These guidelines are meant to assist parents and educators in identifying books for children that are free of sexism, racism, ageism, and classism. Methods for analyzing both storybooks and textbooks for bias are presented. Special emphasis is placed on evaluating basal readers and history texts. A number of evaluative checklists are presented…

Review of gender messages in education foundation textbooks evaluated explicit content and implicit messages. Most of the texts covertly subscribed to the notion of a dichotomous nature of gender roles, proclaiming a cultural consensus on how educators should treat persons fitting the roles and disregarding action toward gender equity. (SM)

Critiqued is the way that mathematics texts contribute to the categorization of students into ability levels by gender and social class within the British educational system. Examples of gender bias and social-status bias are cited from texts of the School Mathematics Project series. (MDH)

This paper reports the results of a content-analysis for the treatment of gender and diversity in the 11 top-selling lifespan developmental textbooks. The purposes were to measure the amount of information provided on aspects of development specific to Caucasian females and females of Color and to evaluate qualitatively the incorporation of the…

Reviews research about racial, ethnic, and sexual stereotypes in elementary science textbooks. Describes the demographics of the United States population as of 1980. Compares these demographics to representations in textbooks. Recommends three corrections that need to be made if schools are to attend to the social message in curricular materials.…

The textbook is a predominant feature of most classrooms in the United States. Because the textbook is an important aspect of the educational experience, it is essential that the content of the texts be carefully scrutinized. The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the visual portrayal of racial, ethnic, and gender groups in…

This volume is the second of a two-volume series which surveys the extent to which sex, race, and class bias can be found in commonly used elementary-level instructional materials in Manitoba, Canada. Analysis of materials used in grades four through six indicates that the negative biases present in the kindergarten through grade three materials…

This third of four workshop modules in the Project ASPIRE (Awareness of Sexual Prejudice is the Responsibility of Educators) series deals with analyzing and developing procedures for dealing with sexual stereotypes and biases reflected in learning and counseling materials with the schools. (See Note about other modules.) The module helps workshop…