Sexism in Teacher-Education Texts

Since professional education texts serve to shape teacher-preparation curriculum and instruction on a national scale, it is important to scrutinize these texts for their treatment of issues related to sex equity in education. Under funding from the Women's Educational Equity Act Program, Myra and David Sadker analyzed the content of twenty-four of the most widely adopted preservice teacher-education texts for space allocation to and treatment of the following topics: sexism, sex differences, experiences and contributions of women, and total text content accorded to females and to males. Their findings indicate that these teacher-education texts are characterized by omission and imbalance. The Sadkers discuss these forms of bias as they are pertinent to texts in the core areas of teacher preparation and offer recommendations for the development of texts that will integrate the issue of sex equity into the mainstream of programs of instruction for prospective teachers.