Changes to the Advanced Placement African American Studies Curriculum: A Natural Language Processing Investigation (Poster 33)

• In Event: Saturday Poster Sessions 7:45 am
  In Poster Session: Innovations in Culturally Responsive and International Education

Abstract

The present study uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to analyze changes made by the College Board to their AP African American Studies curriculum. It finds that the updated version of the curriculum may have been influenced by political pressure from Florida and other states that have adopted measures against teaching "divisive" concepts. Findings illustrate how the updated version suppressed or removed important topics, themes, names, and sources relevant to the field of African American Studies. This work demonstrates the utility of NLP for critical inquiry into curriculum development in the humanities and social sciences, and highlights the need for future work on students’ learning outcomes, motivation and identity formation in response to curriculum contents.

Authors

• Joseph Burey, University of Minnesota

• Kyle Stagnaro, University of Minnesota

• Laura Allen, University of Minnesota

• Panayiota Kendeou, University of Minnesota