144 páx.

Beyond the initial socialization at home textbooks are often the first point of contact for the children to the outside world.
Few, if any, educational and pedagogical materials, shape and condition the worldviews, personalities, and identities of young pupil citizens than the textbooks used in schools and beyond. In some societal and national contexts, textbooks are cultural icons that come second only to religious texts. They are used as instruments of nation-building, ideological control, and at times for outright indoctrination depending on the national, social, and cultural contexts.

Contributions in this volume examine the impact of textbooks in contexts of diversity. Especially, using a comparative perspective the contributors critically examine the representations of minorities in pedagogical texts and how these representations impact social relations in increasingly diverse societies. Selections in the volume examine discursive and empirical evidence from Canada, Brazil, Australia, South Africa, Norway, Iran, Spain, and Columbia to deconstruct the representations of minorities in textbooks and suggest ways in which these pedagogical tools could be made more inclusive.