Abstract

This article explores how a curricular intervention that merges antiessentialist historical content and historical inquiry plays a role in how students complicate the narrative of racial progress. The 3-day curricular intervention centers on Mendez v. Westminster, a case about 1940s Mexican American school segregation. The content and historical inquiry activities explore how (a) Mexican Americans claimed legal Whiteness to gain access to better schools and (b) how Mendez upheld race and language-based segregation. This article outlines how students engage in 4 levels of historical analysis: evidenceless claims, emerging complexity, relational analysis, and multidimensionality. In each type of analysis, students use the antiessentialist historical content to complicate the narrative of racial progress. They highlight, to different degrees, how racial discriminatory policies adapt to continue upholding discrimination. With the antiessentialist historical content in place, the narrative of racial progress functioned as a template, not to emulate but, rather, as a point of comparison. It encouraged students to engage in a complex analysis where they considered how Mendez was an incomplete victory. This research provides insight into levels of analysis that up to now have mostly been theoretical. The larger lesson here, as it applies to how educators teach history, is that (a) the experiences of people of color cannot be essentialized, (b) inquiry can be a useful tool in encouraging historical reasoning that considers such racial/ethnic nuance, and (c) collective memory might be leveraged to encourage students to develop such relational analysis.

摘要

本文探讨了将反本质主义的历史内容和历史探究相结合的课程干预如何在学生如何使种族进步的叙述复杂化中发挥作用。为期3天的课程干预以Mendez诉Westminster一案为中心，该案涉及1940年代的墨西哥裔美国人学校隔离。内容和历史探究活动探讨了（a）墨西哥裔美国人如何获得合法的白人身份才能获得更好的学校服务；以及（b）Mendez如何坚持种族和基于语言的隔离。本文概述了学生如何进行历史分析的四个层次：无证据的主张，新出现的复杂性，关系分析和多维性。在每种类型的分析中，学生都使用反本质主义的历史内容来使种族进步的叙述复杂化。他们在不同程度上强调了种族歧视政策如何适应继续坚持歧视的思想。有了反本质主义的历史内容，种族进步的叙述就起到了模板的作用，而不是模仿，而是作为比较点。它鼓励学生进行复杂的分析，其中他们考虑了门德斯是一次不完全的胜利。这项研究提供了对直到现在大多数都是理论上的分析水平的见解。在这方面，适用于教育者如何教授历史的更大的一课是：（a）有色人种的经验不能得到应有的重视；（b）探究可以成为鼓励考虑这种种族/民族差异的历史推理的有用工具， （c）可以利用集体记忆来鼓励学生发展这种关系分析。