Comparative Perspectives on School Textbooks: Analyzing Shifting Discourses on Nationhood, Citizenship, Gender, and Religion

This book examines the discourses on nation-building, civic identity, minorities, and the formation of religious identities in school textbooks worldwide. It offers up-to-date, practical, and scholarly information on qualitative and mixed-method textbook analysis, as well as the broader context of critical comparative textbook and curriculum analyses in and across selected countries. The volume offers unique and empirical research on how internal educational policies and ideological goals of dominant social, political, and economic groups affect textbook production and the curricular aims in different educational systems worldwide. Chapters address the role of school textbooks in developing nationhood, the creation of citizenship through school textbooks, the complexity of gender in normative discourses, and the intersection of religion and culture in school textbooks.

Dobrochna Hildebrandt-Wypych is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Educational Studies at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland. Her principal research interests are in comparative education and sociology of education, with a particular focus on political determinants of education systems in Central and East European countries focusing on citizenship and civic knowledge.

Alexander W. Wiseman is Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy in the College of Education at Texas Tech University, USA. He conducts comparative educational research on educational policy and practice and serves as senior editor of the online journal, FIRE: Forum for International Research in Education, and as editor of the Annual Review of Comparative and International Education.