Language Socialization through Textbooks

Textbooks, as one of the primary and basic teaching and learning resources in education, provide a cornerstone for knowledge transmission, literacy education, enculturation, and socialization. By their very nature, textbooks contain not only subject knowledge but also social norms and cultural values and ideologies. Although language socialization through textbooks may depend on how they are employed in various contexts, this chapter reviews mainly studies of language textbooks’ cultural content as a means of socialization. The chapter starts with a review of the early developments of textbook content used for literacy education in different sociocultural contexts. It then provides a discussion of the major contributions to the field with a focus on cultural knowledge embedded in foreign language textbooks. This is followed by an overview of recent developments in language textbook analysis, including the critical analysis of ideological representations involved in the politics of content selection. Lastly, challenges for the field are outlined, and future directions are indicated as reflected in evolving educational systems and political environments.