Sexuality in Norwegian textbooks: constructing and controlling ethnic borders?

Abstract

In this article we discuss how sexuality is linked to national identity, ethnicity and cultural diversity in Norwegian textbooks for 13–16-year-olds. We show how gender equality and gay rights are mobilized as markers of Norwegianness in pedagogic texts and discuss the significance this has for inclusion in Norwegian nationhood. We address how progressive policies concerning gender and sexuality in Norway have been utilized to define Norwegianness in ethnic terms and argue that the texts we have analysed may produce the effect that tolerance towards homosexuality and support for gender equality as political positions are considered necessary for ethnic minority subjects’ acceptance as properly ‘integrated’ Norwegian citizens. In this way, these texts on sexuality may be seen to both construct and control ethnic borders in Norwegian society.

Keywords:

• Education
• sexuality
• gender
• Norway
• homonationalism
• culturalization

Notes

1. The subject-specific parts of the curriculum were revised in 2006, but the introduction from 1997 was kept.

2. See Hausmann, Tyson and Zahidi (2009).

3. See Save the Children mothers index rankings for 2010: http://www.savethechildren.org/publications/state-of-the-worlds-mothers-report/SOWM-2010-Index-Rankings.pdf

4. See the government plan of action against unwanted pregnancies and abortions: http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/hod/aktuelt/nyheter/2010/Handlingsplan-mot-uonskede-svangerskap-og-abort.html?id=601909

5. In some cases, the difference between forced and arranged marriages is explained, but generally these two practices, one legal and one illegal, are described as similar and overlapping in a continuum of parental control.

6. From Amalie Skram's novel Forrådt (Betrayed).

7. The picture in question has been widely circulated as a representation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) ‘honor killing’ in Iran and spurred significant response in some Western LGBT organizations, despite that it being unclear whether the hanging was related to homosexual conduct (see Kim 2005; Puar 2007, pp. i–xi).