Perestroika and glasnost are not only influencing the economic and social structure of Soviet society, but also have led to a revision of the authorized history of the USSR as Soviet historians struggle to create a national history based on fact instead of dogma. The Soviet history profession itself is also undergoing a major self-examination, as…

The issue of history, specifically history textbooks, has been at the center of South Africa's educational reform debates for years. One of the consequences of South Africa's delayed curricular reform is the continued use of apartheid-era history textbooks, which, among other things, deny European colonization and conquest and claim that whites…

Current U.S. policies toward Central American nations motivated this examination of the presentation of the region in 12 social studies textbooks. In order to determine if each text's treatment of Central America was representative of the entire book, three regions, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean were selected for comparison purposes. The…

The altering of the presentation of Japan's imperialist adventures in Japanese high school history textbooks reflects a continuing dispute between Japan and her Asian neighbors, as well as between a politically conservative bureaucracy in the Ministry of Education and a historical profession heavily influenced by "progressives" who write…

In the late 20th century, Australia's diverse population and international commitments require its constituents to use plain English. Unfortunately, its language is eroding as fast as its soil. On the one hand, much academic jargon excludes even well-educated readers; on the other, many teachers do not believe in teaching grammar or standard…

A study is described that will investigate whether cultural referents found in the Defense Language Institute (DLI) American Language Course are biased toward North American cultural norms, and whether Saudi Arabian military personnel in language training using those materials are affected by the cultural information contained within them. The…

The South Pacific Commission's English reading curriculum, designed to accompany and reinforce the Tate English oral skills series, is critiqued in terms of curriculum design and implementation in schools in the Micronesian region. The construction and emphases of the classroom and teacher materials are described, and an analysis is given of the…

To determine whether elementary reading textbooks from a socialist country contained less sex-role stereotyping than previously-studied United States readers, an analysis of 374 books from the German Democratic Republic (G.D.R.) was undertaken. A sex bias index was calculated for both the G.D.R. and the U.S. books by finding the average difference…

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…

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…

Social studies textbooks currently used in Iran have been rewritten since 1979 to achieve the socialization of children into current Islamic political thought. An analysis of the content of current social studies textbooks concludes that explicitly political textbooks are used to teach state approved values and appropriate political behavior while…