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Explore and Focus Your Cultural Lens Debate: Should Ethnic Studies…
Explore and Focus Your Cultural Lens
Debate: Should Ethnic Studies Be Required?
During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, students at San Francisco State University and the University of California, Berkeley led the movement to demand courses in ethnic studies that would be taught from the lens of the ethnic group rather than a Eurocentric perspective. These protests resulted in the addition of courses and programs at colleges and universities across the country in African American, Asian American, Hispanic, and American Indian studies. Some school districts followed suit, offering courses related to specific ethnic and cultural groups.
By 2013, students in California’s state universities were protesting budget cuts that were eliminating ethnic studies courses and faculty. A similar pattern was occurring in high schools. In 2010, the governor of Arizona signed a bill banning the teaching of ethnic studies programs that are designed for a particular group or advocate ethnic solidarity, but an Arizona judge found in 2017 that the ban was unconstitutional. Taking an opposite approach, the El Rancho school district in California 2014 adopted a requirement that all of its students take an ethnic studies course before graduation. Following El Rancho’s lead, California will require all students to complete an ethnic studies course by the 2023-2024 school year. What are the rationales for supporting or not supporting ethnic studies in a school or university? Do you think an ethnic studies course should be required of all high school students? Why or why not?
FOR
Ethnic studies courses help make the curriculum more relevant to students from different ethnic groups.
Ethnic studies courses teach about long-neglected ethnic groups in the United States.
Ethnic studies courses allow students from the group being studied and students from other ethnic groups to explore different perspectives on the histories and literature of a group.
Ethnic studies courses help students develop empathy toward other groups.
All students can benefit from learning the culture, history, literature, and experiences of ethnic groups different from their own.
AGAINST
It is wrong to teach students separately based on their ethnic group membership.
Ethnic studies courses are divisive and foster resentment among students.
Teachers of ethnic studies courses indoctrinate students with anti-American ideas and anti-patriotism.
Ethnic studies courses foster hostility toward U.S. society.
Ethnic studies courses encourage students whose ethnic group is being studied to see themselves as victims.
Questions for Discussion
1. How do European American groups fit into ethnic studies?
2. Whose ethnic groups and cultures are best represented in the curriculum used by most schools? What ethnic and other cultural groups are seldom found in the curriculum? What are the reasons for these disparities?
3. How do the personal perspectives and biases of authors impact the content of textbooks and curriculum? What is important about hearing the perspectives of different ethnic groups?
