Portrayals of Scientists in Science Textbooks of Secondary Schools in Iran: A Qualitative Study in the History of Science

The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the historical content in high school science textbooks in Iran to determine what image of scientists is drawn in them. For this purpose, first, the content related to the history of science in 16 science textbooks was coded as initial data. Then, a thematic network analysis was used to interpret the resulting data. Based on this method, 12 basic themes and 3 organizing categories, namely, “general biography,” “scientific biography,” and “role in the evolution of science,” were revealed. These organizing themes were also interpreted as one global theme of the “biographical portrayal of scientists.” Only 5 female scientists (of 113 total) are mentioned in science textbooks, which suggests the presence of gender stereotyping. Also, in addition to Western scientists (mostly European or North American), the high school science textbooks in Iran paid special attention to scientists of Iranian-Islamic nationality. The characteristics of scientists’ families and their individual and personality traits were the extracted themes that were revealed as the social and cultural aspects of the nature of science in the historical content of textbooks. The basic themes of scientists’ quotes, scientific books and treatises, used methods of scientific research, being named in honor of the scientist, and winning the Nobel Prize were recognized as scientific biography. Scientists’ role in the evolution of science was the third organizing category, which comprised the scientists’ scientific research area and their outstanding work for the first time. In the end, the implications for science education are discussed.