Provides a checklist to aid the elementary and secondary educator in selecting a social studies textbook or curriculum package. The three-page checklist considers the textbook's philosophy and objectives, instructional materials, teacher's manual, supplementary materials, and administrative concerns. (KC)

Maintains that textbooks have not accurately reported the Vietnam War. Findings are based on an analysis of 28 high school texts widely used in social studies and history courses. Shortcomings of the textbooks include bias, omission, dearth of specific information on U. S. involvement, and avoidance of inquiry and analysis. Textbooks are listed at…

Describes textbook bias found in Canadian social studies textual materials prejudiced against the American Indian and lists 10 criteria to be used in evaluating texts. (HOD)

Four elementary social studies textbook series are reviewed and compared with particular attention paid to the extent to which the textbooks are globally oriented. The trend of emphasizing global education in the social studies also is discussed. As used in this paper, "global education" includes the study of world geography, world…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether three procedures-- the cloze, maze, and intact cloze--were reliable and valid measures of readability. One hundred and eighty one sophomores were involved in the study. A passage, An Industrial Giant: Standard Oil Company, from the U.S. history textbook "The People Make a Nation"…

A CONTENT ANALYSIS WAS MADE OF 153 ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOL SOCIAL STUDIES TEXTBOOKS DEALING WITH LATIN AMERICA. THE ANALYSES INCLUDED THE FORMULATION OF CATEGORIES FOR INTENSIVE STUDY AND TESTING. THE CATEGORIES WERE (1) GEOGRAPHY, (2) THE PEOPLE, (3) THE COLONIAL PERIOD AND THE REVOLUTIONS, (4) POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT, (5) UNITED STATES…

A survey of the contents of the social studies texts used in the schools of Ontario, Canada, was conducted to determine what the texts presented about the Indians of Canada. The approved texts used in grades 2 through 8 were examined, and strengths and weaknesses of each text are cited in the document. Appendix A gives the guidelines used in…

The second installment of comments from the Task Force on Social Sciences Textbooks: Grades five through eight is presented in this document. The first comments, covering part of the textbooks, were attached as an appendix to "Report and Recommendations: Task Force to Evaluate Social Science Textbooks: Grades Five Through Eight" offered in related…

The eight books examined in this study were the most recent editions of: Observing People and Places; Exploring Our Needs; At Home in Our Land; The Social Sciences: Concepts and Values; Communities and Social Needs; Learning About Communities: One Plus One; Investigating Man's World: Local Studies; and, Communities and their Needs. A group of six…

States that U.S. historians have dismissed the Spanish Borderlands as irrelevant historic development of the United States. Reports that a survey of history textbooks used in U.S. colleges and universities revealed this lack of interest. Discusses early historiography of Spanish Texas, stating that recent research compels historians to reevaluate…

The focus in this article is on the Native peoples of Canada, such as the Metis (including Louis Riel), the Orientals, and the Continental immigrants (especially the southeastern Europeans), among others, and how they were discussed or ignored in high school Canadian history and social studies textbooks and teaching materials. (Editor/RK)

The American Textbook Council identified the nation's leading social studies textbooks based on estimated volume of sales and on adoptions in California, Indiana, North Carolina, Florida, and New York. Three multi-volume elementary-level programs and about a dozen secondary-level history textbooks command the market. The history textbooks at the…

A right-wing group has succeeded in banning Edwin Fenton's social studies inquiry series after stormy debates between State textbook selection people and professional educators. (Author)

American Indian educational materials for elementary schools are largely ethnocentric, inaccurate, distroted, and denigrative due to anthropologists who have failed to involve themselves in the enculturaltion process relative to their fields of interest. (FF)

Examines treatment of the United States in social studies textbooks used in the USSR, as reported by the US/USSR Textbook Study Project. Identifies major problems, including ideological bias, adequate coverage, balance of treatment, factual errors, distortion and bias by undue emphasis, omission of important details, and dependence on outdated…