Playing it by the Textbook

Edge Hill has launched the country?s first research centre for school textbooks.

TEXT ? the International Centre for Applied Research into School Textbooks ? will be based at Edge Hill directed by Dr Keith Crawford, Katherine Straker and Julia Phillmore, along with associates Professor Simons of Lincoln University; Dr Stuart Foster, Dr Stuart Foster, London Institute of Education and Professor Mike Horsley from the University of Sydney.

"This centre has been set up on the understanding that textbooks have been largely ignored in terms of explaining how they are written, why specific information is included and omitted, and specifically the way in which teachers and pupils use them in classrooms" said Dr Crawford. "Educational publishing is a £200million a year business and no academic institution has ever engaged with the industry in terms of offering consultancy, market research and academic research designed to improve the product.

"The aim of TEXT will be to provide a national base for investigations into the authoring, publishing and use of textbooks in school by teachers and pupils in a manner that is designed to make tangible and lasting impacts on education."

Similar centres are already in operation in Germany and Australia ? countries that will be joined by Japan, China, USA and Spain in being the subject of an international survey carried out by TEXT.

"In Japan, China and USA, school textbooks are tightly controlled and used as a political tool ? particularly in subjects such as history, geography and citizenship ? with certain details overlooked while others are over-stressed through rhetoric and imagery.

"While this is less of the case in the UK, it would be na?ve to think that elements of censorship and bias don?t occur."

In addition to the international survey, TEXT will conduct a national project, working closely with over 1000 pupils and 200 teachers, along with a thorough research audit of their growing textbook library.

An international conference is planned for next year with details posted on the TEXT website www.edgehill.ac.uk/text

Initially, research will concentrate on the curriculum areas of history, geography, citizenship and related social science subjects, however work is already being carried out on mathematics textbooks.

"From the selection of content and the physical act of writing right through to choice of images and the use of textbooks in the classroom, TEXT will be covering all bases with key support from publishers, teachers and, perhaps most importantly the pupils, who have never been asked what they think of school textbooks.

"It?s a massive project and we hope to gradually encourage more and more enthusiastic minds to get involved along the way."

Picture: Julia Phillmore and Dr Keith Crawford.