Tensions and Hopes for Embedding Peace and Sustainability in Science Education: Stories from Science Textbook Authors

In this paper, we explore how science textbook authors reconciled their personal hopes with disciplinary and societal demands in their writing. Using a qualitative narrative storytelling research method, we interviewed four Canadian science textbook authors about their hopes and the challenges they encountered in their writing. To understand their hopes, we distinguished between transcendent and immanent hopes, a distinction that was motivated by our initial interpretation of the interviews. All the authors described difficulties in addressing social issues in their science textbook writing in the processes of authorization and resistance from science teachers, which located their hope in the transcendent domain. Yet, their immanent hopes with the agency also emerged in the discussion of teachers’ actions to develop and use alternative texts that engage with local socio-environmental issues, rather than on textbook content innovations. This suggests the need to support developing and experienced teachers as professionals in their decision-making about pedagogy and to equip them to critically examine available resources and write and share quality resources.