Content analysis of school textbooks: the case of a technology‐oriented curriculum

A technology‐oriented curriculum is a curriculum which teaches a scientific discipline in a technological context. Should the school textbooks which accompany such programmes be different from those which are intended to be used in ‘conventional’ programmes? To address this question I: (a) examined the conventional definition of a textbook; (6) redefined the role of the textbook according to a curriculum‐developer approach; (c) designed a system of textbook analysis adapted to this new definition; (d) applied this system to a specific curriculum of the technology‐oriented type. The crucial keywords in the analysis were (i) the nature of the problems dealt with in the curriculum, (ii) the nature of the concepts taught, and (iii) the extent of their applicability.