Operationalizing the Alternative Black Curriculum in Social Studies: A Case Study of the Curriculum of the National Training School for Women and Girls

• In Event: A Theoretical Toolbox: Using Theories of Gender and Sexuality to Uncover New Histories of Education

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to develop a case study of the social studies curriculum for National Training School for Women and Girls (NTS). In 1909, Nannie H. Burroughs established this school with the explicit purpose of developing and nurturing African-American girls. The intent of my paper is to study how the alternative black curriculum in social studies was implemented in a school setting.

As I am interested in studying the experience of African-American women with a theoretical perspective that combines critical race theory and feminism, I turned to the work of Evelyn Nakano Glenn. Evelyn Nakano Glenn developed an integrated framework to study the lives of women of color during the period of Reconstruction. Nakano Glenn stated:

Within this integrated framework, race and gender share three key features as analytic concepts: (1) they are relational concepts whose construction involves (2) representation and material relations and (3) in which power is a constitutive element.

Nakano Glenn’s work provides me a framework to analyze the work of Nannie Helen Burroughs with an eye to how the relational constructs of gender and race affected her leadership.

I will use historical research as the methodology for this paper. Historical research does not fit neatly into categories defined in the field of education. Referring to a meeting of prominent historians, Ruben Donato and Marvin Lazerson stated:
The discussions raised a central challenge to being a historian of education: The dilemma of having to talk simultaneously to educational professionals and practitioners, educational researchers, and historians.

In proposing this research design I am also creating an interdisciplinary methodology which endeavors to address multiple audiences. This audience includes historians, education historians, social studies researchers, curriculum developers, and teachers.

I intend to examine lesson plans, school schedules, speeches, and faculty minutes with the purpose of dissecting Nannie Helen Burroughs’s vision for infusing black history into the social studies curriculum. I would like to analyze how Nannie Helen Burroughs worked with her classroom teachers to manage the process of rethinking the social studies curriculum to include a more comprehensive understanding of black history. I will consider how curriculum and pedagogy served to strengthen the students attending NTS.
In my analysis of the documents I aim to create a narrative about how instruction occurred at NTS. My results will explore the issues and tensions that emerged between the administration and the teaching staff in the building as Nannie H. Burroughs envisioned a curriculum which included the history of black people in the United States. In my work, I am attempting to create a narrative which enlivens the theoretical perspective of culturally relevant pedagogy. My contribution to the scholarship is the focus on how a women leader built a specific school culture which embraced black history as key to empowering young women.

Author

• Alana D. Murray, University of Maryland