Textbooks and the United Nations:

The International System

and What American Students Learn About It

This education report (2002) by the UNA-USA includes a Forward

by President/CEO of UNA Ambassador William Luers. 

The Executive Summary:

History and government textbooks provide basic sources of information about the United Nations' role in international relations, its programs and activities throughout the world today, what it stands for, and what it does.  The international system and what American students learn about it is a timely and important matter, one underscored by globalization and new kinds of global conflict.  Textbook publishers, editors, and consultants have no doubt become more concerned about the UN system's role in advancing international security and containing terrorism than they were in the past.  As history and government textbooks can make more clear than they do at the present time, the UN remains an expression of democratic values forged by fifty years of tense geopolitical events.  It embodies a vision of international cooperation that transcends domestic politics.  As a unique transnational agency that intervenes in matters of global interest to stabilize and secure civil relations among nations, the UN acts as a worldwide foundation or order and human welfare.

    The American Textbook Council examined the content of seventeen of the nation's most widely adopted history and government textbooks used in junior high schools and high schools.  Several questions launched our inquiry and study.  What are the essential issues that textbooks should cover?  How do the textbooks stack up? What do they include? What do they omit? What thematic approach do they take, if any, to cover the subject?  Variations in the books reviewed are considerable, with coverage of the UN and UN-related subject matter ranging from non-existent and mediocre to sound and even adroit.

    Few textbooks describe and explicate historical episodes or social, economic, and political issues in sufficient depth, as is stated below.  In many of the textbooks reviewed, lessons involving the UN are so brief and sketchy that teachers and students are likely to be confused by its history and gain next to no grasp of the international system or how it works on behalf of billions of people.  Complicating matters, the intricacy of subject matter associated with the UN (e.g. international law, the World Trade Organization) may be age-inappropriate for all but the most mature high school student.

    Educators disagree among themselves what subjects merit inclusion in standard high school social studies textbooks.  While individuals can argue reasonably over social studies content and subject matter, what is vitally important is that when any textbook raises a UN-related issue that it not dismiss an extremely troubling and complex subject in a few words or a short paragraph. 

    The primary purpose of this report is to inform editors and publishers and to convey to them the subject in a fresh light, one designed to improve volumes that cover the UN and world affairs.  A second goal is to help teachers and educators improve UN-related lessons and expand knowledge of the organization.  The study concluded and recommended:

    This may seem to be a too obvious point.  But the study finds that in UN-related subject matter in the textbooks reviewed, these content features were simply not the case.  Lessons about the UN should not be up in the clouds.  They should be presented in such ways that eleven- and fifteen-year-olds can comprehend, appreciate, and digest.  In order to understand the UN, students need to begin with concrete facts.  They need to know something about the functions of government and the internationalization of these functions.  Lessons should not begin with arcane theories of globalization, international law, and human rights.  Abstractions such as these are simply beyond the grasp of many students: better for textbooks to employ actual examples from history and case studies of world affairs that root the international system in particulars.

    Textbooks should not offer unrealistic forecasts of the UN's power to protect the environment, control nuclear weapons, abolish the narcotics trade, end terrorism and piracy, or cure plagues.  Nor should they offer a view of the world that gives American students a complacent or rosy view of the future.  Textbooks should not minimize tensions that can arise between American interests and the international community.

    Textbooks should not hesitate to tell the truth.  They should explain that part of the international community is interested in the diminution or destruction of American influence and power.  If history and government textbooks raise the subjects of peacemaking and peacekeeping--and they do--they should explain that these UN roles are at once its highest profile and most controversial functions.  The international system, nation building, and world security are issues of momentous concern that are unlikely to diminish soon in the public mind.

    It is a worthy goal to help teachers learn more about international coordination and cooperation, not only so they can use instructional materials more dextrously but also so they themselves understand how the world works.  But such reforms and programs go beyond the purview of this report.

Copies of Textbooks and the United Nations (60 pages, softbound) are available.  To order call toll free 1-866-335-4001 or order on-line at www.unausa.org.