This study surveys recent editions of circulating introductory texts for teaching American government/politics courses. Most of the major textbooks used for these courses utilize the traditional institutional and behavioral approaches to the study of American government, which have historically treated the African American political experience as separate from mainstream American politics; thus, relegating its discussions to a separate chapter on “civil rights” or “equal rights.” Modeling our textbook reviews after the APSA Standing Committee on the Status of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and Transgendered in the Profession (Novkov and Gossett 2007) and the non-published 2006 report to the APSA Standing Committee on the Status of Blacks in the Profession, we analyze 27 circulating introductory American government/politics textbooks to examine to what extent African Americans are integrated into the study of American politics.
Introduction to American government/politics is often the first course college students will take to expose them to the world of American politics. Interestingly, there have been few direct studies and little attention has been paid to the one artifact that plays such a major role in defining whose culture and whose history is taught—i.e., the textbook (Apple and Christian-Smith 1991). As Apple and Christian-Smith (1991) argue, not to raise questions about the textbook itself is problematic since these materials are not simply “delivery systems” of “facts,” but:
[T]hey are at once the results of political, economic, and cultural activities, battles and compromises. They are conceived, designed, and authored by real people with real interests. They are published within the political and economic constraints of markets, resources, and power … And what counts as legitimate knowledge is the result of complex power relations and struggles among identifiable class, race, gender/sex, and religious groups. (2)
In this vein, textbooks are political statements or messages to and about the future of a society. They function as the cultural vehicle and means of social control through which academic disciplines and departmental curriculums organize canons of knowledge of a particular society, by creating what that society has recognized and does recognize as legitimate and truthful values, attitudes, and beliefs within its unique political culture. Additionally, textbooks are economic commodities responding to culture wars and social pressures situated within the capitalist market where decisions about profitability determine what books are published and for how long. As result, race, class, gender/sex, and other biases have been widespread in mainstream textbooks, and what is determined as “legitimate” knowledge does not include the historical experiences and cultural expressions of labor, women, all racial/ethnic groups, and others who have been denied power (Apple and Christian-Smith 1991, 5–6).
Overview of Introductory Textbooks across Disciplines
A recent examination of American government textbooks revealed that “the order in which topics are considered may vary slightly from text to text, as do emphases and theoretical approaches, but American government textbooks are more alike than they are different” (Stroup and Garriott 1997, 73). The format of these textbooks has changed little since the publication of the classic Ogg and Ray (1922), Introduction to American Government, which focused and organized political science knowledge around institutions and processes, generally. Stroup and Garriott (1997) hold that this format presents a compartmentalized view of the American political process and its institutions with little focus on how institutions interact to produce public policy. It also ignores the economic, social, demographic, intellectual, and technological realities that shape the issues to be resolved while placing little emphasis on the role of political ideals and political parties' involvement in decision-making, and presents an essentially static picture of American government/politics in their piecemeal representation of history (73–4).
Because political science as a discipline typically studies institutions and elites as decision-makers, it thereby largely ignores the presence and questions of African American politics. Jones (1992) attributes this institutional and elite focus and corresponding disinterest in African American issues, to “basic epistemological and paradigmatic assumptions of American political science” (26). Political science as a discipline is viewed as originating from and in service to dominant white social groups. Consequently, the history of white racism and oppression is often muted, and the complexities within racial/ethnic groups or involving interaction among these groups are virtually ignored (Sleeter and Grant 1991, 81). The absence of African American issues is not an aberration, but a persistent feature in the dominant political paradigm reflected in political science. For Jones, the epistemological position of mainstream political science, and its corresponding focus on institutions and elites, disguises and furthers the exclusion of African Americans from political analysis. And, since African Americans have been historically excluded from institutional power and rely on informal channels, they are largely under-represented in scholarship (Wilson 1985, 604; Jones 1992). Jones (1977) argues that Black political scientists should challenge the dominant paradigm by advancing an African American perspective in the discipline much like the African American politics-centered Walton and Smith (2006) textbook, American Politics and the African American Quest for Universal Freedom.
Other introductory textbook studies have found similar results in terms of treatment and/or under-representation of issues pertaining to: social class and disability (Anyon 1979; Sleeter and Grant 1991); the intersections of gender and race (Sleeter and Grant 1991); active participation in the political process by all racial/ethnic groups and women (Prestage 1994); racial biases in the portrayal of poverty and “race coding” via the media images (Clawson and Kegler 2000; Clawson 2003); the general tendency to “ghettoize” and marginalize particular racial/ethnic groups and women in one or two chapters (Stone 1996); “mentioning”—the phenomenon where a textbook will add content, such as a sidebar or focus box on racial/ethnic groups, without incorporating the information into central message of the text (Foster 1999, 271); disregard for the complexities within the racial/ethnic groups or involving interactions among them (Sleeter and Grant 1991); as well as the lack of discussion on globalization of issues related to race, class, and gender/sexuality.
Understanding that textbooks are “time-lagged measures of the state of the discipline,” the general trend in discipline is toward increased inclusion of race, gender, and class (Ferree and Hall 1996, 931); however, African American politics is still represented as a one-dimensional cultural experience overall. As Sleeter and Grant (1991) surmised:
Whites consistently dominate textbooks, although their margin of dominance varies widely. Whites receive the most attention, are shown in the widest variety of roles, and dominate the story line and lists of accomplishments. Blacks are the next most included racial group. However, the books show Blacks in a more limited range of roles than Whites and give only a sketchy account of Black history and little sense of contemporary Black Life. Asian Americans and Hispanic Americans appear mainly as figures on the landscape with virtually no history or contemporary ethnic experience, and no sense of the ethnic diversity within each group is presented. Native Americans appear mainly as historical figures, although there are a few contemporary stories … Furthermore, very little interaction among different groups of color is shown … These groups are only shown interacting with Whites. (97)
This has important repercussions for the perceptions of these groups that are advanced in college curriculums. The need to mainstream African Americans as political actors into American politics is echoed by Prestage (1994), who argues that one major problem is that the experience of women and racial/ethnic groups do not fit easily into the major frames of reference or organizational schemes of the standard textbooks used in American government courses, and the necessary inclusion of information on race and gender requires not only supplementing the textbook information, but reinterpreting essential concepts and offering new frames of reference that are sometimes diametrically opposed to that of the textbook (720). Which is to say, unfortunately, the predominantly white-owned publishing industry oftentimes reflects and reinforces the racial and gender divide that has always defined American society.
Methodology
Modeling our analysis after the recent textbook reviews in the profession and Feiner and Morgan's (1990) analysis of introductory economics textbooks, we sampled 27 circulating introductory American government/politics textbooks—the universe of textbooks in this genre—published from 2004 to 2007 that ranged from the third to twenty-first editions (see Appendix for full citations). To determine the quantity of coverage, we used the index citations, illustrations/visuals, and written text of the chapters as the measurement indicators (Ferree and Hall 1996), searching for specific references to key terms such as: African Americans or Blacks, affirmative action, civil rights, minority, race, race discrimination, redistricting (or “racial gerrymandering”), segregation, slavery, and voting to locate as many references as possible. After counting the number of pages mentioning these topics, we looked not only at the number of pages, but where the pages were located (i.e., in the civil rights chapter or throughout the textbook). We sought to avoid as much as possible the reliability problems arising from the ambiguity of words when using citation counts for the sake of convenience by reviewing context/pages to avoid double counts (Stone 1996). We then perused the written text to gauge the amount or extent of coverage on inclusiveness of African American politics, which varied per textbook. Lastly, we counted the number of mentions for individual African American persons and/or organizations to use as an indicator for active political decision-makers who significantly influenced the struggle for universal freedom and equality. It is our intention only to highlight to what extent African Americans are inclusive, political actors in the mainstream of American government/politics, but not to suggest which textbooks are “better” or “worse.” Our findings are reported below. (See Table 1.)
Summary of Coverage of African Americans in Textbooks 2004–2007
Findings
After examining the data from the survey, there is an apparent observation, which is the limitation in drawing inferences on a study with a small n given the number of current introductory texts. Small n studies are useful even though small n's do not allow us to draw inferences that can be broadly generalized to all studies in all disciplines. Our results from the data analysis are nonetheless important in illustrating the systematic problem with inclusion of African Americans as actors in the political system in the United States.
Our analysis reveals that African Americans' active participation in America's political development has been treated as a separate entity from the rest of the country's development. With more than 300 years of history, overwhelming historical evidence exists to substantiate and illuminate the extent to which African Americans have been integral in the making of democracy (Du Bois 1970), yet textbooks do not discuss African Americans as active agents (if at all) until the civil rights movement when they are discussed as collective “recipients” of government action as opposed to collective “agents.” Further, by limiting a significant portion of the African American political experiences to one chapter, it is difficult to describe the full political reality. In this current sample, 74% of the textbooks dedicate a chapter to civil rights, 19% combine civil rights and civil liberties, and 7% have no specific chapter in the text dedicated to civil rights. After examining the location of civil rights chapters and identifying if they are either separate or combined with civil liberties, the data clearly reflect that a significant percentage of the textbooks in the sample do, in fact, treat the African American political experience as separate from mainstream American politics.
Since most of the textbooks have a civil rights chapter that generally speaks to the African American political experience, to assess the extent to which authors discuss African Americans outside of this isolating chapter provides some insight into the inclusion of African Americans in the development of American political institutions and the behavioral norms of society. The mean number of references outside of the civil rights chapter is 32.52 and the standard deviation is quite large, indicating a wide dispersion within the sample and thus a mean that is not as robust a measure as a smaller deviation would indicate. An observation of the values indicate that on average each of the textbooks' page references outside of the civil rights chapter is 13 pages. Moreover, when comparing the coverage of African Americans in the civil rights chapters, we note that most of the textbooks have more references to African Americans outside the civil rights chapter, such as: voting/political participation; public opinion; media; domestic poverty and crime; and congressional and judiciary membership to name the most common. When the page differences are assessed between the two categories of coverage within as compared to outside the civil rights chapters we observe that 22% of the texts include 1–10 pages more outside of the civil rights chapter in referencing African Americans, 30% between 11–20, 22% between 21–30, and 19% more than 31, and we observe that 7% of the texts actually referenced African Americans less outside of the civil rights chapter. It is noteworthy that one of the textbooks without a separate civil rights chapter, Landy and Milkis's (2004, 1e) American Government: Balancing Democracy and Rights, was the most comprehensive and integrated textbook on African Americans as decision-makers and political actors in the American political system. This was an intentional goal of the authors who explained, “The book offers separate chapters on immensely important and interesting subjects that are rarely treated comprehensively in other textbooks … [It] contains no separate chapters about civil rights, civil liberties and public policy because these subjects are so integral to American politics that we wanted them to permeate the entire book” (xix). Curiously enough this textbook was no longer published after the first edition. While there is considerable variation within this sample regarding the extent to which African Americans are discussed outside of the civil rights chapter, it is clear from observing the data that the authors differ on the amount of attention or credibility that they give to the African American experience within American political development.
While most authors have clearly referenced African Americans in the civil rights chapter, it is evident that authors differ quite substantially in their referencing of African Americans. The mean number of pages on which African Americans are referred is 14 and the standard deviation suggests a wide dispersion. An examination of the mean deviation of 5.13 illustrates on average the authors referencing of African Americans are within five pages of the mean. Therefore, the authors referencing of African Americans could be on average as much as 17 and a few as seven pages. Of the current texts in this survey, 22% of the texts have fewer than seven pages referencing African American and 56% of the sample has between seven and 21, while the remaining 22% extends beyond 17 pages above the mean.
Overall the data seem to suggest that there is very little consistency in referencing the African American experience in Introductory American Government/Politics textbooks. After examining the singular chapter dedicated to the African American struggle for universal freedom and assessing the references outside of the civil rights chapters, it is worth noting that the mean percentage of total pages coverage for African Americans is 8%. Since there is substantial variation as to the total references of African Americans as a percentage of the total pages, it is worth disaggregating the percentages to note the variation. The range of the percentages extends from 3 to 13%. When we break the data into subsequent parts we find that 11% of sample total percentage is 4% or less, 52% of the current sample coverage is within 5 and 8%, 33% of the textbooks are within 9–12%, while 4% have 13% or more of the total textbooks referencing African Americans. The Dye (2005, 6e) textbook provides the most extensive reference to African Americans in terms of total pages overall. Given the wide variation of attention given to African Americans in Introductory American Government/Politics textbooks, the total coverage does a disservice to our study of American democracy, especially when you examine the lack of full integration that African Americans receive outside the civil rights movement.
Finally, when we examine the textbooks by publishers, we found that two publishing companies had the lion's share of textbooks: the Pearson Group (nine textbooks) and the Thomson Group (seven textbooks). As Feiner and Morgan (1990) observed, “[b]ecause race and gender are sensitive and often controversial subject areas, publishers might feel that including these subjects makes the textbook adoption riskier. On the other hand, publishers might feel that these ‘hot’ topics sell textbooks” (52). Modeling their approach, we found that of the seven publishers in the sample, five publishers had three or more authors/textbooks. Of the five publishers with three or more textbooks, 10 authors/publishers devote less than the sample mean of pages to African Americans. (The sample mean is 32.52; the percentage of pages below the mean for books published by Houghton/Mifflin is 33%, 50% for McGraw Hill, 85% for the Pearson Group, 44% for the Thomson Group, and 50% for the WW Norton & Company.) The two leading textbook authors/publishers collectively are 62% of the introductory textbooks sample, and 38% of their textbooks provide less coverage of African Americans than the sample population. Editors of publishing companies generally have a great deal of influence and from the data analysis it would seem that the African Americans continue to receive minimal attention by major publishing companies, who in turn respond to pressure from their markets.
Discussion
Although a very small number of textbooks sought to integrate the African American political experience throughout the entire book, overall African Americans receive the most substantive discussion in all reviewed texts in terms of depth of coverage and page length in relation to other social and racial/ethnic groups. After analyzing specific coverage of slavery or the three-fifths compromise, civil rights history, African American political actors/organizations, affirmative action, and other mentions with other topics in other chapters, the summary table reflects the overall coverage of African Americans in the textbooks.
We found that the terms “African American” and “Black” are used interchangeably and almost exclusively to describe or discuss African Americans as a collective often with very little analysis of the political variation within the group, especially between American descendants and immigrants. One noted exception was Barbour et al. (2006, 3e), which highlights the increasing complications of race relations particularly with the growing diversity within the African American community itself, given the immigrant citizens who now fall under the African American category, and how this can complicate politics given the views, culture, social status, and aspirations of the persons within the group (227). Although most textbooks employ minimal use of the convoluted misnomer “minorities,” many resort to its use when speaking in generalized terms often combining the terms “women and minorities,” which continues to trivialize the profound differences in political experiences for these groups as well as ignore the politics surrounding the intersection of race, gender, and class in political participation. The absence of such discussions in texts largely creates crucial gaps in knowledge as well as eliminates volumes of important research.
We found that most of textbook narratives utilize a historical-institutional approach that focus on historical cases like: Dred Scott, Plessy vs. Ferguson, and Brown vs. Board of Education with agents of change emerging via “non-formal” or multi-purpose institutions like the most oft-mentioned NAACP, SCLC, SNCC, and with Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., being the most oft-mentioned African American political actors. Many of the discussions begin their narratives after the Civil War and end with the affirmative action debate oftentimes immediately following, but sometimes at the end of the civil rights chapter.
Discussions on women and women's political involvement are based on the historical worldview of white middle-class women with no discussion of the active participation of African American women in the development of American democracy. However, here is where “mentioning” (Foster 1999) in terms of African American women is present with images of Condoleezza Rice used most often. Other African American women “mentioned” via sidebars or media images were Anita Hill, Barbara Jordan, and Eleanor Holmes Norton. As Prestage (1994) opined, if race makes a difference in the larger society, then race makes a difference among women as well in terms of life chances and access to power, including political power. This reality must be reflected in what is taught in political science courses that address gender issues, even if the reality is unpleasant (721). Interestingly enough, one textbook (Ginsberg et al. 2007, 6e) sought to illuminate the link between the civil rights movement, the early women's rights movement, and the temperance movement, but the only African American actor mentioned is Frederick Douglass (155).
Finally, our perusal of the “Notes” pages for the corresponding chapters in most of the textbooks revealed very little research taken from works by African American political scientists, scholars, journalists, and commentators. Although we did not actively count the number of total references in each text for this study, we know that contributions by noted and respected African American scholars across the disciplines are necessary if we want to continue to broaden our understanding, raise critical questions regarding the African American political experience, and counter the exclusionary focus of the discipline (Pinderhughes 1990; Wilson 1985). As Dianne Pinderhughes (1990), the first African American woman elected as president of the American Political Science Association, surmised:
If we do not transmit these rich memories, interests and understanding of how the discipline has functioned in a highly discriminatory fashion, and how American institutions have organized political life according to the racist preferences of American slave owners and their descendants in the present, the new generations of Black political scientists will enter the field and either be absorbed along in an uncritical manner, or find themselves unwelcome but unable to understand the whys and wherefores. New White political scientists will be unsocialized by our influence. And generations of American students, Black as well as White, will have no knowledge or understanding of the politics of race that we have worked so carefully to understand and to publish because it will have gone untransmitted” (17).
Conclusion
Introductory textbooks in American government/politics still employ the institutional and/or behavioral approach. This approach examines these institutions and processes from a majority White perspective with emphasis being placed on the political actors who dominate these institutions. In utilizing this approach, we found that the majority of the textbooks we examined tended to “compartmentalize” African Americans into a single chapter on civil rights or equal rights.
Understanding universal freedom, equality, and the true meaning of democracy in America is to understand the struggle of African Americans, most of whom, as legal citizens of this country, were originally excluded from the political process and denied the right to vote and to hold political office. We believe their struggles and contributions help to shape the very essence of democracy. W.E.B. Du Bois (1970) asserts in his 1924 discourse, “by his incessant struggle to be free [the black slave] broadened the basis of democracy in America and the world” (65). Unfortunately, a few textbooks in print actively recognize this struggle. In fact, some still include factual inaccuracies in the discussion of African Americans. Major historical events are often not included—such as the Reconstruction Period following the Civil War up until the Jim Crow era—when 22 African Americans held elective office in the U.S. Congress and at the local level giving America some of its most democratic legislation with respect to advancing rights of all citizens (Du Bois 1970; Walton and Smith 2006). Only the Ginsberg et al. (2007, 6e) and Shea et al. (2007, 1e) textbooks include this commentary and/or historical photograph.
Our study is by no means exhaustive. There is more to do in terms of understanding the extent or lack of inclusiveness of African Americans as political actors in American democracy. However, our findings suggest that the African American struggle is still treated as separate from American government/politics. In our view, this sends the message to the reader that African Americans are not an integral part of the American political experience. Such an ad hoc, selective, and fragmentary treatment of the African American political experience, in conjunction with overall minimal coverage in one chapter, tends to downplay their importance to the growth of democracy. More importantly, as suggested by members of the APSA Standing Committee on the Status of Blacks in the Profession, American government/politics textbooks must begin to create new frames of reference and political paradigms to:
- Discuss the historical role of political parties and the impact of their positions on the issue of human bondage or enslavement of Africans;
- Focus on race and racial issues in a global context, and in terms of involvements and interactions between various racial and ethnic groups in America;
- Utilize more proactively the lens of race and ethnicity considerations in politics; and
- Increase the number of conscientious African American scholars as co-authors in conception, creation, and publications of American government/politics textbooks.
Feiner and Morgan (1990) argue that given that there are more part-time students than full-time students, with the majority being women, and with the next generation of younger students including proportionately more African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans than ever before, it is time for accurate depictions of American historical and political development that serves to integrate rather than further marginalize these Americans.
Author Bios
Sherri L. Wallace is associate professor in the department of political science at the University of Louisville. She served as a member (2003–2006) and co-chair (2005–2006) of the APSA Standing Committee on the Status of Blacks in the Profession. She served as member of the APSA Teaching and Learning Conference program committee (program chair, 2008) as well as on the program committee and as section chair for other regional-based political science conferences, including the National Conference of Black Political Scientists. She can be reached at: slwall08@gwise.louisville.edu.
Marcus D. Allen is assistant professor at Wheaton College in Norton, MA (allen_marcus@wheatoncollege.edu).
Appendix: Introductory American Government/Politics Textbooks Used in the Analysis
- Barbour, Christine, Gerald C. Wright, Matthew J. Streb, and Michael R. Wolf. 2006. Keeping the Republic: Power and Citizenship in American Politics. 3rd ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press.
- Bardes, Barbara, Mack Shelley, and Steffen Schmidt. 2006. American Government and Politics Today. 2006–2007 Edition. Belmont, CA: Thomson Higher Education. (2006–2007 Brief Edition, 2007).
- Berman, Larry, and Bruce Allen Murphy. 2007. Approaching Democracy. 5th ed. New York: Pearson Prentice Hall.
- Bond, Jon R., Kevin B. Smith, and Richard A. Watson. 2006. The Promise and Performance of American Democracy. 7th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning.
- Dye, Thomas, and Harmon Zeigler. 2006. The Irony of Democracy: An Uncommon Introduction to American Politics. 13th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.
- Dye, Thomas. Politics in America. 2005. 6th ed. New York: Pearson Prentice Hall.
- Edwards III, George, Martin Wattenberg, and Robert Lineberry. Government in America: People, Politics, and Policy. 2006. 12th ed. New York: Pearson Longman. (Brief 8th ed., 2006).
- Fiorina, Morris, Paul Peterson, and Stephen Voss. 2005. America's New Democracy. 4th ed. New York: Pearson Education, Inc.
- Ginsberg, Benjamin, Theodore J. Lowi, and Margaret Weir. 2007. We the People. 6th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
- Janda, Kenneth, Jeffrey Berry, and Jerry Goldman. 2005. The Challenge of Democracy: Government in America. 8th Edition. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
- Jillson, Cal. American Government: Political Change and Institutional Development. 2005. 3rd ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning.
- Katznelson, Ira, Mark Kesselman, and Alan Draper. 2006. The Politics of Power: A Critical Introduction to American Government. 5th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning.
- Kernell, Samuel, and Gary Jacobson. 2006. The Logic of American Politics. 3rd ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
- Landy, Marc, and Sidney M. Milkis. 2004. American Government: Balancing Democracy and Rights. Boston, MA: McGraw Hill.
- Lowi, Theodore, Benjamin Ginsberg, and Kenneth Shepsle. 2004. American Government: Power and Purpose. 8th Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
- Magleby, David, David O'Brien, Paul Light, James McGregor Burns, J.W. Peltason, and Thomas Cronin. 2006. Government by the People. 21st ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
- Miroff, Bruce, Raymond Seidelman, and Todd Swanstrom. 2007. The Democratic Debate: An Introduction to American Politics. 4th ed. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
- O'Connor, Karen, Larry Sabato, Stefan Haag, and Gary Keith. 2006. American Government: Continuity and Change. 8th ed. New York: Pearson Longman.
- Patterson, Thomas. The American Democracy. 2005. 7th ed. Boston, MA: McGraw Hill.
- Shea, Daniel M., Joanne Connor Green, and Christopher E. Smith. 2007. Living Democracy (National Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson and Prentice Hall.
- Sidlow, Edward, and Beth Henschen. America at Odds. 2006. 5th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning.
- Spitzer, Robert J., Benjamin Ginsberg, Theodore J. Lowi, and Margaret Weir. 2006. Essentials of American Politics. 2nd ed. New York, NY: WW Norton and Company.
- Stephenson, D. Grier Jr., Robert J. Bresler, Robert J. Friedrich, Joseph J. Karlesky, and Charles C. Turner. 2005. Introduction to American Government. 3rd ed. Nevada: Best Value Textbooks.
- Tannahill, Neal. American Government: Policy and Politics. 2006. 8th ed. New York: Pearson Longman.
- Volkomer, Walter. American Government. 2006. 11th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
- Welch, Susan, John Gruhl, John Comer, and Susan Rigdon. American Government. 2006. 10th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
- Wilson, James Q., and John J. Dilulio Jr. 2006. American Government. 10th ed. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
