Preparing Students to Disrupt and Reclaim Curriculum: Where Purpose and Perspective Collide

Ann Winfield, Roger Williams University
Alan Canestrari, Roger Williams University

This paper explores the role of history and social studies curriculum in shaping how members of society regard each other, group differences, truth, knowledge, the state, and historical narratives altogether. Responding to the extreme political and cultural polarization in the US and across the globe, we utilize a model of cultural history as a history of the present wherein reason itself is a cultural practice that defines problems and possibilities (Popkewitz, 2001). A history of the present understands that the relationship between the past and the present is porous: students who become adept at understanding the present through the lens of the past have more opportunity to develop agency and nuanced perspective. Social studies curriculum has long been subject to political and social context whose interest is the maintenance of the status quo through culturally reproductive approaches. We propose curricular adjustments that meet the demands of our time by preparing students to engage with the social fabric of which they are a part. Education that is reliant on memorization, on decontextualized bits of information designed for convenient testing and assessment, has led to Americans being radicalized on US soil, with government and institutions in their sights. Common understandings and historical perspectives have been usurped in the national consciousness by conspiracy theories and disinformation. How and why has this happened? School curriculum, implementation, and policy hold incalculable influence on virtually every member of society. Curriculum is not neutral. It is connected to disputed perspectives about the purpose of school and schooling. The social studies is where this nexus occurs. Popkewitz, T., Franklin, B. & Pereyra, M. (Ed.s). (2001). Cultural History and Education. New York: Routledge.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 38. Curriculum and Career, Discipline and Disruption