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There is a general consensus among U.S. scholars that as the world becomes more interconnected and American society more religiously diverse, students need a basic working knowledge of the world’s religions. As one scholar writes, such instruction is “an integral part of education for democratic citizenship in a pluralistic society.” It is equally clear that in the public school context, coverage of religion must be presented in a balanced and non-confessional way, so as not to violate First Amendment protections against government favoring one religion over others.
Texas does not currently require public school students to take a dedicated course in world religions. Instead, instruction about religion falls within the social studies curriculum—a broad category that includes history, geography, government, psychology, sociology, and economics. Coverage of religion is largely restricted to three social studies courses: middle school social studies (essentially a world geography course), high school world geography, and high school world history.
While the curriculum standards for the middle school course set few requirements for religion coverage, the standards for the two high school courses require that students learn about specific world religions; as will be discussed below, however, the list of religions in the world geography standards differs from that in the world history standards. Several of the world geography and world history instructional materials (IMs) approved for use in Texas include a “World Religions Handbook” feature that offers brief summaries of the major characteristics of the world’s religions. Other adopted IMs distribute information about religion throughout the text.
Although Texas is to be applauded for including religion in its curriculum, its current approach, as this report seeks to show, fails to offer public school students the balanced coverage of religion they need in order to fully understand the world and function effectively in an increasingly diverse society.
This imbalance involves two major players—the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) and the publishers of social studies IMs—and is manifested in two distinct but related areas of the social studies curriculum: the curriculum standards (the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, or TEKS) and the social studies IMs approved for use in Texas public schools beginning in 2015.
The SBOE, the main policymaking body in Texas public education, established the social studies TEKS in 2010. The TEKS specify what teachers are to teach and students are to learn, and thus set the criteria which IMs must meet. The SBOE also oversees the evaluation and adoption of IMs for use in Texas public school classrooms. Publishers seeking to have their IMs approved for use in Texas must demonstrate how their products satisfy each of the pertinent TEKS standards. They also are required to correct any factual errors identified in the evaluation process, and must respond to all comments submitted to the SBOE by members of the public.
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