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Misplaced Multiculturalism:Representations of AmericanIndians in U.S. History Academic

Content Standardscuri_604 497..509

CARL B. ANDERSON

Pennsylvania State University University Park, Pennsylvania, USA

ABSTRACT

This qualitative textual analysis investigates the ideological lenses through whichU.S. History content standards for grades 5–12 for Arizona and Washington frameinteractions between American Indians and European Americans during U.S.national development. The study’s multiperspective critical conceptual frameworkinterrogates the standards not only on the basis of inclusion of American Indians incurriculum content, but also on the different ways in which this inclusion chal-lenges, problematizes, or disrupts simplistic social representations in curriculumdocuments. The analysis reveals stark differences between how the respective stateeducation policy makers conceptualize American Indian–European Americaninteractions. In Arizona historical content is the curriculum, while in Washingtonhistorical content informs the curriculum, which is geared toward critical reflective-ness about public policy issues. Both standards documents ultimately fall short inpromoting critical thinking about American Indian–European American interac-tions because they succumb to separate pratfalls of multicultural inclusion ortho-doxy. Arizona policy makers tend to shoehorn content on American Indians into asingular and simplistic narrative of U.S. economic, political, and social develop-ment, while Washington policy makers tend to construct artificial social binaries tocreate an accessible and relevant narrative template. The standards documentsexemplify the zero-sum nature of curricular politics, wherein we can learn as muchabout a society’s ascendant values from what gets excluded from the curriculum asfrom what gets included in the curriculum.

Over the past several decades advocates of multiculturalism have succeeded

in winning a larger share of space in U.S. History curricula for the Indig-enous population of the United States (hereafter American Indians).History textbooks have increasingly come to acknowledge that Europeansdid not “discover” what is now the United States and that American Indians

were and still are diverse both in tribal affiliation and custom. Many textbooks have even recognized the role of European explorers and settlersin decimating American Indian populations through genocidal practices

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© 2012 by The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto

Curriculum Inquiry 42:4 (2012)

Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road,

Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK

doi: 10.1111/j.1467-873X.2012.00604.x



(Fitzgerald, 1979; Loewen, 1995; Moreau, 2003). At the same time, much of this content on American Indians is constructed as a curricular sidebar,ancillary to the central narrative of U.S. national development. This

“heroes and holidays” model (Rains, 2006) emphasizes the cultural contri-butions of American Indians to a much greater extent than it does the waysin which U.S. governmental relations with American Indians fundamen-tally shaped the course of America’s ascendancy into an economically andpolitically influential nation-state.

There is a long-standing and fundamental disjuncture both in schoolcurricula and in U.S. society generally between the documented historicalrecord on American Indian affairs and how most European Americans

would like to remember this history. Thelen (1989) argues that “in eachconstruction of a memory, people reshape, omit, distort, combine, and

reorganize details from the past in an active and subjective way. They mixpieces from the present with elements from different periods of the past”(p. 1120), while Lowenthal (1989) contends that “nostalgia tempts people tosee the past less as precedent than as alternative: not just what has happenedbut what could happen, an option still open” (p. 1279). U.S. History curriculum documents have typically idealized prominent AmericanIndians, such as Sacagawea and Pocahontas, who satisfy multicultural inclu-sion concerns but perhaps more importantly sustain a master narrative of racial reconciliation between European Americans and American Indians(McBeth, 2003). U.S. History curricula have also valorized resistance leaderslike Tecumseh and Chief Sitting Bull who can be appropriated as symbols of

tragic nobility in the face of the inevitable march of European American westward settlement and technological progress (Sayre, 2005). Kammen(1991) maintains that “we arouse and arrange our memories to suit ourpsychic needs” (p. 9), and European Americans’ psychic needs in the late20th and early 21st centuries seem to revolve around legitimization of conquest through diverse racial inclusion. Given this context it is important to investigate more deeply how academic content standards frame AmericanIndian–European American interactions within a larger context of U.S.national development. This type of analysis is especially relevant given theongoing and dynamic political and cultural disputes involving American

Indian rights, particularly in the western portions of the United States.

BACKGROUND

The social studies field has long been mired in an existential crisis about itspurposes and goals. Scholars have been unable to resolve the problem of

what subject matter constitutes the core of the social studies, and research-ers have created and perpetuated a false dichotomy between history-centered social studies and issues-centered social studies (Evans, 2001;

Whelan, 2001). The crux of this debate revolves around epistemologicaltensions over the very purposes of history—whether it should be deployed

498 CARL B. ANDERSON



primarily as subject matter to be mastered, or whether it should be usedprimarily as a resource to guide classroom inquiry into relevant socialissues. Advocates of each model tend to champion the merits of their own

approach while demonizing the other side, but scholars have typically not considered the possibility that the supposed benefits of each approach might actually be detrimental to students’ critical-thinking capabilities in thesocial studies.

This study investigates the degree to which U.S. History academic stan-dards imply critical-thinking approaches toward studying AmericanIndian–European American relations. Education policy makers from thetwo states included in this analysis, Arizona and Washington State (hereaf-ter referred to as Washington), take very different approaches towardframing historical content for students. Policy makers from both states

embed distinct History strands within their comprehensive social studiesstandards documents, but Arizona policy makers adopt a straightforwardchronological approach to representing History content, while Washingtonpolicy makers deploy historical events mainly as examples to frame debatesand discussions among students about contested social issues. On thesurface these differing representations convey the notion that Arizonapolicy makers favor a subject mastery curricular model, while Washingtonpolicy makers favor an inquiry-based model. This study interrogates thisassumption by addressing the following research questions:

• How do the standards for Arizona and Washington represent inter-

actions between American Indians and European Americans?• In what ways do the standards interrogate and challenge dominant

hegemonic master narratives of history in schooling and society?

The study mainly seeks to advance the scholarly literature on schoolcurriculum by probing reviewed standards not only on the basis of inclu-sion of American Indians in curriculum content, but also on the extent to

which this inclusion challenges, problematizes, or disrupts simplistic socialrepresentations in U.S. History curricula.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

This study employs a multiperspective critical conceptual framework toengage with contested issues of social identity in U.S. History curricula. Theframework’s primary purpose is to interrogate and challenge dominant hegemonic master narratives of history in schooling and society, althoughthe framework does not seek to replace one biased narrative with an equally biased counternarrative. In contrast, this framework is grounded in aconception of history as a socially constructed enterprise that privilegesrather than discourages multiple interpretations of historical phenomena.The framework’s critical component also seeks to better understand the

499MISPLACED MULTICULTURALISM



interplay of social representations and social justice in U.S. History curricula. Many critically oriented scholars argue that normative Eurocen-tric epistemologies in the social studies tend to marginalize and delegiti-

mize the experiences of people of color (Alridge, 2006; Carlson, 2003; Journell, 2008; Kincheloe, 1993; Ladson-Billings, 2003; Lintner, 2004).

This study’s critical lens builds especially on the work of scholars whohave identified delegitimization projects through textual analyses, especi-ally Anyon (1979) and Apple (1992). Anyon (1979) maintains that “theschool curriculum has contributed to the formation of attitudes that makeit easier for powerful groups, those whose knowledge is legitimized by school studies, to manage and control society” (p. 382), while Apple’snotion of “legitimate knowledge” speaks to the inherently ideologicalnature of social studies texts. More recently, in a review of U.S. History

textbook research, VanSledright (2008) discovered persistent patterns of inclusion:

The story is primarily populated with champions of politics (presidents especially),business (entrepreneurs and CEOs and their technological advancements), andmilitary campaigns (generals). The cast is decidedly Eurocentric, with preferencesleaning toward an anchoring in the accomplishments of Anglo-Saxon men. (p. 113)

If Stanley (2010) is correct that “schooling has functioned, in general, totransmit the dominant social order, preserving the status quo” (p. 17), thenit is incumbent upon social studies educators to investigate the complicity

of U.S. History curricula in perpetuating social inequalities.

METHODS

This qualitative textual analysis investigates the U.S. History academic stan-dards for grades 5–12 for Arizona and Washington. The two states wereselected for two primary reasons. First, both states have historically had asizable American Indian presence and so the issue of American Indianrepresentation in social studies is particularly relevant in these cases. Oneparticularly intriguing subplot of the 2010 Arizona immigration reform

debates was the place of ethnic studies courses in social studies curricula. Arizona State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne pushed for,and in May 2010 won, a ban on courses that are designed primarily forstudents of a particular ethnicity. Horne focused his criticism on the TucsonUnified School District’s (TUSD’s) ethnic studies courses that teach thestate’s English and social studies standards through the lenses of Mexican

American, African American, or American Indian culture, alleging that thecourses promote a “‘destructive ethnic chauvinism’” and advocate resent-ment toward a particular race or class of people (Zehr, 2010).

In Washington, a persistent ideological debate revolves around the placeof tribal history in social studies curricula. In 2004 the Washington State




House Education Committee passed a bill requiring that the State Superin-tendent of Public Instruction collaborate with social studies teachers andtribal specialists to develop a model curriculum for Washington tribal

history, and that school districts electing to implement a tribal history curriculum would be compelled to work with the federally recognized tribeor tribes closest to the district (“Students Should Study,” 2004). The tribalhistory requirement, originally conceived by Representative John McCoy,

Washington’s only American Indian lawmaker, was surprisingly opposed by many American Indians, especially “landless” tribes who resented the fact that only recognized tribes would receive coverage in the curriculum (Kamb,2005). Consequently, an amended and watered-down bill passed in spring2005 that altered the language of the tribal history initiative from “require”to “encourage” to “shall consider including information on the culture,

history, and government of the American Indian peoples who were the first inhabitants of the state” (Washington State Substitute House Bill 1495).Second, while both states’ social studies standards documents are struc-

turally similar, there is a clear difference between how the respective statepolicy makers conceptualize historical study. Both states have a single socialstudies standards document that separates content into distinct disciplinary strands (Arizona Department of Education, 2005; State of WashingtonOffice of Superintendent of Public Instruction, 2008). This study’s analysisfocuses solely on what Arizona policy makers label the “American History”and what Washington policy makers label the “History” strands of socialstudies content. Only the standards for grades 5–12 were analyzed because

in both states fifth grade represents the first year in which the historicaldevelopment of the United States is a substantive area of curricular focus.The key distinction between the two documents is that Arizona policy makers largely organize historical content chronologically and as subject matter to be mastered, while Washington policy makers organize historicalcontent according to a social issues framework that emphasizes the con-nections between an historical event or idea and its present-day implica-tions. These contrasting curricular approaches offer a unique opportunity to investigate practical manifestations of the persistent epistemologicaltensions in history education and to explore how these approaches address

issues of American Indian representation in social education.The standards were qualitatively analyzed by drawing on the work of James Wertsch (1998, 2004) and Catherine Cornbleth (1998), each of whom have identified a default master narrative of U.S. national develop-ment. Wertsch (2004) distinguishes between “specific narratives” and“schematic narrative templates” in history:

Specific narratives are the focus of history instruction in schools and deal with“mid-level” events that populate textbooks, examinations, and other textual formsfound in that context. In contrast, schematic narrative templates involve a muchmore abstract level of representation and provide a narrative framework that iscompatible with many instantiations in specific narratives. (p. 51)




Wertsch (1998) describes the typical schematic narrative template of U.S.national development as the “quest for freedom” construct in whichprogress on political and social equality in the United States has proceeded

in a more or less linear fashion. Cornbleth (1998) advances a similartemplate of the United States as “imperfect but best,” in which “there is asense of inevitable movement; things just happen without explanation orreasons being offered. Problems exist and are resolved, more or less, but there is little or no hint of human suffering, agency, conflict, or struggle”(p. 629). Both the quest-for-freedom and imperfect but best narrativeframeworks advance a simplistic understanding of national development that tends to avoid persistent political and social discord between socialgroups.

The reviewed standards were coded according to how faithfully they

adhered to the progressive narrative template described above. A standard was coded as “progressive” if it primarily focused on gradual but inevitabledemocratic progress on American Indian–European American relations.In contrast, a standard was coded as “discordant” if it significantly chal-lenged or questioned the singular master narrative of the United States asa land of inevitably expanding freedom/equality over time for AmericanIndians. While analyzing the data it became clear that a third category wasalso apparent: “contributory” standards, which focused primarily on prais-ing or reinforcing the historical cultural, social, political, and economiccontributions of American Indians. After coding the data I calculated therelative percentages for each category by state.

Finally, it is important to emphasize two points about the limitations of this study. First, school curricula operate on many different levels, andstate-level academic content standards do not necessarily represent what isactually taught in schools. While content standards are typically prescribedthrough top-down educational bureaucracies, individual teachers also typi-cally enjoy a degree of autonomy in implementing what Costigan andCrocco (2004) call the “enacted curriculum.” State-level content standardsare thus one important indicator of what gets taught in U.S. History class-rooms, but certainly not the only indicator. Second, this study focuses solely on U.S. educational contexts. That said, this study’s analysis of American

Indian representation has important implications for the North Americancontext as a whole, and especially for Canada, which has experiencedsimilar ideological controversies over treatment of First Nations groups inschool curricula (Seixas, 2000).

AMERICAN INDIAN REPRESENTATION IN ARIZONA’S STANDARDS

Almost all of the reviewed Arizona standards adopt contributory (43%) andprogressive (43%) orientations, while very few adopt a discordant (14%)orientation. Arizona’s standards are largely content driven; most focus onthe historic contributions of American Indian individuals and groups, as




well as the ways in which American Indians fit into a progressive masternarrative of national development. Eighth-grade students are expected to“describe Arizona’s contributions to the [World War II] effort” (Arizona

Grade 8 Concept 8: PO 5), including the roles of American Indian CodeTalkers and Ira Hayes, who was a Pima American Indian and one of the U.S.Marines pictured in the iconic Iwo Jima flag-raising photograph. Highschool students are expected to “analyze how the new national government

was created” (Arizona High School Concept 4: PO 4), including thecontributions of the “Albany Plan of Union influenced by the IroquoisConfederation,” in addition to the contributions of the Articles of Confed-eration, Constitutional Convention, and Bill of Rights.

Arizona’s standards also integrate what might otherwise be considereddiscordant material into progressive meta-frameworks of national develop-

ment. This phenomenon can be seen in two Arizona high school standards: Assess how the following social developments influenced American society in thelate nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Civil Rights issues (e.g., Women’sSuffrage Movement, Dawes Act, Indian schools, lynching, Plessy v. Ferguson);changing patterns in Immigration (e.g., Ellis Island, Angel Island, Chinese Exclu-sion Act, Immigration Act of 1924); urbanization and social reform (e.g., healthcare, housing, food & nutrition, child labor laws); mass media (e.g., political car-toons, muckrakers, yellow journalism, radio); consumerism (e.g., advertising, stan-dard of living, consumer credit); Roaring Twenties (e.g., Harlem Renaissance,leisure time, jazz, changed social mores). (Arizona High School Concept 7: PO 2)

Analyze events which caused a transformation of the United States during the latenineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Indian Wars (e.g., Little Bighorn, Wounded Knee); Imperialism (e.g., Spanish American War, annexation of Hawaii,Philippine-American War); Progressive Movement (e.g., Sixteenth through Nine-teenth Amendments, child labor); Teddy Roosevelt (e.g., conservationism, PanamaCanal, national parks, trust busting); corruption (e.g., Tammany Hall, spoilssystem); World War I (e.g., League of Nations, Isolationism); Red Scare/Socialism;Populism. (Arizona High School Concept 7: PO 3)

The Dawes Act, Indian Schools, Little Bighorn, and Wounded Knee exem-plify how narrative frameworks influence how students interact with his-torical content. The examples cited above, as well as content on lynching,Plessy v. Ferguson , the Chinese Exclusion Act, child labor, and the Red

Scare/Socialism, may be perceived as controversial or problematic in light of U.S. revolutionary ideals of liberty and equality, but as specific narrativesthey may instead serve as noteworthy mile markers on a more or less linearmarch of social progress. These events remind us that full social equality did not always exist in the United States, as we reflexively assume it doesnow, and that we should at least have passing familiarity with the strugglesof people “back then.” All of the content outlined in the preceding twostandards can arguably be subsumed under the quest-for-freedom templatebecause the most important point for students to remember is that although the United States has never been a perfect country, the country isperpetually trending toward that perfection.




AMERICAN INDIAN REPRESENTATION IN

WASHINGTON’S STANDARDS

In contrast to the largely contributory and progressive orientations of Arizona’s standards, half of Washington’s 22 reviewed standards reflect adiscordant orientation, while the other half are either progressive (36%) orcontributory (14%). Washington’s discordant standards tend to “cover”localized controversial public issues, while its contributory and progressivestandards tend to address more nationalized historical content. Contribu-tory Washington standards ask students to “examine how native peopleshelped the colonists establish survival skills in their new environment”(Washington Grade 5 4.2.2) and “evaluate the efforts of Russell Means andthe American Indian Movement regarding the honoring of treaty rights inthe United States” (Washington Grade 12 4.2.1). Both standards address

large-scale issues such as early European settlement of the United Statesand the broad American Indian Movement (AIM) rather than issues spe-cifically relevant to American Indian–European American relations in thePacific Northwest, and they are contributory because they focus more onthe overall contributions of American Indians to national development than on specific contested issues. The first standard advances the quest-for-freedom narrative by representing American Indians as passive facilitatorsof “progress” rather than as active political stakeholders in U.S. settlement.

The second standard could potentially be discordant because RussellMeans and AIM were attempting to assert American Indian rights in the

face of perceived long-standing political duplicity by European Americans,but as written the standard is contributory because it represents Means and AIM as symbolic archetypes of civil rights protest. According to the dictatesof multicultural inclusion, coverage of the Civil Rights Movement must encompass representatives of all politically relevant social groups, and inthis case AIM and Red Power are equivalent in the curriculum to the BlackPanthers and Black Power or the Chicano Movement and Brown Power:corresponding exemplars of radical social protest detached from theirunique ideological critiques of European American hegemony. In thesecases the authors of the standards tend to manipulate potentially discor-dant conflict to fit within the quest-for-freedom and imperfect but best

narrative templates.On the other hand, Washington policy makers tend to represent more

localized content in a discordant manner. Policy makers expect sixth-gradestudents to “examine how the history of ‘Tse-whit-zen,’ an ancient burialground and native village in Port Angeles, helps us understand the current conflict over use of the land” (Washington Grade 6 4.4.1), eleventh-gradestudents to “examine how local tribes used the court system to regain theirsovereign rights” (Washington Grade 11 4.2.2), and twelfth-grade studentsto “critique different positions on the Boldt decision based on an analysis of the Stevens treaties” (Washington Grade 12 4.4.1). These standards deploy




legalistic and adversarial language to indicate that discord is inherent tothe narrative. While the previously cited standard that asks students to“examine how native peoples helped the colonists establish survival skills in

their new environment” (Washington Grade 5 4.2.2) suggests a significant degree of cross-cultural cooperation, Washington’s discordant standardsimply that American Indians and European Americans are fundamentally competitors for scarce resources. The authors of Washington’s discordant standards also imply a social scientific approach to historical analysis that encompasses the economic, political, and social antecedents of AmericanIndian–European American conflict.

This conflict-based, social issues approach to history, however, alsoinvolves important curricular trade-offs. The case study approach that

Washington policy makers favor, while promoting engagement with and

analysis of ostensibly relevant historical issues, also potentially substitutesone form of minutiae for another. By expecting students to master thehistory of the Tse-whit-zen, the Stevens Treaties and the Boldt decision, andcompeting interpretations of the Makah’s whaling claims, the standardsbeg the question of historical significance. It is important for students to beable to draw upon historical evidence to weigh competing viewpoints anddefend a position, but Washington policy makers do not justify why theseparochial examples are sufficient to strengthen students’ broader historicalunderstandings. The danger here is that by focusing so intently on thedetails of the “case” students will be unable to connect the details to thelarger American political, economic, social, and cultural context that

shaped these events. Seixas (1993) maintains that “given too much inter-pretive leeway, students may construct and reinforce untenable views of thepast and of their place in historical time” (p. 320).

Last, the social issues orientation of Washington’s standards may encour-age teachers and students to conceptualize U.S. history through a prism of fragmentation, in which there is little common ground between AmericanIndians and European Americans and ideological conflict is both inevitableand intractable. This “balkanization” of the curriculum (Schlesinger, 1992)may be successful in avoiding eurocentrism by exposing students to mul-tiple perspectives on history, but it also potentially inhibits the ability of

students to apply synthesis perspectives to U.S. national development andto think critically about why social issues are contested at all. As the aboveanalysis reveals, well-intentioned efforts to engage students in critical think-ing sometimes have problematic unintended consequences.

DISCUSSION

This study’s findings reveal some stark differences between how Arizonaand Washington education policy makers conceptualize the goals of his-torical study. In Arizona historical content is the curriculum and ostensibly is to be learned for its own sake, while in Washington historical content




informs the curriculum, which is geared toward reflectiveness and critical-thinking capabilities, especially about issues of public policy. At the sametime, both standards documents fall short in promoting critical thinking

about American Indian–European American relations in U.S. history because they each succumb to a unique pratfall of multicultural inclusionorthodoxy. Arizona policy makers tend to shoehorn content on AmericanIndians into a singular and simplistic narrative of U.S. economic, political,and social development. The reviewed Arizona standards tend to adopt

what Levstik (2000) calls a “code of silence” about controversial aspects of U.S. history, particularly around American Indian–European Americanrelations. Relatively few standards represent the United States as a nationof, in Epstein’s (2009) phrase, “limited progress marked by struggle, racismand inequality” (p. 2). The standards documents more typically assimilate

potentially discordant content into quest-for-freedom and imperfect but best narrative templates. Washington policy makers, on the other hand, tend to deploy historical

content largely to contextualize locally relevant current events. This socialissues approach may implicitly encourage teachers and students to con-struct artificial social binaries to create an accessible and relevant narrativetemplate of perpetual conflict. Though one of the goals of historical study should certainly be to better understand the present, the approach takenby Washington policy makers tends toward what Wineburg (2001) labels“presentism,” or using history to suit present-day needs. Wineburgdescribes presentism as “our psychological condition at rest, a way of think-

ing that requires little effort and comes quite naturally” (p. 19). Presentist constructions of history are ultimately problematic because they tend toinhibit historical understanding of complex social issues.

It is not surprising that the reviewed standards reflect curricular trade-offs because various stakeholders expect school curricula to address a host of contradictory concerns. Cornbleth and Waugh (1995) argue that U.S.citizens have traditionally harbored unrealistic expectations for what schools can and should accomplish, as “schools are called on to resolvesocietal problems ranging from racial segregation to family breakdown tolagging competitiveness in the global economy” (p. vi). Politically moti-

vated interest groups have taken advantage of this popular conception of the schools as panaceas for various economic and social ills by attemptingto map their ideological agendas onto social studies curricula particularly,and in this sense the seemingly paradoxical nature of curriculum policy isnot coincidental. The school curriculum is an inherently bounded con-struct, so curriculum policy work necessarily involves choices and trade-offsabout what a society deems most important for its children to learn. Ques-tions about what and whose perspectives should be included in the curricu-lum are not merely academic, for “the question of whose cultural andmoral values will emerge as dominant in any society is hardly a trivialmatter” (Kliebard, 2004, p. 290).




The notion of curricular trade-offs also implies a zero-sum politicalarena wherein we can learn as much about a society’s ascendant valuesfrom what gets excluded from the curriculum as from what gets included in

the curriculum. In recent years the increasing prevalence of antiracist,social justice, and critical global curricular orientations among educationalscholars committed to a radical critique of the tenets of multiculturalismhas raised the political stakes of social studies curriculum development.May and Sleeter (2010) argue that in conventional multiculturalism “thefocus is on getting along better, primarily via a greater recognition of, andrespect for, ethnic, cultural, and/or linguistic differences” (p. 4), but whilethis curricular focus may be convenient and efficient, “it abdicates any corresponding recognition of unequal, and often untidy, power relationsthat underpin inequality and limit cultural interaction” (p. 4). In a similar

vein, Giroux (2000) contends that “in its conservative and liberal formsmulticulturalism has placed the related problems of white racism, social justice, and power off limits, especially as these might be addressed as part of a broader set of political and pedagogical concerns” (p. 196).

The authors of social studies standards documents, including policy makers, have consistently adapted to the often-contradictory social pres-sures on the curriculum by carving out a path of least resistance that aboveall seeks to avoid offending. Non-European Americans typically appearprominently in standards documents, but teachers and students are usually not given the tools to critically analyze persistently discordant relationsbetween social groups in U.S. history. The compromise curricular stance,

although seemingly crafted to appeal to the largest demographic possible,might somewhat paradoxically end up completely satisfying very few. Politi-cal conservatives may tend to find the compromise curriculum problematicbecause they believe that the standards deemphasize U.S. political tradi-tions to satisfy a multicultural inclusion criterion. Political liberals andcritical scholars, meanwhile, may tend to find the compromise curriculumequally as problematic because they believe it promotes a linear consensusnarrative that deemphasizes critical thinking about social relations in U.S.history. Despite, or perhaps because of, this epistemological angst, we toooften settle for curricula that fail to help students think more critically

about their social world. As this study’s findings suggest, hegemonic his-torical narratives, for all of their shortcomings, cannot easily be dislodged.

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