Using Critical Race Theory to Revolutionize the Curriculum in Elementary School

• In Event: Revolutionizing Curricula Through Collective Consciousness

Abstract

This paper shows how Critical Race Theory (CRT) can be used in elementary school. I draw on Solórzano’s (1998) approach to CRT methodology and Berry and Stovall’s (2013) notion of revolutionizing the curriculum to show how CRT can help teachers develop students’ racial literacy—the ability to understand the connection between individual, institutional, and structural forms of racism (Guinier, 2004). Based on a collaborative, critical race ethnography at an public elementary school, I share examples of two teachers who used the elements of CRT methodology to transform the standard curriculum for purposes of racial literacy. By centering race in race-neutral curriculum, they helped their students disrupt dominant narratives about people of color and develop their own social justice commitments.

Author

• Benjamin Blaisdell, East Carolina University
  Presenting Author