
ERIC Number: EJ700934
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2004
Pages: 6
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0037-7724
EISSN: N/A
How Much of the Sky? Women in American High School History Textbooks from the 1960s, 1980s and 1990s
Clark, Roger; Allard, Jeffrey; Mahoney, Timothy
Social Education, v68 n1 p57 Jan-Feb 2004
How many names of women from American history can the average, recent high school graduate come up with? How does this number compare with the number of males she or he can name? These are the kinds of questions that informed Janice Trecker's classic study of U.S. high school textbooks. They were also the basis for the research in Sadker and Sadker's feminist critique of American education, Failing at Fairness. To virtually no one's surprise, the answers to these questions were, and probably remain, "very few" and "unfavorably." The current debate over the content of American history textbooks suggests that some notable change has, in fact, occurred with respect to the inclusion of women and minorities. Some feel that the change has gone too far, and others that it has not gone far enough. The goal of the research in this article has been to see just how much more (or less) visible women have become in popular American history books over the last three decades. A sample of nineteen textbooks was observed, including six from each of the following decades: (1) the 1960s; (2) the 1980s; and (3) the 1990s (the list of textbooks are appended in this article). It was found that women received less attention than men in all three decades, however the mention of women did increase over time. This article reviews the role of women in high school history textbooks and the impact it has on students. (Contains 23 notes.)
Descriptors: Females, Textbook Content, Content Analysis, Textbook Bias, Gender Bias, United States History, Textbooks, Secondary Education
National Science Teachers Association, 1840 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA 22201-3000. Web site: http://www.nsta.org.
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: High Schools
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A