Democracy is increasingly being challenged, by disengagement and by anti-pluralist movements (Levitsky and Ziblatt in How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future, Viking, New York, 2018; Wikforss in "Därför demokrati. Om kunskapen och folkstyret" [Because of this, democracy. On knowledge and people's rule] Fri Tanke, 2021;…

In an unequal world, education about global inequality can be seen as a controversial but necessary topic for social science to deal with. Even though the world no longer consists of colonies and colonial powers, many aspects of the global economy follow the same patterns as during colonial times, with widening gaps between the world's richest and…

This article examines the ways in which settler colonialism shapes place in the social studies curriculum, producing understandings of land and citizenship in educational settings. To do this, the author uses the emergent framework of land education to move forward the important projects of place-based education, especially its potential for…

The study begins with the premise of the critical need of increased understanding of others in our global times. Given the intensive and extensive, and often complicated and controversial relations between the United States and South Korea in its modern history, it is critical for South Korean youth to build a more accurate understanding of their…

The discourse around development is full of buzzwords, including gender and a myriad of variants that underscore the importance of development policies addressing gender imbalances. Despite their prevalence in development policy and research, terminology related to gender is often used broadly, inappropriately, and without nuance. For…

This article looks at the evolution of the social studies curricula in Pakistan, which are of critical importance in shaping the outlook of many young Pakistanis, who are affected by this polarised discourse. The author argues that this trend of polarisation springing from dynamics of education also effectively contributes to a widening social…

In this paper we share findings of a textbook analysis in which we explored the treatment of segregated education in eight, widely-used secondary United States history and government textbooks. We positioned our findings within the historiography related to the African American school experience which challenges the notion that the lack of…

Cynthia Tyson and Sung Choon Park's powerful article, "From Theory to Practice: Teaching for Social Justice," addressed many key points for educators to consider when discussing issues of social justice and injustice. They offered a variety of multicultural children's books and strategies for using them that can be helpful to educators.…

The portrayal of the Middle East in school textbooks has been reported to be inaccurate and negative as late as the mid 1990's. Numerous major studies conducted by various researchers and organizations indicate that school textbooks written between the 1970's and 1990's contributed to existing stereotypes of the Middle East held by many Americans.…

The authors of the original "Kappan" article protesting the Houghton Mifflin textbook series respond to Edward Berenson's claims that these books are neither racially biased nor Eurocentric. The voices of minorities are missing, particularly their essential observations about whites, power, and privilege. Only white educators' viewpoints…

While conclusive evidence of improvement of current elementary social studies textbooks does not exist at this moment, there is evidence of reform in the content, if not the readability of texts, used by disadvantaged students. (DM)

This study of 45 social studies texts widely used in American junior and senior high schools examines the current treatment of Negroes, Jews, and other minorities. It is stated that, despite past criticism of publishers and authors, "a significant number of texts published today continue to present a principally white, Protestant, Anglo-Saxon view…

An examination of approved California state textbooks showed that the majority of the books fail to reflect the past or present realities of the Asian American experience. None of the books reviewed did an adequate job of integrating the experience of Asian Americans. (RM)

Analyzes information in social studies textbooks in the United States regarding the history of the USSR. Identifies major problems, including failure to take the work of Soviet scholars into account, political bias, oversimplification, distortion of the truth and failure to highlight achievements of Russian culture, science, and sociopolitical…

For nearly 2 years, opponents of California's curriculum reform movement have been protesting a series of K-8 social studies textbooks officially adopted by the state board of education and widely endorsed by teachers, administrators, school boards, and community groups. This article explains that the Houghton Mifflin series is neither racist nor…