Medier och identitet i gymnasisters mångkulturella vardag

Sammanfattning: This partial study, being part of a future doctorial thesis, looks at the potential of education in the subject of literature to integrate the dual tasks of providing knowledge and of establishing democratic values. Two aspects of this competence for democracy are in focus here, both attributed with special importance by guiding documents, first of all to instil within the students a basic positive attitude towards a multicultural society and secondly to develop their ability for critical review of their own media culture as a source of knowledge. The aim is to explore the complexities of mediated experience in the social practices of everyday life from a multicultural perspective.The empirical material of this case study consists mainly of interviews and discussions on the themes of multiculturalism and media with six teenagers from one class at the social studies programme during their freshman year. This study presents teens of Swedish as well as foreign and dual ethnicity. Theory and concepts central to the analysis of my material are gathered from a wide variety of fields such as philosophy, sociology, media studies, history and literature. I have taken a starting point from discourse theory and its criticism of ideology with regards to the relationship between language and reality. The threat of an increasing ontological uncertainty in late modern society is often given a sense of the apocalyptic, however several theorists points to this as a necessity for the development of knowledge in the age of globalization. Discovering the presumed naturality of ones own culture and identity is the prerequisite for a nuanced view of the Other, a process in this study named narrative imagination, a concept from the philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum.