International Scholarly Research Network ISRN Education Volume 2012, Article ID 419782, 5 pages doi:10.5402/2012/419782 Research Article Ecosystems, Pollution, and Use of Resources in Textbooks of 14 Countries: An Ecocentric Emphasis Rosa Branca Tracana 1 and Grac ¸a S. Carvalho 2 1 High School of Education, Communication and Sport, Polytechnic Institute of Guarda, Guarda, Portugal 2 CIEC, Institute of Education, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal Correspondence should be addressed to Rosa Branca Tracana, rb.tracana@gmail.com Received 8 December 2011; Accepted 2 January 2012 Academic Editors: F. Jimenez and B. J. Walton Moss Copyright © 2012 R. B. Tracana and G. S. Carvalho. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Two views of Human-Nature relation can be found: anthropocentrism and ecocentrism. In order to understand how school textbooks refer to the human’s position in nature we analysed how “Human as guest versus Humans as owners of nature” is present in the three topics of environmental education—Ecosystems, Pollution, and Use of Resource—in textbooks of 14 countries from Europe, Africa, and Middle East. A specific grid of analysis, which was constructed in the context of the European Project BIOHEAD-CITIZEN, was used in this study. Results show that this axis of analysis is present in the majority of textbooks addressing the above three topics but not in the “Biodiversity” topic. Textbooks for 12–15-year old pupils were the ones having more occurrences than those for 6–11- or 16–18-year olds. The textbooks present mainly an ecocentric position, whereas the aesthetic, ethical, and cultural aspects are limited and inadequate, limiting the full perspective of education for sustainable development. 1. Introduction The understanding of the Human-Nature relationship affects strongly people’s worldviews [1], and differences in world- views determine the way people conceptualize the need for addressing solutions of the existing environmental problems. As Esteves [2] defends it is necessary to develop, in each of us and also in the humanity, the sense of responsibility and solidarity through the environment. Two perspectives of Human-Nature relation can be found: anthropocentrism and ecocentrism [3]. The former focuses in the relations between humans and the Universe [2] and confers humans’ dominance over nature, where they, in the ecosystem, occupy the top of an alimentary chain. The latter aims at the ecosystem itself, where the humans are seen as elements of the biotic community, having an attitude of respect for all the elements of that community [3]. It is simple to understand that these questions are not easy to solve but one has to have in mind ethical positions in order to solve the different environmental problems. It is also required a moral, ecological, and economic perspective in the relation Human-Nature. This is to say that there is a need for a change of attitudes in order to obtain a better world. In the sense of changing attitudes through the environment, in the sense of constructing a better world, it is pertinent the intervention of educative actions to make children and young people aware of environmental problems and promote positive attitudes and behaviours. Textbooks analysis is seen as a major element in the eval- uation of how the educational goals (at the legislative level of national programmes) are implemented at the school level, where pupils must acquire knowledge, competences and de- velop appropriate values towards a sustainable environment [4]. These textbooks are used by teachers with a double func- tion: as a national programme (or syllabuses) guideline and as a didactical resource [5]. Thus the textbook analysis turns out to be a relevant tool for studying socio-cultural determi- nants of environmental problems, in particular the school- related ones. In order to understand how school textbooks refer to the human’s position in nature we analysed how the axis “Hu- man as guest versus Humans as owners of nature” is present in three topics of environmental education—Ecosystems, Pollution, and Use of Resource—in textbooks of 14 countries