African Case

Many textbooks in the past never game very much information about black families. Some research has indicated that black families may be more similar to American families then most people think. The differences in family structure among blacks may be a matter of socioeconomic status. There are 3 perspectives that black families have been categorized. The first one is cultural deviant which views black families as pathological. The second is the cultural equivalent view, which highlights similarities between black and white families. It also suggests that black and white families differences are social class distinctions. The cultural variant view has been neglected by a lot of researchers. In order to locate material on black families in these 25 books you're had to look in the index for key words. The number of pages devoted to black families was counted because they were only allowed to have a certain number of pages. Each of the 25 textbooks was evaluated to see which books were deviant or equivalent in their prospective. A text was classified as deviant if the author only talked about black families being dysfucntional. Texts were assigned to the cultural equivalent perspective if they "discussed black families under categories other than those suggesting dysfunction;(b) attributed differences in functioning and structure of black and white famines to causes other than race;(c) refuted the deviance perspective, and (d) cited search by scholars who take the cultural equivalent approach to the study of black families"(256 Bryant and Coleman). Out of the 25 books 5 devoted less than a page to black families and only 2 presented entire chapters on black family life. With very little information presented about black families the readers of these books may be left with the idea that black families are dysfunctional. 12 of the textbooks were cultural equivalent and 4 textbooks went back and forth between the cultural equivalent and cultural deviance perspectives. The textbooks that appear to talk about the relationships and families of black people are those that talk about black families form a nonpejorative perspective, offer diverse material about black families, and talk about the most recent information available. Today, textbooks are generally including more information about blacks in the introductory course in marriage and family. The teachers however need to be aware of the history of black family life in order to select the best textbooks to give to their students. Also teachers needs to change their own stereotypes.