Text and Academic Authors Association

U.S. Pre-K-12 instructional materials publishing market to surpass $10 billion by 2010

Fueled by improvement in the textbook adoption cycle and continued initiatives by schools to improve instruction and student achievement, the outlook for the PreK-12 instructional materials publishing industry in the U.S. is for compound annual growth of more than 6 percent, reaching $10.22 billion by 2010, according to new research from media industry forecast and analysis firm Simba Information.

Simba's latest strategic report, Publishing for the PreK-12 Market, 2007- 2008, examines the dynamic school market and analyzes the changing needs and opportunities for publishers.

"Publishers are rethinking their business models and strategies as they confront changing market forces," said Kathy Mickey, senior analyst/managing editor of Simba's Education group. "One of the most significant market forces is customization of learning solutions to fit various learning needs and styles. Another strong force publishers are grappling with is how to harness the power of social networking and collaboration from blogs to wikis."

As the line is blurring in both the school market and the publishing industry between what is purely a print product and those that are electronic only, Simba decided it was imperative to examine the industry as a whole, so Publishing for the PreK-12 Market, 2007-2008 is the first annual edition that examines the totality of the industry, while delineating its most important segments.

Among the fastest-growing segments are video and classroom assessment, each of which Simba projects will grow about 10% in 2007. Publishing for the PreK-12 Market, 2007-2008, also contains segment forecast figures; rankings of leading textbook, supplemental and instructional software publishers; and comprehensive profiles of 19 leading publishers. Additional information can be found at http://www.simbainformation.com/pub/1513017.html

The University of Alabama at Birmingham's School of Education recently launched a pilot project for the formation of a scholarly writing support group called S.N.A.P. (Support Network for Assistant/Associate Professors) to assist the School's assistant and associate professors in advancing their writing skills as they work toward tenure and promotion.

The project is a multidisciplinary and collaborative proposal from the three departments in the School of Education (Human Studies; Curriculum and Instruction; and Leadership, Special Education, Foundations, and Technology). Currently, 18 faculty in these departments are in tenure track positions, but have not yet been tenured. A small amount of funding was designated by the School of Education Dean.

"It takes time to develop the skills to write in the scholarly manner required for promotion and tenure at the university level, even when one is employed in academia," said Linda Searby, the project's principal investigator, in her proposal for funding. "As faculty transition to tenure track positions, learning to write for scholarly journals and initiate worthy research projects to enhance one's effectiveness as an individual faculty member can present professional and personal challenges. New faculty members often feel isolated from one another. Support is needed to make these faculty believe they are part of the professional community and have the skills needed to perform successfully."

Searby said that forming the group was for her a matter of priorities and survival: "I have a strong need to be connected to others and I do not find that the isolation in academia is something that we have to live with. I wanted to do something concrete and tangible to offer support for non-tenured faculty, as I, myself, was one who felt this need for support."

S.N.A.P. participants will meet once a month for nine months, from September 1, 2007 to August 14, 2008. They will be presented with a variety of opportunities to develop their writing skills, through collaboration with each other, with senior faculty mentors, and with experts in scholarly writing and publication. Activities will include peer mentoring, guest speakers (including tenured faculty with specific expertise both within and outside the School of Education. Tara Gray, presenter of the TAA-sponsored workshop "Publish and Flourish: Become A Prolific Scholar" will present her workshop on December 7.), structured reflection groups, writing workshops, mentoring sessions with tenured faculty, and access to resources for writing and publishing (e.g., APA Manual of Style, and The Work of Writing.) They will also participate in two off-campus writing retreats in January and April.

Dr. Nataliya Ivankova, and Dr. Melanie Shores, both from the School of Education's Department of Human Studies, are serving as co-investigators on the project. Together with Searby, they will be evaluating the project and reporting the results to the School of Education's Dean with the hope that they will be allowed to continue the S.N.A.P. group beyond the nine month pilot project. At the beginning of the project, they will conduct a Needs Assessment with participants, using open-ended interviews, to determine the specific support participants need. The data will be analyzed to develop a specific plan for the group's activities. Each activity will also be evaluated using a brief questionnaire that will provide immediate feedback to the investigators about that activity's effectiveness toward participants' goals.

Following the pilot project, investigators hope to continue S.N.A.P.'s monthly meetings, extending coaching and mentoring beyond the project year; expand the collaboration among the School Education's group participants across disciplines and across the UAB campus; encourage co-authoring projects among participants; share the results of the project with the professional community at large through regional and national conferences and international presentations; and form a second group of faculty members to participate in S.N.A.P.

International textbook research conference provides opportunity for collaboration between countries

Forty-three presenters from 27 different countries shared their textbook research with an audience of 90 participants from 40 different countries at the International Association for Research on Textbooks and Educational Media's Ninth International Conference on Textbooks and Educational Media in Tonsberg, Norway, September 5-8, 2007.

The presenters, from Norway, Western Balkan and Slovenia, Iceland, Lithuania, Australia, Denmark, Spain, Estonia, Pretoria, India, Madagascar, Palestine, Japan, Turkey, Hungary, Serbia, Korea, Great Britain, Scotland, Israel, Czech Republic, France, Portugal, Sweden, Austria, and Kenya, shared a variety of research articles on topics such as issues of gender equality in textbooks; the textbook selection and evaluation process in Western Balkan and Slovenia, South Africa, Norway, Hungary, and Serbia; ageism in textbooks; the importance of illustrations in learning; whether print or electronic materials were more effective in teaching; and the process of textbook production; all based around the theme of "Peace, democratization and reconciliation in textbooks and educational media."

International organizations that are interested in, or participate in, textbook research:

European Educational Publishers Group (EEPG)
Visit web site

TREAT, Teaching Resources and Textbook Research Unit, University of Sydney, Faculty of Education
Visit web site

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
Visit web site
Download a UNESCO brochure

University of Utrecht, the Netherlands, Centre of Curriculum Studies CLU
Dr. Arno Reints, CLU Director
A.Reints@clu.nl

International Association of Research on Textbooks and Educational Media (IARTEM)
Visit web site

Japan Textbook Research Center
Visit web site

The 43 conference sessions were organized into four workshops: 1) The Balance Between Textbooks and Educational Media; 2) The Use of Textbooks and Educational Media; 3) Approval, Selection and Language Policy in Textbooks and Educational Media; and 4) Learning from Texts and Images in Textbooks and Educational Media.

In his opening address, Petter Aasen, head master of Vestfold University College, which hosted the conference, said that contact across international borders in the area of organizational research into pedagogical texts was important to the advancement of academic scholarship.

The purpose of the conference, he said, was to get a better idea of the textbook policies of other countries and the different forms of funding high quality research, with the hope that the conference could provide initiatives and play a part in international collaboration and collaboration at the institutional level.

Many of the countries represented at the conference do not have any government or state guidelines for textbook content, approval or selection. During a publisher's panel presentation on Thursday, September 6, James McCall, deputy director of the Stirling International Publishing Unit, a center for publishing studies within Stirling University (Scotland), said that the content of the country's curriculum is what drives publishers and editors in what they will instruct their textbook authors to write. State standards, he said, play no role in publishing: "State standards for books are created by individuals who believe that the books will sell at the right time to the right reader. We believe that the best kind of book combines the worldview of the author, teacher, publisher and reader. The textbook is only as good as the teacher in whose hand it is placed. Publishers will continue to create textbooks based on that type of syllabus and according to social norms." McCall also serves on the IARTEM board.

Mike Horsley, senior lecturer in the School of Professional Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia, said in his country, publishers sell books they think will sell, and schools openly purchase textbooks with no government control or adoption system. "Curriculum drives most publishing decisions in the open market," said Horsley. "Publishing decisions are state-based, not national." Pedagogy is based on a national project, "Discovering Democracy," he said, which is about empowering people to be responsible and participate. Horsley is also vice president of the IARTEM board.

A presentation by Zusana Sikorova from the University of Ostrava (Czech Republic) on "Textbook-Based Activities in the Classroom," shared the results of a survey of four primary and lower secondary schools and three higher secondary schools that was conducted to determine how often textbook materials were used in the classroom. She found that textbook materials were used in 75 percent of lessons, and students spent 25 percent of their total classroom time engaged in textbook based activities.

A presentation by Mu'men Al-Badarin, assistant professor of Arabic Studies at Bethlehem University (Palestine), and Eva Maagero (Norway) shared the results of a comparative analysis of Palestinian and Norwegian textbooks. The Arabic textbooks used the pronoun "we" and had mainly masculine representations. The Norwegian textbooks used the pronoun "you" to personalize the text and create a more personal relationship between the textbook and the reader. Gender representations were much more balanced in the Norwegian textbook in both the representations of girls and boys and the choice of authors and pictures, and different minority groups. The Norwegian textbooks, said Maagero, allow boys and girls to identify with the textbook, showing that both can do the same activities. However, the minority boys and girls depicted in the textbook were shown in a Norwegian context.

Per Jarle Sætre from Sogn og Fjordane University College (Norway), shared the temporary results of his research of gender representations in illustrations in geography textbooks in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, which found that most of them were gender biased. His research included a content analysis of photos in seven series of geography textbooks for lower secondary schools (13-16-year-olds). "In the seven textbook series there are a total of 3,683 illustrations, 1,995 of which are photos, and 833 of those are photos of people," he said. "Of the 833 photos of people, in 687 of them I can see men, women, or men and women (the rest are unidentifiable). I divided the people into six categories, work being the most important category." Sætre found that men dominate the pictures, and that most series write about women's contribution to subsidence agriculture in developing countries, and few series write about women's contribution to agriculture in industrial countries. Women are depicted as producing goods at the production line while men do trades and more self-reliant work. Photos of women at leisure and at home are more frequent, he found, and most of are of women doing domestic work.

"The use of motive and gender on photos in the textbooks can bias the represented content," says Sætre. "Most of the authors focused on motive not on gender. Just one book, the Norwegian Undervegs, seems to have a reflected use of gender on the photos, and that may be because it was written by one man and one woman. Feminist geographers claim geography excludes women as producers of knowledge and women's issues as objects of knowledge. My study can indicate such a description could also be applied to geography textbooks."

Read the answers to Ginny Borden Maier's question on the TAA Listserv about what percentage of sales are lost to the used book market over the life of an edition, in Authors Asking: Click here (members only)

Brenda Berube, Donald Boerth, Barbara Clouse, Sara Dalton, Shari Evans, Laura Franz, Michael Geiger, Bobbie Green, Kellyann Kowalski, Raj Kumar, Devon Lynch, Mary McCurry, Cristina Mehrtens, Isabel Rodrigues, K. Shrinagesh, and Haihong Wang.