title: Sociology of health textbooks and narratives: historical significance.
abstract: This article has as its starting point two central ideas: textbooks as a means of production and dissemination of knowledge and narrative as an approach. After a brief review of studies on health/medical sociology textbooks, I analyze a few of these textbooks from the 1900-2012 period, produced in the United States and England. I have selected eleven textbooks which I thought were representative. In addition to a content analysis, the textbooks are located within the process of constitution of the health/medical sociology with brief references to the biographies of the authors. The textbooks analyzed were classified according to the main narrative features: doctor-centered; interdisciplinary; pedagogical; analytical; almost autobiographical; critical; and synthetic-reflective. In the final remarks, some points about the textbooks, limits and possibilities are presented.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Saúde Coletiva, Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brasil, evernunes@uol.com.br.
authors.forename: Everardo Duarte
authors.initials: ED
authors.lastname: Nunes
mesh_terms: D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D033262:Narration; D012961:Sociology; D012962:Sociology, Medical / Q000266:history*; D013782:Textbooks as Topic / Q000266:history*; D014481:United States