Standardizing Racism: An Application of Critical Race Theory to Texas Middle School History Standards

• In Event: Millennium Hotel Roundtable Session 16
  In Roundtable Session: Racing Minds: Curriculum Scholars Making Sense of Race, Gender, and Pedagogies of Justice

Abstract

The State of Texas requires public middle schools to teach an eighth-grade history course in accordance with the politically determined state standards. Analysis of the standards with the lens of critical race theory (CRT) reveals that the State silences the voices of generations of oppressed Blacks, Mexicans, and Mexican-Americans. In addition to denying minority Texan students the social, economic, and political history of their forebears, the standards also exclude the voices of slave owners and the perpetrators of lynching against both Blacks and Mexicans in Texas. Hence the standards deny any positive history of non-White actors while concealing the history of moral failings of White actors. Social justice and the identity development of adolescent students of color demand change.

Authors

• Reagan Mason, Texas Tech University

• Jeong-Hee Kim, Texas Tech University