EDCI 585 Multicultural Education

Curricular Artifacts: Racism in Education

Brandy Mathewson

As I started researching for this assignment, I was at a loss as to where to even begin.

Then I remembered reading a discussion post about how a classmate didn’t actually learn about

the history of Thanksgiving in formal schooling and how others were posting about Native

Americans and the struggles that are overlooked. So, I decided to take a closer look at the Social

studies book, Our Community and Beyond, that I teach out of in my own first grade classroom as

my artifact. Using the lens of culture, race, and bias, I found an overarching theme in the first

unit to connect students with history, but at a surface level.

Throughout the unit the topics are: changes over time, special holidays, American heroes,

and sharing stories. In trying to get a grasp on what this actually means for a first grader, I

decided to start with the Indiana standards. Surprisingly, they are even more vague. The

following are two examples: 1.1.4 Identify local people from the past who have shown honesty,

courage, and responsibility (examples: war veterans and community leaders), and 1.1.5 Identify

people and events observed in national celebrations and holidays (examples: Thanksgiving;

Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Day; President’s Day; Independence Day; Arbor Day; and

Veterans’ Day).

Looking at the textbook, they have, for the most part, accomplished what these vague

standards have asked them to do within the content. Holidays included are: Dr. Martin Luther

King Jr., Day; Presidents’ Day; Independence Day; Cinco de Mayo; and Memorial Day. In

addition, they cover (national) heroes like: Honest Abe; Franklin D. Roosevelt; Harriet Tubman;

Dorothea Dix; and Mary McLeod Bethune. If I had a list, I could check off the expected learning
EDCI 585 Multicultural Education

outcomes (based on the state standards) and move on. However, according to Haviland (2008),

“multicultural education must go beyond the ‘contributions approach,’ which focuses on

inserting discrete ethnic ‘heroes, holidays, and discrete cultural elements’ (Banks & Banks,

2001) into the mainstream core curriculum because in this approach students see ethnic issues

and events as a sideline to the main story.” While Mcgraw-Hill has met the basics of the

standards, this is a range of topics covered in a fairly short period of time. Do they go beyond the

contributions approach? For example, how much meat is there when it comes to content,

including academic language, assumptions of what students already know, relation to student’s

historical and current culture, are different perspectives represented, and are there any bias on

race on the part of the authors of the textbook. Now granted, I do teach a first grade class, and

there is a limit to what five and six year olds should be exposed to and are able to rationalize. But

how effective are we at teaching them, on their level, about how their world came to be as we

currently know it?

At first glance at the content, it looked disjointed. The structure includes short paragraphs

with basic facts on each of the above people and topics in the order I presented them. In the

interest of this paper, I started looking at it with more of a multicultural view. One underlying

theme I see is slavery and the civil rights movement. President Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Martin

Luther King, Jr., Harriet Tubman, Dorethea Dix, and Mary McLeod Bethune are all credited

with being leaders in this movement, but it takes a minute to make the connection the way the

text is written. Not something a first grader would accomplish on their own. Haviland (2008)

refers to this a, “White educational discourse.” She defines it as, “a constellation of ways of

speaking, interacting, and thinking in which White teachers gloss over issues of race, racism, and

White supremacy in ways that reinforce the status quo, even when they have a stated desire to do
EDCI 585 Multicultural Education

the opposite.” In this case, the publisher McGraw-Hill Education paved the way to gloss over

this issue of race, and as a teacher I am guilty of following.

It also seems there are many assumptions on the part of the authors about what the

learner’s prior knowledge is, and their ability to understand the chosen vocabulary. For example,

the word slavery is used six times within the lessons and defined as, “when one person takes

away another person’s freedom.” What is freedom to a first grader, and who was considered a

slave? Nowhere does the text say anything about Africans, or even touch on skin color in this

section. This very powerful word ‘slavery’ takes a negative connotation in this lesson that is, if

the teacher leads the students to that conclusion, but doesn’t really define what slavery meant to

people; slaves as well as the people fighting in the Civil War. Civil War, that’s more vocabulary

that should be impactful, yet is glossed over in a one sentence definition. “People on two sides of

our country fought together against each other in a war called the Civil War.” That’s it. That’s all

the students get from the text about a major shift in U.S. history. It is also assumed that students

would be able to piece together events in time order. The text jumps around and makes it

difficult to see that many years take place as these leaders take action in the Civil Rights

Movement to make way for equal rights for all people.

Beyond being surface level and disjointed, I am wondering the intent of the authors

approach to race. While we see a negative depiction of slavery, the only other representation of

race is included in one paragraph about the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo. In a very stark

contrast to the dark serious pictures of people associated with civil rights, the picture for Cinco

de Mayo is very colorful, cherry and shows people dancing and enjoying each other. Cinco de

Mayo does celebrate Mexico winning a battle against France, but is not a major celebration in

Mexico. What may also be confusing to young learners is that both of these events involved a
EDCI 585 Multicultural Education

battle, yet only one seems to be celebrated. Why this stark contrast in cultures and why aren’t

any other cultures or races represented? Michael-Luna (2008), talks about how racial identities

are constructed through texts. She says, “The liberal policy of ‘colorblindness’ or ignoring race

has hidden racism in the shroud of individual acts rather than exposing institutional racism that

informs policy and practice of schooling.” (pp 287) By not addressing the issue of race head on

in Our Community and Beyond, it is in a sense ignoring it. Michael-Luna (2008) goes on to say,

“Schooling should be a place where students can see themselves and their ways of knowing in

the texts, practices, and peers. The first step to this is a deep analysis of the racial and cultural

connotations of text we currently call multicultural” (pp 291).

Through this critique of the social studies book, I can see several areas I need to be

mindful of in my teaching. Using this textbook alone would allow for many gaps and

misconception in my student’s learning. These misconceptions would take away from knowing

what the people of this country went through based on their race and how, through these major

events, lives including theirs will forever be changed in the ‘American’ culture. It also doesn’t

take into account related current events and link them to some of the struggles that still ensue all

of these years later. The standards themselves don’t touch on race, but I think the nature of

studding both historical and current events requires a deeper understanding of it in order for

students to understand how their cultural identity has been influenced or has influenced the world

they live in. It is also necessary to add to the chosen curriculum in order to include diversity and

a depth of knowledge that can be built on in subsequent years of schooling. Relying on

publishers does create an inherent bias when it comes to how race is portrayed, even

unknowingly, in the classroom. It also seems as if it leaves just a small window open into
EDCI 585 Multicultural Education

identifying with cultural identity and race as only a few stories are told and done so through this

somewhat ‘bias’ and seemingly ‘politically correct’ lens.

EDCI 585 Multicultural Education

Reference:

Banks, J. A., Colleary, K. P., Greenow, L., Parker, W. C., Schell, E. M., & Zike, D. (2014). Our

Community and Beyond. Columbus, OH, OH: McGraw-Hill Education.

Haviland, V. S. (2008). “Things get glossed over” rearticulating the silencing power of whiteness

in education. Journal of Teacher Education, 59(1), 40-54.

Michael-Luna, S. (2008). Todos Somos Blancos/We Are All White: Constructing Racial
Identities Through Texts. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 7(3-4), 272-293.
doi:10.1080/15348450802237913