Should history be taught from the “perspective” of marginalized groups?
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  Should history be taught from the “perspective” of marginalized groups?
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Author Topic: Should history be taught from the “perspective” of marginalized groups?  (Read 1462 times)
All Along The Watchtower
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« on: June 07, 2021, 02:16:39 PM »

Huh
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RINO Tom
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« Reply #1 on: June 07, 2021, 03:39:50 PM »

History should actually be taught in the opposite way ... from the perspective of the dominant culture of a society.  Now, that does NOT mean sugar coating it or hush-hushing a nation's bad deeds.  Germans can be taught about the Holocaust from the perspective of how it is relevant to the German nation and the German ethnic group (without spending 3/4 of the "lesson" on the history of the Jewish or Romani people or something) without minimizing how horrible it was, and Americans can learn about slavery from an American perspective (without spending 3/4 of the lesson learning about the Bantu societies and cultures from which slaves were largely taken) while still acknowledging it as a stain on our nation's history.

To teach history from a perspective other than your nation's is ... quite strange.
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parochial boy
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« Reply #2 on: June 07, 2021, 05:52:47 PM »

Yes, but not exclusively. An actually worthwhile history curriculum would mean teaching it from multiple perspective.
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« Reply #3 on: June 07, 2021, 08:36:20 PM »

Sure, along with perspectives of the mainstream of society.  But as a part of this, recognizing that those in marginalized groups at any given time did not all share the same perspective.  & also that current social identity categories & their implications cannot just be imported back in time.
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Unconditional Surrender Truman
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« Reply #4 on: June 08, 2021, 12:24:29 AM »

Shua has got the right idea on this, I think. Particularly in a pluralistic society like the U.S., it makes little sense to teach American history from the perspective of a single ethnic group —especially given that the majority group today (whites) were hardly monolithic 300 or even 100 years ago. If you want to understand the history of the United States, you have to look at it from multiple perspectives, or you frankly will not understand the complex social, cultural, and political forces at play.
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Unconditional Surrender Truman
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« Reply #5 on: June 08, 2021, 12:36:32 AM »

Americans can learn about slavery from an American perspective (without spending 3/4 of the lesson learning about the Bantu societies and cultures from which slaves were largely taken) while still acknowledging it as a stain on our nation's history.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that. Tongue To my understanding, anyways, teaching history from the perspective of "marginalized groups" in this particular example would mean looking at slavery from the perspective of slaves. While it shouldn't be the only perspective considered (slaveowners and abolitionists are of course extremely important viewpoints to consider as well), I think it would be ... well, frankly bizarre to teach a course on American slavery without ever looking at primary sources created by slaves. Likewise, it would be an odd choice to talk about immigration in the late nineteenth century without considering the accounts of those immigrants. American history is more than just the history of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants.

(N.B. After all, depending on where you were in the South, black slaves were the majority group or very near to it —it has always struck me as strange that "Southern heritage" almost always means white Southern heritage when for most of US history, anywhere from a third to three-fifths the population of the South was black, depending on the state.)
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Derpist
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« Reply #6 on: June 08, 2021, 02:14:26 AM »

Most people are in some sort of a marginalized group, so history is largely a story of marginalized groups.

The reason that people who cite this approach often create a bad narrative history is that they are usually western liberals who believe that race/gender/sexuality are the only axis of marginalization/oppression, when racism, sexism, etc. cannot be properly understood outside of the context of material class oppression.
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HisGrace
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« Reply #7 on: June 09, 2021, 01:00:09 PM »

The purpose of history is to explain how things got to be the way they are today. It is not to create a laundry list of "marginalized groups" grievances, which is pretty much how it is being taught now.
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The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow
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« Reply #8 on: June 09, 2021, 03:50:12 PM »

The purpose of history is to explain how things got to be the way they are today. It is not to create a laundry list of "marginalized groups" grievances, which is pretty much how it is being taught now.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the point you're making, but I don't see how the grievances of marginalized groups are separable from an explanation of "how things got to be the way they are today." Rather, they are absolutely critical to that explanation.
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HisGrace
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« Reply #9 on: June 09, 2021, 04:34:07 PM »

The purpose of history is to explain how things got to be the way they are today. It is not to create a laundry list of "marginalized groups" grievances, which is pretty much how it is being taught now.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the point you're making, but I don't see how the grievances of marginalized groups are separable from an explanation of "how things got to be the way they are today." Rather, they are absolutely critical to that explanation.

See, this is the reaction to any kind of critique of how history is currently taught. No one is suggesting that there should be zero pages dedicated in history books to slavery or mistreatment of Native Americans. It's just that plenty of other things happened in the 18th/19th centuries that are also extremely important that young people today seem to have no knowledge of probably because they've been excised from history classes in favor of constant white guilt tripping.

And the question was if history should be taught from the "perspective of marginalized groups". I was being a bit diplomatic in my first response but to be clear I'll just throw political correctness to the wind and say "no". The important things to learn about slavery are the economic and political forces that led to its establishment and abolition, and how the handling of the abolition of slavery continues to impact our politics and society today. Anecdotes about slaves being abducted or whipped are certainly extremely sad but aren't of much particular value in an overall survey of American history. You could go into stuff like that in a university class specifically on slavery and in museums, but in a general American history class that is just supposed to give you the basics the impact slaver had as an overall institution is the more important subject since you have to cover 250 years of history in a limited time.
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The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow
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« Reply #10 on: June 09, 2021, 05:51:19 PM »
« Edited: June 09, 2021, 06:01:07 PM by The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow »

The purpose of history is to explain how things got to be the way they are today. It is not to create a laundry list of "marginalized groups" grievances, which is pretty much how it is being taught now.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the point you're making, but I don't see how the grievances of marginalized groups are separable from an explanation of "how things got to be the way they are today." Rather, they are absolutely critical to that explanation.

See, this is the reaction to any kind of critique of how history is currently taught. No one is suggesting that there should be zero pages dedicated in history books to slavery or mistreatment of Native Americans. It's just that plenty of other things happened in the 18th/19th centuries that are also extremely important that young people today seem to have no knowledge of probably because they've been excised from history classes in favor of constant white guilt tripping.

And the question was if history should be taught from the "perspective of marginalized groups". I was being a bit diplomatic in my first response but to be clear I'll just throw political correctness to the wind and say "no". The important things to learn about slavery are the economic and political forces that led to its establishment and abolition, and how the handling of the abolition of slavery continues to impact our politics and society today. Anecdotes about slaves being abducted or whipped are certainly extremely sad but aren't of much particular value in an overall survey of American history. You could go into stuff like that in a university class specifically on slavery and in museums, but in a general American history class that is just supposed to give you the basics the impact slaver had as an overall institution is the more important subject since you have to cover 250 years of history in a limited time.

If you have some empirical evidence that demonstrates that there is actually an endemic issue of educators opting for "white guilt-tripping" instead of teaching important historical events and phenomena, I'll gladly take a look. Until then, I can only say that as someone who went to a public high school in an extremely progressive city that epitomizes elite academia, not once did I or anyone else I knew have an experience remotely like the one you are describing.

With regard to your second paragraph, I could not disagree more that the sort of content you're describing isn't valuable to a general history curriculum. It is extremely important for young people to understand the humanity behind what they're learning, not to mention that the example you chose (i.e. the brutality endured by slaves) very obviously had critical ramifications for the broader issues you are more interested in. The way slaves were treated is an innate part of the institution of slavery as a whole, and anecdotes are oftentimes the most effective ways of conveying that treatment because they are memorable and impactful to students. So, I have to categorically disagree with the notion that slavery's big-picture economic and political implications are the only "important" considerations that should be taught. (And I hope that your suggestion was not that anecdotes about slave life are contributing the supposed "white guilt-tripping" that's taking over curriculums?)

You seem to be more generally concerned with curriculums being too specific and students missing out on other important history they should be learning; I don't think that's an intrinsic problem with the question at hand. Educators can spend way too much time on certain events/phenomena without focusing on marginalized groups, and educators can spend an appropriate amount of time on every important event/phenomenon while also appropriately addressing the perspectives of marginalized groups as they progress through the curriculum. There seems to be some conflation of the style/perspective of content with the pacing of the content.
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Unconditional Surrender Truman
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« Reply #11 on: June 09, 2021, 08:32:02 PM »

I don't know that I agree that the only or even the most important function of history education is to "explain how things got to be the way they are today," but it is certainly a common and not unreasonable position. And I agree that ruminating at length on the day-to-day lives of historical persons (whether they are slaves, white immigrants, Civil War soldiers, etc.) should not be the focus of the curriculum in a survey course. You simply cannot accurately teach the history of the "political forces that led to [slavery's] abolition" without including the perspectives of slaves and abolitionists (white and black), however. Historically, accounts by those who had escaped slavery were critical to building support for abolition: I think it would be very reasonable for a history teacher to assign selections from the autobiography of Frederick Douglass, for instance —far from being a mere record of beatings and other cruelties, Douglass' book was a profoundly influential political document precisely because it was written from the perspective of a "marginalized group."

Moreover, the purpose of history education is not merely to relate a sequence of events that lead us to the present day (though that is important) but to teach students to critically examine sources that describe the same event from different perspectives and to consider how the author's biases influence their account. This is a skill that we find sadly lacking in many present-day Americans, with the result that they are easily misled by dishonest reporting and misinformation. If history is only taught from one perspective (whether it is that of the dominant social group or "marginalized people"), many students will get the impression that there is no difference between that perspective and the truth, which is hardly conducive to the future of democracy. A free country needs citizens who can think for themselves, and learning to analyze sources told from many different points of view is important preparation for citizenship.
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Torie
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« Reply #12 on: June 12, 2021, 09:02:17 AM »

If from the  perspective of marginalized groups at the time, sure, that is part of the history. If from the perspective of such groups now, that is not history, that is current events.
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Mr. Smith
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« Reply #13 on: June 12, 2021, 11:41:49 AM »

Absolutely, arguably tells us far more than the rather cynical "by the winners" approach _ which I will add has a way of turning around and losing reliability once that side has lost.
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beesley
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« Reply #14 on: June 12, 2021, 11:46:14 AM »

History should be taught from all relevant perspectives of the time in conjunction, and in line with the context of the time. We should be able to learn from history, but it isn't there solely to teach us.
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MarkD
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« Reply #15 on: June 15, 2021, 09:00:58 AM »

Who are all of the marginalized groups? How many different kinds are there? If we're going to do this, shouldn't we include ALL groups? Would that include illegitimate children?

In 1994, I discovered that there was a great deal of case law, from the SCOTUS, that dealt with the subject of state government discrimination against illegitimate children. Until that year, I didn't even know that there was such a thing as government discrimination against illegitimate children. I didn't know that there used to be laws which said things such as "Illegitimate children, though duly acknowledged, cannot claim the rights of legitimate children. ..." And when I learned about this, I read that Justice William Brennan argued that laws such as this did not serve any legitimate purpose, and these laws were based on nothing more than "the untenable and discredited moral prejudice of bygone centuries which vindictively punished not only the illegitimates' parents but also the hapless and innocent children." It took me a while to figure out what Brennan meant by "moral prejudice."

So should history be taught from the perspective of illegitimate children too?
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #16 on: June 15, 2021, 01:42:45 PM »

Ranke, the father of the modern historical profession, famously argued that the job of the historian is to seek to find out 'wie es eigentlich gewesen' ('what actually happened'), and while this is an inherently unrealistic goal when approached literally there is something to it when thought of in terms of perspective. That is to say that the right perspective to both study and to teach history is something not far off that advocated for the appreciation of natural phenomena by Ranke's contemporary Emerson: the famous 'transparent eyeball' that observes and takes in information from the position of a spectator, rather than an actor. True detachment and true objectivity may not be possible, but nevertheless as the point of the study of History is the establishment of the truth (both in terms of fact and meaning) there are moral duties and pragmatic reasons to try to get as close to both as possible, and this position allows for that well enough without falling prey to the delusion that an impossible standard is achievable or has been reached.
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AtorBoltox
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« Reply #17 on: June 17, 2021, 08:21:57 AM »

Ranke, the father of the modern historical profession, famously argued that the job of the historian is to seek to find out 'wie es eigentlich gewesen' ('what actually happened'), and while this is an inherently unrealistic goal when approached literally there is something to it when thought of in terms of perspective. That is to say that the right perspective to both study and to teach history is something not far off that advocated for the appreciation of natural phenomena by Ranke's contemporary Emerson: the famous 'transparent eyeball' that observes and takes in information from the position of a spectator, rather than an actor. True detachment and true objectivity may not be possible, but nevertheless as the point of the study of History is the establishment of the truth (both in terms of fact and meaning) there are moral duties and pragmatic reasons to try to get as close to both as possible, and this position allows for that well enough without falling prey to the delusion that an impossible standard is achievable or has been reached.
Since the 'cultural turn' of the 1970s Rankeian empiricism has been pretty much abandoned in the historical profession
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #18 on: June 17, 2021, 09:51:58 AM »

Since the 'cultural turn' of the 1970s Rankeian empiricism has been pretty much abandoned in the historical profession

Pure, hard-nosed Rankean empiricism had largely been abandoned long before then: in the 60s and 70s most historians (even the right-wingers) were writing from a basically materialist stance, which is not actually compatible. But there was a shift towards a lower-key and less dogmatic form of empiricism in the 1990s following the death of Marxism and the Tower of Babel-esque collapse of the post-structuralist project, and most historical research (at least in the Old World) basically follows that course, even if no one quite says it out loud.
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