Global health funds have done a lot of good. Is there room for a “global fund” for books?

By Paul Wilson, Assistant Professor of Clinical Population and Family Health at Columbia University.

Books, especially textbooks, are critical to learning, as we have been reading in the latest blog series on this site, but they are in grievously short supply in many developing country classrooms. Results for Development (R4D) recently released a report, on which I advised, exploring the feasibility of a “Global Book Alliance” that would focus attention, expertise and resources on this crucial obstacle to effective education.

Much of our inspiration came from the success of global funds in health, which have transformed donor assistance in many areas. In our Report – and this blog – we carry on the questions explored in the policy paper released by the GEM Report at the start of last year: Could a new alliance do the same for books?

What American textbooks say about Vietnam, and about Americans’ attitudes toward war

This blog examines what a country’s textbooks can tell us about their attitude towards war, and in particular how coverage of the Vietnam war has changed over time in American textbooks. It is part of a series of blogs on this site published to encourage debates around a new GEM Report Policy Paper: Between the Lines, which looks at the content of textbooks and how it reflects some of the key concepts in Target 4.7 in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

By Richard Lachmann, Professor of Sociology, University at Albany

Textbooks are opportunities for governments to instill patriotic values in school children. Such values are especially important if a government wants its citizens to support future wars. Governments that seek to convince their soldiers to fight, kill and die in wars need to present past wars as glorious and honorable and minimize the wartime suffering of the country’s soldiers. However, textbooks, deliberately or inadvertently, can also open space for ‘critical pedagogy’ that undercuts militarism by presenting the human costs of war for soldiers and civilians.

Textbooks are especially influential in shaping US students’ opinions on war. This is because American high school teachers, unlike their counterparts in Europe and Asia, are not trained in history, having majored in education or social science disciplines, like sociology or psychology. Thus, the decisions made by US textbook authors and publishers are decisive in determining what students learn about America’s wars.

Publishers in the US, as elsewhere, want to sell as many books as possible and therefore seek to avoid offending the often-conservative state and local school boards that select textbooks. This leads to fairly bland volumes that say little about controversial topics like the Vietnam War, or that muddle any contentious message with multiple points of view. Nevertheless, even as publishers try to evade controversy, textbook authors, as they select words and images, make editorial choices that shape how students view specific wars and influence their stance toward the military and war in general.

We need textbooks that are affirming of sexual diversity

This blog looks at the way that textbooks can help or hinder the tolerance of sexual diversity. It is part of a series of blogs on this site published to encourage debates around a new GEM Report Policy Paper: Between the Lines, which looks at the content of textbooks and how it reflects some of the key concepts in Target 4.7 in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Textbooks are never neutral; they convey influential messages that help to shape children and young people’s ideas about what is ‘normal’ and legitimate in their society. While textbooks have increasingly called for tolerance of diversity, too often sexual diversity is excluded. The overwhelming majority of textbooks still only show heterosexual couples, relationships, and families.

Our new policy paper shows that the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex (LGBTI) people appear in only 3% of secondary school social studies textbooks. There has been almost no change in this number since the 1970s, though there is significant regional variation: coverage of LGBTI rights is highest in Latin America and the Caribbean (20%), whereas in sub-Saharan Africa and Northern Africa and Western Asia, less than 5% of textbooks acknowledge LGBTI people.

The Current State of Textbooks in Turkey: a denial of minorities

This blog looks at how Turkish textbooks could better incorporate the cultures, lifestyles and histories of ethnic and religious minorities. It is part of a series of blogs on this site published to encourage debates around a new GEM Report Policy Paper: Between the Lines, which looks at the content of textbooks and how it reflects some of the key concepts in Target 4.7 in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

By Kenan Çayır, Director, Center for Sociology and Education Studies, Istanbul Bilgi University

Education has been centralized in Turkey since the foundation of the republic in 1923. Schools are required to follow a state-produced and unified curriculum. Textbooks strictly follow the National Curriculum drawn up by the Ministry of National Education (MoNE). The Ministry prepares textbooks for all subjects and allows the use of other textbooks submitted by private publishing houses only after they have been approved by the Board of Education. Teachers are not free to choose textbooks, but must use those distributed and approved by the State.

Textbooks in use in Turkey today took their shape and content as a result of a comprehensive curriculum reform in 2005.  This curriculum reform was part of a global trend towards more student-centered pedagogy. In the Turkish context, the MoNE rationalized the curriculum reform by emphasizing the need to align the Turkish education system to the norms of the European Union and of preparing the country for ‘the information age’. As a result, since then, new programs have been developed and new textbooks have gradually been introduced at all grade levels in compulsory education (4 years primary, 4 years secondary, 4 years high school years).

This reform could have been a way to use education’s potential to create a more inclusive nation in Turkey. This is an urgent need since contemporary Turkey has been characterized by increasing claims of non-Muslim and non-Turkish minorities to equal citizenship. Turkey needs to develop an inclusive notion of citizenship in the face of these changes. However, a recent study shows that despite few progressive steps, today’s Turkish textbooks – as with many textbooks worldwide –  still contain the same core problems as the ones they replaced: they deny multiculturalism.

The 1994 Genocide as Taught in Rwanda’s Classrooms

This blog looks at how textbook  and curricula reforms in Rwanda have worked to cover the 1994 Genocide and instill the ideals of tolerance, unity and reconciliation in students. It is part of a series of blogs on this site published to encourage debates around a new GEM Report Policy Paper: Between the Lines, which looks at the content of textbooks and how it reflects some of the key concepts in Target 4.7 in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

by Jean-Damascene Gasanabo, PhD, Director-General, Research and Documentation Center on Genocide, National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG), Kigali, Rwanda.

The 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi saw the slaughter of more than one million people over the span of three months, and placed Rwanda at the forefront of the world’s political consciousness. Almost 23 years later, Rwanda has rebuilt and become a modern hub of progress and development, putting in place social, political and economic systems that are grounded in national unity and reconciliation – with education reforms playing a central role.

More education on sustainable development? If it is good…

This blog looks at the way that textbooks can help or hinder the provision of education for sustainable development. It is part of a series of blogs on this site published to encourage debates around a new GEM Report Policy Paper: Between the Lines, which looks at the content of textbooks and how it reflects some of the key concepts in Target 4.7 in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

By Tobias Ide

Many calls have been launched to enhance access to education. The Millennium Development Goals, for instance, explicitly aimed to ‘achieve universal primary education’. Access to education is also a key requirement for sustainable development. Thanks to an increasing number of studies on the issue, we now know that people only act on environmental problems if they know (i) how these problems affect them, and (ii) what can be done to address these problems. This knowledge can hardly be established without sufficient access to education in general, and to education for sustainable development in particular. Consequentially, the Sustainable Development Goals demand: “By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education.”

But while expanding access to education is of utmost importance, the quality of education is extremely relevant as well. Badly designed or implemented education might even be counter-productive.

What’s between the lines of your textbook?

This blog provides some guidelines for teachers and students when reviewing the contents of their own textbooks, to consider how they incorporate sustainability, human rights, gender equality, peace and non-violence, global citizenship and an appreciation of cultural diversity. It is accompanied by an activity sheet that can be used in the classroom. It is part of a series of blogs that seeks to encourage debates around a new GEM Report Policy Paper: Between the Lines, which focuses on the content of textbooks and how it reflects some of the key concepts in Target 4.7 in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Textbooks are an important resource in all classrooms – they have informative content, as well as exercises and activities that help students learn. But textbooks also reflect the values and norms in our society; they make assumptions about the roles people should play, and can perpetuate stereotypes. Sometimes they tell only a small part of a much bigger story, and what they don’t say, rather than what they do, can leave out valuable perspectives or the experiences of certain people.

Who is represented?

In addition to the explicit information that students learn, textbooks convey implicit messages and ideas through text and images. Ideally the types of people and relationships depicted in our textbooks will reflect the diversity of human experiences in our societies. For example: are men and women equally represented? What sort of activities are they shown doing, and what messages does that send about what boys and girls should strive for, or how they should act or behave now and in the future?

Viet Nam: Using Textbooks and Curricula for Gender Equality

This blog looks at how recent textbook reforms in Viet Nam have worked to improve gender equality. It is part of a series of blogs on this site published to encourage debates around a new GEM Report Policy Paper: Between the Lines, which looks at the content of textbooks and how it reflects some of the key concepts in Target 4.7 in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

By Mr. Tran Kim Tu, Vice Director of the Department of Teachers and Education Administrators of the Ministry of Education and Training and Vice Chairman of the Committee for the Advancement of Women in the Education Sector

Textbooks and curricula contain more than just facts and figures that should be learnt at school: they hold the transformative power to shape the attitudes, beliefs and values of children and young people of all ages and backgrounds.

These educational tools serve as a repository for the diverse knowledge we hope to transfer to our students through literature, history, science, mathematics and many other subjects in Viet Nam, empowering our citizens to cultivate the knowledge, skills and attitudes that are conducive to inclusive and equitable learning and environmental awareness.

However, the development of good textbooks and curricula is a never-ending process that requires constant revision, upgrading and improvement. Despite Viet Nam’s progress to eliminate gender disparities and achieve gender equality in education, gender discrimination and bias still remain prevalent in many different forms, one of which is through textbooks.

In recognition of this, the Vietnamese Education Sector has taken action to develop recommendations for gender-sensitive strategies and policies; enhance the capacity and awareness of thousands of educational managers, teachers and students on gender equality; and to equip education officials at all levels with knowledge and skills related to mainstreaming gender equality into educational planning, management and policy-making.

With the “Rise of Children,” So Too Must Textbooks Reflect Children’s Rights

This blog looks at the way that textbooks cover children’s rights. It is part of a series of blogs on this site published to encourage debates around a new GEM Report Policy Paper: Between the Lines, which looks at the content of textbooks and how it reflects some of the key concepts in Target 4.7 in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

By Christine Min Wotipka, Associate Professor (Teaching) of Education at Stanford University

Dramatic changes in the way we think of children have occurred around the world over the past century. The notion of children as small adults, or in a stage of becoming adults, has been replaced with one that consider children as being in a unique stage of identity. This means children are viewed as having rights not only as humans, but also as children.

Syrian Refugee in Lebanon. Credit: Justine Redman

At the same time, children are seen as having human capital potential – educate them now and they will mature into contributing members of society and the labor force. However they are viewed, the global ascendancy of children can be measured in several interesting ways, including how they are represented in school textbooks.

Out of date textbooks put sustainable development at risk.

Today, we’ve launched a new study into secondary school textbooks around the world, continuing our focus on the content of education, which we began in the 2016 GEM Report with a focus on curricula.

Mexico: http://libros.conaliteg.gov.mx/content/common/consulta-libros-gb

Our focus on textbooks comes from a strong belief that few instruments shape children’s and young people’s minds more powerfully than the teaching and learning materials used in schools. Often, textbooks are the first, and sometimes only books that a young person may read. They don’t just teach about facts, but also convey social values, political identities, and an understanding of history and the world. Teachers and students trust textbooks as authoritative and objective sources of information. Here we aim to hold governments to account for the truth behind that trust.

 

Our new analysis looks at secondary school textbooks in history, civics, social studies and geography from the 1950s until 2011. The materials were drawn from the Georg Eckert Institute in Germany, which holds the most extensive collection of textbooks from around the world in these subjects. One of the most in-depth analyses of textbooks ever done, it shows that many have missed or misrepresented key priorities now shown as crucial to achieve sustainable development.