Images of Africa as represented in Ethiopian secondary school geography textbooks

This article examines how secondary school (grades 9 to 12) geography textbooks of Ethiopia represented images of Africa. The study employed a qualitative content analysis method. All pages of the textbooks were used as units of analysis. The findings revealed that the textbooks represented utopian and dystopian images of Africa. On the one hand, the textbooks portrayed Africa as a naturally good place endowed with various natural resources. On the other hand, the textbooks represented Africans as incapable of using their natural resources for their well-being, and that they have turned the good place (Africa) into extreme poverty and sufferings. It can thus be concluded that the images of Africa represented in the textbooks have the potential to cultivate pessimistic dystopian images, disempowerment, and afropessimistic attitudes among students. Based on the findings, the study recommends reforms should be needed in school textbooks to integrate messages of dystopian and utopian images of Africa in balanced ways that can empower and prepare young students as agents of future changes in the African contexts. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.