School manuals and historical-educational heritage

This paper explores how textbooks are an integral aspect of the historical and educational heritage, not only as repository objects of individual and collective memory, but also because they are an indispensable source of research on school culture. The article defines the characteristics which differentiate a textbook from other books, presents data on their historical evolution, and evaluates research in the emerging field of Manualistics. Finally, the paper draws attention to some methodological precautions which must be taken into account in research on textbooks and outlines some strategies that have favoured the process of considering and treating textbooks as part of thehistorical heritage (preservation, cataloguing, and digitisation).