3.2.1 The textbook as an aspect of educational media
In the teaching and learning process, both teachers and learners may engage with a wide range of resources which are geared to enable better pedagogy. Depending on the context, these resources are referred to in different ways. For example, Rodríguez and Barbeito (2008) prefer to call them didactic materials. However, in the South African curriculum they are called
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Learning and Teaching Support Material (LTSM) (DoE, 2003) whilst in Zimbabwe they are referred to as teaching and learning resources (Kanyongo, 2005; Chitate, n.d.). Furthermore, the ever-increasing evidence of technological advancement in schools has also given rise to the concept of educational media. Some of the educational media can be regarded as traditional while others more innovative. On one hand, the innovative educational media include the latest computer hardware and software, the internet, audio slides, video gadgets and multimedia facilities (Ravelonanahary, 2008). On the other hand, resources such as textbooks and other books, primary documents, magazines, newspapers and periodicals are considered traditional as they have been in use for longer, are technologically less complexand invariably cost less for the schools to procure (Horsley, 2008).
While the concept of innovative educational media became popular since the 1960s, textbooks had been in use centuries earlier. Nevertheless, the use of History textbooks was still novel at the end of the 19th century, since History only became an officially legal school subject by the turn of the 20th century even in countries such as England (Nichol & Dean, 2003). In fact, for several decades of the 19th century the use of textbooks was, in Europe, referred to as the
“American system” (Lindley, 2010, p. 1). Therefore the books that were used in schools before History became a fully-fledged school discipline could not necessarily be classified as educational media. Although there have been some changes in forms of educational media, the textbook has not changed much; hence it is referred to as traditional.
The perceived traditional nature of the textbook has seen it sometimes relegated out of the category of educational media. Norlund (2008) however considers textbooks to be educational media. Yet, for scholars such as Fedorov (2003) and Nazari and Hasbullah (2010) educational media has to be technologically innovative meaning that textbooks cannot be regarded as such.
Other scholars such as Selander (2008), Naseem (2008) and Ravelonanahary (2008) suggest that while textbooks are not necessarily educational media, there is a definite relationship between the two. An example of a major manifestation of this school of thought can be the International Conference on Textbooks and Educational Media whose name evidently implies a distinction (albeit a relationship) between textbooks and educational media (Horsley & McCall, 2008). It
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can therefore be detected that there is a tension when regarding textbooks as educational media. In addition to this is the question of whether or not textbooks can still hold their own as critical and relevant educational media especially with the emergence of information sources such as the World Wide Web which the state finds difficult to control (Naseem, 2008).
The question of the role of the textbook as an aspect of educational media is also an issue of academic contention. At a holistic level Selander (2008) explains that textbooks and other educational media play an important role in the teaching and learning process and this is corroborated by evidence from international evaluations and surveys involving students and teachers. An example of such evaluations was the one conducted by the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in 2007 (Selander, 2008). Furthermore, to contextualise textbooks as educational media, Bliss (2008, p. 428) maintained that, “with a plethora of books, films and primary and secondary source materials available from libraries and on the Internet, textbooks should be used as a supplement in the classroom to achieve a diversity of perspectives.” In fact, as Horsley (2008) noted, some teachers believe that use of textbooks is an example of a weak pedagogic approach and effective teachers do not need the textbook to teach.
Therefore the issue raised here is that textbooks are sometimes excluded from discourses of educational media because of two reasons: their traditional nature in the context of advanced technology, and their nature as a pedagogic tool. This tension calls for a further discussion of the pedagogic nature of the textbook from the point of view of both the teachers and the learners.
3.2.2 Teachers and the use of the textbook in the classroom
As a result of the increased availability of an array of educational media alluded to above, the role of textbooks in the classroom has come under amplified scrutiny. Accompanying almost all international scholarship on textbooks is the debate over their role in teaching and learning. A plethora of studies have been conducted, especially for History textbooks, on the basis of their
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having been a central part of the teaching and learning of the subject for over five hundred years in Western education (Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991; Sleeter & Grant, 1991; Mirkovic &
Crawford, 1998; Crawford, 2000; Nicholls, 2006).
In order to have clearer understanding of the place of the textbook as educational media, it is essential to know who uses the textbook. According to Knecht (2008) the common view up to around the mid-1970s was that textbooks were meant first and foremost to help the teachers in conducting their job. However, the dominant current view is that textbooks should be produced with a focus on the needs of the learners (Mikk, 2000). It is for this reason that some publishers have resorted to producing learners’ and teachers’ copies of the same textbook so that each of them caters for the respective needs of the primary users.
For some teachers, textbooks are sometimes viewed as so useful and trustworthy such that acquiring a textbook and using it in class is seen as “equivalent to taking religious vows” (Lebrun et al, 2002, p. 52). In line with this view is the argument that prevailed almost unchallenged up to the 1970s that an analysis of a particular textbook would enable the researcher to tell exactly what was being taught at that contemporary time in the particular place (Caputo, 1960; Degler, 1964). Such thinking maintains that regardless of the influx of other kinds of educational media, textbooks would still be central to teaching and learning. In support of this argument, the study by van Hover and Yeager (2007) illustrates the case of a teacher who admitted to the centrality of the History textbook to everything that occurred in her class. In fact, related to such cases, some teachers also claim to teach without bothering to refer to the curriculum documents and simply settle to cover certain, if not all, topics in the textbooks by the end of the year (Barnard, 1968). This practice is based on the belief that failure to cover the textbook would not only be a sign of indolence, but might crucially contribute negatively to the learners’ final marks.
The above arguments imply that many teachers use textbooks in class not simply because they believe learners need the textbooks, but mainly because they (teachers) would struggle to teach without them. They need the textbooks for guidance in terms of both content and pedagogy and also to spend less time on preparations for lessons (Pogelschek, 2008). In the case of History textbooks, Wineburg (2004, p. 1412) opines that “many social studies teachers
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are forced to rely on the books because they lack adequate subject matter knowledge.” This is even more so in cases where teachers are allocated to teach a subject that they were never trained to teach because there seemed to be no one else to teach it at a particular school.
Horsley (2008) and Sikorova (2008) add that new and beginning teachers also benefit enormously from using textbooks in terms of knowledge, conceptual understanding, selection, sequencing and pacing of the subject matter and curriculum guidance, since they may view the textbook as a simplified and practical interpretation of the curriculum. However, if, when and how the teacher uses the textbook depends on a multiplicity of factors including the teacher’s qualification, the grade being taught, the teacher’s teaching experience and the teacher’s philosophy of teaching and learning (Sikorova, 2008).
To these factors determining the use of textbooks identified above may be added the un/availability of a wide range of other educational media as previously mentioned. This availability is also contextual. It is not surprising that for a number of African countries where schools lack educational resources in general, the learner-textbook ratio is still a big government target ahead of other educational media (Maposa, in press).13 Other examples of the centrality of the textbook as the key form of educational media are in Ghana (Opoku- Amankwa, 2008) and Kenya (Rotich & Musakali 2008). In spite of globalisation and related developments, the digital divide is a reality that leaves education in the cited African countries heavily reliant on textbooks. This trend is not limited to African countries only as there are cases of other countries such as Greece having one History textbook per school level (Repoussi, 2007; Sjöberg, 2011).
As previously explained, technological developments especially by the 1990s have resulted in the emergence of new kinds of optional educational media for teachers. This development spurred Greenstein (1997, p. 359) to raise concern over textbooks being superseded and
“replaced by multimedia installations.” More recently, according to Lindley (2010, p. 1), Texas Governor Rick Perry confidently claimed: “I don't see any reason in the world why we need to
13 This is a book chapter titled “‘Third Chimurenga’ and history education in Zimbabwe” that I have contributed to a book on History wars, a project by the Georg-Eckert-Institut, Braunschweig which is due to be published in September 2014.
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have textbooks in Texas in the next four years.” Nevertheless, the questioning of the above- mentioned dominance of the textbook in the teaching and learning process is not entirely a new development. According to Lebrun, et al. (2002, p. 61) “as early as 1931, Brother Marie Victorin wrote, ‘without denying the usefulness of textbooks, I wonder if we haven't exaggerated their importance.’” This serves to prove that the detractors of textbooks have always existed even before a plethora of most of the innovative educational media were in use.
In other words, the availability of innovative educational media has not always resulted in a reduced use of the textbook, even in the developed world. To support this Applebee, Langer and Mullis (as cited in Lavere, 2008, p. 3) claim that as much as 90% of instructional time in History classrooms is taken up by the use of textbooks. A potential development is the innovation of digital textbooks which, according to Swanson (2014), are bound to take over the
“$8 billion textbook business” (p. 289). Therefore, based on the evidence given above, most teachers view textbooks to be a reliable form of educational media.
3.2.3 The textbook and the learner
What the above discussions imply is that the significance of the textbook to the learner depends largely on how the teacher uses it and how much of it learners are asked to rely on. If teachers decide to use textbooks for the reasons explained above, to a greater extent the learners have little choice but to also use them. It is the teacher who is responsible for creating the learners’ confidence and dependency on the textbook. This is because learners are at the bottom of the chain of the pedagogic process which Cherryholmes (1988, as cited in Sleeter &
Grant, 1991, p. 80) describes as “the narrowing process.” Through this process, educational media, particularly textbooks, can serve to either empower or disempower the learners who use them. With reference to textbooks, Sleeter and Grant (1991, p. 80) explained the narrowing process thus:
Scholars … often have a variety of definitions from which to choose in writing textbooks; teachers have fewer from which to choose, but often have more than one; and students usually, more so at lower levels, are given the opportunity to learn only one.
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The implication of the narrowing process is that the learners, who are at the nadir of the educational chain, are given by the textbook what they take to be “cut and dried certainties”
(Anderson & Day, 2005, p. 335). This also means that learners are not stimulated to do much cognitive work as all they will have to do is to learn to absorb “contents that are already structured and synthesized” (Lebrun, et al. 2002, p. 60). Such an education will most likely develop within the learners a fundamentalist view of the textbook whereby they accept it to be an accurate representation of the past.
It is important to note that the variables of textbook usage and the effects of the usage are not always directly correlated. Even if textbooks were to be accepted as taking up most of the pedagogic role in the classroom, debates still rage over their actual effect on the learner.
Primarily, textbooks paradoxically represent both curriculum as intention and curriculum as practice. In the form of curriculum as practice, textbooks may not always exactly reflect what curriculum as policy intended. This process of curriculum recontextualisation creates a gap between policy and practice (Bertram, 2009). This recontextualisation proceeds to show the gap between what is in the textbooks and what eventually occurs in the classroom Gordon (2005). Hence, for example, there is no guarantee that the intended African consciousness is what will actually be constructed ultimately in the learners’ minds after textbook use.
In developing the argument, some scholars contend that in spite of the apparent prevalence of the textbooks in the classroom, the assumption that learners always learn what is found in the textbooks, particularly History textbooks, is flawed (Porat, 2004; Foster & Crawford, 2006;
Chisholm, 2008). To illustrate how what is in the textbook is not always a representation of what is eventually learned, Chisholm (2008) showed how South African textbooks largely adhered to the constitutional values of diversity and inclusivity, but the events on the ground in South Africa were then characterized by exclusivity manifested through xenophobic incidents. It is also possible that learners could be exposed to certain ideals via the textbooks without necessarily learning and adopting the ideals, especially after the eclipsing horizon of the exam.
In addition, Porat (2004) contended that the impact of textbooks is mostly felt in terms of reinforcing what the learners already know from unofficial history. This, he argued, is because
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“not only do people tend to read text in a manner that supports their personal beliefs, but they read in a way that supports their cultural schemata” (Porat, 2004, p. 965). Such kinds of arguments have been used by those who denigrate the contemporary role of textbooks, in the process questioning whether they are still relevant for the learner in the 21st century.
In spite of the wide range of educational media available in some contexts, arguments against the importance of textbooks are still to gain much ground. Von Borries (2003) acknowledges that it indeed cannot be generalised that all teachers and learners use textbooks in the same way. He however, maintains that regardless of the differential contextual factors “textbooks often remain the starting-point for both” (Von Borries, 2003, p. 62). In concurrence, Evans and Rosenzweig (as cited in Cohen, 2005, p. 1405) argue that even if they were not the major source of history, “textbooks are the single most important written source through which college students [and learners] learn about the past.” It should also be added that textbooks are not only for the benefit of the teachers and learners. According to Gordon (2005, p. 369
“History textbooks and the public and academic debates about their objectivity, truth, and bias fulfil a semantic function for the adults of the society.” This in turn has a bearing on the creation or destruction of national narratives of which everyone in a particular country becomes part of even if they are not in the school system.
To further counter the detractors of textbook usage, Sleeter and Grant (1991, p. 97) also maintained that “even if students forget, ignore, or reject what they encounter in textbooks, textbook content is still important because it withholds, obscures, and renders unimportant many ideas and areas of knowledge.” To appreciate this argument better in the case of History, it is essential to understand that unofficial History influences official History while, simultaneously, official History influences unofficial History (Wertsch & Rozin, 2000). In this case, History textbooks are proponents of official History while other sources could promote unofficial History. This is where textbooks become crucial because other educational media such as the internet and film cannot always be controlled by the state and thus promote unofficial History which might defeat the state’s whole purpose of having History in the school curriculum. As Selander (2008) notes, learners read textbooks, not “out of a pure desire for
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amusement” since they have a particular purpose which suits their genre. Therefore for school History to deliver in the role of civic education as described in Chapter 1, textbooks remain an important aspect of educational media. This is why the culture of using textbooks is very endemic to the extent that many learners are completely dependent on them that they cannot fathom studying without the textbook. This centrality of textbooks, especially in the teaching and learning of school History, continues to provide a strong rationale for intensive textbook analysis. But any textbook analysis needs to be founded on a fundamental understanding of the nature of the textbook as an aspect of educational media.
3.2.4 The textbook: its nature and genre
While textbooks can be viewed as a form of broader educational media, they have certain characteristics that make them unique. The nature of the textbook cannot be taken for granted since the meaning of textbooks depends on the educational system. Crawford (2000, p. 9) emphasises “the social construction of school textbooks” to show how their nature is in flux.
What might be called a textbook in one educational system might not be regarded as such in another. To this end, when researchers met for an educational conference in Braunschweig (Germany) in 1990 they concurred that a textbook is written for the sole purpose of supporting a course or syllabus (Weinbrenner, 1992). Although this understanding can be taken to be the general consensus in most educational systems, it should be noted that there are exceptional cases, where books which were not specifically written for a certain curriculum are adopted to support it. For example, Firer (1998, p. 197) notes that for Israelis, the Bible is not just a textbook, but “the textbook.” This means that for a nation which has religion at the core of its foundation and continued survival, the state inculcates and maintains a particular consciousness amongst its citizenry through turning the religious book into an indispensable textbook for their schools. Even if the Israeli case is one of the few exceptions rather than the rule, it shows the socially constructed nature of the concept of the textbook in that its meaning is context-specific. This in turn can explain the socially constructed nature of what they promote, African consciousness being an example.