Epistemic and Nonepistemic Design in Textbooks in Social Studies for Lower Secondary School: Do the Textbooks Facilitate Knowledge Building and In-Depth Learning?

Abstract

The subject renewal, the new Norwegian curriculum for the school, is part of an international trend with a shift towards more knowledge-based curricula, to bring knowledge and in-depth learning back to the school. Against this background, this study examines new Norwegian textbooks in social studies for schools. The analysis is based on a social realist framework, which combines semantics and content analysis and reveals major differences in the design of the textbooks. A distinction is made between epistemic and nonepistemic design, and this study shows that the absence of an epistemic structure is a problem that haunts new textbooks in social studies. When textbooks lack a design that connects subject concepts, content, and competencies, students will not get access to epistemic knowledge, something which creates barriers to in-depth learning and cumulative knowledge building in the subject.