This article draws upon the author's experiences with designing and teaching a lower-level undergraduate course, Geography and Gender. It is proposed that there is a relative lack of resources available for conducting geography courses on gender, feminism, and/or sexuality and as such, this article addresses issues of text selection, course…

Textbooks are often a core element of curricula and delivery of classroom instruction and have long been a source of controversy. The textbook adoption process has become less about content and more about political/cultural pressure. Special-interest groups from the right and left exert enormous influence on textbook content through bias and…

The article examines the historical/contemporary impact of textbooks on the curriculum and the relationship between controversy and textbooks. Specifically, current science and humanities textbooks have become involved in certain controversial issues. (Author/NQ)

The success that the New Religious Right is having in censoring school textbooks and libraries is described. (MT)

Textbook makers, buyers, and users are all suffering from censorship by vocal minorities. (DD)

Textbook censorship cases from Tennessee and Alabama have been brought before the U.S. Supreme Court. In east Tennessee, fundamentalist families objected to a 1983 Holt, Rinehart, and Winston reading series for grades 1-8. Federal District Judge Thomas G. Hull held that Hawkins County Schools had violated the families' First Amendment rights and…

In response to Ben Brodinsky's article, the authors submitted a paper describing the service they offer of reviewing textbooks and providing critiques. They maintain that educators no longer hold to the Judeo-Christian ethic, although three-fourths of Americans believe in these values. (MLF)

In 1984, parents of a Minneapolis, Minnesota, ninth grader came before the school district's "Students' Right to Learn Committee" to object to what they described as a bowdlerized version of "Romeo and Juliet" in the Scott, Foresman text, and the publisher's failure to acknowledge in the text that the play was abridged. The…

The textbooks of a nation are generally a reflection of the values, goals, and essential priorities of that particular society. Therefore, teachers, parents, administrators, school boards, and publishers must ensure that the best thinking of various groups and of textbook critics is incorporated in the development of more effective textbooks.…

Materials selected for instruction should be concerned and sensitive to the self-concept of all children. (JH)

Censorship efforts are taking place throughout the country in spite of greater activism among anticensorship forces. One of the alarming trends is that many of the censors are now attacking the curriculum of the schools, challenging textbooks in reading, literature, history, science, health, and social studies. The International Reading…

The purpose of this study was to examine the factors that have influenced the selection and the production of the literature textbooks for grades 10-12 in the public schools in Tennessee from 1951 to 1971: guidelines set up by the Tennessee State Textbook Commission and by the publishers; the adopted editions of literature textbooks listed in the…

Provides information that can help educators meet challenges to instructional materials, looks at who the challengers are, discusses the nature of censorship, and suggests ways to handle challenges. (NKA)