By Susan DouglassThe Texas Board of Education has been misled in its textbook resolution (the resolution "accuses textbook publishers of favoring Islam over Christianity and tells them to stop it"). The allegation that textbooks favor Islam over Christianity is spurious.
A look at common US textbooks refutes the charge, which distorts the role of teaching about religion in US public schools. State social studies content standards require learning about the beliefs, practices, and history of major world religions, taught within constitutional guidelines for academic study of religion. Textbooks are scrutinized prior to adoption in every state.
The resolution is based on charges about Islam and Christianity. What about the other faiths? As a textbook reviewer for two decades, I assert that most textbooks are similar enough to allow generalizations about coverage of religions. A world history textbook index might contain more entries under "Islam" than "Christianity," but adding keywords like Church, clergy, monastery, cathedral, pope, Reformation, Protestant, and Bible tips the scales the other way. Textbooks cover the roots of Christianity in the history of Judaism, and Old Testament figures like Abraham and Moses. Content about early Christianity is only a fraction of overall content on this faith.
Christian history is actually treated in an exemplary manner in most history textbooks. Why? Because Christianity is thoroughly intertwined with the history of European civilization. Textbooks describe its rise in the late Roman Empire, its spread into Asia, Africa, and Europe. They narrate the Roman Catholic Church's influence in medieval Europe, and its split from the Eastern Orthodox Church. Textbooks cite cultural contributions of Christianity in learning, arts, and social life. They trace changes in the Christian tradition--intellectual movements, interactions with political and social systems--through the centuries. The books cover the role of Christianity in the Crusades, Renaissance and Reformation, Age of Exploration, Scientific Revolution, and American history.
By comparison with Christianity, coverage of other world faiths is static and limited. Judaism in the textbooks emphasizes ancient times, but fades from the story with the rise of Christianity. References to Maimonides or pogroms during the Crusades do not make up for textbooks' absence of Jewish intellectuals and contributions to European culture, or Jewish merchant communities from the Mediterranean to China. Textbooks describe Hinduism and Buddhism in ancient India. Buddhism's spread along the Silk Road extends the story, but readers find little about change over time. Textbooks show people practicing these faiths today, but the gap between ancient origins and contemporary faiths is wide. Students may conclude from this imbalance that only Christianity possessed a rich, multi-faceted tradition. The charge that Christianity is shortchanged in textbooks is based on a distorted reading of the books, meant to foster a sense of victimization among Christians.
Coverage of Islam in textbooks is similar to Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism in its focus on early origins rather than change over time. A book's index is affected by overuse of terms like "Islamic Empire" instead of geographic terms. This usage stems from Western academics, not textbook publishers. Terms like jihad and shari'ah present another problem. Critics want to see such complex terms defined as "good" or "bad," while scholars recognize their complexity and changing meanings over time. Historical thinking skills require differentiated views. Textbooks should not project concepts broadcast by today's extremists onto centuries of history.
Content on world religions is not new to textbooks, but texts on "non-Western" faiths were often inaccurate and inadequate. Hindu Americans have recently challenged textbook coverage on these grounds, just as historians and Muslim educators worked to improve accuracy. Textbook coverage of Islam and other religions has improved in recent years. Textbooks today reflect attention to balance in page counts, topics, images and quotes from scripture. Editors enlist reviewers and take account of First Amendment guidelines for teaching about religion.
Backlash against improvement in coverage of religions--not only Islam--now portrays coverage as too positive. Some want to project fear of Islam onto centuries of history, reducing relations with the West to a clash of civilizations. Efforts to improve accuracy are confused with proselytizing or whitewashing. Such is neither the intent nor the outcome of teaching about religions in public school.
Journalists should help Americans understand the proper role of religion in public education. The First Amendment Center has promoted understanding among Americans of diverse beliefs for decades, using a framework that offers other countries struggling with religious pluralism a model to emulate. State standards reflect national consensus that citizens should be literate about the world's religions. Political opportunism should not prevent students from learning within this American civic framework.
By Susan Douglass | October 5, 2010; 2:00 PM ET Save & Share: Previous: The good news about the end of Christian America |
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Akafir, I agree with all that you said in your response, vis-a-vis Islam. i agree that there is certain degree of bending over backwards to appease the Islamists. This is to great extent western expiation for the western colonial history. The Islamists have exploited that shamelessly. They have simultaneously played the victim, the righteous, different but not inferior, etc, etc. They along with the western liberals seem to have overcome with collective amnesia about the Islamic colonization. As I mentioned in Aseem Shukla's thread, western colonization was walk in the park relative to Islamic colonization. The wanton pillaging, destruction is the islamic signature, compared to infrastructure building,education are the legacy of the western colonization.
That said, i fear the christian bigots of the bible belt too. These fellows are every bit as regressive as the taliban, with their xenophobia, anti-knowledge, homophobic agenda, I feel we need to be ever vigilant. In this context I am skeptical about the TEB, as it has been politicized and religion has crept too much. They have marginalized Jefferson and glorified that sorry excuse for human being Phyliss Schlafly, etc, etc. The list goes on. They renamed slave trade to some b&&lS$#t call tri-lateral trade, etc.
Posted by: Secular | October 5, 2010 10:21 PMReport Offensive Comment
Secular,
Have you read the original resolution. If not do so. They give specific examples of where the killings by christians is highlighted but killings by muslims is swept under the rug. A disease that infects the very humane, liberal elite of this country is that it is considered right to present the "ours whatever" in a slightly shabby light (we must not boast you see) and try to make "theirs whatever" in as a good light as possible without appearing as outright lies.
Take yesterdays example: How many papers blared that Daisy Khan received death threats? Now compare that to how many non-muslims writing about Islam get death threats and do the newspapers even consider it news worthy? How many death threats do you think Daniel Pipes or Robert Spencer, or even Franklin Graham have gotten? Has any paper found that worthy news?
The simple fact is that as the politics and culture of USA stands, the simple facts that I listed before can NOT be published in a textbook. The US newspapers could not even publish the Muhammad cartoons out of fear. The yale press censored a book on muhammad cartoons out of fear. A silly romance novel that had muhammad in it was not published out of fear.
So is there a bias? Sure there is. It is safer to self censor. Think about it, Molly Norris life has been destroyed because she tried to stand up for free speech. And how much anger, how much distress, how much ire do you see in Washington Post that muslim threats were able to rob an american of her freedom in America? Why? It is hand wringing and how can we blame anyone for what the "extremists" do. Don't you think that paper should be educating the public about how to really interpret what Alweki is saying or what Faisal Shahzad said today in the court. Instead, I will bet, we will get some more Islam means peace nonsense from the very literate journalists of this paper.
Posted by: AKafir | October 5, 2010 9:02 PMReport Offensive Comment
Akafir, I usually agree with your posts on all issues Islam. But this particular issue isn't really about Islam, as I see it. It is really about the domestic Talibanesque Christian bigots trying to pollute public education. We rationalists have two frontal attack from the parties of god. First is the Islamists, the second is Robertsons, Dobsons & Grahams etc in the US. If you go to India, we the BJP, RSS et al.
Posted by: Secular | October 5, 2010 8:11 PMReport Offensive Comment
Susan,
Show me one textbook in USA that deals honestly with the treatment of non-muslims in Islam. A textbook that even remotely mentions that in all muslim majority countries in the world the laws discriminate against non-muslims.
Show me one text book that tells the kids that the Quran sanctions marriage and sex to infants. This is not what Islam haters say but what the Muslim scholars of Islam say.
And I know that such statements will not even come close to being accepted for text books.
Is that a bias? Sure it is. We play the game of everyone is nice and every religion is good and every culture is as nice as any other. Moral equivalence and multiculturalism are worshipped. A thoughtful and honest pro and cons is never presented.
Posted by: AKafir | October 5, 2010 4:46 PMReport Offensive Comment
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