Textbook Representations and Teacher Understandings of Political Violence: Interrogating the Trail of Tears Narrative

• In Event: 16.024 - International Research on Teaching and Learning History: Findings From Belgium, Israel, Sweden, and the United States

Abstract

This paper examines four U.S. history textbook representations of violence associated with the forced migrations of indigenous peoples in the 1830s, and how high school teachers have understood and interrogated those narratives in their pedagogical practice. The research questions that have framed this investigation are: (1) How is the violence associated with this historical episode represented within the dominant narratives presented in the textbook accounts? (2) How do U.S. high school teachers accept, resist, and/or interrogate these narratives in their teaching of this chapter of American history? The investigation into this topic is part of a larger international research project that investigates how history education in the United States, Spain, and Colombia shapes understanding of political violence. The research team analyzed the textbook representations of these episodes and interviewed selected high school teachers from each of these countries about the ways they have understood and adapted these narratives in their classroom practice.

Three central findings emerged from the textbook analysis: the understating of political violence associated with the forced migration of Native American populations, the silencing of widespread non-violent resistance to these forced displacements, and the marginalization of this historical episode in the dominant narratives of the textbooks. A preliminary analysis of the interview data suggest a strong interest among teachers in wanting alternatives to the textbook accounts and a general interest by teachers to more explicitly explore the topic of violence in their teaching of American history, but they expressed a frustration about how to do this well.

These findings suggest the importance of how textbook narratives of violence about the past serve to shape national and civic identities in the present. Teachers who seek to interrogate and complicate these narratives lack the critical inquiry tools, scholarly resources, and institutional supports to do this effectively. At a time of increasing international contact and conflict, the national stories of our past demand a greater level of critical examination if we expect teachers to prepare students for informed participation in a changing world.

Authors

• Angela Bermudez, Harvard University

• Alan Stoskopf, University of Massachusetts - Boston