 | The lead section of this article may need to be rewritten.(December 2011) |
The Council on Islamic Education is a research institute and resource organization in Fountain Valley, California. The "Muslim academic scholars of religion, history, political science" at the Council seek to "support and strengthen American public education" by drawing upon "civic, ethical, and educational principles in Islam." [1]
According to Diane Ravitch, major textbook publishers allow the Council to review material before publication, a practice which "may account for... their omission of anything that would enable students to understand conflicts between Islamic fundamentalism and Western liberalism" [2]
Gilbert Sewall, former education editor of Newsweek and author of “Islam and the Textbooks” has criticized textbook publishers because they have “allowed Islamic organizations — notably the Council on Islamic Education — to strong-arm them and in effect act as censors.” [3]
Critics have called the Council "a content gatekeeper with virtually unchecked power over publishers" and allege that "as a result, history textbooks accommodate Islam on terms that Islamists demand." [4]
A report of the American Textbook Council [5] calls the Council "an agent of contemporary censorship," and accuses it of being "in fact a political advocacy organization" that seeks to present an "Islamist" version of history. [6]
Others praise the Council for publishing "new materials have recently appeared to enable educators to teach more effectively." [7]
Islamism definition refers to a "broad set of political ideologies that utilize and draw inspiration from Islamic symbols and traditions in pursuit of a sociopolitical objective."
Islamic fundamentalism has been defined as a puritanical, revivalist, and reform movement of Muslims who aim to return to the founding scriptures of Islam. Islamic fundamentalists are of the view that Muslim-majority countries should return to the fundamentals of an Islamic state, which truly show the essence of the system of Islam, in terms of its socio-politico-economic system. Islamic fundamentalists favor "a literal and originalist interpretation" of the primary sources of Islam, seek to eliminate "corrupting" non-Islamic influences from every part of their lives, and see "Islamic fundamentalism" as a pejorative term used by outsiders for Islamic revivalism and Islamic activism.
In the United States education system, social studies is the integrated study of multiple fields of social science and the humanities, including history, geography, and political science. The term was first coined by American educators around the turn of the twentieth century as a catch-all for these subjects, as well as others which did not fit into the traditional models of lower education in the United States, such as philosophy and psychology. One of the purposes of social studies, particularly at the level of higher education, is to integrate several disciplines, with their unique methodologies and special focuses of concentration, into a coherent field of subject areas that communicate with each other by sharing different academic "tools" and perspectives for deeper analysis of social problems and issues. The social studies aims to train students for informed, responsible participation in a diverse democratic society. The content of social studies provides the necessary background knowledge in order to develop values and reasoned opinions, and the objective of the field is civic competence.
A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textbooks and other books used in schools. Today, many textbooks are published in both print and digital formats.
Diane Silvers Ravitch is a historian of education, an educational policy analyst, and a research professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Previously, she was a U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education. In 2010, she became "an activist on behalf of public schools". Her blog at DianeRavitch.net has received more than 36 million page views since she began blogging in 2012. Ravitch writes for the New York Review of Books.
The status of creation and evolution in public education has been the subject of substantial debate and conflict in legal, political, and religious circles. Globally, there is a wide variety of views on the topic. Most western countries have legislation that mandates only evolutionary biology is to be taught in the appropriate scientific syllabuses.
Open educational resources (OER) are freely accessible, openly licensed text, media, and other digital assets that are useful for teaching, learning, and assessing as well as for research purposes.
The intelligent design movement has conducted an organized campaign largely in the United States that promotes a pseudoscientific, neo-creationist religious agenda calling for broad social, academic and political changes centering on intelligent design.
A controversy in the US state of California concerning the portrayal of Hinduism in history textbooks began in 2005. The Texas-based Vedic Foundation (VF) and the American Hindu Education Foundation (HEF), complained to California's Curriculum Commission, arguing that the coverage in sixth grade history textbooks of Indian history and Hinduism was biased against Hinduism; points of contention included a textbook's portrayal of the caste system, the Indo-Aryan migration theory, and the status of women in Indian society.
Bias in curricula refers to real or perceived bias in the educational textbooks.
Anti-Hindu sentiment, also known as Hinduphobia, is a negative perception, sentiment or actions against the practitioners of Hinduism.
The Islamic Saudi Academy of Washington was an International Baccalaureate (IB) World university preparatory school in Northern Virginia, accredited with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and authorized by IB in December 2008. It had classes from pre-kindergarten to twelfth grade, and had a final enrollment of more than 1,200 students. It was funded by the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, DC. In 2011, ISA graduated its first international baccalaureate class. Four students received their full IB diploma and one of them was able to earn bilingual diploma. As of 2007, approximately 30% of the roughly 1,000 students were Saudi Arabian citizens. The school closed in 2016, replaced by the new King Abdullah Academy later that year.
A History of US is a ten-volume historical book series for children, written by Joy Hakim and first published in its entirety in 1995. The series is published by the US branch of Oxford University Press and is currently in its third edition. Originally conceived as a trade children's series, the books quickly found fans among classroom teachers; in response to the prompting of educators Oxford University Press developed ancillary teaching materials to accompany the series. Branded as 'alternatives to traditional textbooks' the series is regularly used in both public and private schools, usually in middle school classes. The books are all written in a personal tone, as if the author were a storyteller. The texts have been released to ample praise by teachers, home-schoolers, students, and many others. The series has won the James A. Michener Award in Writing and the Parent's Choice Gold Award.
Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West is a 2005 documentary film about the purported threat of Islamism to Western civilization. The film shows Islamic radicals preaching hate speech and seeking to incite global jihad. It also draws parallels between World War II's Nazi movement and Islamism and the West's response to those threats.
Textbooks in Israel and the Palestinian territories issued by the Palestinian Authority (PA) have been an issue within the larger Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
An open textbook is a textbook licensed under an open copyright license, and made available online to be freely used by students, teachers and members of the public. Many open textbooks are distributed in either print, e-book, or audio formats that may be downloaded or purchased at little or no cost.
The Pakistani textbooks controversy refers to the claimed inaccuracy and historical denialism in Pakistani textbooks. It has been suggested that these inaccuracies and mistruths promote religious intolerance and Indophobia, leading to calls for curriculum reform. According to the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, since the 1970s Pakistan's school textbooks have systematically inculcated hatred towards India and Hindus through historical omissions and deliberate misinformation.
Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful Education Act, also known as the FAIR Education Act and informally described by media outlets as the LGBT History Bill, is a California law which compels the inclusion of the political, economic, and social contributions of persons with disabilities and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people into educational textbooks and the social studies curricula in California public schools by amending the California Education Code. It also revises the previous designation of "black Americans, American Indians, Mexicans, Asians, [and] Pacific Island people" into a list considered Indigenous peoples of the Americas. It would also amend an existing law by adding sexual orientation and religion into a list of characteristics that schools are prohibited from sponsoring negative activities about or teaching students about in an adverse way.
History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond is a series of social studies and history textbooks published by Teachers' Curriculum Institute (TCI).
Gilbert T. Sewall is an educator and author who writes on the humanities, education, and culture. He is most recently a contributor to the American Conservative. His essays and book reviews cover arts and ideas, multiculturalism and diversity, and the nature of civil society. A resident of New York City from 1978 to 2019, he lives in Santa Barbara, California.