Topics about Heritage in Croatian Science Textbooks for the 4th-grade Primary School

Abstract

The paper analyses the representation and occurrence of topics about heritage in Croatian Science textbooks for the 4th-grade primary school, published by the leading Croatian textbook publishers and approved by the Croatian Ministry of Science and Education. The conducted research aimed to determine the representation and appearance of heritage topics in the mentioned textbooks and, based on the results, to provide guidelines for further activities and necessary research to improve the quality of teaching heritage content in the lower grades of primary school. It was established that the greatest attention was paid to tangible cultural heritage, and the least to intangible cultural heritage. It would be good to include more tasks in the textbooks that would encourage the observation of cause-and-effect relationships in the actions of people on natural and cultural heritage and encourage students to reflect on concrete procedures for preserving and protecting the same. Considering teachers' freedom in accessing and teaching certain teaching contents, which the new curriculum of Science and curriculum of cross-curricular topics provide, the question of access and competence of teachers in teaching heritage topics in class is opened.