Many evolutionary anthropologists view cooperation as core to the evolutionary success of our species. Concurrently, many sustainability scientists view cooperation as core to the future sustainable development of our species. When it comes to biology education, however, it is unclear how or if students are being engaged in these scientific…

Plant awareness disparity (PAD, formerly plant blindness) is the tendency not to notice plants in one's environment, which leads to the perspective that plants are unimportant. In this paper, we explore how plants and animals are represented in introductory biology textbooks to determine if these texts are contributing to PAD in undergraduate…

Within the scope of this investigation, educational instruments grounded on materialist ontology were employed to undertake a semantic analysis of the concepts of cell and the mechanisms of living organisms as they appear in biology and natural science textbooks. Drawing upon the ontological categories applied to distinct biological system levels,…

Although very rare, the existing research on the biological education of blind people indicates that teaching content is not fully in line with the sensory perception of that content by the blind. The aim of this study is to analyse the morphological details which the blind can register in multisensory plant research and to harmonise the…

Despite doing well in biology at high school, some students struggle with the same subject at university level. This can have implications for epistemological access--access to knowledge that allows students to remain at university. Therefore, it is important to identify factors that may be causing this problem. We propose that one such factor may…

While school textbooks are assumed to be written for and used by students, it is widely acknowledged that they also serve a vital support function for teachers, particularly in times of curriculum change. A basic assumption is that biology textbooks are scientifically accurate. Furthermore, because of the negative impact of…

In this paper, the authors analyse the conceptual contents related to plant nutrition in the widely-used school texts of six Spanish publishers. An analysis dossier was elaborated based on the epistemological and pedagogical study of this subject. The publishers deal with the issue of plant nutrition at three different levels (multicellular,…

The presentation of genetic diseases in French secondary school biology textbooks is analysed to determine the major conceptions taught in the field of human genetics. References to genetic diseases, and the processes by which they are explained (monogeny, polygeny, chromosomal anomaly and environmental influence) are studied in recent French…

Schools have been identified as one of the appropriate settings for addiction prevention since this is the place where pupils may come into contact with drugs for the first time and experiment with them, with the possibility of becoming addicted. To be effective, school-based drug education must be firmly based on knowledge of oneself and…

The indigenous community of San Juan Nuevo Parangaricutiro in Mexico has been engaged in a successful Community Forest Enterprise employing sustainable management practices since 1981. These environmental practices do not seem to be reflected in the educational programmes developed at school. In this study, the environmental knowledge and interest…

Textbooks for GCE Advanced Level Biology have provided over-simplified and inaccurate accounts of Charles Darwin's contribution to the study of evolution over a period of many decades. They have credited him with field skills and insight that he did not possess, and repeated several historical inaccuracies. Darwin's strength was as a synthesiser…

The treatment of molecular biology in thirty-four Spanish high school biology textbooks has been analysed using a check-list made up of twenty-three items. The study showed a tendency to confuse the genetic code with genetic information. The treatment of DNA transcription, regulation of gene expression and translation were presented as masses of…

Describes an analysis of six secondary level biology texts to determine how they dealt with terminology. Concluded that technical vocabulary would be used more effectively if synonyms were eliminated and terms were explained at first appearance. (MLH)

Reviews the conventional interpretation of the etiology of Down syndrome, summarizing recent data that do not support this interpretation. Also surveys the way in which clinical, cytogenic, and statistical findings related to the syndrome are presented in 27 major genetics textbooks published since 1975. (Author/JN)

This survey of 11 recently published biology textbooks includes an analysis of content, certain general characteristics, readability, and use of questions. Differences between these and earlier textbooks are noted. The reading difficulty of the new books is found to be less than for those covered in a previous survey. (Author/JN)