African American History, Race and Textbooks: An Examination of the Works of Harold O. Rugg and Carter G. Woodson

Abstract

This paper proposes that as a way to broaden the theoretical and historical context of social studies foundational literature and curriculum history, attention must be given to issues of race and racism related the experiences of African Americans. First, race and racism should he used as an analytical tool to examine longstanding foundations topics. Second, historically marginalized social studies scholars need to he recognized and theoretically situated within the existing literature of social studies foundations. Last, there must be comparative work that examines African American and White progressives’ similar and divergent conceptions of K-12 social studies curriculum. As a way to address these limitations in the social studies foundations literature, this paper provides a comparative examination of the different ways in which Harold O. Rugg and Carter G. Woodson rendered race and racism in the textbooks they authored during the early twentieth century. This article concludes with a discussion about the implications of this study to social studies foundations scholarship.