As Brookline, Massachusetts's experience shows, communities can be duped by the Europhobia, national self-hatred, and hostility hidden behind "politically correct" concepts like multiculturalism, critical thinking, and diversity. School administrators should examine how ideological thinking may be affecting their schools. A sidebar…

During the past 30 years, great changes have occurred in secondary literature programs' specific selections and cultural content. Today's English teachers are altering program content to reflect the variety of ethnic, religious, racial, and other social groups in the U.S. The New England Association of Teachers of English's list of…

According to five surveys, only four major authors--Shakespeare, Dickens, Hawthorne, and George Eliot--have survived the dramatic 90-year shift from a predominantly British (or Eurocentric) curriculum to a primarily U.S. curriculum. Programs must now evolve to reflect the cultures of all students, while maintaining appropriate intellectual, moral,…

Lists authors and titles of 52 items of literature about the U.S. ethnic experience by 40 authors from 23 ethnic groups. (SR)

Examines the concepts of multicultural and multiethnic literatures and considers how educators can develop guidelines for selecting these materials for classroom use. Suggests how the discord surrounding these concepts can be alleviated. (HB)

Brookline High School in the suburban Boston, Massachusetts area has been long recognized as having a reputation for academic excellence; its social studies department, for example, has been highly praised for the diverse range of courses it has offered. This paper recounts what happened to Brookline High school's social studies department in the…

This essay shows how the construction of literature curricula and the study of literature can contribute to civic education. The paper describes the anti-civic forces now at work in literature programs in U.S. schools and explains why these forces exist. The report suggests how literature programs can strengthen the underpinnings of a…

The major purposes of multiethnic and multicultural literature programs in United States' schools are to develop students' knowledge of and respect for the religious, racial, and ethnic diversity of U.S. citizens; and to enhance students' familiarity with and appreciation of the literary traditions of other peoples of the world. The selection of…

Schools' treatment of diversity categorizes students and applies ineffectual learning methods to resulting stereotypes. The author's study of basal readers showed that today's multiculturalism suppresses most white immigrant groups' stories, omits references to first discoveries and inventions, and substitutes foreign expressions for literate…

This book argues that it is the incorporation of a multicultural agenda into basal readers, the primary tool for teaching reading in elementary schools, that has stunted American children's ability to read. The book shows how basal readers have been systematically "dumbed down" in an effort to raise minority students'"self…

Multicultural education has at least two faces--an academic one and an ideological one. Encouraging the balkanization of U.S. culture threatens to undermine the academic integrity of the social studies curriculum. Offers suggestions to make sure that schools are offering an academically rigorous multicultural curriculum, not political…

Argues that children could leave 12 years of school thinking that the Holocaust is the chief contribution of Jewish people to world history. Shows through a survey of reading anthologies for grades K-12 that Bible stories are largely left out, as is fiction about the modern Jewish culture. Offers a critical explanation for this state of things.…