One route to uncovering schooling's goals for an improved citizenry is to track certain subjects of the compulsory curriculum. In this case, health is investigated, and especially its messages on smoking and drinking. First introduced as scientific temperance instruction (in the 1880s), renamed hygiene (from about 1910), then as health (from the…

This note presents a teaching suggestion, using the history of mathematics, to give students from middle school and high school the possibility of facing problems found in old mathematics books and comparing their solutions with those given in those books. (Contains 3 figures and 1 table.)

The principles of magnetism are a common topic in most introductory physics courses, yet curricular materials exploring the behavior of permanent magnets and magnetic materials are surprisingly rare in the literature. We reviewed the literature to see how magnetism is typically covered in introductory textbooks and curricula. We found that while…

The article analyzes the content of 18 international marketing academic textbooks with regard to factors comprising the global marketing environment. Three broad categories of factors are identified, the macro (i.e., physical, demographic, and socio-cultural), meso (i.e., economic, political-legal, and technological), and micro (i.e.,…

We reviewed the five top-selling introductory assessment textbooks in both general and special education to identify topics contained in textbooks and to determine the extent of agreement among authors regarding the essentialness of topics within and across discipline. Content analysis across the 10 assessment textbooks yielded 73 topics related…

The course units which form the core of the four foundation courses at the Open University were sampled for readability, using an electronic version of R. Flesch's (1951) Reading Ease Score. The textload (reading workload) of the courses was predicted by estimating the total length in words of all text components of these courses. Large variations…

A group of 200 folk tales from four school readers was analyzed in terms of character types included, sex and age distribution of characters, affect content, story outcome, amount of aggressive behavior, and attitude content. (BRT)

Six best-selling introductory behavioral statistics textbooks that were published in 1982 and two well-known sampling theory textbooks were reviewed to determine the presence of rules-of-thumb--useful principles with wide application that are not intended to be strictly accurate. The relative frequency and type of rules are reported along with a…

A recent classroom revelation caused us to reconsider the adequacy of the instructions offered in our textbooks for one of our most elementary quantitative methods. Specifically, we found that many students were mystified concerning how to pick an initial objective function value when plotting an isoprofit line in order to graphically solve a…

Summarizes various theories of transformation and examines the influence of such theories on the preparation of new grammar texts. Suggests ways in which transformation theory can be applied in the classroom. (PM)

Content and performance-mode codes were used in a page-by-page examination of seven commonly used spelling series in a study of the content of elementary spelling instruction and the kinds of spelling practice provided by current spelling texts. The codes were processed by computer to permit analysis of what is taught. Results showed that most…

MOST SUGGESTIONS FOR TEXTBOOKS CHANGES EMANATING FROM CITIZEN'S GROUPS CONCERN THREE ITEMS--THE DEGREES TO WHICH CONTENT IS RELEVANT TO ALL ELEMENTS OF SOCIETY, TO THE CONDITIONS OF ALL SOCIETY AND TO VALUES REFLECTIVE OF THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE. ALL PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEMS OF THE GREAT CITIES EMPLOY SIMILAR CRITERIA IN MAKING TEXTBOOK SELECTIONS.…

TO BE REALISTIC, THE ENTIRE RANGE OF AMERICAN LIFE IN URBAN AS WELL AS RURAL COMMUNITIES SHOULD BE PORTRAYED IN TEXTBOOKS. THERE IS MUCH CONCERN WITH THE ROLE PUBLISHERS PLAY IN DETERMINING TEXTBOOKS AVAILABLE FOR USE IN URBAN SCHOOLS, BECAUSE THERE IS A PARTICULAR NEED TO DESCRIBE THE SPECIAL CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH MINORITY PEOPLES LIVE IN URBAN…

This book recounts in narrative form the influence of Mel and Norma Gabler, two Texas parents, on the purchase of textbooks for Texas schools. Concerned over content they found objectionable, for more than ten years the Gablers used direct mail campaigns, radio talk shows, petition drives, and personal appearances, in addition to testifying…