treatment of World War II in the secondary school national history textbook of the six major powers involved in the war, The

Journal of Social Studies Research, Winter 1999 by Santoli, Susan P, Weaver, Andrew

The U.S. authors provide the most coverage of those events in which the U. S. was involved. The major overall emphasis of U.S. authors is the Pacific war. Within the two Pacific topics, however, the emphasis is overwhelmingly on U.S. activities. The U.S. text fails to include events which focus on civilian involvement in World War II. Only three leaders are omitted by U.S. authors. Events are seldom presented only factually, at least where U.S. involvement occurs, and the discussions contained biased language. An example of this is in the description of Stalin as a "Hardened conspirator" and a "nasty Communist" while references to U.S. personalities such as Eisenhower, characterize him as "gifted" and "easy smiling." No other text contains as much imbalance in this area. The tone and type of language used in the World War II chapter is consistent with that used throughout the text, and it may be that the colorful language is designed to engage the readers; however, in many instances, the language goes beyond interesting and engaging. Students using this text are presented with a U.S.-dominated World War II.

For the many problem areas that occurred in the texts, there are also some outstanding features. Most of the authors provide very comprehensive coverage of the events involving their respective countries, which is to be hoped for, as these are national history textbooks. The French text not only provides the most comprehensive coverage of all aspects of World War II, but by incorporating many primary documents, photographs, and maps into the text requires students to evaluate sources and formulate conclusions. The German text, as well, includes many documents, photographs, and maps. Like the French authors, the German author poses questions to be considered or provides materials to be interpreted. These textbooks require the student to do more than simply read and memorize the text material as they provide an opportunity to actively involve the student in the learning process. Students are asked to formulate and support conclusions from the documents. Active thinking as opposed to memorization is required, and the French and German texts lend themselves to discussion-based classrooms, rather than to teacher-dominated lectures.

The majority of the textbooks selected for this research inadequately provide students with comprehensive, bias-free information about World War II. The nature of these inadequacies lies in information that is included in texts, that which is not, and the emphasis given certain actions or events. Unless supplemental materials are used, students studying these texts will be presented with very different, and in some instances, erroneous depictions of a war which profoundly involved and affected their respective countries.

References

American Council on Education. (1947). A study of national history textbooks used in the schools of Canada and the United States (Publication Number 2). Washington, D.C..

Barth, J.L. (1991-1992). A comparative study of the current situation on teaching about World War 11 in Japanese and American classrooms. International Journal of Social Education 6(3), 7-19.