Epistemologiniai ir metodologiniai tarptautinių mokyklinių vadovėlių tyrimų aspektai
Epistemological and Methodological Considerations in International School Textbook Research

Summary/Abstract: Many acknowledge a dearth of research regarding Lithuanian school textbooks. Educationalinstitutions rely on reviews by select experts who provide advice during the approval process.Most extant research analyses content and its relationship to curriculum. Some have examinedmulticultural tolerance issues. Very few field studies have been done on the actual use oftextbooks by teachers and pupils. On the other hand, Lithuanian teachers’ reliance on textbookmaterial for the delivery of instruction is greater than in other European countries, accordingto international research. Therefore, an increase of formative or development research regardingtextbooks is necessary. This article presents the need for an epistemological stance in textbookinquiry. It has been argued that you cannot construct convincing textbook research methodologieswithout a theoretical stance and that textbook research has been “underphilosophised”. Variousphilosophical positions have been proposed for textbook research, including positivism, criticaltheory, postmodernism, hermeneutics, neo-hermeneutics, post-colonialism, post-postmodernism,and others. Each dictates its own view of content, narrative, marginalisation, point of view,prejudice and tradition. In terms of methodologies, traditional content analysis has beensupplemented by hermeneutic, linguistic, discourse, semiotic, narrative, historiographic, crosscultural,critical analysis. Contingency analysis is a relatively new mixed method that examinesthe relationship between text and image. Others analyse textbook questioning techniques,visual materials or the process of textbook production. One of the greatest shifts in textbookresearch is the realisation that users are the arbiters of knowledge and meaning, and their role asintermediaries must be examined in context. For these types of studies to flourish partnershipsneed to emerge between universities, textbook publishers, schools, and educational policy makers.

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