Bias in curricula

Bias in education refers to real or perceived bias in the educational system.

Bias in school textbooks

The content of school textbooks is often the issue of debate, as their target audience is young people, and the term "whitewashing" is the one commonly used to refer to selective removal of critical or damaging evidence or comment. The reporting of military atrocities in history is extremely controversial, as in the case of the Holocaust (or Holocaust denial) and the Winter Soldier Investigation of the Vietnam War. The representation of every society's flaws or misconduct is typically downplayed in favor of a more nationalist or patriotic view. Also, Christians and other religionists have at times attempted to block the teaching of the theory of evolution in schools, as evolutionary theory appears to contradict their religious beliefs; the teaching of creationism as a science is likewise blocked from many public schools. In the context of secondary-school education, the way facts and history are presented greatly influences the interpretation of contemporary thought, opinion and socialization. One legitimate argument for censoring the type of information disseminated is based on the inappropriate quality of such material for the young. The use of the "inappropriate" distinction is in itself controversial, as it can be used to enforce wider and more politically motivated censorship.

Religious bias

Religious bias in textbooks is often observed in countries where religion plays a dominant role.

Many countries and states have guidelines against bias in education, but they are not always implemented. The guidelines of the California Department of Education (Code 60044) state the following: "No religious belief or practice may be held up to ridicule and no religious group may be portrayed as inferior." "Any explanation or description of a religious belief or practice should be present in a manner that does not encourage or discourage belief or indoctrinate the student in any particular religious belief."

On the basis of these guidelines, the Board of Education of California corrected in 2005 misrepresentations of Judaism, Islam and Hinduism in schoolbooks. [1] Many of these misrepresentations were described as biased, erroneuous or culturally derogatory. All 500 changes proposed by Jews and about 100 changes proposed by Muslims were accepted.

Bias in education by country or region

United States

Many recent allegations against the United States have surfaced about the hiding of many historical facts from the public through public education and thus luring the public to believing that the actions taken by the U.S. government are justified and provide a global benefit.

Howard Zinn and James Loewen are among the well-recognized critics of US history as presented in school textbooks. A People's History of the United States, by American historian and political scientist Zinn, seeks to present American history through the eyes of groups rarely heard in mainstream histories. Loewen spent two years at the Smithsonian Institution studying and comparing twelve American history textbooks widely used throughout the United States. His findings were published in Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Textbook Got Wrong.

In a landmark book called "The Trouble with Textbooks," Dr. Gary A. Tobin and Dennis R. Ybarra show how millions of American schoolchildren are taught anti-Semitic versions of Jewish history and faith, particularly in relation to Christianity and Islam. The authors found that U.S. textbooks "tend to discredit the ties between Jews and the Land of Israel. Israel is blamed for starting wars in the region and being colonialist. Jews are charged with deicide in the killing of Jesus. All in all, there are repeated misrepresentations that cross the line into bigotry."

Middle East

Extreme bias against Israel has been found in Arab textbooks, and classroom maps are often altered to replace the label "Israel" with "Palestine". Their writings frequently refer to Israel as "the small Satan" and America as "the great Satan." Arab schools almost universally teach Holocaust denial; Israelis are often labelled as Nazis, and Zionism is treated as comparable to Nazism. In February 2007, eight 12th grade Palestinian textbooks were analyzed by the Palestinian Media Watch. The official report stated:

The teachings repeatedly reject Israel's right to exist, present the conflict as a religious battle for Islam, teach Israel's founding as imperialism, and actively portray a picture of the Middle East, both verbally and visually, in which Israel does not exist at all. The following description of Israel's founding represents the dominant dogma about Israel in Palestinian schoolbooks: Defining Israel's founding as a "catastrophe unprecedented in history," "a theft perpetrated by Zionist gangs," together with numerous other hateful descriptions of Israel as "colonial imperialist" and "racist", compounded by the presentation of the conflict as a religious war, leaves no latitude for students to have positive or even neutral attitudes towards Israel. This negative imagery and religious packaging are compounded by hateful presentations of Israeli policy. The young students are imbued with a Palestinian identity as "victims" just by virtue of Israel's existence. The well-meaning student is left with no logical justification or religious option to accept Israel as a neighbor or to seek coexistence. Given the total rejection of Israel's right to exist, on nationalistic and religious grounds, Palestinian terror against Israel since Israel's founding in 1948 is defined as: "resistance … acts of most glorious heroism." PA educators teach that fighting Israel is not merely a territorial conflict, but also a religious battle for Islam. The schoolbooks define the conflict with Israel as "Ribat for Allah" – "one of the actions related to Jihad for Allah, and it means: Being found in areas where there is a struggle between Muslims and their enemies".

In addition, the report describes the Islamic World and the United States as being involved in a "Clash of Civilizations" and describes the Iraqi Insurgency as being engaged in "brave resistance to liberate Iraq".

Following the 2001 terrorist attacks against the US, America asked that Saudi textbooks be revised to remove sections that promoted violence against Jews and Christians. Saudi officials claimed to have completed the adjustments, though a 2006 report claimed otherwise.

South Asia

India

In 1982 the NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training) issued guidelines for the rewriting of schoolbooks. It stipulated that: "Characterization of the medieval period as a time of conflict between Hindus and Muslims is forbidden." In April 1989 the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education had issued instructions to schools and publishers of textbooks that "Muslim rule should never attract any criticism. Destruction of temples by Muslim rulers and invaders should not be mentioned." Schools and publishers have been asked to ignore and delete mention of forcible conversions to Islam. Some academicians have felt that these "corrections" were politically motivated and that they are censorship.

Arun Shourie criticized these changes in schoolbooks and claimed: The most extensive deletions are ordered in regard to the chapter on "Aurangzeb's policy on religion". Every allusion to what he actually did to the Hindus, to their temples, to the very leitmotif of his rule - to spread the sway of Islam – are directed to be excised from the book. ... "In a word, no forcible conversions, no massacres, no destruction of temples. ... Muslim historians of those times are in raptures at the heap of Kafirs [sic] who have been dispatched to hell. Muslim historians are forever lavishing praise on the ruler for the temples he has destroyed, ... Law books like The Hedaya prescribe exactly the options to which these little textbooks alluded. All whitewashed away. Objective whitewash for objective history. And today if anyone seeks to restore truth to these textbooks, the shout, "Communal rewriting of history.""

History textbooks and schoolbooks written by Marxist historian Romila Thapar have been criticized for being biased

Pakistan

Bias in education has been a common feature in the curriculum of many South Asian countries. According to Waghmar, many of the oriental societies are plagued by visceral nationalism and post-imperial neurosis where state-sanctioned dogmas suppress eclectic historical readings. Issues such as the preaching of hatred and obscurantism and the distortion of history in Pakistan have led the international scholars to suggest the need for coordinated efforts amongst the historians to produce a composite history of the subcontinent as a common South Asian reader. Bias against Indians and Hindus, as well as other religious minorities, have been found in Pakistani schoolbooks. However, Nelson here stresses the need for any educational reform to be based at the needs of the level of local communities.

The bias in Pakistani textbooks was studied by Rubina Saigol, Pervez Hoodbhoy, K. K. Aziz, I. A. Rahman, Mubarak Ali, A. H. Nayyar, Ahmed Saleem, Yvette Rosser and others.

A study by Nayyar & Salim (2003) that was conducted with 30 experts of Pakistan's education system, found that the textbooks contain statements that seek to create hate against Hindus. There was also an emphasis on Jihad, Shahadat, wars and military heroes. The study reported that the textbooks also had a lot of gender-biased stereotypes. Some of the problems in Pakistani textbooks cited in the report were: "Insensitivity to the existing religious diversity of the nation"; "Incitement to militancy and violence, including encouragement of Jehad and Shahadat"; a "glorification of war and the use of force"; "Inaccuracies of fact and omissions that serve to substantially distort the nature and significance of actual events in our history"; "Perspectives that encourage prejudice, bigotry and discrimination towards fellow citizens, especially women and religious minorities, and other towards nations" and "Omission of concepts ... that could encourage critical selfawareness among students".

These problems still seem to persist: The Curriculum Wing of the Federal Ministry of Education rejected a textbook in December 2003 because of two serious objections: The textbook contained the text of letter of a non-Muslim, and it contained the story of a family were both husband and wife worked and were sharing their household chores. In February 2004, a textbook was disapproved by the Curriculum Wing because it didn't contain enough material on jihad.

Pakistani textbooks were relatively unbiased up to 1972, but were rewritten and completely altered under Bhutto's and especially under Zia's (1977–88) rule. [2] The bias in Pakistani textbooks was also documented by Yvette Rosser (2003). She wrote that "in the past few decades, social studies textbooks in Pakistan have been used as locations to articulate the hatred that Pakistani policy makers have attempted to inculcate towards their Hindu neighbours", and that as a result "in the minds of generations of Pakistanis, indoctrinated by the 'Ideology of Pakistan' are lodged fragments of hatred and suspicion."

Professors who have been critical of Pakistani politics or corruption have are sometimes discriminated against. Dr. Parvez Hoodbhoy, who was also a critic of Pakistani politics, had troubles leaving the country for a lecture in the Physics department at MIT, because he was denied a NOC (No Objection Certificate) necessary for travels abroad [3]

One of the omissions in Pakistani textbooks is Operation Gibraltar. Operation Gibraltar, which provoked the Indian Army attack on Lahore, is not mentioned in most history textbooks. According to Pakistani textbooks, Lahore was attacked without any provocation on the part of the Pakistani army. The rule of Islamic invaders like Mahmud of Gahzni is glorified, while the much more peaceful Islamic ruler Akbar is often ignored in Pakistani textbooks.

The Pakistani Curriculum document for classes K-V stated in 1995 that "at the completion of Class-V, the child should be able to":

• "Acknowledge and identify forces that may be working against Pakistan."[pg 154]
• "Demonstrate by actions a belief in the fear of Allah." [pg154]
• "Make speeches on Jehad and Shahadat" [pg154]
• "Understand Hindu-Muslim differences and the resultant need for Pakistan." [pg154]
• "India's evil designs against Pakistan." [pg154]
• "Be safe from rumour mongers who spread false news" [pg158]
• "Visit police stations" [pg158]
• "Collect pictures of policemen, soldiers, and National Guards" [pg158]
• "Demonstrate respect for the leaders of Pakistan" [pg153]

See also

• American Association of University Professors
• Critical pedagogy
• Early childhood education
• Eurocentrism
• Japanese history textbook controversies
• Pedagogy
• Philosophy of education
• Selective omission

References

• K.K.Aziz. (2004) The Murder of History : A Critique of History Textbooks used in Pakistan. ISBN 969-402-126-X Vanguard.[4]
• Agarwal, Vishal. Misrepresentation and Stereotyping of Hindu Dharma in History Textbooks in India. 2004. [5]
• Agarwal, Vishal. Review of Romila Thapar’s ‘Ancient India, A Textbook of History for Middle Schools’ NCERT: New Delhi (1987) 2002. [6]
• Elst, Koenraad. (1992) Negationism in India - Concealing the Record of Islam.
• Nayyar, A.H. & Salim, Ahmad. The Subtle Subversion: The State of Curricula and Text-books in Pakistan - Urdu, English, Social Studies and Civics. Sustainable Development Policy Institute. [7] [8] [9]
• Rosser, Yvette. Indoctrinating Minds: Politics of Education in Bangladesh, RUPA, New Delhi, 2004. [10].
• --- Islamization of Pakistani Social Studies Textbooks, RUPA, New Delhi, 2003.
• --- "The Clandestine Curriculum: The Temple of Doom in the Classroom", Education About Asia, Volume 6, Number 3, Winter 2001 (Association of Asian Studies) [11] [12].
• ---"Hegemony and Historiography: The Politics of Pedagogy", Asia Review, Dhaka, Fall 1999.
• ---"Stereotypes in Schooling: Negative Pressures in the American Educational System on Hindu Identity Formation", Hindu Diaspora: Global Perspectives, Rukmani, ed. Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, 1999 [13].
• Shourie, Arun. Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud. New Delhi, 1998. ISBN 8190019988 [14]
• Dr A H Nayyar. Twisted truth: Press and politicians make gains from SDPI curriculum report SDPI Research and News Bulletin Vol. 11, No. 1, January - February 2004
• Pervez Hoodbhoy - What Are They Teaching In Pakistani Schools Today? (International Movement for a Just World) [15]
• Bias in education in California

External links

• Indian school textbooks to be scrapped because of anti-Muslim bias
• Gender bias
• Examples of inaccuracies and biases in Californian textbooks [16]