Examples of Textbook Bias

[Contrada, Chelsea]

(Please excuse cross-posting.)

Hello CCCOER family,

I am presenting at my college's professional development day about OER and equity/inclusion. I would love to include some examples of bias in college textbooks in order to show how OER can be a way to provide more equitable representation. However, it has been quite difficult to track down specific examples of textbook bias. I am throwing this out to the group in hopes of collecting some examples. If you have any leads, please let me know! TYIA!

Chelsea

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Chelsea Contrada, MSLIS

Outreach & OER Librarian

Liaison to the Health Sciences

Springfield Technical Community College

P: 413-755-5634

SPRINGFIELD TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE

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[Una Daly]

Hello Chelsea,

Dr. Shawna Brandle, Kingsborough CC has done research on the topic of "lack of representation” in college textbooks, not exactly the same thing as you specified but more bias by omission. She presented at one of our webinar Integrating Antiracist Pedagogy in Your Classroom earlier this year.  Her findings from research done a few years ago indicated that OER textbooks at that point were not much more diverse than traditional textbooks.  Since that time open textbook publishers have begun that work to eliminate bias and include diverse voices.  OpenStax published a rubric last year, BCcampus has had this as a requirement for their open textbook grants for many years.

Hope that helps!

Una

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Una Daly
Director, CCCOER
Open Education Global
unat...@oeglobal.org

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[Wakim, Suzanne]

This story from Inside Higher Ed. shares a pretty extreme example. (yikes!)

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[Glapa-Grossklag, James]

Also last year a study was published about the lack of representation in biology textbooks. As Shawna Brandle notes in the article Una referenced, OER isn’t necessarily more inclusive, but the open license gives you the opportunity to improve the material.

 

James​

 

James Glapa-Grossklag
Dean, Educational Technology, Learning Resources, and Distance Learning

Director, Distance Education Captioning & Transcription grant

College of the Canyons
Santa Clarita, CA
661.362.3632
james.glap...@canyons.edu

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[jallard]

Hello Chelsea,

Not exactly college textbooks, but The New York Times has a piece about history textbooks varying across states based on political differences.

Two States. Eight Textbooks. Two American Stories

Clear side by side comparisons of the differences.

Good luck

Jim Allard

Learning Commons Librarian
Central Maine Community College
1250 Turner Street
Auburn, ME 04210
jal...@cmcc.edu
207-755-5266

[Liz Yata]

Hi Chelsea,

Sabia Prescott, from New America, gave a workshop at last year's virtual Open Education Global conference called, Creating and Curating LGBTQ-Inclusive Materials. She includes a couple of examples of biased math questions - which is an area I would never have thought of for sure. You can view the slides and the recording at OEG Connect. https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/creating-and-curating-lgbtq-inclusive-materials/471 

Hope this helps,

Liz

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