Rosa Branca Tracana

Trends in Environmental Education Images of Textbooks from Western and Eastern European Countries and Non-European Countries

Textbook analysis is seen as a major element for studying environmental education addressing pupils, image analysis being rather relevant when studying textbooks written in 11 languages. We analysed 25 textbooks from 14 countries addressed to 14–16-year-old pupils, focusing on: (1) local and foreign/global images; (2) urban/rural and nature images; (3) negative impact, human management, and the beauty of nature; and (4) men and women in images with negative and positive impact. We distinguished some trends between Western (WEc) and Eastern (EEc) European countries and non-European countries (NEc). In contrast to textbooks from EEc and NEc, which tend to show the beauty of nature with little human influence, WEc textbooks tend to exhibit more images of urban/rural landscape, of human negative impact and of human management, expressing an anthropocentric view of the environment. Men are usually more present in textbook images than women. However, some images exhibiting more women than men could be found in textbooks from WEc and EEc, but never in NEc. In negative impact pictures, men are more often present than women but NEc women are never present in such images. Women are more frequent than men in positive impact images. Results suggest that textbooks from EEc and NEc should give more emphasis to human management and urban/rural images, whereas those from WEc should give more attention to the beauty of nature. A balance in the presence of men and women in images should be a matter of greater concern by all textbooks’ authors and publishers.

Ecosystems, pollution, and use of resources in textbooks of 14 countries : an ecocentric emphasis

Two views of Human-Nature relation can be found: anthropocentrism and ecocentrism. In order to understand how school textbooks refer to the human’s position in nature we analysed how “Human as guest versus Humans as owners of nature” is present in the three topics of environmental education—Ecosystems, Pollution, and Use of Resource—in textbooks of 14 countries from Europe, Africa, and Middle East. A specific grid of analysis, which was constructed in the context of the European Project BIOHEAD-CITIZEN, was used in this study. Results show that this axis of analysis is present in the majority of textbooks addressing the above three topics but not in the “Biodiversity” topic. Textbooks for 12–15-year old pupils were the ones having more occurrences than those for 6–11- or 16–18-year olds. The textbooks present mainly an ecocentric position, whereas the aesthetic, ethical, and cultural aspects are limited and inadequate, limiting the full perspective of education for sustainable development.