Heritage and history teaching: an analysis of images in Primary School textbooks

Abstract

This study analyzes the treatment given to heritage in the images of the teaching units aimed at teaching and learning history, taking as a sample books for the entire Primary Education stage from two major publishers in the Basque Country. An ad hoc categorization form consisting of 8 variables is used. The results indicate the presence of a majority of heritage materials of a historical-artistic typology, which are collectively recognized and are not usually nominalized, with a predominance of those related to the contemporary period. They also indicate that textbooks often do not encourage working directly with the heritage elements that appear in the images, nor do they establish links with the students' previous knowledge. This provides some keys for improving how school textbooks currently introduce heritage.