Pressure to adapt
History textbook – quo vadis?
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
The school textbook as a traditional way of imparting knowledge has come under pressure to adapt. The schools are suffering from a shortage of money, and are not in a hurry to order new generations of textbooks. Since the number of school students is also declining, the publishers of textbooks are being forced to cut the number of people they employ. The production cycles for such textbooks are so long that they are hardly able to keep up with rapid changes in lifeworlds. Nor are school textbooks able to react quickly to the criticisms of didactic methods voiced after the PISA Study. School text-books will not lose their fundamental significance in the immediate future, but they will increasingly be used alongside multimedia learning resources and teaching aids.
(Osteuropa 8/2005, pp. 199–206)