Analysis of science textbooks as cultural supportive tools: the case of arab countries

Abstract

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to investigate if science textbooks prepare students for the twenty-first-century and if and how science and religion are depicted in science textbooks in Arab countries where religion, especially Islam, plays a role in the lives of individuals and possibly in the understandings of science. The analysis was conducted within a cultural-historical theoretical framework that suggests that textbooks can be considered cultural products that have a significant cultural mission with a formative influence on the development of individuals and the cultural reproduction of society. Science textbooks of eight Arab countries were analyzed using a tool that included eleven questions focused on twenty-first-century knowledge and skills and if and how Islam is presented in the textbooks. The analysis shows that textbooks of Arab countries included in this study have the potential to prepare students for the twenty-first-century to some extent, as indicated by the identified knowledge and skills emphasized in the book. However, in the six countries whose textbooks included Quranic verses, these textbooks play a mediating cultural role in encouraging students to think and act with a religious context in addition to equipping them with twenty-first-century knowledge and skills.