The teacher’s perceptions of a good course book for the subject of society in the 4th grade

A textbook is the fundamental schoolbook, produced specifically to address the educational needs of a specific subject according to the existing curriculum. In the theoretical part of this Master’s thesis, first the term “textbook” is defined by various authors; second, the textbook is put in the classroom context; third, the criteria for the right choice and critical assessment of a textbook are presented; and finally the curriculum for the subject of Society is determined, and associated with the textbook for Society in the 4th grade. The empirical part of the Master’s thesis is based on the analysis of data collected from a questionnaire. The questionnaires were completed by 4th grade teachers in primary schools; 105 questionnaires were filled in correctly. The aim was to find out how 4th grade teachers conceptualize a quality textbook for the subject of Society, and which criteria they use when choosing a textbook. It was determined that the teachers consider all of the listed criteria for the selection of a textbook as important or very important; the ones with the highest ranking were: professionally unimpeachable content, vocabulary appropriate for the developmental stage of the pupils, and the extent of content appropriate for the developmental stage of the pupils. A special characteristic of the subject Society in the 4th grade is associating the topics with the local landscape, although the textbooks are the same across Slovenia. The task of 4th grade teachers is to adapt the topics to their home town and local landscape, and this is why we also wanted to find out if the teachers consider this when teaching with the help of the textbook. In terms of cultural heritage it was determined that teachers put an emphasis on the cultural landmarks of their home town (96.2%), often include customs and habits typical of their landscape (83.3%), and together with the pupils, compare pictures of schools in the past and today in the textbook with photos of their school (76.2%). In terms of aerial photographs they simply use a general example from the textbook (77.1%) and do not look for an example from the local landscape; in terms of craftsmanship they are satisfied with the content described in the textbook (69.5%), and it is discussed regardless of the local landscape. As many as 68.6% of the teachers consider textbooks necessary when discussing the topics on local landscape, although these topics can (and should) be successfully dealt with even without a textbook. The answers of the teachers about their assessment of the textbooks on the subject of Society, and the answers about working with a textbook with individual sets of topics, were also written in detail. Issues that the pupils deal with when working with a textbook, according to the teachers’ opinions, were listed. Almost two thirds of the teachers were involved in the process of selection of the Society textbook that they are using