Representation of conflicts in eighth grade textbooks: analysis from Michael Apple's perspective
Abstract
Building upon ideas on the importance of conflict for social
action and role that selective tradition and hidden curriculum
have in society, the aim of this paper is to analyse the way in
which conflicts are presented in the 8th grade elementary school
textbooks. Content analysis of the textbooks has been conducted.
After noting every representation of each conflict and labelling
the conflict as violent or nonviolent, five separate categories have
been defined by the means of induction, representing different
types of conflicts: 1. international; 2. intranational; 3. conflicts for improvement of position of a specific group; 4. conflicts between
individuals; 5. intellectual conflicts. The first four types of
conflicts represent social conflicts in a narrow sense, while the
fifth type is based on Apple’s notion of intellectual conflict. Results
show that intellectual conflicts are almost non-existent. Among
social conflicts in a narrow sense, the most common are internation...al
conflicts, which are, at the same time, the most violent.
Other types of conflicts, such as those representing struggle of one
population group for improvement of their position, are less common,
and are mostly represented as nonviolent.
Keywords:
education / selective tradition / hidden curriculum / social conflicts / Michael AppleSource:
Limes plus, 2020, 17, 2, 57-79Publisher:
- Hera edu
Funding / projects:
- Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia, institutional funding - 200018 (Institute for Educational Research, Belgrade) (RS-MESTD-inst-2020-200018)