Current U.S. policies toward Central American nations motivated this examination of the presentation of the region in 12 social studies textbooks. In order to determine if each text's treatment of Central America was representative of the entire book, three regions, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean were selected for comparison purposes. The Evaluation Coefficient (ECO) analysis technique was used to determine the attitudes conveyed. To analyze the illustrations, the McDiarmid and Pratt procedures for identifying stereotypes in textbook illustrations were adapted. An evaluation system, developed by F. P. Hunkins and adapted from Bloom's "Taxonomy of Educational Objectives," was used to analyze the text questions and their distribution across six cognition levels: knowledge, comprehension; application; analysis; synthesis; and evaluation. Each textbook's treatment of major events and conditions in Central America was compared to protocols developed from current scholarship on the geography, early civilizations, the Spanish conquest and colonization, recent history, and current events and conditions of each of the seven nations. A summary of the study indicated that: (1) the ECO analysis was neutral to positive; (2) illustrations were more limited in range and number of pages for Central America than the comparison areas; and (3) cognition levels were generally low, with the knowledge level predominating. A six-item reference list is included. (DJC)