By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Embracing the Un-Science of Qualitative Research Part One - Small Sample Sizes Are SuperGary Stager mixes a good point in with a bunch of bad ones. The good point is that textbooks are about control - and that's what the textbook industry sells, and it will be very difficult for the school system to give up on this. Yes, the textbook industry is like a Zelig - throw a new technology at it, as Stager says, and they'll turn it into a textbook. Nobody is discounting the size and power of the textbook industry. But it needs to change. Because - contra Stager - it is the textbook publishers, not advocates of free and open content, that promulgate "the flawed premise that education equals access to content". More...