A textbook case of bias?
Bludevilhub.com Staff–
Davis High’s AP American Government class faces a big issue—its textbook may be biased. Written by James Q. Wilson and John J. DiIulio Jr., the book shows bias on topics such as gay rights, women’s rights and climate change, according to a UC Davis professor and several former students.
According to Professor Kathy Olmsted, chair of the history department at UCD, the section in the textbook about climate change is the most controversial.
“This entire section on climate change showed conservative bias on the part of the authors,” Olmsted said. “The authors are both conservative activists who have served in Republican presidential administrations [such as George Bush’s].”
Olmsted added, however, that the authors are “also respected scholars, and so there’s no reason in theory that DHS should not use their textbook.”
Olmsted points out several quotes from the textbook she had issues with: “Activist scientists say the earth is getting warmer; skeptical ones note that the earth’s atmosphere has been getting cooler…Environmental activists raise money with scary statements about the harm global warming will cause…”
DHS is not the only school to have noticed a bias in the textbook; in 2008, a student from Kearny, New Jersey voiced his issues with the climate change section as well. The Center for Inquiry, a nonprofit educational organization, also opposed the textbook and wrote a 25-page report on it.
The report found issues with sections on global warming, school prayer, same-sex marriage and several other chapters. It claimed that the the textbook suffered “from egregious flaws and clear factual errors.”
However, Environmental Science teacher Eric Bastin doesn’t see much of a bias in the climate change section—in fact, he thinks the textbook “equally represented both sides.”
Although Bastin says that global warming is almost unanimously agreed upon, he thinks it’s good that the textbook presented both sides’ opinions on the topic.
DHS graduate Anna Sturla took AP Government during her senior year and had issues with the way the textbook portrayed women and gay people. She describes the textbook as being “clearly politically biased and offensive to women, people of color or queer people.”
Junior Geneva Duren, a member of the LGBT community and a former Gay/Straight Alliance member, also opposes the way the LGBT community was represented in the textbook.
“It doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever read before in a textbook,” Duren said.
Duren thinks that “the language they used was formal, and not in a respectful way.” She found the use of terms like “the gays” and “homosexuals” very alienating.
Sturla also saw issues with the pictures chosen for the textbook. “There were also random photographs and captions that had nothing to do with the topic at hand, such as of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. The subjects of the photos were often not mentioned in the text,” Sturla said.
The choice of pictures in the textbook could be a reflection of both authors’ association with George W. Bush.
The beginning of the textbook notes that DiIulio “advised both Vice President Al Gore and Governor George W. Bush during the 2000 Presidential Campaign.” DiIulio was also the Assistant to the President of the U.S. from 2000 to 2001.
Wilson was awarded the Presidential Award of Freedom by Bush in 2003.
Olmsted suggests that the situation could be turned into a learning moment. “If I discovered that I was using [a biased textbook], then I would ask the students to look for evidence of bias and try to turn the experience into an opportunity to discuss bias in the social sciences,” Olmsted said.
The school could also invest in new textbooks altogether. “Ask UCD history professors for recommendations. Ask other school districts,” Sturla said.
School officials, however, say that no one has brought complaints about the textbooks to the district. “This issue has never been brought to my attention in the nine years I have been on the board,” school board member Sheila Allen said.
