Policy and Prejudice: An Analysis of Teaching and Learning in U.S. History Classes

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: CERECG SIG Round Table 7: Critical Considerations in Teaching, Learning, and Policy (Table 3)

Abstract

This research interrogates U.S. History disparities related to race, gender, and class within three critical components of New York City’s public education used to establish core learning: the instructional framework, the curriculum content, and the standardized assessments. The paper investigates education as a fundamental and civil right by highlighting the narratives and perspectives of priority that emerge. The research makes visible salient themes within the curriculum and testing, including enacted and espoused values, common law, racialized histories and hierarchies, and social capitalism. Preliminary findings reveal major disparities within the prioritized topics and provide cause to explore contemporary definitions of achievement and the curriculum content that sustains those definitions.

Author

• Tanishia Lavette Williams, Brandeis University