Concludes that it is necessary to consider text frequency and standard frequency index and to discriminate technical words from technical support and nontechnical words to obtain a reliable indication of a science text's readability. (AEA)

Indicates that publishers need to do more to eradicate racism and sexism from basal reading texts. Argues that including the handicapped, the elderly, and one-parent families in the texts would also reflect society more realistically. (FL)

Eleven Asian American book reviewers were asked by the Council on Interracial Books for Children to find, read, and analyze all childrens books on Asian American themes currently in print or in use in schools and libraries. The major conclusion was that, with one or perhaps two exceptions, the 66 books reviewed are racist, sexist, and elitist.…

Many preschool and grade 1 picture books contain sexist and racist stereotypes. (JH)

The purpose of this descriptive study is to examine the content of early learning standards developed by state-level organizations in order to address the following research questions: (1) To what extent have various dimensions of development and learning (i.e., the dimensions of physical and motor, social and emotional, approaches toward…

Using a cross-section of European secondary school history textbooks, a study examined general developments in the presentation of history over the last decades. Three to 5 textbooks from 13 European countries were examined. Until the mid-1960s textbooks were primarily concerned with the history of the particular state or nation, but over the last…

A study examined the contents of 18 public relations textbooks published between 1991-1997 to determine the quality of minority inclusion. Results indicated that, of the 8,071 pages examined, 97 pages included minorities. Findings suggest that the results of this study were not significantly different from those of a similar, earlier study of…

A study focused primarily on determining whether women and men are being published at equal rates in the leading journals of the National Communication Association (NCA). The study also examined whether: females publish more in a particular area or journal; mixed-sex collaboration is as prevalent as same-sex collaboration; female scholars produce…

World history textbooks currently used in U.S. high schools adopt Western civilization as the integrating element of world history. The high school world history approach with Western civilization as the essence was a product of the late 19th century and early 20th century. The historical consciousness of this period continues to influence…

This introductory lesson exposes students to a variety of online texts about Anne Frank and the Holocaust prior to more extensive study of these topics. Students are encouraged to cooperatively examine Internet sites as a primary source of information, and then share their impressions and opinions of the various sites. During the two 40-minute…

A study that joined the fields of young adult literature and vision impairment explored the questions: How are characters who have visual impairment presented by young adult books?; and How do readers respond to those characters? Only a few books were found (13) that feature characters with visual impairments, and the portrayal of characters…

Because children today are growing up in an era of increasing racial and ethnic diversity and because television provides a steady educational influence on children's attitudes and perceptions, it is important to examine the extent to which television programming reflects diversity in all its forms. This study was commissioned by Children Now to…

The Newspaper, Part 1 section of the Proceedings contains the following 10 papers: "Local News Coverage Strategies in a Three-Way Daily Newspaper Competitive Market" (Patsy G. Watkins); "Enterprise and Investigative Reporting at Ohio Metropolitan Newspapers in 1980 and in 1995" (Joseph Bernt and Marilyn Greenwald); "The…

The Advertising section of the proceedings contains the following 14 selected papers: "Preparing the Entry-level Advertising Portfolio: Pointing Creative Students in the Right Direction" (Sheri J. Broyles); "Effects of Issue Ads on Candidate Evaluation and Voting Preference: Does Sponsorship Matter?" (Fuyuan Shen and H. Denis…

As part of the Content Analysis Project, a panel of six experts in mathematics education examined the congruence between the Maryland grade-8 test and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test. Two panelists were very familiar with the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP), two with the NAEP, and the other two…