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This study reports on an inductive, qualitative content analysis exploring depictions of the United States and U.S. citizens in translated, international literature for children. The sample included 18 titles recognized with the Batchelder Award or Honor, a recognition given to U.S. publishers who translate and publish outstanding children’s literature with international origins. The study was situated within the framework of cosmopolitanism, a theoretical perspective acknowledging the importance of local values, culture, and traditions while embracing the global and the unfamiliar. Findings revealed depictions of the United States on the local level as a destination, refuge, and glamorized place of diversity. On the global level, the United States was portrayed as a world power with regard to its military, economics, media, and culture. These findings promote perspective taking and critical literacy as they offer a window for U.S. students into how people from other nations perceive their country.

This is a comparative case study of how three high school history teachers in the U.S.A. use art in their practice. The following research question was investigated: How do secondary history teachers incorporate the arts—paintings, music, poems, novels, and films—in their teaching of history and why? Data were collected from three sources: interviews, observations, and classroom materials. Grounded theory was utilized to analyze the data. Findings suggest these teachers use the arts as historical evidence roughly for three purposes: First, to teach the spirit of an age; second, to teach the history of ordinary people invisible in official historical records; and third, to teach, both with and without art, the process of writing history. Two of the three teachers, however, failed to teach historical thinking skills through art.