The formation of role concepts in texts: The concept ‘mother’ in German schoolbooks

Abstract

The article starts with a definition of social concepts and their conditions of production in society. In 14 theses an enumeration of the most important steps in the individual's acquisition of concepts — and particularly social concepts — is given. Concepts are seen as rules of classification for particular aspects of the environment. ‘Environment’ includes an individual's own primary experience as well as information from books, particularly school books. To be able to show the logical structuring of a particular concept and its relationship to the world of objects, Gottlob Frege's system of objects, first and second level concepts is introduced. A short summary of the two main sociological role theories, the traditional structuralist and the interactionist role theory leads to a discussion of the role of mother. The analysis is applied to the role concept ‘mother’ in German school text books. Concepts of actions, attitudes, evaluations and interaction relations as well as a time-factor are shown to be the constituent parameters of the concept of mother in the traditional schoolbooks. The same types of parameters apply to the role concept ‘mother’ in a much debated new school-book series, but there are differences regarding the concepts of actions and the time-factor. A type-script of school-children discussing the role of mother with the author which shows the reliance of their concept formation on their own experience and not the printed material in their school-books finishes the article.