Textbook Bias
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As an educator in a multicultural society, the fair and accurate representation of racial and ethnic groups is an important concern. The foundation of classroom teaching is the textbook, a medium of expression that the educator cannot assume is without bias. Textbooks are written by human beings, and each person addresses the task from his or her unique perspective. A significant factor in this perspective is the race or ethnicity of the author. Recent occurrences like the Rodney King beating and the O.J. Simpson trial demonstrate that, on certain issues, African Americans and whites hold divergent views. Thus an examination of textbook discussions involving African Americans is likely to show bias since the majority of textbook authors are white. The objective of this paper is to determine whether textbook bias exists, and to what extent. If textbook bias does indeed exist, then it is the responsibility of the educator to compensate for this bias. Students have the right to learn comprehensive truths; presenting the widest range of relevant perspectives can enhance student learning. The procedures used in this paper include a review of related literature and a survey of three classroom textbooks. The textbooks are written for eighth grade students, and all focus on social studies. Of specific emphasis is the inaccurate/unfair portrayal of twentieth-century African Americans in classroom textbook published since the Civil Rights Movement; textbooks sampled were
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roup. In the textbook author's words, "In all groups there are some people who are suspicious of anyone who is different from them. Since there are so many different groups in America, it is not surprising that a great deal of prejudice has developed" (Felder, 1970, p. 280-281). To illustrate the existence of pre-Civil Rights discrimination, Challenge includes a photograph of a sign pointing to separate "white" and "colored" sections of a lunch counter and a sign on a laundry explaining that the establishment serves "white people only." Although illustrative, these signs mute the impact of racism because they are not placed in a human context, they are merely signs.
On the other hand, Challenge plays up the role of whites in the Civil Rights Movement. In a section entitled "Forms of Protest," the textbook describes how blacks used boycotts and sit-ins to promote racial justice. On the opposite page is a picture of a group of young people participating in a sit-in, but all but two of the participants are white!
When African Americans are depicted in other chapters of Challenge they are almost exclusively shown in sections that describe America's "problems." For instance, blacks are pictured in a section on educational pr
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Some common words found in the essay are:
African Americans, Rights Movement, Perfect Union, Sleeter Grant, Apple Christian-Smith, Glazer Ueda, Proud Nation, Black Power, Pete Wilson, , african americans, civil rights, civil rights movement, rights movement, social studies, perfect union, textbook bias, politics textbook, proud nation, apple linda christian-smith, white racism, et al 1991, textbook pp, glazer ueda 1983, armento et al,
Approximate Word count = 2394
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)
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