WORLD HISTORY TEXTBOOKS - ERIC

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WORLD HISTORY TEXTBOOKS

A Review

Gilbert T. Sewall

A Report of the American Textbook Council

? 2004

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??????????????????????????????? The American Textbook Council was established in 1989 as an independent national research organization to review social studies textbooks and advance the quality of instructional materials in history. The Council endorses the production of textbooks that embody vivid narrative style, stress significant people and events, and promote better understanding of all cultures, including our own, on the principle that improved textbooks will advance the curriculum, stimulate student learning, and encourage educational achievement for children of all backgrounds. The Council acts as a clearinghouse for information about social studies textbooks and educational publishing in general. It has published numerous history textbook reviews and other curriculum studies. Consulted by educators and policymakers at all levels, it provides detailed information and textbook reviews for individuals and groups interested in improving educational materials.

World History Textbooks: A Review ? 2004 American Textbook Council American Textbook Council 475 Riverside Drive, Room 1948 New York, New York 10115 (212) 870-2760 website: email: atc@columbia.edu

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CONTENTS

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Textbooks reviewed Subjects reviewed Research design Acknowledgments

I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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II. Publishing Trends . . . . . . . .

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III. Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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IV. Problem Topics . . . . . . . . . .

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V. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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WORLD HISTORY TEXTBOOKS: A Review

This world history review examines standard textbooks used between the sixth and twelfth grades in schools across the nation. These established textbooks dominate the field and set the pitch for new and forthcoming volumes. The 2002 Texas history textbook adoption and the California list have influenced what textbooks will dominate the national market during the current decade. New world history titles introduced into Texas have yet to prove their viability and continued shelf life. Of the seven textbooks originally examined, examples are selected from the four most widely adopted world cultures and world history textbooks.

What did this review find? In order to meet demands for scope, diversity and readability, world history textbooks abandon narrative and complexity. High school world history textbooks are superior to middle-grade world cultures textbooks. They emphasize "Western" subjects. Dire claims of the loss of European political history can be overdrawn. But Western antiquity, Judaism and Christianity, and the rise of modern democratic government, reviewers complain, are lost in a procession of trivia designed to satisfy competing demands for inclusion, diversity and multiple perspectives. What should be central topics and themes are compressed to make room for new topical material, some of it ideologically loaded.

In subjects ranging from Africa to terrorism, the nation's leading world history textbooks provide unreliable, often scanty information and provide poorly constructed activities. In doing so, these textbooks foster ignorance of geopolitics and deprive students of authentic global understanding. Publishers could and should be providing high school teachers and students with cheaper, smaller, more legible volumes, stripping trivia and superfluity from current volumes. Pressure from educators themselves is needed, but whether sufficient will exists to force publishers to change remains an open question. Rooted in a flawed production system and publishers' intransigence, the problems with world history textbooks go deep enough to raise questions about corporate violations of public trust.

Who should pay attention to this review and take action? Textbook purchasers, including members of state boards, department of education officials, and school textbook committees. So should elected officials, editorial writers, and policy analysts. World history textbooks undermine their hopes, standards, curriculum frameworks, and official policies.

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Textbooks reviewed World history and cultures textbooks aimed at 6th to 9th grades:

1. Ahmad, Iftikhar, Herbert Brodsky, Marylee Susan Crofts, and Elisabeth Gaynor Ellis. World Cultures: A Global Mosaic. Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2001.

2. Nash, Gary B., Beverly J. Armento, J. Jorge Klor de Alva, Christopher L. Salter, Louis E. Wilson, and Karen K. Wixson. To See a World: World Cultures and Geography. Houghton Mifflin, 1994 ff.

The second textbook -- a world cultures compendium that first appeared in 1994 -- has many copyright years, as do the two volumes for sixth and seventh graders in the Houghton Mifflin K-8 social studies series from which the material for To See a World was selected and derived:

2a. Across the Centuries. Houghton Mifflin, 1989 ff. 2b. A Message of Ancient Days. Houghton Mifflin, 1989 ff.

World history textbooks aimed at tenth to twelfth grade, adopted by Texas in 2002 in slightly altered editions with 2003 copyrights:

3. Ellis, Elisabeth Gaynor and Anthony Esler. World History: Connections to Today. Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2001, 2003.

4. Beck, Roger B., Linda Black, Larry S. Krieger, Phillip C. Naylor, and Dahia Ibo Shabaka. World History: Patterns of Interaction. McDougal Littell/Houghton Mifflin, 2001, 2003.

During the last five years, the two mass-market high school textbooks above have gained national dominance and are used in world history classes nationwide. They have advanced in volume-sales at the expense of the two following textbooks, which are being gradually retired:

5. Farah, Mounir A. and Andrea Berens Karls. The Human Experience. McGraw-Hill/Glencoe, 1999. 6. Hanes, William Travis, III. Continuity and Change. Harcourt/Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1999.

The future of a seventh world history textbook, World History: People and Nations, published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, seems even more uncertain than these two books. Glencoe and Holt introduced new and unauthored world history textbooks in Texas in 2002, volumes that have yet to prove themselves among textbook purchasers. In 2004, in social studies, Houghton Mifflin and Pearson have a distinct market lead over McGraw-Hill and Harcourt. A few titles dominate the world history textbook market. In world cultures courses, usually taught between the sixth and eighth grades, Houghton Mifflin's To See a World stands out nationwide. In the nation's high school world history courses, Prentice Hall's Connections to Today and McDougal Littell's Patterns of Interaction have large shares. Some world history textbooks revised in the 1990s and market prominent in the year 1999 are five years later faded titles. They will gradually be backlisted or go out of print. The impact of the generic Glencoe and Holt books is not yet known, but the sameness of these new products to the market leaders provides additional evidence of copy-cat practices. Social studies publishers employ the same editorial packagers, listen to the same interest and focus groups, and are influenced by the same educational organizations.

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Subjects reviewed

Ancient World

Middle East, India, and East Asia Greece and Rome Rise of Christianity Mongols Islam Africa before 1500

Rise of Modern Governments

Enlightenment French and American Revolutions Rise of the Liberal Democratic State Totalitarianism

Global World

Industrial Revolution European Imperialism Africa since 1945 Asian Nationalism Cold War in Europe Genocide Terrorism and International Security

In February 2003, the American Textbook Council issued a related review on world history textbook coverage of Islam, Islam and the Textbooks, an exhibit of content distortions and deficiencies that adulterate world cultures and history courses [].

Research design

The American Textbook Council selected student edition textbooks based on adoption records and databases collected since 1985. In 2001, the Council identified widely adopted world history textbooks based on adoptions in California, Indiana, North Carolina, Florida, and New York and on adoptions in metropolitan districts nationwide. During the past five years, responding to state and local demands, educational publishers have developed new world history textbooks and have revised established textbooks. Starting in 2002, the American Textbook Council undertook reviews of widely adopted world history textbooks used from sixth to twelfth grades.

In late 2002, the uniquely influential state of Texas completed textbook adoptions in sixth-grade world cultures and tenth-grade world history. As a result, a clear picture has emerged of which textbooks dominate the market and which new textbooks stand to challenge them. Council lists match those developed by other research centers that have conducted recent history textbook reviews including the New York-based Empire Foundation and the Washington D.C.-based Population Research Bureau.

Instructional activities were of concern, largely because teachers pay attention to these teaching tools and exercises. Do review questions and other end-of-chapter exercises support the material presented in the narrative? How successful are graphics and maps in clarifying geopolitics, migrations, technological change, and cross-cultural relationships? But historians, teachers and foreign policy experts who were interviewed by the Council on the reform of world history agreed that the success of any history textbook stands on appealing narrative, exacting and clear coverage of seminal events and ideas, and sound interpretation (i.e., how the past is rendered and categorized). Is the information in the textbook accurate? What subjects are emphasized? What themes and patterns emerge? How do these textbooks compare with textbooks used in history courses in the 1960s and 1970s? In the case of world history, emphasis, weighting, balance and inclusion loom very large, in part because of the subject's vast scope and

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the limited number of days in the school year, in part because of conflicting schools of thought about the subject paradigm.

To what degree and in what ways has non-Western history expanded and Western history shrunk? Critics of world cultures courses charge that Euro-American political, military, diplomatic and intellectual history, Greek and Roman politics and culture, the role of the medieval church and the spirit of the Enlightenment, the political and economic revolutions in Europe and America after 1700 are challenged by curriculum trends. To what degree can these claims be documented? What content is abridged and excised? What is added? What subjects are emphasized? What themes and patterns emerge? Which world history textbooks best explain the nation's political debt to antiquity and the Enlightenment? The impact of industrialization on the non-Western world? The influence of religion on history and cultures? The conduct of foreign affairs, the premises of American global policies, and international relations since 1945?

The world history textbook review takes as a baseline standard references such as the current Encyclopaedia Britannica and classic reference books such as the Columbia History of the World and Harper Encyclopedia of the Modern World. It employs world history curriculum models embodied in Paul Gagnon, Lessons of History (1991) and his outline produced for the National Council for History Education, "Building a World History Curriculum" (1997). It uses as a content base three well-regarded state-level world history/social studies frameworks: California (1987 ff.), Virginia (1995 ff.), and Massachusetts (1997 ff.).

Acknowledgments

First, I am grateful to the Smith Richardson Foundation, Bodman Foundation and Maytag Family Foundation for making this report possible. I thank in particular Paul Gagnon for his manifold contributions and comments on an early draft. I am indebted to Fred Ikle, Susan Goldsmith, Stanley Michalak, and many others who offered invaluable insights on world history paradigms and themes. I appreciate the work of four external reviewers: Lucien Ellington, Paul Gagnon, Dana Mack, and Roger W. Smith. These scholars and authors vary in background, but all are trained in history and each has a keen interest in cultural and intellectual history. All are widely published writers who are also experienced editors. They have an eye for literary style. Each has thought extensively about history content, curriculum and what students should know. Their collective insight into the nature, scope and teaching of world history combined with their observations about specific textbooks I trust. As always, I thank Stapley Emberling for seeing the project through from beginning to end. Any errors of fact or interpretation are my own.

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I. Introduction

World history is the most rapidly growing area of the social studies. More than fifty-five percent of all secondary-level students now take the subject before high school graduation. This compares with an estimated one-third in 1990, a huge increase in students and textbook sales. These rising enrollments result from new and expanded world history requirements that large and influential states, notably California and Texas, have adopted at the sixth grade level. Many states now require the subject for high school graduation. Academically proficient high school students in particular are likely to take a world history or world cultures course. Advanced Placement programs use college textbooks, which are far superior in content and narrative to those used in most high school courses.

World history today incorporates a number of new ambitions and responsibilities. The first is to broaden the sweep of the past beyond European history and to emphasize the record of non-Western civilizations. As the Texas state education code puts it, "World History Studies is the only course offering students an overview of the entire history of humankind. The major emphasis is on the study of significant people, events, and issues from the earliest times to the present. Traditional historical points of reference in world history are identified as students analyze important events and issues in Western civilization as well as in civilizations in other parts of the world."1 World history includes -- to give just a few examples -- learning how irrigation and arable land, river and mountain systems act as strategic barriers, and how climate, disease and language influence human life. It requires comparative consideration of political, economic and religious systems. This is a tall order and one that world history textbooks fill with varying degrees of success.

As does no other subject in the social studies, world history explores the rise and fall of nations and empires, migrations, inventions, laws, and political institutions. When world history and geography courses are taught soundly, as historian Walter A. McDougall of the University of Pennsylvania observes, they blend into one academic discipline. "Geography is vital to the examination of economic competition, poverty, environmental degradation, ethnic conflict, health care, global warming, literature and culture, and needless to say, international relations," he states.2 Geography can be defined as the study of places and how they differ from one another; what is found in different locations; and how these differences create regions and "regional conditions." It is a study facilitated through maps.

1 Texas Administrative Code (TAC), Title 19, Part II. Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies. ?113.33, World History Studies.

2 Walter A. McDougall, "You Can't Argue with Geography," Foreign Policy Research Institute. Footnotes. Vol 6, no. 4, September 2000.

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