1. Science Education and Guidance in Schools:
The Way Forward
Florence, September 22nd 2013
The Role of Textbooks in Science Education:
a Case Study on Human Migrations
Adriana Valente, Tommaso Castellani, Silvia Caravita
Science Communication and Education
Institute for Research on Population and Social Policies
the National Research Council of Italy

2. Our Research Unit
Some research activities in science & society area:
– Surveys on attitudes towards science and on communication practices of scientists
– Qualitative methodologies to investigate the relationship between science and
society (interviews, Policy Delphi and other participatory methodologies)
– Ethics & Polemics methodology including participatory tools (Metaplan, OST) for
citizens and students involvement in the scientific debate (selected as European best
practice) -> Castellani, L’Astorina, Valente (this morning)
– Analysis of textbooks: evolution, environmental education and others (BioheadCitizen, FP6); human migrations in comparison with other countries of the
Mediterranean (project coordinated by University of Montpellier) -> this talk
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Istituto di Ricerche sulla Popolazione e le Politiche Sociali

3. Why textbooks?
Textbooks as input and output:
– textbooks reveal how the research results
have been absorbed by society
– textbooks contribute to shape new citizens
of the society
Textbooks: an important context for understanding the relationship between
knowledge and values
Textbooks convey (explicitly and implicitly) ideological and epistemological values
and they include a multitude of open or hidden messages in the text as well as in
the images.
(Caravita et al. 2008, Caravita and Valente 2013)
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4. The topic: Human migrations
Case study: human migrations topic
– covered by life sciences as well as by social sciences
– extremely heterogeneous phenomenon (also in Italy)
– complex theme
– sociology: causes and preconditions of immigration, ...
– economy: contexts of labour market, ...
– politics: policies on immigration, ...
– demography: data on immigrants (countries of origin, etc.), ...
– biology: migrations in the history of Homo sapiens...
– anthropology...
– ...
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5. Research questions
Aim of our study:
assessing the extent to which this complexity is presented in textbooks
– to what extent textbooks manage to overcome stereotypes?
– what implicit and explicit values ​textbooks express on immigration? (e.g. biological
determinism, sexism)
– do textbooks offer the tools to act as citizens on the migration policies?
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Istituto di Ricerche sulla Popolazione e le Politiche Sociali

6. The selection of the books
In Italy, migration is not present as a curricular topic in any school subject.
But it is mentioned in a fragmented way in many subjects.
– this fragmentation exists somehow also in the research on the topic
Starting point: “Indicazioni Nazionali” (Italian Ministry of Education for school
curricula) for higher secondary schools.
Classes and subjects in which the theme of migration is explicitly named:
– geography, 1st year
– history, 5th year
We decided to consider history and geography also of lower secondary schools,
although the new ministerial directions do not describe the details of the curricula
but only give general guidelines.
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7. The methodology of analysis
The methodology followed for textbooks analysis is based on the theoretical
framework and on the results of the Biohead-Citizen European project (Caravita and
Valente 2013, Caravita et al. 2008, Quessada et al. 2008)
– Biohead: some subjects of Biology, Health and Environmental Education
- questionnaires for teachers (in service and future teachers)
- science texbooks analysis
Grid of analysis with several dimensions. Examples:
​(for text) educational style, occurrences of words, explicit and implicit values...
(for images) gender of individuals and groups represented, context, ​implicit and
explicit values...
Objectives of the grids:
– to detect the differences between the current debate on immigration and the
information contained in the textbooks
– to reveal the system of values conveyed implicitly and explicitly by the images and
texts.
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8. The representation of human migration in textbooks: overview
continuous incoming flow
instead of...
incoming and outgoing flows
incoming migrants settle
always to Italy
incoming migrants pass through
Italy and settle elsewhere
migrants are coming only
to flee their countries
migrants are also coming for a
demand of workforce from Italy
in present times, migrants
come to Italy, while in past
Italian people migrated
also at present times a large
number of Italian people is
migrating
migrants are poor and unschooled
migrants may have high schooling
migrants do only poorly qualified works
migrants are also entrepreneurs
women migrate to accompany their men
women migrate also alone
simplification, poor attention to human immigration as resource (economic and cultural)
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9. Presentation of the phenomenon: categories of values
Two main categories of values on migration:
- acceptance - for moral reasons
- for reciprocity (we Italian have been migrants in past)
- problem
Immigration as a problem
Some paragraph titles:
«The dramatic flow of migrants»
«The tragedy of immigrants»
«The problem of integration»
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«Il drammatico flusso dei migranti»
«La tragedia degli immigrati»
«Il problema dell’integrazione»
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10. The words
Inappropriate or ambiguous terms
– suggesting a «we» with respect to a «they»
Also implicitly. Example:
«...these people come to Italy...»
«...questa gente viene in Italia...»
Inappropriate use of the Italian word “extracomunitari” (literally: non-EU)
from popular media to texbooks
«Even in Italy, from where a lot of emigrants left in seach of work, in the relationship
with [extracomunitari] the fundamental rights of person are not always respected»
«Anche in Italia, da dove sono partiti in cerca di lavoro tanti emigranti, nei rapporti
con gli extracomunitari non si rispettano sempre i diritti fondamentali della persona»
The word “extracomunitari” used instead of “immigrants” (“immigrati”)
– note the “reciprocity” value
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11. «to survive , nomads and [...] clandestines [...] end up at times to devote
themselves to robberies and thefts, drug dealing and other illegal activities. It is
not, of course, a choice of all: most of them want above all to find a job»
«nomadi e [...] clandestini [...] per sopravvivere finiscono a volte per darsi a scippi e
furti, spaccio di droga e altre attività illecite. Non è, beninteso, una scelta di tutti: la
gran parte di loro vuole soprattutto trovare un lavoro»
“Nomads and clandestines” together
– note the “problem” dimension in the first claim, followed by a disclaimer
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12. Images
- Oversimplification
- Gender imbalance
- Presence of stereotypes
- Journalistic images
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13. Images in geography textbooks
24 both genders
16 men
5 women
3 gender not recognizable
Different contexts for men and women:
– women often accompanied by children
– Among 16 images with only men, only in 2 there are children
– Men without adult women are represented in 8 cases in their workplace
– Women without men are never in their workplace
The role of children:
– Only 1 of the 11 images that represent a rich context includes children
Children are almost always depicted in contexts of poverty, as if their presence was
used to further arouse pity in the reader.
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15. Images in history textbooks
11 men
6 women
22 both genders
1 gender not recognizable
Also in this case, association between women and children:
– in 4 of 6 images with only women, they are represented with children
– Children do not appear in any of the 11 images with only men without women.
Confirmed the association between children and poverty:
– none of 8 images representing a rich context includes children.
Among the 6 images of women:
– 4 clearly poor environment
– 2 environment is not recognizable or definable
The men are never explicitly represented in a poor environment.
Among the 6 images relating to a work environment, 4 represent only men. Never
only women.
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17. Conclusions – 1
– drastic reduction of the complexity
- impossibility for the student of recognizing the multiplicity of causes, interests
and experiences involved.
– no problematization of the phenomenon
– dichotomous approach “we” versus “they”
– positive feelings of solidarity and humanity
- not going beyond compassion, tolerance towards newcomers and sense of
duty (basing on memory of past Italian emigrants and refugees)
– reassuring aim. But reassuring implies a threat
Immigrant women:
– much less present in textbooks than men
– kept in a traditional role (almost no work situation)
– somehow “veiled”
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18. Conclusions – 2
DTD (Didactic Transposition Delay) (Clément and Hovart 2000)
Recent issues: e.g. the current debate on citizenship
Past issues: e.g. the role of women entrepreneurs, the “migratory project”
A favorable cultural context is a biasing towards the transfer of results of research in
teaching.
The amplitude of DTD is the effect of a careless cultural context, in which the results
of social studies (and studies by other disciplines) on immigration are taking off
slowly.
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19. Bibliography
Thank you!
Tommaso Castellani
tommaso.castellani@cnr.it
Caravita S., Valente A., Luzi D., Pace P., Khalil I., Valanides N.,
Nisiforou O., Berthou G., Kozan-Naumescu A., Clément P. (2008)
Construction and Validation of Textbook Analysis Grids for
Ecology and Environmental Education, Science Education
International Journal, vol.19 (2)
Caravita S., Valente A. (2013) Educational approach to
Environmental complexity in Life Sciences school manuals. An
analysis across countries, in Critical Analysis of Science
Textbooks, Evaluating instructional effectiveness, Khine, Myint
Swe (Ed.), Springer
Clément P., Hovart S. (2000) Environmental Education: analysis
of the didactic transposition and of the conceptions of teachers,
in Bayerhuber H., Mayer J. (Eds.), State of the art of empirical
research on environmental education, Münster: Waxmann Verlag
Quessada M.P., Clément P., Oerke B., Valente A. (2008) Human
Evolution in Science textbooks from twelve different countries,
Science Education International, vol.19 (2)
Valente A., Castellani T., Vitali G., Caravita S. (in preparation)
L’image des migrants dans les manuels italiens d’histoire et de
géographie
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