Vestigial Eugenics in World History Curriculum: How Racial Science Structures Narratives of Development and Modernity

• In Event: Epistemic Responsibility and Sense-Making With Multiple Epistemologies in Social Studies Education

Abstract

Objectives
Using discourse analysis, this paper traces the persistence of eugenics and theories of racial development through the spatial and temporal location of reason in the world history sections of California’s history/social science k-12 framework (2016). This paper excavates how scientific racism has become embedded into the curriculum, asking, “Where do we see vestiges of racist science reproduced in California’s history/social science framework?”

Theoretical Perspectives
Foucault’s (1970/1994) work on the archaeology of discourse in social science serves as the theoretical and methodological foundation for this study. By mining underlying linguistic structures, archaeology reveals the messy underside beneath the appearance of clean scientific objective narrative prose in history. Examining discourse can expose a level of structure that points to often unintended effects. In this case, the persistence of eugenics and racist ideologies of development. The analysis of the curriculum framework is supported by postcolonial critiques of modernity and development (Bhabha, 1994; Trouillot, 2003), alongside research on racial and colonial ideologies in social sciences. I turn to Terrence Keel’s (2018) examination of enduring Christian thought in racial theories of development, and Thomas McCarthy’s (2009) work on ideologies of race and empire, to make sense of patterns in the framework’s discourse.

Data Sources and Methods
This study focuses on California’s k-12 history/social science framework, updated in 2016. The framework is a guide for suggesting how to apply the state standards in classroom practice. The analysis focuses on the three grades in the framework focused on world history and geography, in grades six, seven, and ten. Methods stem from other works in critical discourse analysis within curriculum studies (Bazzul, 2014; Winter, 2018), and discourse analysis research on race (van Dijk,1993; Santa Ana, 2002). Saldaña’s (2009) qualitative research methods guided coding to identify instances of racial ideology in the curriculum. I mapped references to thought/reason, human development, and modernity both temporally and spatially to determine patterns in discourse (Crampton, 2007; Leggs, 2007). I then applied work from postcolonial studies, anthropology, and development studies (Venkatesan & Yarrow, 2012) to analyze those patterns.

Results and Conclusions
Analysis revealed the persistence of racist scientific frameworks in how civilization, humanity, reason, and intelligence are articulated and circulated across grades six, seven and ten. The framework mirrors eugenic theories of racial development and cognitive capacity. This is further reflected in students learning ancient and non-European history in grades six and seven, while European intellectual innovation is reserved for the further developed tenth-grade student.
Discourse of non-European intelligence and development resembled the distinction between humans and early hominids, and between natural history and human history. Non-European peoples are presented as objects of Western epistemic terminology, used to classify earlier non-European forms of civilization.

Scholarly Significance
This study’s application of discourse analysis serves as a useful tool in continuing to improve curricular frameworks beyond static narratives that reproduce outdated ideologies of race and human development. The study directs social science education towards helping students confront history’s scientific overlaps with eugenics, and how some of that ideology has persisted today.

Author

• Tadashi Dozono, California State University - Channel Islands