Cultural and ethnic diversity in the German-speaking countries?

An analysis of Momente-textbooks for German in Norwegian upper secondary schools

Abstract

Understanding cultural diversity is an important part of intercultural competence, which in turn is a core element of the foreign language curriculum. In this article, we examine the extent to which a textbook series for German as a foreign language at levels 1 and 2 in upper secondary school addresses cultural and ethnic diversity in the target language countries. This is done through analysis of both volumes in the textbook series Momente. The textbook Momente 1(Biesalski et al., 2020) hardly deals with the cultural and ethnic diversity in the German-speaking countries. Momente 2 (Fiebig et al., 2020) deals to some extent with people with a migration background in Germany, but very little compared to the percentage they make up of the population in Germany and Austria. National minorities are practically not mentioned in these textbooks.