Race Research

The multiculturalists have brought race research center stage in the field of curriculum studies. They argue that the U.S. experience is not exclusively European. They have demanded rethinking and redoing of the texts, the pedagogy, and the power arrangements of schools and classrooms. Exclusion and hegemony are central to their concerns.

Race “research” has historically been dominated by those trying to establish hierarchy and genetic inferiority. Educational policy and curriculum theorizing were shaped by the early “scientific” research on race. “Justifications” of the “inferiority” of colored peoples and eugenics were sown into the school curriculum and especially the testing movement. The recent demands of urban education, civil rights, and multiculturalism have given rise to new research paradigms. Race research cannot be examined apart from its sociopolitical, ...