In recent years, textbooks have been widely criticized for low standards, lack of imaginativeness, and insensitivity to racial and gender issues. Increasingly, they are cited as another "weak link" in American public education. This book goes beyond the headlines to examine how textbooks are produced, how they are selected, and what pressures are placed on textbook authors and publishers. The book focuses on the relationship of the textbook to the educational system and includes important issues such as the politics of textbook policy, the determinants of textbook content, the role of textbooks in educational reform, and the process of selection at the state level. The authors offer current research on textbook policy including perspectives from those directly involved with textbooks-from several thoughtful analyses by textbook editors and publishers to the views of California's Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Philip G. Altbach is Professor and Director of the Comparative Education Center Gail P. Kelly was Professor and Chair of the Department of Educational Organization, Administration, and Policy Hugh G. Petrie is Dean of the Graduate School of Education; and Lois Weis is Professor and Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Education, all at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
IntroductionPhilip G. AltbachPart I: Social and Political Issues 1. Regulating the Text: The Socio-Historical Roots of State ControlMichael W. Apple2. The Politics of Textbook Policy: Proposing a FrameworkKenneth K. Wong and Tome Loveless3. The Determinants of Textbook ContentSherry Keith4. The New World of Textbooks: Industry Consolidation and Its ConsequencesGilbert T. Sewall and Peter Cannon5. Constitutional Challenges to TextbooksEdward J. LarsonPart II: Reform and Improvement 6. Nineteenth Century Policies for Twenty-First Century Practice: The Textbook Reform DilemmaHarriet Tyson-Berntein and Arthur Woodward7. California's Experience with Textbook ImprovementBill Honig8. State-Level Textbook Selection Reform: Toward the Recognition of Fundamental ControlJ. Dan Marshall9. American Textbook Reform: What Can We Learn From the Soviet Experience?Howard MehlingerPart III: From the Trenches: Publishers and Authors 10. From the Ivory Tower to the Bottom Line: An Editor's Perspective on College Textbook PublishingNaomi Silverman11. Textbook Writing and Ideological Management: A Postmodern ApproachJoel SpringPart IV: Literacy and Reading: Case Studies 12. Basal Reading Textbooks and the Teaching of LiteracyAllan Luke13. Basal Readers and the Illusion of LegitimacyPatrick ShannonPart V: International Perspective 14. The Unchanging Variable: Textbooks in Comparative PerspectivePhilip G. AltbachContributorsIndex
"This book is particularly important in light of the recent reform movement in education. It is clear that textbooks and policies affecting their creation and distribution will be undergoing major scrutiny in the future."—Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr., University of Miami