Analysis of pollution and the use of resources topics along the school textbooks of 17 countries

Abstract

This work was developed within the European research project “Biohead-Citizen” (Biology, Health and Environmental Education for a better Citizenship), with the participation of 19 European and African countries: Portugal, France, Germany, Italy, Cyprus, Estonia, Lebanon, Tunisia, Finland, United Kingdom, Hungary, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Algeria, Morocco, Mozambique and Senegal. The goal of the present study was to analyse the progression of some conceptions in the textbooks of 17 countries that participate in this project, within the topics: pollution and the use of resources. The analysis of these topics showed that the following issues are highlighted: i) the planet is seen as a resource for humankind instead of a resource shared with other living beings; ii) it is given a much heavier importance to technologies in sustainable development rather than to changes of individual and social behaviour, specially in European western countries textbooks; iii) it is conferred unlimited trust in science and technology solutions instead of using the principle of precaution; iv) Concerning ethical and socio-economic issues, the ethical debate goes to a second plan when compared to the socio-economic one; v) Comparing Portuguese textbooks with Mozambique ones, concerning the conception individual responsibility vs social responsibility, about use of resources topic, Mozambique textbooks are rather more centred in a strategic perspective, essential to their economic expansion, based in the prevention of the waste of resources, and the preoccupation with sustainable use of resources; vi) Analysing images from textbooks, we verified that images from the textbooks give special attention to humans’ action or to the results of their action. There is not much emphasis given to ecological, social, and economic sustainability in the analysed textbooks. The findings of the present study show that a change of textbooks is recommended in order to give more emphasis to the human role in solving pollution problems and so contributing to improve pupils’ citizenship.