MULTICULTURALISM
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U.S. Kids Don't Know U.S. History: The NAEP Study, Perspectives, and Presuppositions.
Author: Gaudelli, William. Source: The Social Studies (Washington, D.C.) v. 93 no5 (Sept./Oct. 2002) p. 197-201 ISSN: 0037-7996 Number: BEDI02101781
MULTICULTURALISM
Multiculturalists argue that the curriculum, and particularly that of social studies, has distorted the contributions of historically oppressed groups for far too long. U.S. history teaching in the public schools has always margialized the stories of women, African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, lesbian and gay people, poor people, and other historically oppressed groups. Diverse narratives are crucial to multiculturalists, rather than the master narrative of U.S. history that perennialists typically advocated. Textbooks, teachers, materials, and curriculum authors have distorted, edited, and ignored those disparate voices in U.S. history, and it is the task of contemporary educators committed to social justice to "set the record straight." In his typology of knowledge bases (personal/cultural, popular, mainstream academic, transformative academic, and school), James Banks (1996. 9) suggests how those narratives might be woven into existing curriculum.
Multiculturalism is based on four presuppositional values with regard to curriculum: Human nature tends to be neutral, culture is outside the individual, consciousness should be focused on the past and present, and value is found in the mind and soul. Multiculturalists dwell on the misdeeds of misanthropes and the heights of heroism around issues of diversity. They admonish bigotry, racism, and sexism while heralding those who fought for rights, human dignity, and social justice. They are keenly aware of the balance between good and evil in the world and recognize that people have tendencies toward both ends of the spectrum. Multiculturalists assign great worth to the categories of social identity, as the groups to which one belongs shape one's worldview. They see culture as a social construct embodied within individuals with origins outside. Multiculturalists look to history, particularly oppression and persistent denials of basic human rights, as a point of contemporary critique. Although they are willing to identify those areas where progress has been made, they are likely to argue that progress toward social justice has been slow in coming and is a goal as yet unrealized. They argue that social justice can be reached through a merger of mind and soul, intellect and intent.
Multiculturalists would take some solace from the NAEP-US results, given the relative increase in scores of Latinos and African Americans, when compared to the increase in scores of their white peers. The persistence of an educational gap, evident in U.S. history and most other educational achievement studies, serves as further proof that equity has not yet been achieved in education. Multiculturalists might seek out more evidence about the increase in NAEP-US scores among minorities since 1994 to determine the extent to which more culturally relevant pedagogy may have improved the results (Ladson-Billings 1994). Similarly, they would argue that the master narrative-type U.S. history that perennialists advocate, which is still common in the United States today, may indeed be part of the explanation for the continued, if improving, poor performance of African Americans and Latino youths in studies such as these. NAEP-US may be grounds for renewed efforts to diversify the U.S. history curriculum so that it more accurately reflects the population of students currently being educated in schools.