THE PORTRAYAL OF AFRICANS IN TEXTBOOKS: A CONTENT ANALYSIS STUDY

by CUDJOE, KAREN J.

This study examines the portrayal of Africa and its people in world history textbooks for junior high school students. As part of this examination, this study will review distorted and omitted information pertaining to African history and culture, the socio-political agendas promoted within these textbooks, as well as neglected African perspectives. A review of the various techniques used to conduct textbook analysis studies is also provided. One of the early textbook analysis studies on African American history, conducted by Marie E. Carpenter, revealed that stereotypes portraying Africans as inferior, backwards, traitorous, bloodthirsty savages have largely declined since the 1800's. The findings of the current study suggests that in world history textbooks published and used during the late 1980's and the 1990's, there is a serious problem of omitting pertinent information and a failure to include African perspectives on history and culture.