An analysis of plant awareness disparity within introductory biology textbook images

Plant awareness disparity (PAD, formerly plant blindness) is the tendency not to notice plants in one's environment, which leads to the perspective that plants are unimportant. In this paper, we explore how plants and animals are represented in introductory biology textbooks to determine if the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of biological education Vol. 57; no. 2; pp. 422 - 431
Main Authors: Brownlee, Kristi, Parsley, Kathryn M., Sabel, Jaime L.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London Routledge 15.03.2023
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects:
Animals
Attention
Biology
Evolution
general biology
Genetics
Illustrations
introductory biology
Majors (Students)
Photography
plant awareness disparity
Plant blindness
Plants (Botany)
Science Instruction
textbook analysis
Textbook Content
Textbooks
Undergraduate Students
Visual Aids
ISSN:0021-9266, 2157-6009
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Plant awareness disparity (PAD, formerly plant blindness) is the tendency not to notice plants in one's environment, which leads to the perspective that plants are unimportant. In this paper, we explore how plants and animals are represented in introductory biology textbooks to determine if these texts are contributing to PAD in undergraduate students. We analysed images from four texts that are commonly used as introductory biology textbooks for biology majors, and specifically focused on the introductory, genetics, and evolution chapters. We found that animals are chosen more often as examples of biological concepts in textbook images across all four textbooks, indicating that these texts are contributing to PAD. Textbook producers should focus on including a more equal number of plant and animal examples of biology concepts and processes, and instructors should bring in outside examples and images to supplement those currently in texts that demonstrate a bias towards animals.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
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content type line 14
ISSN:0021-9266
2157-6009
DOI:10.1080/00219266.2021.1920301