| dc.description.abstract | This study aimed to investigate how ‘German culture’ is performed and experienced at a
German-English bilingual school in Australia. Thereby, it was essential to find out what
teachers and children understand as and associate with ‘German culture’.
To gain knowledge and data for this study, traditional methods, such as unstructured- and
participant observation and semi-structured interviews and task-based methods, like drawings,
were combined. Altogether, five teachers and six children participated in this study. I focused
only on German teachers, children of non-German origin and children of German origin, but
with non-German speaking parents. I have been curious how teachers, who are from German
descent, perform and understand ‘German culture’, as well as how children, who have no
personal relationship to this culture from their parental home, understand and experience
‘German culture’.
The main theoretical concept for this thesis was the concept of culture. Culture is a very
complex and controversial concept, which is discussed by many scholars. For this study, I
used an anthropological view concerning this concept. Other theoretical concepts originated
from social studies of children and childhood, for instance, referring to childhood as being
socially constructed. I also considered theoretical perspectives on language learning and
identity.
The findings of this study demonstrated that ‘German culture’ is mostly understood as ‘way
of life’ by the participants of this study. Art, music, social upbringing, traditions/festivities,
food and values present some examples of associations some of my participants had.
However, most of the participating children had not heard about the term ‘German culture’
before. The findings also indicated that ‘German culture’ is, for instance, performed through
school events like the ‘Oktoberfete’. Furthermore, the findings have shown that the way the
school performs ‘German culture’ influences the way children experience it. | nb_NO |
