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.

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.

This dissertation discusses the development of alternative science curriculum materials for a secondary schooling context where English, the medium of instruction, is a second language for both teachers and students. The research is located in an interpretative ethnographic framework and the data gathered during the classroom-based trialing of the materials highlights the vital role of language in the teaching and learning of school science. An interactive reading model coupled with a discourse approach to text analysis explores some of the language difficulties which black students experience with their science textbooks. That many students fail to develop adequate reading strategies is identified as lying at the heart of many learning problems. It is suggested that the key to comprehension is instruction from a base of more accessible text materials. Furthermore, although science practical work does not automatically advance students' knowledge and understanding, relevant and contextualised learning activities do equip students to become more self-directed and reflective learners of science.