Postcolonial literature and the politics of representation in school programs

This article explores theoretical and pedagogical frameworks for re-evaluating literary curricula and reading practices in contemporary school classrooms. Data from a study of students' responses to reading international literature in a multiethnic urban Canadian high school and conversations with South African high school students on their reading preferences ground this discussion of how students and teachers can cross borders constructed within discourses of race, gender, and ethnicity. Drawing on postcolonial literary theory, critical theory, and reader response theories, the article considers the questions, concerns, and dilemmas that emerge when students begin to deconstruct misrepresentations of "others" in literary texts and acknowledge challenges to their perceptions of self. © Kluwer Academic Publishers.