Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
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.
"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
Introduction
Philip G. Altbach
Part I: Social and Political Issues
1. Regulating the Text: The Socio-Historical Roots of State Control
Michael W. Apple
2. The Politics of Textbook Policy: Proposing a Framework
Kenneth K. Wong and Tome Loveless
3. The Determinants of Textbook Content
Sherry Keith
4. The New World of Textbooks: Industry Consolidation and Its Consequences
Gilbert T. Sewall and Peter Cannon
5. Constitutional Challenges to Textbooks
Edward J. Larson
Part II: Reform and Improvement
6. Nineteenth Century Policies for Twenty-First Century Practice: The Textbook Reform Dilemma
Harriet Tyson-Berntein and Arthur Woodward
7. California's Experience with Textbook Improvement
Bill Honig
8. State-Level Textbook Selection Reform: Toward the Recognition of Fundamental Control
J. Dan Marshall
9. American Textbook Reform: What Can We Learn From the Soviet Experience?
Howard Mehlinger
Part III: From the Trenches: Publishers and Authors
10. From the Ivory Tower to the Bottom Line: An Editor's Perspective on College Textbook Publishing
Naomi Silverman
11. Textbook Writing and Ideological Management: A Postmodern Approach
Joel Spring
Part IV: Literacy and Reading: Case Studies
12. Basal Reading Textbooks and the Teaching of Literacy
Allan Luke
13. Basal Readers and the Illusion of Legitimacy
Patrick Shannon
Part V: International Perspective
14. The Unchanging Variable: Textbooks in Comparative Perspective
Philip G. Altbach
Contributors
Index