December 2024
·
86 Reads
Nonhuman animals are perceived differently depending on their relative use for humans. While companion animals are anthropomorphized and assigned a high moral status, farm animals often do not receive such consideration. To investigate the development of these differing perceptions, we evaluated the depiction of farm and companion animals in German biology textbooks to identify and analyze inherent biases across nonhuman animal species. The varying moral considerations and treatment of nonhuman animals are solely determined by their species membership, reflecting a broader collective orientation toward nonhuman animals referred to as speciesism. Analyzing 35 German biology textbooks, we investigated whether the portrayal of companion animals (dogs and cats) versus farm animals (pigs, cows, and chickens) differentiates between them, manifesting in companion animal speciesism and belief in the emotional and cognitive capacities of animals (belief in animal mind). We developed a set of categories and examined differences in the frequencies of sentence allocation between companion animals and farm animals to test whether speciesism is embedded in German educational materials. The results of our tests indicate significant biases in the representation of companion and farm animals in German biology textbooks. Specifically, companion animals are attributed significantly greater intrinsic value (χ2 = 102.36, p < 0.001, φ = 0.152), concern (χ2 = 20.91, p < 0.001, φ = 0.069), and belief in animal mind (χ2 = 351.22, p < 0.001, φ = 0.269) compared with farm animals. These findings expose speciesist bias in textbooks, where companion animals are portrayed more favorably, while farm animals are depicted with indifference or as mere resources. This raises critical questions about perspectives on nonhuman animals and underscores the need to reevaluate their portrayal in educational materials.