TEXTBOOK: REFLEXIONS INVOLVING AUTHORSHIP, CONTENT AND THEORY

Abstract

This study deals with the stereotypical image that, historically speaking, has been
associated with the textbook author. It looks at how this image has come to change, and
identifies the different circumstances that have led to teachers assuming responsibility for the
writing of school textbooks. Furthermore, using the textbook concept proposed by Décio Gatti,
it clearly shows textbook writing to be a multifaceted literature, in terms of perspectives of
analysis, positions that will be related to François Dubet’s thinking. It addresses recent forms in
the writing of school textbooks that embrace new editorial technology and considers the rights
and responsibilities of textbook authors with regard to the use of photographic images, in light of
1998’s Law number 9.610. It places emphasis on how important it is that these passive
contributions be considered, according to Boris Kossoy, as historical documents derived from
interdisciplinary sources and, as such, involving various fields of knowledge. It focuses on the
military movement as an authoritarian force which guided Brazil’s destiny from 1964 to 1985 and
which influenced the direction education took and the position of the authors. In this context,
decree law number 477 of 1969 acted as a kind of restriction of freedom and as thought control,
which was reflected in textbooks. In how it affected textbook content, related to racial and ethnic matters in the form of the “race whitening thesis” with its implicit idea of white superiority, and
the Brazilian “racial democracy” thesis, in reference to the historical moment to come.