Empowering Communities and Teachers: A Conceptual Framework for Developing Community-Engaged, Culturally Responsive, and Multi-Perspectival History Education Curricula and Resources

Abstract

Across many contexts, classrooms are becoming increasingly diverse. New diaspora communities are growing as a consequence of migration caused by conflict and increased global mobility. Despite this, curricula and teaching in general—and history curricula in particular—tend to be developed and enacted within the frame of the host receiving nation, often marginalizing minority immigrant groups and diaspora communities’ narratives and perspectives. In this article, we offer a conceptual framework for community-engaged and culturally responsive history curriculum-making processes. Drawing on theories of historical consciousness, critical pedagogy, critical discourse analysis, and recognition, we explore central features of existing participatory curriculum models. Based on that analysis, we propose a seven-stage framework. The framework emphasizes three key components: First, acknowledging intra-communal power dynamics and engaging with the multiplicity of perspectives existing within any given community vis-à-vis dominant historical narratives and counternarratives. Second, seeking to critically engage with the role that ideologies and worldviews play in shaping competing historical narratives. Third, critical self-reflection or reflexivity—as a key component of praxis—is another component that we propose needs to be central in this framework.