The Construction of Africa in American High school Social Studies Textbooks

• In Event: Critical pedagogy and curriculum

Proposal

This research set out to explore the images of Africa conveyed in American high school social studies textbooks. Social studies is a field that includes academic subjects such as history, geography, anthropology, sociology, and economics. A series of questions guides my inquiry: What are the images of Africa running across social studies textbooks in American high school social studies textbooks? How culturally responsive are they? What is the overall place of Africa in the high school curriculum and what are the implications for diversity and global cultural competence?
Understanding Africans and their culture is the direction to go, not only for the achievement of a diverse society, but also for a stronger and healthier community as children from Africa will benefit from a free space in schools, which will, no doubt, further their educational achievement. American – born students also need a more sophisticated understanding of other cultures in order to attain global cultural competence. Teachers can only teach what they know. With the centrality of the textbook in what gets taught and learned in schools, we are wise to take a look at how America portrays “others” in its high school social studies textbooks.

Theoretical Framework
Mclaren (1989) contends that “knowledge acquired in school --or anywhere, for that matter, is never neutral or objective but is ordered and structured in a certain way” (p. 169). Raymond Williams (1977), maintains that the world functions on the mode of the selective tradition. This observation is predicated on the fact that interpretation and revisionism are ever present in the re- presentation of historical facts, depending on the balance of power relationship of the moment.
Although Cornbleth (1997) acknowledges the progress made in the broadening and the expanding of history in the American school curriculum, she castigates the exclusion, the marginal inclusion or the segregation of many peoples who are part of the American polity, and who are thus perceived as the others. In Dorliae (1998)’s view, that such segregation extends to other cultures of the world, and to Africa, is not surprising. Cornbleth complains about issues related to the differential treatment reserved to the African Americans, Native Americans, Puerto-Ricans… as opposed to the mainstream Caucasian group.
Among scholars of school knowledge, a good many have already insisted on the centrality of textbooks in education and have embarked upon a serious reflection of its nature and purpose as well as its relation to the construction of school knowledge. In this view, textbooks are crucial and they are seen as a powerful teaching tool with their content being decisive in what teachers teach in schools (Altbach, 1991). With regard to this unique role, Apple (1991) cautions us against looking at them as a neutral set of “that’s, how’s, and to’s” but as knowledge related to conflicts and compromises over power and control. In this view, although the textbook is a commodity, it is best seen as a regulated one because ‘decisions concerning it are usually conditioned by government policies. These policies are part of the political processes of adjudicating among the claims of different class, race, gender, and religious groups. Textbooks are about valuation in essence, and can never be impartial. They do not simply teach facts and skills as Romanowski (1996) adeptly remarked. To a significant extent, textbooks define and determine what is important in American history.
Anyon (1981), as for her, insists on the reproductive nature of knowledge, referring to aspects of school knowledge that contribute directly to the legitimation and perpetuation of ideologies, practices, privileges consistent with present economic and political structures. As can be seen, many authors have captured the political economy of school knowledge which is more than a technical tool kit. It is basically an ideological stock.
Another theory that can account for the treatment of Africa as the other is Orientalism (Said, 1978) that decries the fact that the West has always constructed the rest in negative terms, reflecting how it might want to see the other, not actually what the rest of the world is.

Method

This research took place during the fall of 2016 semester and was conducted in seven school districts of the Fox Valley Region in Wisconsin. It consisted of library research, document analysis, and interviews of ten participants (seven social studies teachers and three administrators. I initially planned on interviewing a social studies specialist in the Department of Public Instruction at Madison. Unfortunately, she took a job out of state. So, I increased the number of administrators (curriculum directors and principals in the area) to interview and they provided me with informative documents.
Recommendations:
1. Encourage students to travel to Africa to get immersed in African realities
2. Use more supplemental material to mitigate the limitations of textbook
3. Make use of guest speakers (African families & American-born who have lived in Africa)
4. Teach the whole Africa (warts and all)
5. Write to textbook publishers to draw their attention on insensitive comments or errors
6. Adopt culturally responsive teaching
7. Embrace UDL(Universal Design for Learning)
8. Invest the school boards & political activism

Conclusion
The examination of African images in American school social studies textbooks leads to less than satisfactory conclusions. Unacceptable errors or omissions are dished out to a still impressionable youth. Textbooks are frequently the student’s major source of information on a particular subject taught in school, and may even constitute the only exposure the student receives on a given topic within a subject area. Playing such a central role in the dispensation of knowledge, the content of textbooks becomes a critical issue. (p. 11)
It is expected that this research will sound the alarm bell of curriculum designers and teachers as (multi)cultural workers (Freire, 2002) who will resolve to take a serious look at what is written about Africa, and about other cultures in general. American schools are experiencing an unprecedented influx of African immigrants who have settled in the US after generally excruciating conditions.

Author

• Herve Touorizou Some, Ripon College