Legislating Memory: How the Deep South Has Controlled Collective Remembering Through History Education

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 2:15 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Historical Inquiry

Abstract

The Deep South has a complicated connection with the history of our country. Therefore, how history is taught across the Deep South is also complicated, and has changed across the thirty years of standardization. In this time period, legislatures in these states have also attempted to control what is being taught in history classes through various proposed and enacted pieces of legislation. When analyzed together, legislation and academic standards have influenced what history is remembered or forgotten across the cultural region of the Deep South. This paper expands upon research conducted for a dissertation into how the Deep South has attempted to control the collective memory of its students - so that we can begin the process of “unforgetting” our history.

Author

• Katelyn Dodd, Independent Scholar