where different worldviews are presented and discussed. We believe that this was the original purpose of this book, but a critical question is: does it consider how ‘Whiteness’ often equates to normality in western societies (Bennett and Lee-Treweek, 2014; Dyer, 1997; Mignolo, 2009)? Furthermore, this is the point where intercultural education may fall into the trap of creating more sense of ‘otherness’ among some children, instead of creating a learning environment where narratives are discussed against counter narratives (Gorski, 2008). If we look at the pedagogical processes for intercultural learning or for setting up the ‘trap of good will’, Spivak’s critique of western knowledge production becomes important (see Andreotti, 2011). Books, learning materials and children’s programmes on television play a crucial role in how children construct images and representations of the world around them (Botelho and Rudman, 2009).

So-called ‘others’ are often considered to be biologically inferior, visibly different or different by virtue of other perceptible traits (Griffin and Braidotti, 2009: 226). Such ideology is still visible and is recycled in the media as well as in children’s literature produced around the world (van Dijk, 1992, 2000). Terms such as ‘Whiteness’ in relation to ‘normality’ are highly relevant in the Finnish context and we find it important that prevailing stereotypes such as ‘the African immigrant’ and ‘the White Finn’ are challenged and discussed in the context of intercultural education. The increase of ethnic diversity has been recognized by the Finnish education system. Riitaoja (2013) suggests that ‘multicultural education’ in Finland refers to a pedagogy of integrating ‘immigrant’ children into the Finnish school system. But what are the dangers of such integration pedagogy? What kind of role does multicultural learning material, such as the story of Bibi, play in this context? This becomes relevant for our analysis of Bibi Moves to Finland because the book presents a black girl from Africa moving to Finland, and discusses issues of race.

Whiteness studies, in the field of education, consider the nature of privilege and superior positionings in our society (Preston, 2007). This is similar to our critique of what we define as good learning material in today’s Finnish society. Dyer (1997: 1) argues that ‘as long as race is something only applied to non-White peoples, as long as White people are not racially seen and named, they/we function as a human norm. Other people are raced, we are just people’. This traditional perspective of Whiteness studies is interesting in the European context, where Whiteness is often disregarded as a race and ethnicity is considered a more politically correct term than the race. For example, Bennett and Lee-Treweek (2014) examined how race is constructed in some British secondary schools. Their findings show that anti-racist education/acts in schools are handled by silence and thus, by default, not considered as important (Bennett and Lee-Treweek, 2014: 42).

Discourse on race is not only the underlying setting for the story; race is also brought up explicitly as an issue in certain dialogues in the book. It is important to note again that Finland, like any nation, has always been multicultural if one considers its different identifications such as gender, sexuality, religion, income/class, etc. Also, within the last two centuries the superiority of the White man has been problematized (specifically in the field of postcolonial studies), addressed and in some cases even reversed (see Orientalism vs. Occidentalism, Said, 1995; Lary, 2006). Nevertheless, researchers argue that the underlying ideology of White superiority over ‘others’ has been continuously recycled and has reappeared in different shades (Griffin and Braidotti, 2002). In the next section, we explain how we introduce and integrate this type of theoretical ‘ideology’ into the study.

Methodology

In this section we intend to explain how we combined our intersubjective experiences of the book under scrutiny by analysing two excerpts from the book, as well as how we became interested in understanding how student teachers experience this type of children’s book. To avoid a mere replication of our own attitudes towards Bibi Moves to Finland, we sought to provide additional data. Therefore, we decided to challenge and test our own critical perspective towards Bibi Moves to Finland by conducting an experiment. Using a focus group interview we presented a group of student teachers at the University of Helsinki solely with pictures from the book. We were interested in finding out how student teachers specializing in multicultural education respond to the type of challenges they face in their future profession. We were interested in seeing if the student teachers were able to recognize Whiteness and normality as socially constructed phenomena. Botelho and Rudman (2009) state in their research on critical multicultural analysis on children’s literature that race, class and gender do matter and the aim of such an analysis should be to break the myth that we live in an egalitarian world (Botelho and Rudman, 2009: 14).

This paper is rooted as a critical discourse analytic research piece which interrogates ‘the way social power abuse, dominance and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context to understand, expose, and ultimately resist social inequality’ (van Dijk, 2001: 1). This paper does not approach critical discourse analysis as a traditional method of analysis, but rather as an approach (van Dijk, 2009) employed to fuse critical theory and critical analysis together (van Dijk, 1997: 1). A critical-event narrative approach was used in the process of analysing the focus group interview and further explored in the section for data analysis. In this section, we first discuss the data collection procedure: a focus group interview using the photo elicitation method. This is followed by an autobiographical note from the authors.

Focus group discussion and photo elicitation method – voices from the student teachers

In order to see the reactions of student teachers to these issues we decided to conduct a focus group interview with a group of five student teachers (three female, two male) minoring in multicultural education studies within a teacher education department. The interview lasted 45 minutes and was conducted in English, which was not the first language of the teacher students, but English is well spoken among these student teachers. We first asked the research participants to look at the pictures and discuss them. Secondly, the students created a story using the picture and described what kind of images of the world, of Africa and of Finland, are presented in the pictures. A focus group interview is an interview method which is especially suitable to enabling an open-ended, dialogical conversation (Marková et al., 2007). Consequently, key aspects for the analysis of focus groups are the circulation of ideas and the distribution of socially shared knowledge (Marková et al., 2007: 205), which in this study comprise the story behind the pictures and how the Finns and the ‘African other’ are presented and constructed in the book.

We deliberately chose photo elicitation as a research tool to discuss the book. This is a method where photographs are used to explore participants’ own understandings of the images in connection with the world around them (Gold, 1991, in Harper, 2002). Banks (2001) suggests that through photo elicitation participants can explore images, contextualizing them in a given time frame and interpreting the meaning of these images, which, in this study, is the story behind the pictures in the book. Harper (2002: 14) argues that because images evoke deeper elements of human consciousness than words do they should be considered an essential tool in this type of research. Photo elicitation can be regarded as a postmodern dialogue based on the authority of the subject rather than that of the researcher (Harper, 2002), though we recognize that the researchers still have the power to analyse the data. However, we were concerned that the type of discussion and the interview situation would automatically impact on the results. In order to minimize this, we chose to conduct a focus group interview without us being present to ensure that the results were not affected by our expectations. A focus group discussion reveals the social dynamics hiding behind the subject of conversation, which enables researchers to obtain multi-layered data. Thus, we were not only interested in the way our participants gave meanings to the pictures, but also in their dialogue – i.e. how the participants frame their utterances rhetorically, how they construct in- and out-groups within their speech (for example through we/they dichotomies, irony and exaggerations) and what assumptions are taken for granted.

Autobiographical notes

At this point, we find some autobiographical notes to be important. We are two researchers who found each other through a common interest in critical intercultural education. One of us grew up in Cameroon and one in Finland but with a background of living abroad as an ‘immigrant’. Both of us are also raising children in Finland who do not represent the ethnically White population. Our experiences of Finnish multiculturalism, integration, stereotypes and racism thus vary from each other. We are aware that our backgrounds shape our perspectives and our attitudes towards multicultural learning material. We are also aware that as multicultural researchers we are biased in the sense that we have become hypersensitive towards indicators of racism or social inequalities. While we believe that such a critical perspective is necessary in research, we also acknowledge that one who looks for stereotypes will find them everywhere. Inspiration for this study came through the question: how do children perceive the story? Clearly, the book is intended for an age group where looking at the pictures is far more important than the text. Although our research participants are not children, we believe their reactions give valuable insights into the way the story is perceived. Moreover, we wondered if the participants would also notice the stereotypical images of Africa and Finland and whether they would find them problematic.

Data analysis

We began our analysis with a general question in mind: how is the notion of Whiteness/normality and ‘us’/‘others’ (Finland vs. Africa) constructed in this particular book, which is used as multicultural learning material in Finland? Also, how do student teachers specializing in multicultural education discuss it? During the transcription process we coded student teachers’ voices as ST1, ST2, ST3, ST4 and ST5. The excerpts in the analysis are coded following the same system.

As mentioned in the previous section, this study is grounded in a critical discourse analysis approach (Van Dijk, 1997, 2011; Wimmer, 2013; Wodak and Krzyzanowski, 2008). In terms of method for analysis, a critical-event narrative approach was used to interpret student teachers’ discourses of the book (Fitzpatrick, 1994; Flanagan, 1954; Webster and Mertova, 2008). We argue that teachers of young children have a crucial role in recognizing and teaching about the power hierarchies in our society. Sharing personal experiences and narratives have become more general trends in postmodern knowledge production in the social sciences and education (Heikkinen, 2002: 13). In this research this meant organizing the data in the form of collected ‘events’/discussions, and analysing the discourses of the student teachers interpreted by the researchers. When discussing intercultural learning, intersubjectivity and worldviews become important. Critical events in human experience as well as in teaching and learning are not new and narratives of these events almost always create a change in people’s worldviews (Webster and Mertova, 2008). Strauss and Corbin (1998) state that asking good questions when collecting narratives can enhance the development of an evolving theory. In this research this meant exploring how the student teachers challenged each other’s worldviews during the focus group interview, and at the same time prepared them for defending their own dis/positions (Andreotti, 2011). The critical-event narrative approach in this study becomes interesting when the student teachers discussed how pictures of the book represent multiculturalism, emotions and critical reflection related to the theme of the study. Discursive strategies in this study relate to representations and constructions of boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’.

While examining the focus group interview we decided to illustrate and summarize our analysis with the ‘critical events’ that seemed most relevant to us regarding the aim of this study. For example, we proposed a more in-depth analysis of a picture that was emotionally affecting the student teachers. We are aware that chosen methods of using both focus group interview data and our own analysis of the two excerpts from the book complicate the process of analysis. We have tried to solve this by dividing the results in a manner whereby the first two sections for analysis concentrate on the focus group interview data. The last section for analysis is based on our own analysis of the two excerpts from the book.

Imagined immigration from exotic, colourful Africa to civilized Finland

In this first section of analysis we concentrate on the subjects of Africa, Finland, and immigration in student teachers’ discourses while discussing the pictures. In the African context student teachers mention, among other things, the following characteristics within the pictures: biology, tribal, giraffes, touristic pictures of animals, people trying to live with these animals, children dressed normally like they could be from here, but mother looks very traditional, they don’t have toys but just like playing around and jumping, traditional women working. Anderson (1983) points out in his theory of imagined communities that the media shapes perceptions of certain societies as a singular aesthetic form. The type of representation of Africa, in this book, as a ‘traditional, tribal, and exotic society’ is arguably far, in actuality, from the diversity of this continent. Such categorization is in line with Hofstede’s classification of the world into two distinct parts – ‘traditional and backward’ versus ‘developed and modern’ – which many critics find disturbing (Dervin et al., 2011; Ladson-Billings, 2003; Said, 1995). This is also our critique of the essentialist approach to intercultural education and why we find a critical approach important. Failure to challenge such hegemonic structures unearthed in the pictures of the book could make the book a ‘negative’ point of reference for children, which was also mentioned by one of the student teachers when discussing how women and men were pictured and portrayed in the book:

ST2: but does that give quite smart picture of them [talking about how African women are pictured in the book] like if we would put them in context in Finland maybe there would be picture of parents, quite busy going somewhere, like if it was picture painted of Finnish parents then would there be a picture of baking mother or cleaning father or something like that …?

This excerpt expresses clearly how the student teacher is able to see critically beyond the pictures in the book and was able to represent counter narratives, mirroring the representation of Africa versus Finland.

What we also find interesting is the different positions these student teachers take in their discussions, such as in one particular moment when they discuss the clothing presented in the African context. For one student teacher the clothing appears as festivity clothing, whereas another student questions if it’s really festivity clothing or just average clothing presented in an exotic manner in this book, because it is describing Africa:

ST4: clothing here, looks like some festivity clothes but looks like she is doing some work here, yes …

ST2: but I don’t know if it’s presented as festivity clothing, but that it’s Africa and it’s colourful and that’s somewhere there …

What makes this type of discourse interesting is that if we reverse this situation to describe the life in a contemporary Finnish village, we believe that women would not be pictured working in the fields wearing national costumes. Student teachers notice that when Bibi’s family arrives in Finland there is a picture of an ‘independent’ working woman, wearing a suit, welcoming them. The student teachers also noticed that in the Finnish context people are dressed in the famous Finnish Marimekko brand and that in Finland people wear shoes. They also mention the sailing boat in one of the pictures of Finland. Student teachers explained that where Bibi’s family came from there were just animals. Now when they are in Finland it is like being in a civilization with hobbies such as sailing, which characterizes upper middle class life in Finland, mainly possible for wealthier people. It is possible that the type of discussion, which we consider a ‘critical event’, can result in a more critical stance on intercultural learning and hence a change in student teachers’ worldviews, meaning that they become more critical towards the images presented through media and literature. Student teachers’ reaction to the Finnish representation of the book was that these pictures are even more (positively) stereotypical towards Finland. In the last picture they mention Bibi sleeping in a bed in Finland. The focus group participants conclude that she is now sleeping happily in a proper bed with blankets.

The student teachers made a positive comment regarding the fact that the story is about an African family moving to Finland with a status other than refugee. As one of the student teachers concludes:

ST3: Positive about this book is that not all the black people are refugees and coming here as cleaners and she’s receiving their father, maybe they are ambassadors but the place where they left did not look like a neighbourhood of an ambassador.

What we, as researchers, question in this type of representation of immigration in a children’s book is the potential danger of strengthening essentialism instead of re-constructing the existing binary opposites and hierarchies. In this book, Finland is presented as a modern country (ships, people wear shoes, and clothes instead of tribal costumes) with a single identity representing its inhabitants (White, blue eyes, blond hair). Ladson-Billings (2003) argues that such a cultural logic of binaries upheld by the power of ‘Whiteness’ in imposing its ideology of a ‘singular truth’ brands difference as inhuman. Said (1995) goes further, arguing that such dichotomous constructions (by the authors) and perceptions (by the audience) of the world often stem from a fear of the unknown as we tend to search for ‘truth’ from previous encounters, similar experiences and/or what one has heard or read. The next section offers an analysis of one ‘critical event’ of the picture that student teachers consider as violent.

The danger of pictorial representations – African vs. Finnish violence

While scanning through the book, student discussion becomes lively when they see a picture that to them conveys the idea of corporal punishment in the African context. The scene is from Batuba and depicts an angry-looking woman, barefoot, dressed in long, colourful fabrics and with colourful earrings and rings around her feet, in between a boy and a girl. The adult is pulling the children’s ears and you can see the pain in the children’s face (Kallio and Lindholm, 2005: 8). The students interpret the scene as follows:

ST3: she’s using physical violence or at least squeezing the boy’s cheek

ST1: yeah you can

ST3: and she does not say anything and she is just using this violence without words

ST2: that’s quite hard; yes she just knows how to punish as an act [referring to the picture of the woman who is pulling the children’s ears]

Here, student teachers not only identify violence in the picture, but also oppose it to resolving conflicts with words – (‘she does not say anything’, ‘just using violence’, ‘just knows how to punish as an act’). The underlying value judgement is transmitted through the modifier ‘just’, for it conveys the argument that ‘violence without words’ is something of which the students readily disapprove. Furthermore, by stating ‘she just knows’, ST2 assumes that she does not know the ‘correct’ way of punishing children; that is, she should punish through words rather than action. The discussion continues:

ST 4: and could that be presented as a Finnish woman, you know? Doing the same thing?

ST 2: no, no, not anymore as I think they would be saying like things like in our society the violence towards kids is, is …

ST 3: forbidden

ST 2: but they are bit tribal and not so educated so they don’t know the children’s rights so they can punish them as I cannot really see a White woman presented like this …

In asking the question of whether a Finnish woman could be represented like the woman in the picture, the students move the discussion to a representational level. The use of violence towards children is conflated with, and brought to the same level as, ‘being African’, while ‘being Finnish’ suggests having greater awareness of children’s rights. This is also a good example of Whiteness as a form of power of knowledge, in this case of the children’s rights. The ‘other’ (African woman) is compared to the ‘norm’, which is often White, middle class, western and therefore knowledgeable (Mignolo, 2009). What caught our attention was the quick change of conversation from a personal level (‘she’ opposed to ‘a Finnish woman’) towards larger groups (‘they’ as opposed to ‘our society’, ‘a White woman’) indicated by the choice of personal pronouns. The comparison is not explicit, but yet is striking if one looks at the attributes of both groups: ‘they’ are referred to as ‘a bit of tribal’, ‘not so educated’, ‘they don’t know the children’s rights’, ‘they can punish them’, but in ‘our society’ ‘violence towards kids is forbidden’.

The problem lies not in the depiction of a black woman who uses physical violence against children, but rather in the abstractions which are made based on this image. The move from ‘she’ to ‘they’ constructs a discourse in which African people are conceived as ‘uneducated and morally inferior’ compared with the ‘educated and civilized White Finn’. These assumptions too easily build upon stereotypes which gain power each time they reoccur in discourse. Both Collins (2009) and Mignolo (2009) argue that an invisible matrix of ‘Whiteness’ subsumes the sexual, gender and class diversity within the category of race. The focus group participants seem not to be able to imagine an illustration of a White woman using physical violence against children in a Finnish children’s book. This reveals some ideas on what content, according to them, is considered appropriate or inappropriate for Finnish children’s books. Indeed, they continue their discussion by paying attention to possible implications of these considerations:

ST3: but also as a White woman and thinking of a White child reading this book, I don’t think it creates such a big picture of this as we think, if the child sees the picture, does she or he think that, oh my God, what is happening here, she’s been violent and I don’t think that this picture is scary for a child

ST2: no, no but this is meant [to be] funny and why violence is funny, and, and, why this violence is funny because of the context: that because some black tribal woman, wearing tribal clothes in Africa, if that would be a White woman it would be quite scary for children, but why it’s not? I think is for racist reason

ST3: good point

ST3 introduces three different levels of pictorial analysis: firstly, ‘a White woman’; secondly, ‘a White child reading this book’; and thirdly ‘we’. ‘We’ refers to what has been thought before, thereby uniting the reflective and critical group of students who have been trained to pay attention to issues of multiculturalism. Why these three levels? ST3 uses a form of identity politics to claim that in her view the picture is ‘not that scary’ for a child and thereby appropriate – thus opposing the earlier signification of the illustration of physical violence against children. ST2 agrees on the child level that the ‘scary’ violence could be regarded as the opposite, ‘funny’. Yet ST2 is critical of the reasons behind this effect and raises awareness of the juxtaposition invoked earlier of a black versus a White woman. Answering her own rhetorical question (see the excerpt above), ST2 concludes that what is considered as scary or not is in this case built on racist imaginaries of African women.

This excerpt from the focus group discussion reveals that some student teachers are well aware of the dangerous effects that stereotypical illustrations can have. In fact, student interpretations of the picture did not veer far from the storyline: in the book, a village elder, Aunt Mafufura, scolds Bibi and her friend Oba after they have been climbing in a tree. Indeed, we were surprised by the ease with which the authors mentioned that in African villages childcare is a public affair – (‘In the village everyone watches everyone’s children. It is the right and the duty of every aunt’. Kallio and Lindholm, 2005). The raging Aunt Mafufura resembles what Patricia Hill Collins referred to as a typical African ‘mammy’; opposing civilized western culture with a ‘wilder’ primitive antagonist (Collins, 2009: 76). The focus group interview showed that this can also be conveyed through the pictures alone, which is what young children are likely to pay attention to. Therefore, we call for a critical focus on how intersectionalities of gender, race, class and personal interests are presented in children’s literature as well as in other learning materials.

The power of the words – ‘The world is like a zebra?’

The last section of the analysis focuses on two excerpts from the book – the first is an extended version of the quote from the beginning, which concludes Bibi’s and her father’s conversation about racial diversity.

Suomalaisilla lapsilla on usein siniset silmät, tai vihreät kuin sammakon kylki, jatkaa isä. – Ja heidän hiuksensa ovat suorat ja kultaiset kuin vilja.

– Muuttuvatko minun hiukseni siellä viljaksi, kysyy Bibi.

– Eivät sentään, hymähtää isä. – Minun Bibilläni on aina villit mustat kiharat.

– Minä tahtoisin vaaleat, sanoo Bibi. – Jos kerran kaikilla muillakin on. Haluan olla samanlainen kuin muut.

Isä ottaa Bibib syliinsä ja osoittaa sormellaan seepraa.

– Katso seepraa, kultaseni. Eikö se ole kaunis? Siinä mustat ja valkoiset raidat ovat vierekkäin. Ajattele, jos se olisi vain musta tai valkoinen. Vain yhtä väriä! Se ei olisi lainkaan ihmeellinen. Maailma on kuin seepra. (Kallio and Lindholm, 2005)

Finnish children often have blue eyes, or green like a frog’s skin, continues father. And their hair is straight and gold – like grain.

– Is my hair going to change into grain there? Asks Bibi.

– No it won’t smiles father. My Bibi will always have black curls.

– I would like to have them blond, says Bibi – If everybody else has it. I want to be the same as the others.

Father takes Bibi into his lap and points to a zebra with his finger.

In this excerpt opposites are strongly represented: black and White next to each other. Multiculturalism is described as a space where people live happily side by side, but it lacks the mixture of different racial representations and, overall, diverse identifications. We find this type of discourse a naive representation of multiculturalism in today’s world. Finland has been a racially diverse country since the 1990s. The book was published in 2005. We claim that it is to some extent stereotyping to claim that Finnish children often have blue or green eyes and straight golden hair. Collins (2009) uses the term ‘controlled image’ to explain how black women are often described as domesticated and non-educated. Similarly, this type of stereotyping can create a ‘controlled image’ of Finnish people being constructed as White, blue-eyed and with straight golden hair. At the same time, this type of discourse can strengthen the sense of ‘otherness’ in those children who do not fit into the category of ‘Finnish children’ with blue eyes and straight golden hair. Moreover, this is why ‘Whiteness’ as a social construction is one of the critical topics that should be brought to the centre of the discourse on multicultural education in a society like Finland. Who do we refer to when we talk about Finnish or immigrant children? Who are they and what should they look like?

Within this type of representation the image of Africa as one black race remains the same, although racial and ethnic identifications change in time and place (see Connolly, 1998; Gunaratnam, 2003). Binary opposites produce ambiguity in the process of describing the distribution of power and how people position themselves and others. Thus, we suggest that there is a need to move away from creating these racial oppositions tied to place and time. We propose, instead, a need to discuss a sense of belonging to a certain place, together with the processes of discrimination and ‘othering’ both within the learning materials and more widely in the education system and in society.

The story continues, after the metaphor of the zebra, with how Bibi is hoping to become like a Finnish child when she moves to Finland.

– Kultaiset hiukset ovat varmaan kauniit, sanoo Bibi

– Kyllä ovat, sanoo isä. – Yhtä kauniit kuin mustat.

– Pitävätkö he minua kauniina?

– Tietysti sanoo iso. Siniset silmät näkevät kauneuden yhtä hyvin kuin ruskeat. (Kallio and Lindholm, 2005)

– Golden hair must look beautiful, says Bibi

– Yes it does, says her father. – As beautiful as black hair.

– Will they find me beautiful?

– Of course says her father. Blues eyes see beauty as well as brown eyes. (Kallio and Lindholm, 2005, our translation)

This excerpt is an example of the negotiations of intercultural identity where family support, belonging and being accepted become important. Transnational identities are also contextual and constantly re-constructed in the intersection of belonging, Finnishness and ‘foreignness’ (Souto, 2011; Wodak and Krzyzanowski, 2008). Bibi wonders if Finnish children will find her beautiful. Her father confirms that Bibi will always remain the same beautiful girl that she is right now and that blue eyes see beauty as well as brown eyes. There is a strong emphasis on good will in how all children are presented as equal and how difference is turned into similarity. This is visible in the discourse of the beauty of different types of hair styles and colours, as well as eye-colour related to two different races: ‘black’ and ‘White’. In order to present diverse perspectives rather than being critical, which is also the intention of a postcolonial perspective on education, we would like to point out as an end-note the work of Zeus Leonardo (2009) in the field of anti-racist education and Whiteness studies. He reminds us that underneath discourses of equality it is still possible that some people have more power and privilege than others. Thus, instead of an ‘equality mantra’ we also need to negotiate privileges and inequalities in education. We argue that the trap of good will lies in this type of colour-blindness embedded in intercultural education. Rapid globalization has brought with it hybridity, meaning that people’s identities are constructed through changes in societies and immigration. For some people immigration is based on free will, whereas for others it occurs through forced actions. Yet the image of African village life still remains, as do the cultural characteristics of Finnish people as one race with yellow hair and blue eyes.

Conclusion

This study concentrated on a critical analysis of a children’s book called Bibi Moves to Finland (Kallio and Lindholm, 2005), to discuss the meaning of intercultural learning materials for children. The book was first discussed through the lens of future teachers in Finland and then through our view, as authors, sharing specific worldviews of intercultural education. As researchers we call for learning material which aims at teaching diversity through characters that do not convey existing stereotypes or, at least, criticality towards existing stereotypes. Moreover, this study shows that a more critical stance on intercultural education is needed in education and in teacher education for all student teachers, on: (a) how we construct binary opposites and images as well as how we teach about ‘others’ (in this study, for example, the juxtaposition of civilized Finland vs. tribal Africa); (b) how we present diverse roles, such as mother, father, educated man/woman, teacher, and the diverse intersections of gender, race, class and hobbies, as tools to construct ‘normality’ within the education system and society; and (c) how race and racism can and should be discussed, as well as how ‘Whiteness’ is taken for granted by many students and teachers. The positive intention of the book is to create understanding through sympathy for an African immigrant girl. Our aim, as researchers, is not to condemn the material, but raise awareness of the subtlety with which binary opposites and dualisms serve to reproduce the racialization of ‘other’; that is, as a category inevitably measured against so-called ‘culturally right’ western structures, values and expectations.

There is a danger that this type of children’s literature supports the belief that if you are black you cannot be Finnish. Thus, all black people have migrated from somewhere else to Finland. While critics (e.g. Griffin and Braidotti, 2002; Mignolo, 2009; van Dijk, 1992) have argued against this point, still racism is often seen as a problem and pathology of individual human beings rather than embedded in how society functions. If such reproduction is not challenged by educators or brought to light the danger is that it may gradually become a norm. This may be one of the reasons why racism is persistent today despite all efforts to root it out. Children’s books are often seen as a good tool for discussing children’s emotions and handling difficult topics such as racism, bullying and the exclusion of children who appear somehow different. Through a positively happy but somewhat naïve perspective of the world, this book may gloss over or erase the important aspect of discussing the Whiteness-normality/‘us’ and ‘them’ boundaries in education. To some extent, the student teachers were able to raise critical questions and challenge the worldviews of their peers, which at best can lead to what Fujikawa (2008) is proposing for future Whiteness studies. That is, a learning process that recognizes the visible and invisible structures involved in the appropriation of power. We also find this type of group discussion very useful in teacher education in working towards a more critical stance for interculturality, as student teachers have an active role in learning from one another.

Van Dijk (2012) claims that recipients tend to accept beliefs, knowledge and opinions through discourse they regard as trustworthy. Children’s literature may form a certain ‘global mental structure’ of the world, and of how the world is presented in literature intended for children. Teachers and teacher educators are often regarded as trustworthy in the education context and therefore have a very important role to play in deconstructing notions of intercultural education. In this vein, we agree with Gorski’s (2008) critique that good intentions do not go nearly far enough in intercultural education, but argue that working with emergent tensions and contradictions can make a positive difference to children’s understandings of ‘race’ and ethnicity.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Professor Fred Dervin and PhD Candidate Monika Schatz for their invaluable feedback on this article.

Funding

This research is partly funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.

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