Big History Project and Colonizing Knowledges in World History Curriculum

• In Event: 25.086 - Sheraton Roundtable Session One - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 25.086-5 - Change

Abstract

This empirical study uses content and frequency analysis to investigate how the Big History Project (BHP) online curriculum represents different racial and cultural groups within its units fusing science and history. The prevalence of a Western Civilizations perspective in curricula offers a challenging irony: that world history could be culturally irrelevant, or inaccurate, for non-Europeans. Drawing on Indigenous, postcolonial and critical social studies scholarship, this study offers a new framework identifying five attributes of a Eurocentric World History curriculum and uses it to analyze BHP. Findings reveal that BHP materials promote Eurocentrism through its content and source selections, across all five attributes of the framework. Implications for curriculum and pedagogy in the social and natural sciences are discussed.

Author

• Jenni Conrad, University of Washington - Seattle