Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Spring 1976
Abstract
The teacher had assigned Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink to a reading group in her fifth grade classroom. That evening an irate parent, a local police officer, telephoned the teacher at home demanding to know why his son was reading a "girl's book." When he was assured that his son could substitute another book for the class assignment, the matter was smoothed over. Several days later, with his mother's encouragement, the boy had begun to read the story and confessed to the teacher that it really was a good story—even if Caddie was a girl! This incident, the only reported example of parental response to the program to be described in this article, comments on the unwitting bias of the literature to which the school has exposed students (and parents). The incident further suggests how an intervention program in sex-role socialization may accomplish its goals with the help of good materials.