Textbook Practices: Reading Texts, Touching Books

Drawing on practice theory, a programme of research is delineated that focuses on textbook practices. Textbooks and their textual content are seen as materially shaped textual artefacts that are adapted, transformed, contested, subverted, or may even be banned from the classroom. Mapping qualitative research that deals with the use of textbooks, two shifts denoting an increasing recognition of practices in textbook research are identified: a shift from static content to dynamic texts in use and a shift from written language to the material artefact itself. The chapter concludes by outlining possibilities for further research on textbook practices.