TITLE: Color in the Classroom: A Historical Perspective on How Schools Teach “Race”

DATE: March 22, 2013

TIME: 8:30am - 3:00pm

LOCATION: University Hall, ADP Center, Room 1143

INSTRUCTOR: Zoë Burkholder, Ph.D.

This class uses a historical perspective to analyze the changing ways that teachers have understood and taught about race, from 1900 to the present. We will examine texts written by teachers in the early 20th century who puzzled over the racial traits of Irish, Italian, and Russian children—each viewed as distinct “racial” groups with corresponding patterns of intelligence and behavior. Moving forward in time, we will consider how and why World War II prompted educators to adopt a more rigorous, scientific definition of race in American schools, one that restricted “race” to the more specific categories of Caucasian (a new term), Negroid, and Mongolian. Participants will examine historical documents, including comics and filmstrips designed to teach scientific definitions of race to students in the 1940s. Finally, we will consider the different ways that schools create and disseminate ideas about the meaning of race and the muted rules of racial etiquette in recent years. In conclusion, we will discuss possibilities for antiracist teaching and using schools to promote social justice in the 21st century.

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