Using Geography Textbooks in Competence-Based Education: A Study about the Actors in Germany

Overview & Synopsis

Competence-orientation plays a meaningful role in many recent school curricula. But how are the theoretical and conceptual approaches of competence-orientation based on educational research interpreted by in-service teachers, teacher trainers and representatives of the school administration? And which approaches of competence-orientation are implemented in every day school life? Therefore the article focuses on the subjective concepts of competence-orientation of different participants (stakeholders at school, seminaries for teacher education and ministry of education) in the educational system. Initially, the individual topics and hypotheses are generated based on qualitative expert interviews with these stakeholders. The stakeholders at the seminaries for teacher education and the ministry of education suggest a strong use of media other than the licensed textbooks, or a different way of making use of the provided materials and tasks within the textbooks than it is intended. However, it seems that most inservice teachers stick to the combination of tasks and materials arranged within the textbooks. Thus suggests, that every day school lessons are not competence-oriented in the way, the stakeholders at seminaries for teacher education and at the ministry of education want them to be. One cause may be the textbooks, which should provide a new, different combination of tasks and materials for competence-based education to enable competence-based education in every day school life.