Police as "Helpers": Social Studies Content Standards and Dominant Narratives of Law Enforcement

• In Event: Interrogating Systemic Inequity: From Standards to K–12 Spaces

Abstract

Perceptions about the police are a profound source of division in the United States. This study investigates the extent to which the origins of this division might be tied to social studies teaching standards in US schools. Ultimately, we argue that there exists a significant misalignment between the experiences with law enforcement in Black and Brown communities and its portrayal in K-12 social studies classrooms. Among marginalized groups, police are often viewed as illegitimate, perpetually violent, and a powerful component of systems of oppression. In History standards however, law enforcement is rendered legitimate, its violence is contained to a distant past, and it is a functional entity, abstracted from larger systems of oppression.

Authors

• Suneal H. Kolluri, University of California - Riverside

• Kimberly Young, University of California Los Angeles