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ERIC Number: EJ1325576
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2022
Pages: 19
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1350-4622
EISSN: N/A
Nature, Disappeared: Anti-Environmental Values in Singapore's History Textbooks, 1984-2015
Neo, Xiaoyun; Schneider-Mayerson, Matthew
Environmental Education Research, v28 n1 p56-74 2022
As a case study on the presence (or absence) of environmental education in history textbooks, this paper examines how Singapore's nationally mandated secondary school history curriculum portrays the relationship between humans and the nonhuman environment. It analyzes all seven government-authored lower-secondary-level history textbooks, published between 1984 and 2015. The results show that history textbooks largely and consistently portray humans in Singapore as isolated from, rather than depending on and entangled with, the environment. We describe and analyze two trends. First, narratives about the nonhuman environment are largely relegated to Singapore's past and disappear almost entirely as textbook narratives approach the present. Second, history narratives represent narrowly utilitarian, negativistic, and dominionistic perspectives of thinking about and relating to the nonhuman environment. We contextualize these results and discuss the implications of teaching such narrow and misleading conceptions of human--environment interactions in official history education.
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Singapore
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A