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Bibliography: pages 140-157. / This study provides evidence that most teachers choose their class textbooks haphazardly and without evaluating them. As a result, bad textbooks are as likely to be chosen and to succeed commercially as good ones are. One consequence of this is that many publishers and authors continue to get away with producing bad textbooks. The study begins by describing the context in which school textbooks are chosen. It gives an overview of the textbook's role, and concludes that it is an indispensable part of an effective education system, especially where other resources are lacking. The study then considers the degree to which South African textbooks fulfil their roles; it concludes that most textbooks in schools are poor, many being incomprehensible to their audiences, but attention is also drawn to some positive textbook development that has taken place. The study next considers how and why so many poor textbooks have been selected by educators: it summarises the part played by education departments and publishers, and reviews the state of textbook evaluation as a discipline. It concludes that South African educators are poorly equipped to evaluate and select textbooks. Against this background, the study describes an investigation of how teachers select textbooks for their classes. The findings are that choice is haphazard and that evaluation, in the rare instances when it takes place, is usually unsystematic and superficial. In conclusion, the study recommends that research into textbook development is done to provide a theoretical framework for effective evaluation, and that training and other support in textbook evaluation for teachers is established to improve selection practices. The study hypothesises that the resulting demand from a broad base of well-informed textbook-selectors in schools will give authors and publishers a more powerful incentive than any other pressures can to produce materials that withstand systematic, critical and wise evaluation.

No coherent theory about the practice of South African intermediate phase school textbook evaluation has been forthcoming since the advent of a new South African school curriculum in 1998. This deficiency has had an adverse effect on the quality of intermediate phase school textbooks, as well as on the capacity to assess their value. This research project, therefore, had two aims. The first was to articulate a theory about the practice of textbook evaluation. The second was to develop a procedure for evaluating South African intermediate phase school textbooks in terms of the theory. The research method was underpinned by the interpretive research paradigm in terms of which relevant data were analysed and interpreted. The data emanated from a literature review, an analysis of the national Department of Education’s Revised National Curriculum Statement and its draft policy for the evaluation of learning support material, and two surveys. The first survey comprised a sample of intermediate phase teachers and the second a sample of intermediate phase textbook authors. Sufficient evidence was found to conclude that the capabilities of the authoring team, the authors’ rationale and their observance of the process of learning and instruction, the accessibility of the textbook, the availability of teacher support, meeting the requirements of the Revised National Curriculum Statement, and certain key notions about textbook evaluation play a role in articulating a theory about textbook evaluation in order to guide the process of determining the effectiveness of South African intermediate phase school textbooks. Based on the above-mentioned theory, this study proposes a procedure to assist teachers and textbook evaluators to assess the worth of South African intermediate phase school textbooks in a brief, systematic, thorough, rigorous, and practical manner.

This study investigates the criteria teachers use when selecting and evaluating learning support material, in particular, English second language textbooks. The study seeks to determine what informs the criteria that teachers use for selection. The study is conducted against the backdrop of Curriculum 2005 (C2005) and outlines the C2005 revision process and the subsequent introduction of the Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS). Through a series of focus group interviews, the researcher explores the criteria teachers use for evaluation. Many of the teachers in this study did not have clearly articulated criteria; rather, they drew on implicit criteria and mentioned favoured qualities or attributes that they looked for in a textbook. In addition, the teachers in the focus groups used criteria that had been ‘told’ rather than ‘owned’ and had not developed their own sets of criteria. This research concludes that teachers are caught between two conflicting sets of criteria: those of their pre-service training and those of the new curriculum, which is currently being mediated to them through brief orientations. Drawing on recent literature, the researcher argues that in order to shift deep-seated literacy practices, teacher training needs to be prolonged, in-depth and ongoing.

Bibliography: leaves 107-141. / Using the English language textbook as its focal point, this study attempts to determine the extent to which educational publishers are in a position, through their practices, to assist in the transformation of South Africa. The centrality of language to both the creation of individual consciousness and to the shaping of society inform this investigation. Regarded as integral to these processes is the premise that education is the primary terrain into which language, and its fundamentally moulding potential, is locked. Furthermore, the impact of not only the transition in south Africa, but also of the fluidity of the wider global backdrop on both language and education are acknowledged as crucial influences on all spheres of private as well as public life. In this context, the study endeavours to locate and define those elements which comprise and inform the practices of educational publishing. It attempts to demonstrate that the broader socioeconomic, political, educational and cultural processes, from which educational publishing takes its signals, severely restrain its capacity for participation in social transformation. The study concludes with some recommendations for the publishing of English language textbooks in a post-apartheid terrain, and suggests a few areas of research pertinent to such an undertaking.

Can old history text books (written in the Apartheid Era) be used to promote the new democratic ideals in Curriculum 2005? This investigation addresses this question through an analysis of selected chapters of two history text books presently used in Katlehong schools. The analysis deploys an instrument developed at the University of Belgrade by members of the Democracy Education Project, in conjunction with the project team from the University of the Witwatersrand. Through the instrument, the democratic content of the textbooks was analysed and assessed. The analysis focus on declarative, elaborated and implied democratic content. The conceptual framework for the investigation draws from recent philosophical and sociological work on democracy. Amy Gutmann’s principles of non-repression and nondiscrimination, for example, provide the main argument for the necessity of equal and critical education in South Africa. The analysis and discussion show both text as deeply floored regarding the availability and nature of the democratic concepts. However, if used by critical teachers both texts are suitable for promoting democracy in South Africa.

M. Tech. Education / It is well known that learners do not perform well in physical science. The purpose of this study was to investigate how learners interpret the role of photographs and other illustrative devices in physical science and whether learners are able to identify physical science concepts that they think are embedded in the photographs found in grade 12 physical science textbooks. The study focused on photographs found in physical science textbooks as it is clear that photographs are explicitly used in physical science textbooks as pedagogical resources. It is of great significance for learners to also understand the physical science concepts embedded in photographs.

During the past few decades a substantial body of research has emerged in western as well as the developing nations studying the racial bias in children's texts. However, it is only recently in South Africa, with the ascendance of the ANC government, that interest has been focused on eliminating apartheid values and on promoting multicultural tenets in the school curriculum. It is undeniable that the concept of multiculturalism has been severely stigmatised in the South African educational context. Anxieties have been expressed about embracing the discourse of multicultural education within the educational system based on fears that, like the previous educational system, it too will perpetuate group differences. Nevertheless, in recent years, a clear consensus view has emerged that the implementation of multicultural education is imperative if the goal of a rainbow South Africa is to be realised. Against this background, the present study attempts to study the incorporation of a multicultural approach into contemporary textbooks. To realise this aim I selected a sample of four textbooks, one from each of the major disciplines (science, English, geography and history), and SUbjected the texts and pictures from each to content analysis. The findings of this study suggest that a multicultural approach shall at least for the foreseeable future remain a central feature of learning materials produced for the new South African curricula. The findings indicate that multicultural aspects predominate in the texts as compared to other ideologies. This applies to both text content and illustrations. Contrary to the researcher's initial expectation, however, the texts also reveal a strong tendency towards Eurocentric and patriarchal approaches. This research does not conform to traditional, 'scientific' criteria of validity and reliability; it seeks only to investigate textbook material in more depth and thereby contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the extent to which the texts subscribe to a multicultural approach. Such understanding may help both educationalists and authors in their evaluation of existing textbook material, and in the production of new texts which reflect the reality of South Africa as a multicultural society.

In her newsletter “Curriculum News, Improving the Quality of Learning and Teaching: Planning for 2010 and Beyond”, Mrs Angie Motshekga, MP, Minister of Basic Education, positions the textbook very definitely as central to the curriculum and states that it is one of the most effective tools through which to deliver the curriculum and support assessment. Acknowledging the importance of the accessibility of textbooks for the South African classroom audience, this study has sought to investigate the readability of the chemistry section of grade 10 science textbooks. Readability research is concerned with the relationship between the textbook, the reader and the context in which the book is read; research supports the use of both classical quantitative measures and a qualitative cognitive-structural form of analysis to investigate this relationship. The research design is a mixed method one where quantitative and qualitative data were collected simultaneously: the methodical application of selected readability formulae gave rise to quantitative data while the line-by-line textual analysis, tracing cognitive-structural aspects, and focus-group discussions with teachers gave rise to the qualitative data. The results of the merged data analysis were then interpreted together to provide a better understanding of the readability of the texts for a South African audience. The results of the investigation reveal that readability is greatly impaired for a number of reasons, the primary one being a lack of articulation between the textbook writers/editors and the audience for which they are writing and preparing the texts. This is particularly reflected in the inadequate preparation of the material for the English Second Language reader, as certain textbooks are completely out of their reach. Furthermore, this lack of articulation can be traced to the lack of time available for piloting the textbooks: an invaluable intervention in the process of textbook production.

Bibliography: pages 105-109. / This study develops a conceptual framework for policy analysis and uses it as the basis for an analytical framework to describe the Western Cape's textbook procurement policy (WCTPP). The study starts by defining policy as a purposeful intervention with key attributes, these being: intention; action; practice; status; resources and capacity; and power. The conceptual framework attempts to answer the question, "Are there features which consistently characterise the policy-making process and do the factors which gave shape to policy consistently fall into particular categories?" The framework suggests factors which shape, locate and give rise to policy can be described in terms of contexts and frames which denote arenas within which policy can be constrained or enabled, politically and practically. The key contexts necessary for policy analysis are spatial and historical and the key frames are the frame of discourses of state, the resources/ capacity frame and the legislative/ regulatory frame. The key features characterising policy are that policy-making is characterised by fluidity and that policy is the expression of a balance or a compromise of interests. The framework is then used to develop an analytic framework for the WCTPP. The analysis attempts to answer the question, "What are the key features of this policy and what factors have shaped its emergence?" The analysis suggests that as the WCTPP was conceived, developed and translated into practice within the province, it has a coherence not always possible within an education system characterised by national/ provincial policy fragmentation. As a policy, it is shaped by the relatively well-resourced province from which it emerges. The analysis shows that resources and capacity are a factor at all the sites (department private sector suppliers and schools) involved in the state-private sector partnership that is exemplified in this policy. This policy is given form by the selective recruitment of divergent discourse of the state with two key discourses being manifest, these being that of a democratic, developmental state which sets parameters to and regulates the private sector, and a neo-liberal state, which supports free market forces. Through the legislative/regulatory frame the analysis also shows the inter-dependence of the WCTPP and other policies. The key features which characterise policy-making are portrayed as its on-going nature, and the fact that this policy represents a fragile balancing of competing interests. Educational interests harness commercial interests for educational ends. The analysis allows for a description of the policy that expresses both its functionality and its fragility. The study concludes that the framework developed provides for a dynamic iteration thus illustrating that policy analysis requires an understanding of how policy develops out of the interplay between the contexts, frames and features identified.