Abstract
In the 1980s and 1990s, several large public school districts in the United States, notably those in New York, Washington, DC, Atlanta, and Detroit, began to introduce an Afrocentric curriculum in grades K-12. The Afrocentric curriculum emerges from the concept of Afrocentrism that Molefi Kete Asante, a professor in the Department of African American Studies at Temple University, defines as “placing African ideals at the center of any analysis that involves African culture and behavior.”1 In general, the Afrocentric curriculum aims to challenge and deconstruct the traditional (Eurocentric) curriculum and to promote positive self-images among African American students. The Afrocentric curriculum focuses on past and present contributions to culture and learning by Africans and African Americans and uses pedagogical approaches adapted to what are considered the unique learning styles of African American students. However, there are mixed opinions on the merit of the curriculum where it has been taught.2 Some educators object to it on pedagogical and cultural grounds; others claim that school districts lack the funds, administrative support, and incentives to promote such a curriculum. Furthermore, state standardized tests do not emphasize the Afrocentric curriculum. In the era of accountability, what is not tested is generally not taught.
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Notes
Molefi Kete Asante, The Afrocentric Idea (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987), 6.
See Amy J. Binder, “Why Do Some Curricular Challenges Work While Others Do Not? The Case of Three Afrocentric Challenges,” Sociology of Education 73, no. 2 (April, 2000): 69–91;
Amy Binder, Contentious Curricula: Afrocentrism and Creationism in American Public Schools (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002).
See Jeffery Del-Shawn Robinson, “The African Centered School Movement and the Detroit Public School System” (PhD dissertation, Michigan State University, 2008)
and Kefentse K. Chike, “From Black Power to the New Millennium: The Evolution of African Centered Education in Detroit, Michigan 1970–2000” (PhD dissertation, Michigan State University, 2011) for comprehensive overviews of African-Centered Education in Detroit.
Shawn A. Ginwright, Black in School: Afrocentric Reform, Urban Youth, and the Promise of Hip-Hop Culture (New York: Teachers College Press, 2004), 3.
Algernon Austin, Achieving Blackness: Race, Black Nationalism, and Afrocentrism in the Twentieth Century (New York: New York University Press, 2006), 110.
Molefi Kete Asante, Afrocentricity (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1988), 8, 16.
James A. Banks and Cherry A. McGee Banks, eds., Multicultural Education: Issues and Perspectives, 7th ed. (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2009).
James A. Banks, “Approaches to Multicultural Curriculum Reform,” Multicultural Leader 1, no. 2 (Spring, 1988): 1–3.
Diane Ravitch, “Multiculturalism: E. Pluribus Plures,” The American Scholar 59 (1990): 339.
Molefi Kete Asante and Diane Ravitch, “Multiculturalism: An Exchange,” The American Scholar, 60 (1991): 267–276.
Clarence E. Walker, a historian at the University of California, Davis, who uses the term Afrocentrism, has been even harsher than Ravitch in his criticism of the philosophy. He agrees with Ravitch that Afrocentrism is not history since its content is historically inaccurate. Like Ravitch, he also criticizes Afrocentrism for its emphasis on raising African Americans’ self-esteem. He argues that Afrocentrism is a “vulgar form of identity politics” because of its exclusive focus on race, and he concludes that Afrocentrism is a faith rather than an academic pursuit. See Clarence E. Walker, We Can’t Go Home Again: An Argument aboutAfrocentrism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
Geoffrey Jahwara Giddings, “Infusion of Afrocentric Content into the School Curriculum: Toward an Effective Movement,” Journal of Black Studies 31, no. 4 (March 2001): 462–482.
Ollie I. Manley, “A Study of Secondary Teachers’ Perceptions of an Afrocentric Curriculum,” PhD dissertation, Emory University, 1994. Cited in Giddings, “Infusion of Afrocentric Content.”
Sidney Fine, Violence in the Model City: The Cavanaugh Administration, Race Relations, and the Detroit Riot of 1967 (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 1989), 17–37.
Jeffrey Mirel, The Rise and Fall ofan Urban School System: Detroit, 1907–1981 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993/1999), Appendix Table 5.
For an analysis of African-Centered Academies, see Todd K. Chow-Hoy, “The Influence of a Powerful Principal and Clear Mission on the Moral Dimensions of Teaching in Two Public Schools,” PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 2000,
and Clifford Watson, Educating African American Males: Detroit’s Malcolm X Academy Solution (Chicago: Third World Press, 1996).
In Michigan’s 2009 state assessments Michigan Education Assessment Profile, students at the Marcus Garvey Academy, for example, scored better than the state average in most subjects. Chastity Pratt Dawsey, “How Marcus Garvey Academy Rises Above,” Detroit Free Press, February 11, 2010.
Ronnie Hopkins, Educating Black Males: Critical Lessons in Schooling, Community, and Power (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 31.
Anne-Lise Halvorsen, “The Origins and Rise of Elementary Social Studies Education, 1884 to 1941,” PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 2006.
Jeffrey E. Mirel, Patriotic Pluralism: Americanization Education and European Immigrants (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 218–222.
Dahia Shabaka, Living and Working Together: Families (New York: Metropolitan Teaching and Learning Company, 2000);
Dahia Shabaka, Living and Working Together: Neighborhoods (New York: Metropolitan Teaching and Learning Company, 2000).
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© 2012 Christine Woyshner and Chara Haeussler Bohan
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Halvorsen, AL. (2012). African-Centered Education in the Detroit Public Schools, 1968–2000. In: Woyshner, C., Bohan, C.H. (eds) Histories of Social Studies and Race. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137007605_11
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