Textbook images: How do they invite students into physics?

Abstract

This paper presents a study of images in Norwegian physics textbooks for upper secondary school, and how they invite students into physics by means of visual communication. The concept of 'framing' is used to investigate how the perspective in the image provides a sense of participation. It is found that older textbooks, where objects and experimental setups dominate the images, involve the reader in terms of weak framing. This is to some degree resembled in newer textbooks with the increased use of photographs of learners in some physics activity. This does, however, invite the learner into school physics rather than professional physics. Connections made to physics in society and everyday life in images can also be seen as inviting the learner into physics, by exhibiting how modern physicists work and by referring to the relevance of physics, respectively.