In 1994, I embarked on a PhD study to examine, for the first time, what happened inside the classroom during history lessons in pre-Second World War Britain. Previous studies had relied largely on a study of textbook content and official curricula guidance, without stopping to ask how and whether such materials were actually used in pre-war…

The first purpose of a high school course in U.S. history must be to help students understand the essence of democracy and those events, institutions, and forces that have either promoted or obstructed it. This review examines five textbooks and analyzes how useful they are in aiding that process, and how they might be made more helpful. The five…

A study was made to discover how the public school educator views the library and its librarian and what attempts are made in Kentucky teacher training institutions to offer instruction in the use of library facilities. Specific questions involved the image and role of libraries in education textbooks and courses, and the implications of that…

This book presents an overview of the treatment of the Holocaust in the textbooks used in the Federal Republic of Germany, Israel, and the United States. Selection of these three countries was based on historical, political, and state administration criteria. All three countries are democratic but vary in terms of history, heritage, and…

This book examines the difficulty in the United States of educating students about civic ethos. While most educators agree about the importance of civic education, many disagree over how to go about that education. This study concentrates on the role textbooks play in the debate over civic education. It examines education's role in reflecting and…

Various perspectives on the highly complex textbook debate are presented in this book, which includes essays by educators, publishers, policymakers, and scholars. Currently, the advocates of higher academic standards, coherence, and quality occupy the strongest position in the debate. Part 1 looks at textbooks from a historical perspective. The…

Building upon the National Study of Writing in the Secondary School conducted in 1981, this volume presents the results of recent scholarly inquiry into the nature of writing. Background information for the study is discussed in chapter 1, while chapter 2 describes the additional data that have been gathered since the national survey: a study of…

This volume of essays focuses on textbooks in developing nations of the world. Issues of concern are textbook supply in the schools, national policies and their relation to textbook supply and content, the role of national and international agencies in textbook publication and control, and the influence of textbooks on classroom practice. The…

The pages of this book illustrate that as instruments of socialization and sites of ideological discourse textbooks are powerful artefacts in introducing young people to a specific historical, cultural and socioeconomic order. Crucially, exploring the social construction of school textbooks and the messages they impart provides an important…