Cultural Material Evaluation.

     If there is one thing that has been taught to history education majors throughout my span at ISU, it is that textbooks are not a sufficient method of teaching students.  While textbook sections may provide some beneficial aspects of historical periods, the often portray the opposite.  It seems to be a trend in most history textbooks of failing to address the complexity of human culture.  Hinkel warns of the dangers of a monocultural textbook.  What most history books are are monocultural interpretations of events, based around Western Culture.

     Now, Western culture is a very broad term. Given the complexity of cultures that come from the occident, it would be inaccurate to use Western culture as an umbrella term.  Most history books however, only show events that are tied to these particular cultures from the west.  Most of world history, through the eyes of a textbook, are very anglicized.  In this "World" history, students learn of kings, queens, and events from Britain, Spain, or Germany.  Personally, I have very little knowledge of African, East Asian, and South American history.  It seems rather inconvenient that world history textbooks tend to marginalize the histories of a majority of the world.  A textbook should never develop a pattern of marginalization.  This is especially important in an ESL classroom.  What kind of message would ESL students receive when taught, either consciously or subconsciously, of different cultures being constantly subjugated? In American history books, most portrayals of Mexicans are being defeated by Americans in the Mexcan-American War.  In the latter portions of textbooks, most portrayals of hispanics are due to border control.  Many times,  eastern european countries are brought up only in light of a particular defeat, whether militaristic or economic.  If being taught by a textbook, the notion that "those of non-anglican cultures are constantly subjugated", will be ingrained in students heads.  

     The only positive element of this tragedy, is that these biased textbooks can be used to unearth cultural tensions.  By addressing the unequal gender and cultural stereotypes, students can see the marginalization at first glance.  Teachers may use textbooks as a guide, but by using them as a content-stable in their lecture, students are being marginalized equal to minorities in their textbooks.