15.00 valente castellani caravita

Institute for Research on Population and Social Policies t h e N a t i o n a l R e s e a r c h C o u n c i l o f I t a l y

Adriana Valente, Tommaso Castellani, Silvia Caravita

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

Science Communication and Education

Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche

Istituto di Ricerche sulla Popolazione e le Politiche Sociali

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 (Biohead-Citizen, FP6); human migrations in comparison with other countries of the Mediterranean (project coordinated by University of Montpellier) -> this talk



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)



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... – ...



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?



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.



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.



The representation of human migration in textbooks: overview continuous incoming flow instead of... incoming and outgoing flows incoming migrants settle incoming migrants pass through always to Italy Italy and settle elsewhere migrants are coming only migrants are also coming for a to flee their countries demand of workforce from Italy in present times, migrants also at present times a large come to Italy, while in past number of Italian people is Italian people migrated 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)



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» «Il drammatico flusso dei migranti» «The tragedy of immigrants» «La tragedia degli immigrati» «The problem of integration» «Il problema dell’integrazione»



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



«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



Images - Oversimplification - Gender imbalance - Presence of stereotypes - Journalistic images



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.



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.



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”



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.

Thank you! Tommaso Castellani [email protected]

Bibliography

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



15.00 valente castellani caravita

Technology

current debate

environmental education

science education

science textbooks

present times

values

research

science