esther
At 12:00 AM 10/27/02 -0400, Teaching in the Psychological Sciences digest wrote:
The interesting question is the mindset of whoever is in charge of determining textbook cover art. What we've established is that the author may not be responsible, and in the Gazzaniga textbook case discussed, the cover shows a white woman beating two others, one black, one white. We've also established that in track-and-field, neither blacks nor whites dominate. All of that is educational, and I'm glad we have this thread to inform us.But the question remains. Why did someone think it was a good idea to put that particular illustration on the cover? Since it's introductory psychology and not exercise physiology, why a sports event? Why not a picture of a brain (especially appropriate for a Gazzaniga text), figure-ground or other psychological illusion, picture of Pavlov, Skinner, Freud, a cute baby or a happy family? If it had to be a an athletic depiction, why choose one in which one individual, especially one whose race is obvious, triumphs over another? Why not choose one emphasizing teamwork (black and white women pulling together in a tug-of-war, black woman handing a baton off to a white woman in a relay race, black and white women climbing together)? Why choose a divisive depiction which is guaranteed to raise questions about its significance and in which the selector has to make a decision: whom do we depict winning? And why only show women, anyway? This suggests to me that a content analysis of cover art of psychology textbooks is overdue. And I have a lurking suspicion, although I admit it's far-fetched. What if whoever was responsible for this textbook cover decided it was a clever idea to produce it in different versions to target different markets? Is it possible there's a version out there in which a black woman beats a white? Far- fetched perhaps, but not beyond the overheated imagination of marketing specialists. Stephen ______________________________________________________________ Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470 Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661 Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7 Canada
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