International Seminar--History and Social Science Textbook (Santiago de Chile, 2008)
Date: 2009-00-00
Type: Books
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Seminars,Social Sciences,History,Textbooks,Content Analysis,Teaching Methods,Learning Strategies,Perspective Taking,Government School Relationship,Textbook Evaluation,Quality Control,Cultural Pluralism,Role of Education,Feedback (Response)

The School Textbook Division from the Chilean Ministry of Education has carried out experience-sharing instances and reflection processes oriented to improve the quality of textbooks, adapting them to new learning strategies, to the demands of the school system as well as to the state-of-the-art in research in education worldwide. Since the successful First international Seminar on school textbooks--SITE 2006, the Textbook Division has decided to keep on with these initiatives that feedback Public Politicies in relation to the provision of textbooks and the development of academic competences. Along the same lines, the International Seminar on History and Social Science Textbooks took place in November 2008; forty outstanding Chilean and foreign experts lectured in conferences and panels full of enthusiastic audiences. This experience allowed the exchange of studies and researches among those who work in the didactic of social sciences and/or are involved in the area of history and social sciences textbooks, both nationally and internationally, and contribute to their quality concerning the didactic design and the treatment of their contents, considering new approaches in relation to historicity and spatiality of the social phenomena. Diversity and richness of the works that dealt with the key topics of the Seminar--didactic of history and social sciences in textbooks; new approaches to the didactic of history, geography and other social sciences and its application to school textbooks; analysis of contents in history and social science textbooks and the formation of citizens through these textbooks--also favored the exchange of experiences and orientations in relevant topics such as historical memory and construction of local identities, national and global, cultural and social diversity: multiculturalism and cultural pluralism. In this way we have been able to put forward the discussion about the importance and the real value of history and social sciences textbooks in the formation of our students as citizens, comparing the Chilean experiences to those of other countries. The publication of the works exposed in the Seminar, expresses the commitment of the Ministry of Education to the development of textbooks as an important pedagogical resource. At the same time, it is an invitation to the academic community, especially in the area of Education and Social Sciences, to develop competences and increase the existing capacities in the production, use, training and research on school textbooks. (Individual papers contain references, tables, and figures.) [This book was produced by the Gobierno de Chile, Ministerio de Edcucacion de Chile. Cover title may vary. The contents presented herein represent the proceedings of the International Seminar on History and Social Sciences Textbook (Santiago, Chile, November 11-12, 2008).]