Beyond Criticism: The Authority of the School Text

Abstract

Research and literature on nature and function of school text, predominantly concern of curriculum developers and educational psychologists, has been narrowly focused on efficient delivery of reading skills and disciplinary knowledge. During 1970s, David R. Olson began to formulate an interdisciplinary research orientation on educational nature and function of textual knowledge (Bruner and Olson, 1977; Olson, 1977a). In On Language and Authority of Textbooks (1980), Olson develops his general discussion of cognitive and cultural bias of print to explain force and meaning of a specific genre of text, school textbook. Our purpose in this article is to critically explore Olson's view of school text, focusing on distinctive communicational constraints of both school text and classroom context. To this end we will examine textbook's mode of discourse, techniques of text construction, its material quality, and institutional practices which circumscribe it. We take note of Michel Foucault's explanation (1972), which we share, that the statement, textual or spoken, embodies an authority and meaning only insofar as it exists in a discursive fielda field of use and exchange.