One of the articles that we came across while working on the first Raise Up! book was this one by Derek Philip Xu.
Derek’s article is particularly interesting because it was written by someone inside the publishing industry with the intention of expressing his concerns about the compromise that he as an editor and as a gay man had to make in order to do his job. This perspective makes it unique so far in our research as the voices from within publishing are noticeably absent.
We highly recommend you read the whole thing, but one quote that we want to focus on here is:
“With many companies promoting and advocating equality and diversity, surely this should also feed into the products that are produced and sold by them. After all, what is sold should reflect the company’s values and ethics.”
This seems a very important point to us. Pretty much every publishing company that you can think of will have a commitment to their staff’s well-being, including recognising the right to be able to express their identity publicly without it affecting their work in any way.
So the question is how long will it be until they feel able to extend this to all of their customers too? Currently it seems that the policy that dictates the content of ELT coursebooks is determined by the perspective in the most conservative countries in the world. Do you think that the subjects in your lessons should be decided by the education ministries of Saudi Arabia and China?
