National icons in education: Hans Christian Andersen and the cultural policy of the canon of Danish literature

ABSTRACT

The Danish fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen is cultural heritage in Denmark, and his authorship is a part of The Canon of Danish Literature that contains 14 obligatory authorships in the Danish educational system. In this article, we examine how the cultural policy of the ideologically rooted and highly political canon affects current teaching materials on Andersen’s fairy tales. Our examples show how fixed readings of the fairy tales are reproduced in Danish classrooms. We suggest that dialogic teaching approaches to the fairy tales have potential to counter such readings and offer teachers and students the opportunity to engage with canonical literature in new ways. However, based on examples from existing dialogic teaching materials for Andersen’s fairy tales, we also conclude that the task of countering the inexpedient influence of cultural policy in teaching materials should not be underestimated.

KEYWORDS:

• Canonical literature
• primary school education
• learning materials
• dialogic teaching
• philosophical dialogue

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. For further analysis of the current use of Hans Christian Andersen in Danish teaching materials, see Bom (2020).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anne Klara Bom

Anne Klara Bom, PhD, is associate professor of cultural studies, affiliated with the Department for the Study of Culture at the University of Southern Denmark. Her main area of study is critical heritage studies, and she is particularly concerned with the meanings and values of cultural icons. She has published several papers and book chapters on the cultural significance of Hans Christian Andersen in and outside of Denmark.

Caroline Schaffalitzky de Muckadell

Caroline Schaffalitzky de Muckadell, PhD, is associate professor of philosophy at the Department for the Study of Culture at University of Southern Denmark. Her research interests include methodological and theoretical discussions in education, research ethics, dialogic teaching and philosophy with children, and she has published both research articles and textbook materials within these areas.