The Second World War stands as the most devastating and destructive global conflict in human history. More than 60 nations representing 1.7 billion people or three quarters of the world's population were consumed by its horror. Not surprisingly, therefore, World War II stands as a landmark episode in history education throughout the world and its…

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the extent to which sexism exists in elementary and secondary textbooks. The findings of two recent studies of elementary and secondary textbooks are summarized and directed to four questions: Do textbooks describe the real world as females and males experience it in our society? Should textbooks describe…

A study of the treatment of contemporary America in textbooks of other countries reveals the impressions gained by secondary school students in those countries from textbook reading and discloses ways in which these books mention American character, culture, and institutions. Passages selected from secondary level textbooks of 19 countries in…

This book is about civic literacy, which is described as "the ability to think critically and objectively about the nation's fundamental premises and practices." The volume examines influential education reports and theorists who have defined the civic literacy debate. The book challenges the dominant perspective of history as presented…

A survey of 12 leading high school U.S. History textbooks has resulted in the opinion put forth in this book that the textbooks currently used in high schools are an embarrassing amalgam of bland optimism, blind patriotism, and misinformation. In addition to critiquing existing textbooks, the book also suggests how U.S. History should be taught.…

Since history textbooks omit and/or emphasize certain data, students are left with a false sense of history. Although the "hard data" presented in history texts is generally regarded as reliable, the selection and organization of that data is inherently manipulative because other data has been excluded. Because authors do not begin with a…

Selections from the recent history texts of 13 foreign countries are contained in this document as an effort to gather the curricular perceptions of other countries about key events or periods in American history related to the U.S. Revolutionary War. The compilation provides American secondary teachers with contemporary source material not…