20.
the coverage of politics is exceedingly superficial. In almost all social studies surveys the approach to politics is wholly structural. Features of political organization that have no Euroamerican counterparts are usually ignored, as are how the political structures are integrated with African sociocultural context and how personnel are recruited to fill political positions.
In American children's books-that appear in social studies survey series the concept of political process seems to be absent. Where the structure of the colonial government is mentioned, which it often is not, the two structures are briefly described without mention of how the change occurred when the colonial structure was replaced by the independence structure. These descriptions typically involve only a manipulation of labels such as "parliament," monarchyhy" "one party state" etc, without any details. Mention of preindependence African political organization is almost always ignored in the chapter on government unless a "chief" or "chiefs" were incorporated into the government at independence. However, in the chapter on "tribes" and their customs some facets of preindependence political organization may be mentioned, but their contemporary relevance is neither mentioned nor discussed. In this chapter on "tribes" and their customs it is also sometimes stated that there
was no ''tribal' government or political organization.
Although details of how contemporary governments function are typically not included, mention of their failures to function (from the author's perspective) are almost always enumerated. Thus in Benin (Chicago: Children's Press, 1978) by Allan Carpenter, for example, the series of post independence coups is enumerated without any background for understanding their causes or consequences. In general, coups are presented in children's books as "bad" events which disrupt political structure, rather than as part of political processes characteristic of postcolonial politics as European-derived political structures are adapted to African sociopolitical realities. The authors universally seem to assume that the only appropriate type of government is a stable government.
For the most part, presentations of African governments in social studies surveys are depersonalized, with the exception of the mention of names of nationalist leaders at the time of independence, or of the current heads of state. However, these surveys are so short that the political roles of independence leaders and current heads of state are neither enumerated nor described.
Biographies of Political Leaders
Biographies of political leaders usually include more information about political structure and political process in African nations than do social studies surveys. However, very few biographies of African political leaders have been written for American children.3 Those which are available usually focus on leaders of English speaking African nations at the time of independence who have become internationally prominent, such as Kenneth Kaunda, Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, and Haile Selassie. Patrice Lumumba is the only political leader outside of English-speaking Africa who is the subject of a book-length biography written for American children.