Teaching black history as a racial literacy project

Abstract

Scholars have long promoted black history as an appropriate space to promote the development of racial literacy. Few research studies, however, have examined how teacher education uses black history as a heuristic to teach about race. Using racial literacy as a framework, this article examined the varied ways four social studies pre-service teachers interpret and taught race through black history. The pre-service teachers were aided by a black history summer reading program dedicated to help them gain the necessary knowledge to teach race through black history. The findings indicated that the pre-service teachers taught race and black history more critical than traditional US history classes but were limited in their presentation of black history and race.

Keywords:

• Racial literacy
• black history
• social studies education

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Andrea Hawkman, Susan Cridland-Hughes, Billy Smith, and Anthony Brown for their thoughtful and critical comments throughout various stages of this manuscript.