DOCUMENT RESUME ED 368 609 SO 023 617 AUTHOR Sewall, Gilbert T., Ed. TITLE Social Studies Revi)w, Numbers 1-12, 1989-1992. INSTITUTION American Textbook Council, New York, NY. PUB DATE 92 NOTE 174p. FUB TYPE Collected Works Serials (022) JOURNAL CIT Social Studies Review; n1-12 Spr 1989 Fall 1992 EDRS PRICE MF01/PC07 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Cultural Pluralism; *Economics Education; Elementary Secondary Education; Ethical Instruction; Ethnic Studies; *European History; *History Instruction; *Middle Eastern Studies; Moral Values; *Multicultural Education; Readability Formulas; Religion Studies; *Sex Bias; *Social Studies; *Textbook Content; Textbook Evaluation; United States History IDENTIFIERS *Bill of Rights; California; Holocaust; Texas ABSTRACT This documents consists of 12 issues of a journal that seeks to provide information and reviews concerning social studies textbooks; each issue consists of 16 pages. Contents in the 12 issues include: (1) California control over textbook content; (2) "skills" teaching in elementary-level social studies texts;(3) readability formulas; review of "Democracy's Half-Told Story";(4) review of California's leading social studies textbooks for fourth graders; (5) a review of three leading American history textbooks for less able high school students;(6) review of "Magruder's American Government";(7) religion in textbooks; (8) a discussion of how textbooks treat Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union; (9) the Holocaust and the textbooks; (10) a review of two social studies series for elementary schools published by Macmillan and Houghton Mifflin; (10) social studies in the primary grades; (11) an article by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. on multiculturalism; (12) Islamic history; (13) textbooks and the Middle East;(14) multiculturalism; (15) Afrocentric curriculum; (16) comparison of fifth grade American history books published in 1948 and 1990;(17) videodisk revolution; (18) Bill of Rights; (19) Columbus and the Quincentenary; (20) values and textbooks;(21) economics and the social studies curriculum (a survey of the subject and of the seven leading economic textbooks used in high school and a discussion of the appropriate age for teaching economics); (22) a discussion of whether or not textbooks shortchange girls; (23) multiculturalism and Euroculture; (24) textbook coverage of Europe; and (25) Columbus in the curriculum. All issues also contain brief notes of interest to social studies educators. (CRW) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** SOCIAL STUDIES REVIEW Number 1-14 1989-M4 US. DEPARTMENT OfEDUCATION Othce of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) ??(Jhis document has been reproduced eceived from the person Of as originating it organization 0 Minor changes have beenMO. to improve reproduction duality Points of view or opinions slatedin this docu- ment do not necessarilyrepresent official OERI position or policy "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS M TERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTEDBY c-cr-,LAD TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." WM WILKE SOCIAL STUDIES REVIEW A PUBLICATION OF THE AMERICAN TEXTBOOK COUNCIL Number I Spring 1989 TEXTBOOKS SHAPE LIVES forces at times engineer adoptions based on AND UNDERSTANDINGS financialincentives alone, fully divorcing selection from qualitative concerns. The cumbersome process of textbook welcometo the inaugural issue of the Social Studies Review. production :ind selectionand the high We intend to report to the nation's financial stakes of a nondiscretionary book leading historians, social scientists, educators, marketwork against change. While school public officials, and citizens on social studies districts and curriculum directors may be eager textbooks through news bulletins and timely for higher-quality classroom materials, few publishers or other gatekeepers, from social articles. Most important, we will beginto studies editors to subject-content lobbyists, publish authoritative reviews of specific social studies textbooks, a heretofore unperformed share this concern. service to elementary and secondary schools. Our goaland the goal of the American Textbook Councilis to improve instructional INSIDE materials and the curriculum through ,.!andid, expert assessment of what is good and what Page 3 California Controversy is bad in the field. We arc glad to have you When is a state bill relaxing control aboard. We hope that you will find this new over social studies and other textbooks a questionable reform? journal informative, exciting, and sometimes provocative. Page 5 ....Elementary Grade Textbooks: It is known that textbook selection at the A Case of Overskill district and school level can be a casual and Skills" teaching in elementary-level haphazard affair. Buyers with the best socialstudiestexts:scope.and- intentions rarely have internai standards for sequence charts promise many more textbook selection; many are misled by stylish skills than they deliver. A review of eight programs. graphics or impressed by ancillary materials that are supposed to make the task of teaching Page 8 Readability Formula,: much easier. Since textbooks often seem An Update fungible totheir buyers, publishers'sales 3 They assert that they already produce high- are subjected to all kinds of pressures. But quality materials. Competing in a fierce market, no system of expertappraisal, review, or publishers support current production aml criticism, one that would permit leading marketing practices. They hold thatsafe historians and scholars to judge instructional products make money, that heralded innova- materials, has existed. tions of whatever quality do not. Many During the late 1980s American history arid textbook authors, publishers, and editors, as social studies textbooks have received closer well as socialstudies specialists, adoption scrutiny than they have ina generation. committees, and subject-content lobbyists, are Several new studies, including reports by comfortable with current historiography and Gilbert 1'. Sewall for the Educational Excel- format. lence Network and Paul Gagnon for the While textbook publishers resist change, American Federation of Teachers, have thrown they accommodate and react to external forces. into harsh light the literary and historiographic Should textbook critics and consumers sustain poverty of many leading American historv their demand for texts of improved literary textbooks, especially at the elementary and merit and content, publishers will respond. As junior high school levels. Diane Ravitch and aresult, textbook reform presents a cost- Chester E. Finn, Jr., have documented the effect ive opportunity to improve teaching and appalling conditions of historical knowledge student outcomes in history. and social studies. among high school studentsand cited Unlike revising salary. schedules or shrinking textbook improvement as a central area for class size, improvement of curricular materials reformers' attention. does not require vast infusions of money and Textbook quality'isof concern to the can occur with relative speed. National Commiss'on on the Social Studies, Despite growing interest in improved history the Bradley' Commission on History, and the and social studies textbook quality, a serious National Center for the Study of Histc.':'. From threat persists. Since the people involved with former education secretary TerrellBellto textbook creation and adoption often support California school superintendent Bill Honig, current products, they may be able to staunch governing authorities assertthat textbooks calls for reform. When public attention turns have been dumbed down,- that content is to other educational issues, as it inevitably will, trivialized, and that publishers indulge interest the risk remains that textbook producers and groups. The climate for revision and improve- curriculum authorities will go on just as before. ment of history' and social studies textbooks Today. the salient question is whether current is more auspicious than it has been in many reform pressures will have sufficient leader- Years. ship, guidance, and direction to sustain real Responsible elementary.- and secondary- textbook improvements in the 1990s. level educators want expert assistance and American history and other social studies counselinselecting estimable history and textbooks are criticized by diverse individuals social studies textbooks. They. seek some and groupsoften with strong opinions, highly authoritative guide and review system to help focused subject interests, and political ends. them decide what instructional materials to use From the Texas-based Educational Research and," to avoid. To remedy'this need, the Analysts to the Council on Interracial Books American Tex (book Council was created in late for Children, textbook screening organizations 1988, funded by the William H. Donner have recently wielded great power in deter- Foundation. It will now provide a new forum mining text content. Such groups, grinding for historians, social scientists, educators, and their own axes, have little or no interest in others interested in history and social studies Is brisk, moving historical narrative or balanced, textbooks. The Council willfulfill two sound historiography. Nor do they. undertake longstanding needs: first, to subject publishers' their analyses under the direction of competent