EXTENDED ESSAY- ENGLISH B2
Sense and sensibility: The use of gothic subculture elements in the acquisition
of interculturality in the students from 5th A and B at Cusco COAR.
Research Question: To what extent did the use of gothic subculture elements
help in the acquisition of interculturality in the students from 5 th A and B at
Cusco Coar?
Word Count: 4000
Dany León Rodriguez – Docente de Inglés.
Colegio de Alto Rendimiento Cusco
1
CONTENTS:
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
Title Page ………………………………………………………………………1
Contents ………………………………………………………………………. 2
Chapter 1: Theoretical framework ………………………………................ 3
Chapter 2: Why using gothic subculture to foster interculturality…………5
Chapter 3: Gothic fashion , music and literature: friends or
foes?…………………............................................................................... 7
Chapter 4: Conclusion……………………………………………………… 12
2
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:
Gothic could be understood in many ways. But the sub-culture as part of what
it is called now “an urban tribe” started to be identified as such late in the 70s.
With the evolution and performance of some musical bands plus the state of mind
coming from that, gothic sub-culture was started to be defined as “a subculture
that arose from England’s angry, rebellious punk movement in the late 1970’s”
(Montenegro, 2006, p.1). Certainly, many authors agree that there is no a single
definition for a sub-culture that is always changing and evolving, keeping the
basic elements untouchable, but branching and creating by itself some other subcultures. As Alicia Porters mentions:
There are things that many Gothics like that are not
gothic (Industrial or Classical music). There are things
that are gothic that many Gothics dislike (vampires,
interest in death). There are things that some people
think are gothic that are not gothic (bands like Marilyn
Manson and Nine Inch Nails), and there are things that
do not call themselves gothic even if they are
considered gothic by most people (bands like Sisters
of Mercy and Dead Can Dance) ( Porter,1999, p.1).
The most common elements we can find into what it is considered gothic may
be, for instance, for its followers wearing clothes in black all the time, the
fascination for death and tragic things, an attraction to some paranormal things
such as vampires, death, cemeteries, etc.; and a typical style of fashion, music
and literature.
We cannot put aside one aspect that gothic sub-culture has also brought with
its characteristics: the misconceptions that they usually produce in people.
Indeed, if a subculture is, as Sabrina Newman refers quoting Dawson: “segment
of a culture which (while reflecting the dominant aspects of the main culture)
[shows] different customs, norms, and values (Dawson)” (Newman, 2018, p.4);
gothics have usually been perceived as gloomy, dark and sinister people who
are usually satanic, evil and tend to be violent. “ When people hear the word goth,
some immediately envision black clothes, pale faces, and tattoos, while others
connect it to something more menacing, such as vampires. Some equate goth
with the modern witchcraft religion of Wicca; others equate it with Satanism”
(Montenegro, 2006, p. 6). This has been the almost unanimous perception of
people around the goths, as we call the members of this urban tribe. So, if that is
the landscape, would it even be possible to match this sub-culture with a social
value such as interculturality?
Interculturality is one of the milestones of the Diploma Program in the
International Baccalaureate. “ It is englobed into the term International
Mindedness as one of the three dimensions of it. In fact, the term was originally
equated to the term global/intercultural understanding which is the formal
3
expression for interculturality”. (Singh & Qi, 2003, p 4) And interculturality in the
broadest sense is the respect and the acceptance of other’s sense of identity,
norms and values. It does not mean a subrogation of one culture to another, but
a co-existence of two or more without trying to change their characteristics or if,
it is possible, mixing parts of them in mutual agreement.
If interculturality means, mainly, respect for the characteristics of someone
else’s culture; would it be worth to use the so-feared characteristics of the gothic
sub-culture in order to promote interculturality between the students of the
Diploma Program? This essay will show, that indeed, they are not only useful to
foster international mindedness and interculturality but, in fact, they are starter
points to enhance discussion, reflection and critical thinking about intercultural
exchange.
4
CHAPTER 2: WHY USING GOTHIC SUBCULTURE TO FOSTER
INTERCULTURALITY :
In general, more than teaching interculturality, what the IB proposes is to
immerse students into experiences that show them different cultures, and
different aspects of a culture. This statement is stablished in the English B Guide
2015, “The aims of group 2 are to: 1. develop students’ intercultural
understanding and 3. encourage, through the study of texts and through social
interaction, an awareness and appreciation of the different perspectives of people
from other cultures”. ( International Baccalaureate, 2015, p. 4). Fashion, then,
would be understood as part of the social interaction that the IB requires as part
of students’ sources in order to appreciate a culture.
But interculturality could also be understood as a kind of “culture shock” in
the means to present students cultural concepts that do not match to their original
ideas from their own culture.
In a language-teaching context, the relevance is
twofold; on the one hand, the process of critically
reflecting on marginalized groups’ identity, sense of
belonging, agency and privilege may open teachers’
and students’ eyes to knowledge potentials and
interpretative possibilities in text and media used in
class that would otherwise not be addressed. On the
other hand, critical reflection on these processes may
also lead to understandings of the students’ own
situated knowledge, positions and identity.”
( Krosgaard,2016, p.62 )
If we add to that the fact that critical thinking and tolerance, that are inherent
elements of interculturality and international mindedness can be better applied
using the identity and sense of belonging of a special kind of sub-culture, whose
elements were always sort of discriminated and misunderstood, then we would
be providing the answer to the question that entitles this chapter.
Now, from the multiple elements that make a culture or subculture
something typical, I chose the three that could give the advantages of being
appealing to students due to their age, their potential appealing to the topics they
like most and to the characteristics that each of them can provide them in order
to generate critical thinking, cultural shock, tolerance and understanding.
The core of choosing elements from a culture or subculture is that each of
them be an inexhaustible source of questions that can make students
discriminate between what is useful to take and what not. This is what it was
called the ICC (Intercultural Communicative Competence) that started in 1996.
The starter of this concept was Byram. Thus:
5
In 1996 Byram was invited to participate in the
Council of Europe’s project to develop a ‘Common
European Framework of Reference for Language
Learning and Teaching’. Byram and Geneviève
Zarate were asked to determine levels of the ‘sociocultural competence’ (1996). They developed a
student - and process - oriented culture pedagogy,
with emphasis on cultural learning processes. The aim
was to redirect attention towards the students’ own
qualifications and experiences. In collaboration with
Dieter Buttjes (1990), Byram had developed the
concept of mediation - that teachers and students
were mediators of culture, and with Zarate, he had
developed the concept of the intercultural speaker,
defined as someone with the ability ‘to develop an
intercultural style, and tact, to overcome divergence
rather than accept the norm of the mono-lingual’
(Krosgaard,2016, p.43 )
So, taking account all the previously mentioned, the articulation of
interculturality was drafted in three main aspects: fashion, music and literature.
The following chapters will show how effective they were in the completion of the
task of generating the ideal space for students to analize, understand and
mediate between their own culture and the one presented to them specifically on
these aspects:
Attitudes: curiosity and openness, readiness to suspend disbelief about
other cultures and belief about one’s own
Knowledge: of social groups and their products and practices in one’s
own and in one’s interlocutor’s country, and of the general processes of societal
and individual interaction
Skills of interpreting and relating: ability to interpret a document or event
from
another culture, to explain it and relate it to documents from one’s own
Skills of discovery and interaction: ability to acquire new knowledge of
a culture and cultural practices and the ability to operate knowledge, attitudes
and skills under the constrains of real-time communication and interaction
Critical cultural awareness/political education: an ability to evaluate
critically and on the basis of explicit criteria perspectives, practices and products
in one’s own and other cultures and countries (Byram, 1997; 2008, p. 69).
6
CHAPTER 3: GOTHIC FASHION , MUSIC AND LITERATURE: FRIENDS
OR FOES?:
Gothic fashion is very varied and there is no a single pattern to define it. As
fashion itself, it is really hard to describe it in just some shades what it really is.
Besides, inside the sub-culture, there are also many different branches: gothsteampunk, goth-industrial, goth-vamp, goth-victorian, etc. So, gothic fashion
was presented through the most iconic aspect of it, this is, presenting elegance,
decadence and death. The first example of gothic fashion was myself, since the
first day of classes the clothing I wore was typically considered as “gothic”: silk
black plants with laces, a black under bust corset and a black lace blouse. The
look was obviously very outrageous for a regular English teacher coming to a
regular class, and caused a somewhat shock among my new students. They
were really puzzled and in some cases, shocked for the impression received.
And, this was the starter point to realize that, even being in fifth grade both
classes, 5th A and 5th B and having practiced before the notions of interculturality
they actually did not t know how to react to new styles of lifestyle, because their
reluctance to accept something new and particular for someone was very clear.
And this was the trigger that made start with the project to use the gothic
subculture in order to work on interculturality.
Now, following the notions of ICC, I took some of my lessons to start making
them think and deconstruct the components of other culture. The base was the
first impressions students had about the goth fashion. The attitude they had was
one of disbelief and misbelief, relating black and Victorian style to evil, darkness,
hostility and bad feelings, as it can be seen in Appendix 1.
Knowledge is the second dimension one person needs to know in order to
break some misconception and reflect it on their attitudes. So, part of many
lessons, was to contrast their first beliefs with the information they could get about
gothic subculture in fashion. The idea for them is to try to find useful information
among the many articles, blogs, pdf articles about goths and value the most
important one. Some practices were done using information they could search on
Internet and validating it with the sources used or the information that actually
could provide them more data and contrasting it with some other sources. In this
way, for instance they found information about fashion in gothic subculture using
blogs:https://fashion-history.lovetoknow.com/clothing-types-styles/gothsfashion,
etc. This Internet sources also gave them the chance to identify with images and
videos some other references about gothic subculture, and the reason behind
about why, in some cases, this style is adopted for many in some fashions rushes.
E.g.
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/fashion/sundaystyles/embrace-thedarkness.htm.
It is undeniable that music is one of the aspects which makes teenagers feel
more attracted. At their age, music is one way of expression and the best way to
try to unleash the feelings and in many cases the contradictory emotions they
7
have as part of teenage state. It is also a way to show identification for a certain
style or group. As it was mentioned in an article released by the American
Academy of Pediatrics: “A teenager's preference for certain types of music could
be correlated or associated with certain behaviors”. (Council on Communications
and Media, from the American Academy of Pediatrics, 2009, p 1488).
Teenagers also tend to understand something better when they listen to and
analyze the lyrics of a song, or the rhythm of it. So the attitude in this case when
it was time to start analyzing the music of gothic subculture was much more
relaxed and in fact, more interested and curious than, for example, fashion.
Making a research about what they knew of gothic music, I found that, again, they
did not know almost anything about this kind of music. And the general idea that
they had about gothic music was that it was, one more time “ satanic”, “ heavy”
“metal noisy music” and others. In a lesson related to subculture, they watched
music videos from bands that are considered typically gothic as Joy Division, ,
Soft Cell, The Cure and in the 90´s what it is considered goth: Epica, Nightwish,
etc.Then, they were divided in groups and asked to look for deeper information
about goth music taking one element in common, in this case, time. They really
wanted to know more about this, so I just only asked to check the most interesting
bands for them, and determine why they were considered gothic.
Provided the fact this task would arise many more questions and concerns
about what it is considered gothic, this scenario gave them the chance to use
critical thinking, information selection skills and knowledge.In a further lesson,
literature was taken as a way to round up and as the third part of an approach of
interculturality. Literature is also part of a subject that students take in a High
Level and they might have considered the topic somewhat repetitive and I had
to choose the approach carefully in order they could feel this as a challenge and
not as repetition, plus the way to enhance interculturality understanding it as a
part of the gothic sub-culture.
Therefore, it is highly arguable which one would be the best source to provide
a context for interculturality: music or literature. However, Literature has the super
plus to play an essential role when teaching the four basic skills every language
student must have. As it was clearly stated by Sanju Choudhary:
Literature can be used as a means for creating both
referential and interactional meaning, not merely as
an aspect of the oral and written production of words
and phrases and sentences. Literature is a rich source
of linguistic input. Carter and Long (1991) proposed
three models to justify the use of literature: (a) the
cultural model, which shows how literature helps in
understanding and appreciating different cultures and
ideologies together with the developing of one’s
perception of feelings and artistic forms; (b) the
language model, which emphasizes the view that
language is the literary medium and that literature
8
could be seen as an instrument to teach various
aspects of language; and (c) the personal growth
model, which emphasizes that a student understands
his/her own society and culture by reading the literary
texts”. ( Choudhary, 2016, p. 3)
This determines clearly how important, in order to make more familiar a
culture, or sub-culture, the role of literature using what it is called the Reader
Response approach that it is defined as : “The events that take place in a literary
work occur at a particular time and place, and different readers react to these
events in different ways, depending on their unique interests and experiences.
Each reader attaches his or her own personal interpretation to a literary work” (
Choudhary, 2016, p. 3).
The aim of using the Reader Response is to make the story, feelings and
timeline or background of the literary work something personal for the student,
making them think about different or similar situations and how the scenario and
events happening can make them understand the position of the characters of
the writer or the writer itself.
The activity in order to work using this approach was to ask them to
develop a micro-research in literature, and using all the previous knowledge they
already had about the characteristic from the gothic sub-culture taken and studied
in fashion and music, they had to choose one literary work and use only one or
two excerpts they considered the most identifiable as “gothic” ones and present
them to the class, analyzing the ideas, the characters or other factors that made
them think they could be truly considered as gothic. Once this work was done,
they had to connect it with their personal impressions, likes and dislikes; finishing
in this way the “tour” of the gothic sub-culture. A plus was to integrate in their
discussions some elements of literary analysis if they feel they could and wanted
to do it.
The two first stages were completed in such a way students could have an
integrated notion and reliable knowledge of what it was the gothic subculture.
Part of the third stage, the skills of interpreting and relating and the other stages:
Skills of discovery and interaction and the so-desired, critical awareness and
political education gotten at the end of all the activities were going to determine if
the whole exercise was successful or not.
Hence, having on mind those three final stages, the activity chosen to
verify the answer to the research question was a Socratic Seminar where
students could open freely and honestly to express all the impressions and
emotions about the subculture presented to them how they were feeling now in
relation to it. It would also imply the use of critical thinking. Socratic Seminars
have all these advantages rather than just providing a question and an answer.
As Matt Copeland says: “Another social skill that continues to be increasingly in
today’s rapidly changing world is conflict resolution. Our students face a great
deal of interpersonal challenges both in and outside of the school. Through
Socratic circles, students have the opportunity to practice these skills in a
9
controlled environment. Tredway points that a Socratic circle is “an important
occasion for students to confront such conflicts and actively work out solutions”
(Tredway, 1995, P 28)
In this Socratic Seminar, with the first questions students had to analyze
the information they had, validate it with the information their peers had and then
come up to a circle of impressions and final conclusions. As usual in a Socratic
Seminar, they were in two concentric circles: the inner circle discussing their
ideas, and the outside circle just listening and then, providing feedback to the
inner circle and in a second part, changing roles in order to assume the opposite
role.
The results of the Socratic Seminar will be mentioned in the following
chapter about Conclusions; but the development of the Seminar itself was
interesting because it gave me the chance to appraise the unwrapping of the
sense of interculturality among students. The cycle started mentioning the first
impressions they had about the presentation of the subculture. Almost
unanimously they mentioned that the concepts they would relate at first sight with
this subculture is demoniac, evil, depression, psychotic, and even psycho-killer
in a few cases. Then, they discerned that these terms were something they relate
because of the information of the media, the stereotypes they would check from
Internet, movies and TV program, as well as the look and the image that in many
cases “goths” show in fashion. Here it was clearly seen that they were developing
their skills of relating and interpreting; this latter was something that students
recognized it was only acquired through research and investigation based on the
history and origins of the fashion and music of the goth sub-culture; contrasting it
subsequently with the previous ideas they had; generating then the reflection and
the change of the impressions. With the element of literature it was a bit different
because due to the previous knowledge they had, they were able to have in most
of the cases, a better accuracy at the time to talk about impressions, because the
recognizable characteristics of this type of literature was partially developed in
Literature subject, and in fact in both groups ( 5th A and 5th B) there were a good
group of people who actually liked this type of literature, almost all of them
specifically about Edgard Allan Poe and his novels. During the Socratic circles,
they expressed how emotional was for them the connection of beauty and death,
the poetry one can find in acts found for most societies as maniac or even mad,
but that analyzed in this context would give them a hint about how a person, (in
the case of the “The black Cat” for example) would feel and how the goth
subculture can perform that in master representatives of that literature. Some
other authors were mentioned such as H.P Lovecraft, and in more modern times
Stephen King, they also analyzed the relation with horror literature and they
expressed what they most liked or disliked about it. The process then, of
analyzing using the typical elements of a subculture contrasting it with their first
impressions, applying empathy, critical thinking. Understanding and an open
mind could be evidenced now.
10
11
CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSIONS:
As a premise, to say that the purpose of this research was to show that
interculturality it is possible to be practiced with almost any social and cultural
element, it also recognizes that it is important to select carefully the element in
order to use it. The expected answer to the research question is that everybody
felt satisfied and change their points of view about the subculture matter of study,
but, actually it was not like that.
First, we can state that some elements make the practice of interculturality
easier or more difficult to understand the subject in mention. Indeed, the three
elements helped a lot in order to understand the main characteristics of the gothic
subculture, but it was obvious at the end, that, for example a more modern and
appealing element such as movies, would have helped in more extensive way to
a better comprehension of this social phenomenon. Fashion as an element itself,
only stressed the bad first impressions that students had about gothic subculture.
Second, choosing a completely different social or cultural aspect in order
to promote interculturality it is really effective as it was supposed at the beginning.
The “shock” that completely different conceptions, ideas and states of mind do
effectively enhance the effort that students have to do about a better
understanding of a state of things completely different from theirs. The fear that
they were not going to like this subculture because it was something completely
different from what surrounds them was not true.
Third, something absolutely important is that in order to make the exercise
more personalized and that students can feel really involved, it was really helpful
that the teacher herself could portray or be part of the culture he/she intends to
have students analyze. Students see the “thing” as something touchable and
since they usually find in their teachers a role model, some of them actually
started to like and wear sort of gothic clothes as well, which evidences the
attachment that at the end, they got from studying this culture.
Finally, the use of these three elements: Fashion, Music and Literature
helped to increase the sense of a better understanding for a different lifestyle in
a diverse way. Students were asked if they felt they would be comfortable with
goth people around them, or having gothic friends. In both classes, the
approximately 82% answered they would feel happy to have goth friends or to go
a gothic concert. The rest ( 18%), expressed they would still have some fear to
be surrounded by goth people, but they also pointed out that now they understand
better what they think, and that actually the fear they might have it is because
their own preferences, but not longer prejudices. And prejudice is the exactly
opposite of intercultural understanding.
12
Bibliography:
Montenegro, M. (2006). “The world according to goth” [pdf] in the Christian
Research Journal, volume 29, number 1. Retrieved from:
http://www.equipresources.org/atf/cf/%7B9C4EE03A-F988-4091-84BDF8E70A3B0215%7D/JAG060.pdf on January 22nd, 2019.
Porter,
A.
(1999).
“What
is
gothic?”
[pdf]
retrieved
from:
http://www.gothicsubculture.com/gangarticle.pdf on January 18th, 2019.
Newman, S. ( 2018). The evolution of the perceptions of the goth subculture [pdf]
Thesis.
Johnson
and
Wales
University.
Retrieved
from:
https://scholarsarchive.jwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1029&context
=student_scholarship on January 21st, 2019.
Singh, M. & Jing, Q. ( 2003) “An exploratory study of its conceptualization and
assessment”. In Research summary 21st century internationalmindedness. [pdf] Educational Research, School of Education, University
of
Western
Sydney.
Retrieved
from:
https://www.ibo.org/globalassets/publications/ibresearch/singhqiibreport2
7julyfinalversion.pdf on January 26th, 2019.
Krogsgaard, L. (2016). Teaching Interculturality Developing and Engaging in
Pluralistic Discourses in English Language Teaching [pdf] Aarhus
University
Copenhagen
Denmark.
Retrieved
from:
http://edu.au.dk/en/aktuelt/single/artikel/teaching-interculturalitydeveloping-and-engaging-in-pluralistic-discourses-in-english-languagetea/ on January 24th, 2019.
Council of Communications and Media ( 2009): “Impact of Music, Music Lyrics,
and Music Videos on Children and Youth” [pdf] in the journal of the
American Academy of Pediatrics, Volume 124 / Issue 5. Retrieved from
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/124/5/1488 on January
27th, 2019.
Choudhary, S. (2016): “A Literary Approach to Teaching English Language in a
Multicultural Classroom” [pdf] in the Magazine of the Department of
English, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, India in - Vol. 6 Num. 4, December
2016. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1132741.pdf on
January 31st, 2019.
Copeland, M. ( 2005) Socratic Circles: Fostering Critical and Creative Thinking in
Middle and High School [pdf] Stenhouse Publishers. Retrieved from
https://intc.education.illinois.edu/docs/librariesprovider12/defaultdocument-library/btc_2016/e2.pdf?sfvrsn=ae830188_2 on January 31st,
2019.
13
14