The goal of this piece is to provide educators with the knowledge and practical application needed to build critical literacy within their students using a traditional text that might not be considered multicultural. This essay challenges the idea that "outdated" literary works have no place in today's multicultural classroom, as it…

Publishers' requests to review educators' manuscripts on the pedagogy of pluralism have prompted the author to write this paper in which he takes on the anthropological "spoiler role," contradicting generalizations in the texts by providing exceptions from ethnographic research. Admitting to some personal biases about education texts in general…

Examines the extent to which social studies textbooks include diverse perspectives on U.S. history through a content analysis of the treatment of slavery in 17 5th-grade texts in Connecticut. Students are receiving a sanitized view of the history of slavery, with only a partial picture of discrimination. (SLD)

Curricular materials of the past have much to offer researchers and educators today. In this article, I examine two pieces of instructional material, a textbook entitled "People of Denver" and a unit on the inequalities of opportunities available to minority groups in Denver. Both these items were written in Denver, by Denver teachers at…

Textbooks with a multicultural focus that attempt to promote tolerance are increasingly being used in elementary, secondary, and higher education. The issue is whether or not multicultural readers are a feasible replacement for the traditional literary canon. Changes in academic publishing are responses to activist and minority groups. (SLD)

Six popular high school American history textbooks are examined to address accusations of overcompensation by textbook publishers as a result of the raised ethnic consciousness of the 1970s. The textbooks are: "Our American Heritage" (Silver Burdett); "The Pageant of American History" (Allyn and Bacon); "A History of Our American Republic"…

The incorporation of multicultural content in to English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) and English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) instruction is discussed. First, the international role of English is examined, and the sociopolitical nature of language is reviewed. Cultural components of language learning are noted in the areas of discourse,…