Views of “nature”, the “environment” and the “human-nature” relationships in Ethiopian primary school textbooks

Abstract

For the majority of Ethiopian students, textbooks are their first and sometimes the only initial exposure to books and readings. Teachers also heavily depend on textbooks to structure and deliver daily lessons. Guided by the belief in the ability of textbooks to affect pupils’ environmental behaviour and attitude, we carried out this content analysis to better understand how Environmental Science textbooks work to represent a particular view of “nature” and the “environment” for pupils. Results indicate that anthropocentric view coupled with nature’s position as an alienated entity is extensively embeded in the textbooks. Actors who are culprits of environmental problems were not addressed in a way pupils can easily identify. Besides, the proposed actions were not specifically designed to provide pupils the opportunity to partake in environmental protection activities. We critically discussed the implications of these representations and urged for reformed textbooks in Ethiopia. We reiterate that for textbooks to play their central role in preparing environmentally literate citizenry, there needs to be a fundamental reform in Ethiopian school textbooks.

Keywords:

• Content analysis
• environment
• environmental education
• nature
• textbooks

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Table 1. Framework for textbook analysis.

Table 2. Nature as an instrument in the textbooks (few examples).

Table 3. Human agency in environmental problems.

Table 4. Victims of environmental problems in the textbooks.

Table 5. The presentations of motives for environmental protection.

Table 6. Proposed actions in the textbooks.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the BDU-NORHED Project [grant code: QZA 0483 ETH-16/0029].