What’s in a Black History Course? An Examination of High School Black History Syllabi

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Designing Curriculum and Instruction Within Contested Histories and Policies (Table 13)

Abstract

At the center of the CRT and woke education debates has been Black history education. Several states have banned certain phrases to be taught such as systemic racism, racial inequity, and White supremacy. If teachers strictly abide by the language of these laws, teaching critical Black and racial histories becomes extremely difficult because those concepts are salient to understanding history’s connectedness to the present. However, major research studies on Black history education in schools speaks the opposite of the current political debates. What is important to us, however, is that we know little about what is actually taught in high school level Black history classrooms. Therefore, we examine how teachers design high school Black history courses.

Authors

• Greg Simmons, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• LaGarrett J. King, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Dawnavyn James, University at Buffalo - SUNY