The presentation of the family in schoolbooks is a sensitive topic because ideological and scientific positions highly overlap. Very often, a specific form of family is seen as a value in itself, thus making it difficult to come to a common understanding of its tasks and functions.
The following topics shall be dealt with in the lectures and in the discussions:

How is the family depicted in historical and in current schoolbooks? Which types of family are mentioned? How is the relationship between parents and children described, how the relationship between father and mother? Is education a subject of description, and if it is, in what respect? How are women and men, mothers and fathers described? Are there discrepancies between the depiction of the family in the curriculum and in schoolbooks? Can references to public discourses about the family be found? Are results of family research reflected in schoolbooks? Are crisises of specific family patterns a topic?

Have there been any public discourses about the depiction of the family in schoolbooks? Do influences of politics, of the churches or other social groups become visible? Which treatment of the family is recommended for school lessons: an affirmative one, an instructive and critical one, or a social-therapeutic one? What kind of sources and documents are mentioned and referred to? How are families put in concrete terms at school? Are there any effects of the presentation of families on the pupils?

To the conference, historical-systematic approaches to the topic are welcome as well as approaches of immediate interest, for example:

• studies about specific historical periods (e.g. “The family in schoolbooks of the Wilhelmian Empire”);
• studies from a historical educational point of view, with regard to special pedagogical movements and conceptions (e.g. “The influence of the Progressive Education on the presentation of the family in schoolbooks”);
• studies from the perspective of special branches of science and special didactics, namely about the presentation of the family in schoolbooks for the particular subjects.