My Thesis Problem Statement

This is the "problem statement" for my thesis - an introduction of sorts.  Would love to hear thoughts on it, questions about it.  Two more months til my MA!

One of my burning questions as a history teacher is how to help students think about prejudice.  Although the United States has made vast improvements over the years, prejudice is still clearly a dire problem: the achievement gap remains pervasive, people of color continue to report widespread discrimination, rising anti-immigration sentiments alienate and demonize Latinos, women continue to be oppressed by everything from objectifying media imagery to the glass ceiling, Asian’s continue to be lumped into a homogenized whole in which important cultural differences are made invisible, Muslims continue to be stereotyped as terrorists and have trouble finding places to build new mosques, and LGBT children continue to suffer from bullying, homelessness, and even suicide.  

These are merely examples of prejudices reported on by major news channels.  Anyone listening to pundits from Rush Limbaugh to Rachel Maddow on a regular basis will have heard these topics covered (for better or worse). Some prejudices are talked about often, such as sexism, racism, and homophobia.  Other prejudices are hardly talked about: for example, prejudices against elders, youth, or differently-abled people.  Many prejudices remain virtually invisible, such as those against people who have been incarcerated.  Meanwhile, prejudice itself is widely misunderstood, and the psychology of prejudice, so fundamental to understanding its pervasiveness, remains discussed almost entirely by specialists.  

The alleviation of prejudice, in its many varieties, depends on our society gaining a wider and deeper understanding of how prejudice works.  Citizens who have not given serious thought to how prejudice functions may be condemned to repeat it, or at the very least, misunderstand it – unconsciously – and thus allow for its continuation.   If prejudice was always explicit, if it was easy to see and understand, perhaps it would not require consistent, concerted serious thought to overcome.  However, because prejudice is complex and subtle, it must be thought about seriously on a society-wide level. 

Major questions our society should be asking include “what would a serious analysis of prejudice look like, and how could we create a country where many citizens have engaged in such analysis”?  One long-run plan for reducing prejudice in this country would be for schools to develop ways to help students think seriously about prejudice.  If prejudice was seriously analyzed in schools across the country, and if students gained a complex and subtle understanding of prejudice, that could go far in alleviating the problem. 

As a history teacher, I’ve been considering what a serious analysis of prejudice would look like in a history class.  There are many ways to analyze prejudice through history, some of which work better than others.  I am especially interested in how the critical and historical thinking skill of contextualization can help students better understand prejudice.  I have a hunch that if students can learn to analyze how a given social context facilitates the rise and maintenance of a certain prejudice in history, that they could transfer this type of analysis to other periods of history and to the contemporary world.  Perhaps students that learn to contextualize prejudice will develop a more sophisticated understanding of it – an understanding that goes beyond simple judgments of good and evil, and instead towards the details of how prejudice arises, is maintained, and diminishes.    

At the time of this writing, I am not a full time teacher, but am volunteering in a sixth grade world civilizations class.  Due to the context that I find myself in, I have been considering not only contextualization, but how to help students think about prejudice in the context of ancient civilizations.  I have been wondering if understanding how prejudices functioned in ancient civilizations can help students better understand prejudice in general, i.e. help students understand prejudice as part of the human condition, and thus help them understand prejudice in contemporary settings.

I think that examining prejudices in the context of ancient civilizations may have major benefits, and may even help prepare students to think about prejudice in American history.  In an American history class, students examine prejudices that have taken place in the history of their own society.  Because contemporary prejudices can be traced back to historical ones, an analysis of these prejudices can also be emotionally loaded.  In an emotionally loaded context, judgments come easily, making analysis difficult to practice.  In an ancient civilizations class, the subject of prejudice may carry less of an emotional charge, potentially making the subject easier to explore and analyze.   Practicing the analysis of prejudice in ancient civilizations could lay the groundwork for doing so in American history classes.  Additionally, in an American history class, students have the opportunity to watch how prejudices evolve.  In ancient civilizations classes, rather than analyzing the evolution of prejudices, students have the unique chance to compare a variety of prejudices and the contexts from which they sprung and were maintained.  This would also lay important groundwork for future examinations of the subject.    

Comparisons of prejudice in ancient civilizations, when contextualized, would also expose students to prejudice as part of the human condition, rather than as something only certain societies have had or only bad people have had.  By widening their understanding of what prejudice looks like and preparing students to see prejudice in many contexts, these comparisons may help students perceive prejudices in their own society that receive less attention.  Finally, it is under-acknowledged that we live in a globalized society in which prejudices from all around the world exist.  Learning to contextualize a variety of prejudices from around the world may help students learn to navigate prejudices in their communities that remain invisible in the common discourses on prejudice in this society.

Given these thoughts, the question I want to explore is how do middle school students understandings of prejudice develop as they learn to historically contextualize prejudice in the context of a sixth grade ancient civilizations class?