Cultural Heritage in Nature and Society E-Textbooks for the First Cycle of Education

Abstract

This paper describes the content related to cultural heritage which exists in e-textbooks on nature and society for the first cycle of education. The research aim is to identify the cultural heritage content through the analysis of e-textbooks "World around us" for the first and second grade, and "Nature and society" for the third and fourth grade. E-textbooks are accessible to all and serve as a media promotion of educational content within them. The research was conducted in June 2023 on a sample of e-textbooks for nature and society published by Klett Publishing House (N = 8). The methods used include theoretical analysis and content analysis. Units of analysis include sentences from the main text and visual content such as images, photographs, and drawings within the didactic-methodological toolkit for various subjects, grades, and teaching topics. The research results have shown that as students progress to higher grades, the volume of content related to cultural heritage increases. However, the analyzed e-textbooks, however, do not sufficiently aid in the development and reinforcement of students' concepts of cultural heritage. Based on the results, conclusions have been drawn, and pedagogical implications have been provided. It is recommended that the content in e-textbooks on nature and society be modified to explicitly address the etymology of cultural heritage content according to the students' age. This would contribute to a stronger knowledge base among students regarding cultural heritage, serving as a foundation for further learning at higher educational levels.