ABSTRACT
Yet nationalistic bias is as persistent in today’s schoolbooks as in those used a generation ago. More important, this bias is potentially more dangerous because it is less easy to detect. Usually it appears to stem not from any deliberate or conscious prejudice on the part of the author, but from the unconscious self. He writes against a background that allows him to see only one side of any story, no matter how hard he strives for objectivity. The age in which he lives, the training given him during his boyhood, the family that has reared him, the society in which he functions-all these and a hundred more forces operate constantly to inject in him views and values of which he is scarcely aware. Prejudices rooted in group misconceptions are less easy to guard against than those originating in indivi dual bias. Yet these are the prejudices that appear on page after page of the textbooks used in today’s secondary schools. That they should appear so regularly in the schoolbooks of two countries that speak the same language and have enjoyed a long period of friendship testifies to their durability.
