The participating audience authorised the collection and the use of images and audio from the activity.

8ei_ea — INTERNATIONAL ENCOUNTER on ARTS EDUCATION

WORKSHOP Thinking (in)visible Identities in Textbooks

17th November 2023

ECA-UEM [University Eduardo Mondlane], Maputo, Mozambique

The presentation and workshop Thinking (in)visible Identities in Textbooks from the [in]visible project took place at the School of Communication and Arts of Eduardo Mondlane University (ECA/UEM) in Maputo (Mozambique), organised by margarida dias, with the support of José Carlos de Paiva, Paulo Nogueira, and David Neves. The workshop had around 50 participants from Mozambique, Brazil, and Portugal.


 

After the presentation, seven working groups were organised and given 6 Portuguese Social & Environmental Studies textbooks and 1 Mozambican Portuguese-Mathematics textbook to examine. All the textbooks are for the 1st year and are currently in use in schools (academic year 2023/2024). Initially, each group analysed one textbook and subsequently shared their analyses and comments with all the participants.

 


The workshop facilitated reflection and sharing of thoughts on the visible and invisible content that images in textbooks convey, regardless of their nationalities, and how discriminatory issues become present in the educational process. According to the group presentations, the difficulties in reaching a consensus on the priorities of which identities should or should not be represented in textbooks to avoid discriminatory interpretations were highlighted.

"The truth is that minorities are poorly represented here."

"And... only children, right? And they are in this fantasy... "

"In conclusion, it seems that in these two pages we analysed, there is no alterity, only naivety."

"However, we identified the lack of representation of the Romani ethnicity, (...) and there are also others that are not represented."

"Those who made these manuals have a responsibility, but those who read them also have a responsibility."

"This suggests that from a young age, there is already this conception of what it means to be female: wearing pink, playing with dolls."

This exposition is funded exclusively by national funds through the FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology within the project «2022.05056.PTDC»

"So, there is a racial issue in these images."

"In our group the discussion was because we didn't agree on, in the case of the Mozambique textbooks, it wasn't what we had chosen, but it was what people wanted to discuss (laughs). After all, how should people be represented, since in Mozambique, there isn't just one body shape or even one face… it's not just one shape. It's not just one way. So, there was also a need, in the case of some group members, to have this diversity as well. But in the case of other people, they said ‘no’. For example, the Indians didn't want to be Mozambicans, so they didn't have to be represented there. Or, for example, the Chinese always wanted to be Chinese, so why should they be in a Mozambican textbook if they knew they weren't from there? (laughs). Things like that. It was quite violent in our... in our group, because in fact... because the solution isn't easy or exhaustive, there's no bad way to illustrate a context. There are concerns, but they really differ a lot, and in our case, there were only three people in our group (laughs). Imagine if there were more of us… it would be a fight (laughs)."


Audio recording of a talk after the workshop (29.11.2023)