How do schoolbooks discuss the global warming? : A study of publisher made and sponsored school materials

Today the talk about global warming and climate change are on top of the public agenda. There for schools and schoolbooks also debate the issue of global warming. A newcomer on the school stage is the sponsored school materials that studies show to be a growing phenomenon. In a debate like that of global warming which is filled with uncertainties and so much political and economic interest, I find it interesting to study how these schoolbooks talk about the issue. In my study I have tried to analyze and compare how school materials for primary school discuss the phenomenon of global warming. I have compared two different types of schoolbooks. The first are books published by publishing companies. The other group is sponsored books made by corporations, pressure groups and government organizations which are made available to schools for free. By doing a text analysis of different schoolbooks studied how my material chooses to discuss the global warming and the severity of the problem, the cause, effects and how it can be solved. My results show that as a whole there is not much difference in how these two types of books talk about global warming. The main focus is on global warming as a serious issue. The only given explanation to the global warming are manmade discharge of greenhouse gases. No alternative natural explanations are given by any of the books. However my study shows that the sponsored material gives a more uncertain and nuanced picture of the issue. The study also shows that the sponsored material has a tendency to focus their reasoning around there own interests