“It Kind of Opened My Eyes”: Counternarrative in Critical Historical Inquiry

• In Event: Critical Histories and Racial Consciousness: Exploring Power, Pedagogy, and Representation in Social Studies Education

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of a incorporating counternarrative into technology-assisted historical inquiry into redlining. In a weeklong curricular intervention for high school sophomores, students used an AI-modeling platform to investigate hundreds of primary sources from the HOLC’s “residential security maps” in the 1930s, coupled with investigations of scholarly and first-hand neighborhood descriptions. They then examined the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago. I asked: How did student inquiry with Bronzeville as a counternarrative influence their understandings of the role of race both historically and in current society? Initial data analysis has highlighted that the example of Bronzeville led students to question their previous understanding of “redlined” neighborhoods and to emphasize the importance of multiple perspectives.

Author

• Victoria Newton, North Carolina State University