Identity dynamics in the speeches of language teachers' in French and German primary schools: how do they go about constructing “interculturality”?
Résumé
The term interculturality functions as a buzz word in the speeches of language teachers when they are asked about the word. It is posed as an evidence and it is rarely defined. There is a widespread use for teachers when they are involved as a team in school exchanges, qualify the other or are qualified as "native" or when they have spent a fairly long time abroad. In the use of this word discussed between teachers around the contents of language teaching, we see representations of oneself and of the other, reifying conceptions of the identity of the person in oscillation with reflexive positioning on the alter-ego relationship that are co-constructed in a complex combinatorial of identities in movement (Lemoine, 2016). In this chapter, I discuss the question of the identity dynamics of French primary school teachers and German Grundschule teachers exchanging on the cultural contents they claim to teach. Based on data collected through focus groups with four cohorts of teachers in France and in Germany who are with the same level of experience, I show how to work on everyday teaching situations (declared) and I take questions: how do teachers (re)construct specific and true-to-life aspects of the field, namely from an intercultural perspective? How do they succeed an “intercultural education” while at the same time they have to respect official injunctions and they have to deal with their own understanding of the concept? Are there potential “hoaxes on intercultural relations” (Dervin, 2009) emerging in their discourses? What initiatives are taken to deal with cultural and social diversity of the students? This reflection on intercultural relations lends itself to a study of identity. Given the complexity of this concept, its dynamism and variability, I focus solely on professional identity in the specific context of primary school in two European bordering countries. A dialogical discourse analysis of the teachers’ discourses which permits examining reciprocal influences and highlights the elusive and fleeing aspects of identity to be considered as a process, helps us to understand how these teachers build an identity of mastery towards the language they teach (marking a frontier between the “other non-experts solicited by the Institution in teaching language”) as native/non-native speakers when they speak about interculturality. Through these interactions a “loose” compromise develops between an identity defined by the self and an identity defined by others.