Framing history/social studies textbooks as a social construction designed to create a public memory of a national history and history of the Other, we investigated how U.S. history is represented in South Korea's social studies textbooks and what images and ideas of the United States are encouraged for South Korean students to take. To answer…

Social studies methods textbooks constitute a rich source of data for trends in teaching and learning. This study examined twenty secondary social studies methods texts for the instructional approaches they recommend. The researchers concluded that methods texts published over the past fifty years consistently call for pedagogical variety and…

This article briefly reviews literature on critical thinking and applies this conceptualization to five widely used elementary social studies textbook series (Holt, Laidlaw, McGraw-Hill, Silver Burdett, and Scott Foresman). Concludes that comparisons between actual textbook instruction and suggestions found in the literature were quite unfavorable…

Discusses the development of an instrument to be used by elementary teachers in the evaluation of social studies textbooks. The instrument itself is included in the article. (RM)

Reports the results of a study designed to determine whether eight widely used elementary basal social studies textbook series contained more "back-to-basics" content in 1979-82 than they did 10 years prior during the rise of the "new social studies." The data showed a marked influence of back-to-basics in all of these series.…

Attempts to get at some of the assumptions and definitions behind "America Revised" by Frances FitzGerald and, in addition, to investigate some of the conceptions of history held by critics who reviewed the book. (DB)

The author reviews the content; methods of instruction, and philosophy of selected eighteenth and nineteenth century social studies textbooks. Short biographical sketches of well known authors are also included. (DE)

Of the 36 texts examined, only two did not deal with values education in any significant way. The remaining 34 provided inadequate coverage. Almost all of the texts failed to discuss criticisms of the various approaches used to teach values and issues related to the imposition of values. (RM)

The Educational Products Information Exchange (EPIE), a nonprofit national education materials review organization, analyzed 10 elementary social studies textbook series. Results, which are discussed in this article, show that elementary-level social studies textbooks are not good enough. Recommendations are made. (RM)

Suggests that social studies teachers use cloze procedure to determine the reading level of materials they use in the classroom. The method consists of excerpting a 300-word passage from the intended text and deleting every fifth word. Students fill in words through attention to context. (Author/KC)

Stresses the importance of recognizing bias in written language (often referred to as critical thinking/reading) and suggests activities to help elementary school social studies teachers improve their bias recognition skills. A multiple choice quiz is presented in which teachers are directed to analyze bias in quotations from newspapers and social…

The standard methods of the social sciences do not provide all the tools necessary to probe into the fundamental questions on the relationship between individuals and their environment. Proposes that social studies teachers try to clarify and examine the hidden assumptions which are part of classroom discussions and social studies textbooks.…

Reviews practical suggestions for social studies textbook evaluation based on research by the Asia Society Textbook Evaluation Project. Teachers should check prices, reading levels, and overall objectives; identify authors and publication dates; and determine underlying assumptions about other cultures depicted in the books. (AV)

The Raygor Readability Estimate, described in this article, is much like the widely used Fry Readability Graph, except that it determines vocabulary difficulty by counting words of six or more letters, rather than by counting syllables. An evaluation found that Raygor was faster and easier to use and more objective than the Fry method. (RM)

Presents a critical examination of six high school geography textbooks to see how they varied in their treatment of world politics, and comments on the degree of nationalistic bias in each one. Suggestions for teachers are included to help them deal with political concepts and bias in textbooks. (Author/AM)