The Power of Diversity: Fostering Empathy and Understanding Through Multicultural Literature

Abstract

Norway has become an increasingly multicultural society representing a broad range of cultures, religions and ethnicities. The country has always been multicultural in the sense that it has indigenous culture. However, the shift towards a gradually diverse society began many decades ago. Due to labour immigration, family reunification and refugees, diversity in Norway has increased in a relativity short period (Hellevik & Hellevik, 2017, pp. 251-252; Steinkellner et al., 2023). As a means of facing the diversity that exists in Norway and Norwegian schools today, this thesis looks at the importance of multicultural literature, and how teachers and pre-service teachers can use multicultural literature as a tool to promote empathic action in the classroom.

The selected novels in this thesis are The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie and Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah. As a literary analysis of these two young adult novels, the study is grounded in Bishop´s metaphors of windows, mirrors and sliding glass doors, with the implication of cognitive literary theory, focusing on empathy and theory of mind. The study reveals how both novels depict teenagers at a crossroad between their inherent culture and dominant society, causing distortions related to identity and belonging. The two novels both challenge and explain stereotypes aimed at the representative minority groups. The findings from this study emphasize the importance of multicultural literature that contributes to understanding rather than simplistic and stereotypical representations of minority groups.

Keywords: young adult multicultural literature, cognitive literary theory, empathy, theory of mind, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Does My Head Look Big in This?