Analyzes leading journal citations for introductory sociology textbooks to determine if there has been a decline in the quality of such textbooks. Discovers a greater percentage of citations to earlier textbooks. Suggests, however, that this could be due to expanded publishing opportunities and the emphasis given to original research. (MJP)

Examines the strengths and weaknesses of an 1828 geography textbook for children, specifically in relation to other textbooks. Jesse Olney's text deviated from the norm by introducing the students to activities focused on community and local geography. Ethnocentrism and racism occasionally marred the lavishly illustrated text. (MJP)

Education vouchers and charter schools are two of the most prominent and far-reaching forms of family-choice policies currently in evidence in the nation's elementary and secondary schools. As such, they present important challenges to the traditional provision of public education in schools that are created, governed, funded, and operated by…

Although British psychologist Francis Galton lost the battle for the definition of intelligence in his own time, his views live on in the work of Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray. They argue that the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is an adequate measure of intelligence, and that IQ is highly heritable. They contend that there are racial and…

Development and use of an English for Special Purposes (ESP) textbook for Turkish police dealing with tourists are described. The textbook and accompanying videotape (not available from ERIC) were designed for use in a course to improve job-specific communicative competence of police officers with a lower-intermediate to intermediate level of…

This manual is part of a Mexican series of instructional materials designed for Spanish speaking adults who are in the process of becoming literate or have recently become literate in their native language. The manual is an instructor's guide to teaching carpentry to adult students with little or no formal education. The goal of the course is to…

Intended for college-level instructors, this paper aims to establish behavioral objectives for listening or listening competencies and provide experiential learning to develop and assess those objectives and/or competencies. The paper begins with an overview which notes the lack of material on listening competencies in many college speech…

In recent years European textbook research has begun to examine the topics of ethnic minorities, multiculturalism, hostility to foreigners, and racism. Its task is not only to ask whether textbooks should present such topics but also how they should be presented. In addressing the issues, an important question to answer is whether the textbooks…

Since the collapse of state socialism in East Germany in 1989, political discourse among citizens has changed dramatically. There is now talk of democracy, tolerance, the individual, and democratic socialism. This paper examines the impact of this new discourse upon citizenship education in what was formerly East Germany specifically focusing on…

Recent court decisions are described under the following headings: (1) requests by parents to have their children excused from parts of the curriculum that conflict with their religious beliefs; (2) requests by parents to have textbooks removed from the curriculum; (3) use of school facilities by outside religious groups; (4) benedictions and…

This document surveys the changes in the content of history textbooks in Romania from the end of World War II to 1991. Post war Romanian education is examined through the education laws of 1948, 1958, and 1975, and at the syllabi and textbooks used. The textbooks are relevant for such an analysis because they represent the main material support of…

The first phase of a study investigating textbook readability and students' reading levels used three traditional formulas to assess the readability levels of 51 primary textbooks from college introductory social science courses in 7 disciplines. The second phase investigated the relationship between the readability levels of students' texts,…

The purpose of a review of course materials and teaching methods in the area of adult development and learning was to identify commonalities that existed in course titles, objectives, content areas, texts, required reading, resources used, course requirements, and instructional processes. Thirty-two course syllabi and 1 curriculum guide from 24…

This study is based on the premise that research on science textbook content has not specifically dealt with patterned class and grade level differences in how the organization of the content orients students to the cognitive and personality characteristics identified as precursors to scientific careers. The investigation analyzed the effects of…

Three readability formulas were applied to chapters from six textbooks to determine (1) if there was a significant difference in readability of three consecutive textbook editions of a seventh grade and of an eighth grade text over a 12-year period (1968-1980), and (2) whether eighth grade students would perform equally to the same content from a…