Reflections on the study of textbooks

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes W.E. Marsden, The School Textbook: Geography, History and Social Studies (London: Woburn Press, 2001). This contains a very useful bibliography. M. Chambliss and R. Calfee, Textbooks for Learning: Nurturing Children's Minds (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998). The authors of Textbooks for Learning estimate that textbooks determine 75–90% of instructional content and activities in schools throughout the US. For the UK Universities' Research Assessment Exercise of 2001 the criteria for submission are given in Section III: Panels' Criteria and Working Methods of the HERO website [http://www.hero.ac.uk/rae], especially the 'Research Outputs' sections 3.59.21‐7. Textbook historian or historian of textbooks? Note the different connotations of these usages. For a starting point see Mark Rose, Authors and Owners (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994). Essential starting points for those interested in ideology and the construction of knowledge in textbooks are Allan Luke, Literacy, Textbooks and Ideology (London: Falmer Press, 1988); Suzanne De Castell, Allan Luke and Carmen Luke (eds), Language, Authority and Criticism: Readings on the School Textbook (London: Falmer Press, 1989); Michael W. Apple and Linda K. Christian‐Smith (eds), The Politics of the Textbook (London: Routledge, 1991). Robert Darnton, 'What is the History of Books?', reprinted in his The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in Cultural History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1990). Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago, IL, Chicago University Press, 1998). Roger Chartier, 'Texts, printing, readings', in The New Cultural History, edited by L. Hunt (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989), 154–75. Roger Cooter and Stephen Pumfrey, 'Separate spheres and public places: reflections on the history of science popularization and science in popular culture', History of Science, 32 (1994), 237–67 (p. 256). For a recent survey covering these links see Jon Topham, 'Scientific publishing and the reading of science: an historiographical survey', Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 31A (2000), 559–612. Still the best starting point for this is Philip Gaskell's A New Introduction to Bibliography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972). See also Marjorie Plant's The English Book Trade (London: Allen & Unwin, 1965). There is a large repository of textbooks held at the Centre for Research Libraries in Chicago, Illinois. Jeremiah Joyce, Scientific Dialogues (London: Joseph Johnson, 1800–03). Falk Pingel, UNESCO Guidebook on Textbook Research and Textbook Revision Studien zur internationalen Schulbuchforschung, 103 (Hanover: Verlag Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1999). See also: Falk Pingel (ed.), Macht Europa Schule?: die Darstellung Europas in Schulbüchern der Europäischen Gemeinschaft (Frankfurt am Main: M. Diesterweg, 1995). The Eckert Institute and its related organs can be traced at ⟨http://www.gei.de⟩. EUROCLIO can be found at ⟨http://www.eurocliohistory.org⟩. See Yasemin Soysal, Rethinking Nation‐state Identities in the New Europe: A Cross‐national Study of School Curricula and Textbooks, End of Award report no. L213252018 (Swindon: Economic and Social Research Council, 2002). See ⟨http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/faculty/westbury/Paradigm/⟩. For further information on Paradigm contact me—the editor—at jri2@york.ac.uk. For France see Alain Choppin, Les Manuels Scolaires (Paris: Hachette, 1992). For Sweden see the International Association for Research on Textbooks and Educational Media (IARTEM), contact Staffan Selander; see S. Selander et al. (eds), New Educational Media and Textbooks—The Second IARTEM Volume, Stockholm Library of Curriculum Studies vol. 9 (Stockholm: Stockholm Institute of Education Press, 2002). For Australia see the University of Sydney Teaching Resources and Textbook Research Unit (TREAT), contact Mike Horsley; see M. Horsley (ed.), The Future of Textbooks?: International Colloquium on School Publishing—Research about Emerging Trends (Sydney: University of Sydney—Teaching Resources and Textbook Research, 2001). ⟨http://www.btinternet.com/∼skua/school/⟩. P.G. Altbach et al. (eds), Textbooks in American Society: Politics, Policy and Pedagogy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), and John Herlihy, The Textbook Controversy (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1992). Jaan Mikk, Textbook Research and Writing (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2000), and Hilary Bourdillon, History and Social Studies—Methodologies of Textbook Analysis (Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger, 1992). Egil Johnsen, Textbooks in the Kaleidoscope: A Critical Survey of Literature and Research on Educational Texts (Oslo: Scandinavian Press, 1993). ⟨http://www.schoolgovernment.co.uk/Educational%20Publishers/⟩. John Feather, A History of British Publishing (London: Croom Helm, 1988). Michael Twyman, Printing 1770–1970: An Illustrated History of its Development and Uses in England (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970). Anders Lundgren and Bernadette Bensaude‐Vincent (eds), Communicating Chemistry: Textbooks and Their Audiences 1789–1939 (Canton, MA: Watson Publishing International, 2000). For a good account and a useful list of sources see Norman Graves's recent School Textbook Research: The Case of Geography 1800–2000 (London: University of London Institute of Education, 2001). Rex Walford, Geography in British Schools, 1850–2000: Making a World of Difference (London: Woburn Press 2001); Marsden, The School Textbook. Richard Altick, The English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public, 1800–1900 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1998).