School Textbooks: Didactic Considerations

Abstract

The publication of school textbooks in Chile puts large sums of money into play each year, which makes it a very desirable industry. This underscores the crucial importance of investigating to what extent these textbooks are consistent with the didactic purpose for which they are intended. This study is a continuation of previous research that was done on the quality of textbooks used by Chilean public schools in the history and social sciences subsector, so as to evaluate to what extent recent years (2012-2016) have seen changes in their conception and make-up that might indicate an improvement in their quality and contribution as a crucial tool to support the teaching process. One of the prime objectives was to identify the major strengths and weaknesses of the selected texts, using their content as a variable, which is dimensioned according to certain indicators of form and substance. A sample of textbooks from the period between 2012 and 2016 that were published or republished for the Ministry of Education (MINEDUC) in 2016 was selected for this purpose. Then, the indicators for the dimensions of the variable and the subsequent analysis were defined. The results were presented and keyed to those of the previous study. One of the main conclusions indicates there is an urgent need to review certain essential aspects; namely, impartiality in the way content is treated and objectivity in the presentation of facts and phenomena, as well as an adequate explanation based on their causes and effects.