https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/12/us/texas-vs-california-history-textbooks.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
For anybody else out there wondering why the partisan divide in America is so strong and how it has continued to persist, look no further than your textbooks. In a study conducted by the New York Times, 8 sets of textbooks from California and Texas with the same authors and publishers display slightly different information than their counterpart on the other side of the divide.
In the picture shown above, the California textbook (left) tells a story about one of the challenges faced by immigrants adjusting to life in the U.S., whereas the Texas textbook (right) contains a narrative from a U.S. Border Patrol agent that explicitly discourages an open U.S.-Mexico border. California history textbooks tend to be longer because they spend more time talking about the experiences and contributions of different immigrant groups, such as Asians, Europeans, and Latin Americans. Differences like these can help ingrain partisan prejudices in people from an early age without them realizing why. The ideals and opinions of parents and peers likely matter more than minor differences in a textbook, but they would nevertheless make an impact on our ideas.
Why are the textbooks made differently? Different states have different “educational standards,” such as California placing importance on learning about minority groups. If the U.S. government really wanted to, they could probably impose stricter regulations on which textbooks are allowed and ensure that the “same” textbooks sold in different states are actually the same. Unfortunately, the subtle ideological differences presented in textbooks appear in Congress as well, and it is highly unlikely that liberals and conservatives will compromise on a book that somehow preserves both their interests.
I highly recommend checking out this article; it’s both important and relevant to students nationwide. Our class is probably an outlier from being influenced by our textbook differences, considering we do so much work that involves sources outside our textbooks, but we come from such a liberal area already that being “free” to develop our own opinions probably doesn’t change much.
Do you think increasing or decreasing the regulations on which textbooks are allowed to be taught would better eliminate differing ideological opinions that they can instill? Why?
How do you think students in different states (or maybe they’d all react the same, I don’t know) would react to learning that their textbooks influence their prejudices?
4 comments:
I think that history related textbooks should have more regulation to provide information as objectively as possible. Educational standards across the country should also focus on using multiple sources to gain a variety of perspectives before forming opinions. However, I don't think that the slight differences in textbooks lead to major political leanings in the students. It's likely like it would have that effect on certain specific issues, but would not have any overall political influence on an individual student. Instead, the political opinions of a students' family (especially parents and siblings) have the biggest impact, and any other opinions developed have a much smaller effect.
I believe that increasing regulations on school textbooks is a relevant issue, however, like Nick said, doing so is not an issue most politicians would find important, especially due to their own prejudices. Part of political socialization includes one's educational environment, so allowing textbooks that are clearly biased or skewed resolving controversial topics only further influences a child's mind as they use resources around them to form their own political beliefs. I believe that students' reactions would differ if they are accurately portrayed in the textbooks. A student who feels they are being treated unfairly due to the textbook's description of their culture or history will wish for change, whereas those who are favored in the description will remain unphased or even encouraging for the textbooks to remain the same.
I think that, in a perfect world, textbooks would be able to be both reflective and objective by presenting multiple sources and points of view, especially considering that history is not always black and white. Not only may education, and by extension, textbooks, influence students’ political views and opinions, but also students’ own perception of the US and their place in it as a whole. America is a country shaped by immigrants and countless minority groups, and textbooks should be reflective of that. Especially for younger students, seeing themselves excluded from the United States narrative presented to them or only afforded a couple of sentences could, in turn, make them feel excluded from the country as a whole. Presenting a picture of the US that shows that people of any group can leave their mark in American history encourages political activism; erasing them from history conversely discourages such participation. After all, why join the conversation if they never felt welcome in the first place?
I totally agree with Olivia on this. However, I think it is incredibly difficult to put an objective reflection of history into textbooks, etc. because history is a thing that is told and retold, and revolves around people's opinions and perspectives. I find it frustrating that many places in the US continue to implement curriculum that is withholding of information as well as racially biased in the sense that it refuses to focus on the suffering/contribution of other cultures.
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