From Critical Reading to Critical Consciousness: Toward a Decolonizing Curriculum

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 11:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Agency as decolonial praxis in curriculum

Abstract

This study analyzes how a widely used U.S. history lesson plan reproduces colonial narratives through its curricular framing, source selection, and pedagogical design. Using Critical Discourse Analysis, we examine how the lesson obscures systems of power and historical silencing by treating imperial violence as an individual moral dilemma rather than a structural phenomenon. Grounded in Freire’s critical pedagogy and Trouillot’s framework of historical silencing, our analysis highlights how curriculum can enact epistemic violence even while employing best practices in disciplinary literacy in history education. We argue for a decolonizing approach to curriculum that centers marginalized histories and cultivates students’ critical consciousness about power, oppression, and silencing.

Keywords: coloniality; curriculum; critical discourse analysis; decolonization; critical consciousness

Authors

• Elizabeth Isidro, Western Michigan University

• Eric Claravall, California State University - Sacramento