History of Textbook Research

The informed choice: mathematics textbook assessment in light of educational freedom, effectiveness, and improvement in primary education

“…Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, in light of educational effectiveness and improvement and together with the major role of textbooks in education (Fey & Matthes, 2018), research on textbooks' effectiveness, i.e., their contribution to educational outcomes, has gained in significance (Fan et al, 2013;Fuchs & Henne, 2018). Consequently, diverse topics were investigated, including design elements of textbooks such as illustrations, graphics, and tables, digital versus printed media, combining textbook with use of own materials (Fuchs & Henne, 2018; e.g., Wijaya, van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, & Doorman, 2015;Hadar, 2017), leading to a growing body of knowledge on criteria for evaluating textbooks' effectiveness in relation to student achievement. The most widely and vivid field of research on textbook effectiveness is situated within the field of mathematics (Schubring & Fan, 2013;Valverde et al, 2002), with most studies conducted at the primary education level (Fan et al, 2013).…”

Linguistic landscape of Finnish school textbooks

“…Textbooks have attracted the attention of researchers for more than a century and it is a field of study that is still evolving (Fuchs & Henne, 2018). This study is parallel to many recent textbook studies that discuss the cultural and ideological politics of textbooks (e.g.…”

Emancipation

“…Not only the aforementioned time pressure that they impose on authors but also their commercial interests exert an influence on the historical representations in textbooks (Apple 1989). After all, a textbook is a commercial product that must be sold (Fuchs and Henne 2018). In the very competitive market of textbooks, with its often small profit margins, publishers hesitate to disseminate and sell textbooks that are too innovative and too different from what the customers (teachers and students) are used to and that contain too much controversial information.…”

“…The "own" imperial past, in those countries having been either colonizer or colonized, still receives the bulk of attention. It is, however, much more than before located in a regional and global context (Fuchs and Henne 2018;Schissler and Soysal 2005). The "own" national imperial past, in other words, is often not addressed in a separate way anymore in chapters on the national past yet regionally or globally contextualized.…”