Curricular Integration

Historical Context

Roots of today's efforts to integrate content by and about historically marginalized groups can be traced back at least a century. Early work in ethnic studies, led primarily by African American scholars such as W. E. B. Du Bois, began in the latter part of the 1800s. Their writings about historical experiences of African Americans were used in schools that African American communities established for their own children. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, scholars such as Carter G. Woodson actively promoted study of African American history and life through venues such as research, establishment of publications like the Journal of Negro History, and establishment of Negro History Week (which later became African American History Month).

Intergroup education was developed after World War II, primarily by white progressive educators and social scientists to improve relationships among diverse racial/ethnic and religious groups. Activities in schools focused on cultivation of democratic attitudes, prejudice reduction by teaching about diverse groups, development of cross-racial relationships and communication, and work in communities to address social problems.

In the wake of the civil rights movement and school desegregation in the 1960s and 1970s, students, educators, and parents drew on these historical antecedents in their demands for curriculum change. African American parents and educators, joined later by Mexican American, Puerto Rican, American Indian, and Asian American parents and educators, were deeply concerned that their children were being sent to schools that taught an all-white curriculum and in which the teachers and white students were ignorant of communities of color. Community members and students began to pressure schools and universities to create curriculum that teaches ethnic minority group histories and cultures. Beginning with San Francisco State University in 1968, ethnic studies [Page 651]spread rapidly across the country. Although student demands were most pronounced at the university level, there were also demands by secondary school students for a relevant curriculum, such as the Chicano student walkouts in Los Angeles in 1968.

An elementary school class studies botanical specimens at the United States Indian School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, In 1901. By the 1970s and 1980s, textbooks were published for elementary and secondary schools drew on scholarship about ethnicity and involved local communities in helping create curriculum drawing on community knowledge and history. This curricular integration also included African American literature text in high schools.

Ethnic studies and women's studies at the university level became very important to curricular integration by providing a vibrant context for ethnic and women's studies research. Many scholars became involved in archival work of piecing together histories of marginalized groups, and reinterpreting the disciplines from specific groups’ perspectives. For example, African American literary theorists compiled literature written by African Americans, then began to theorize about literature from the vantage point of this body of work. Women scientists began to compile biographies of women in math and science, as well as analyses of how traditional math and science curricula fail to encourage girls.

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