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Language Police: Restricting What We learn

May 6, 2003
Diane Ravitch professor, education, New York University

Diane Ravitch discusses her latest book The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn. Ravitch maintains that America's students are compelled to read texts that have been censored by publishers who willingly cut controversial material from their books. Her book documents the existence of an elaborate and well established protocol of beneficent censorship, quietly endorsed and implemented by test makers and textbook publishers, states, and the federal government. School boards and sensitivity committees review, abridge, and modify texts to delete potentially offensive words, topics, and imagery. Publishers practice self-censorship to sell books in big states.

WGBH
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Image of The Language Police:  How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn
Author: Diane Ravitch
Publisher: Knopf (2003)
Binding: Hardcover, 272 pages
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Binding: Paperback, 560 pages
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Binding: Paperback, 488 pages
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Publisher: Harper Paperbacks (2000)
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Binding: Paperback, 400 pages