Race, Culture and Curriculum Development in the USA: a study of the process of introducing a multicultural dimension into the curriculum

ABSTRACT

This study, based on the writer's participation in a curriculum development programme in a large school district in a city in the north‐east corner of the USA, examines the process by which groups described as minorities, particularly African‐Americans, seek to impact on mainstream school curricula. The context against which the study works is that of an African‐American community seeking to challenge the curriculum for the punitive effects it has on adolescents. The study is divided into three parts; it begins with a sociological profile of the city and its schools; a second part describes the key phases through which the consultation process of the Education Board moves; and a final part examines the issues which arise in the consultation. The paper argues that curriculum development in the USA, and the struggles which characterise such development, especially around the content of the curriculum, are emblematic of the contested nature of representation in the USA. How are the images and symbols purporting to stand for different groups constructed, and who controls the construction of such images? In focusing on process in curriculum development, the paper tries to show how dominant conceptions of multiculturalism which leave mainstream knowledge unproblematised, including its racial presumptions, have difficulty in engaging with the political and social context in which racism is produced. The outcomes, the paper argues, are accommodations which allow representations of excluded groups to be added to the dominant knowledge repertoire but which leave the social character of the repertoire itself unproblematised.