Thesis Submission Date
Spring 2012
Document Type
Campus Only Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
History
Reader 1
Diana Selig
Rights Information
© 2012 Alexa Teevens
Terms of Use & License Information
Abstract
This paper will explore the implications of Arizona 2010 House Bill 2281, a vaguely worded piece of legislation which has been identified as an attempt to eliminate ethnic studies programs from Arizona public schools, and particularly the Mexican-American Studies program of the Tucson Unified School District. Specifically, this analysis is concerned with the implications of this law on debates surrounding the legitimacy of ethnic studies, and more broadly, on the purpose of public education in the United States today. While both supporters and opponents of the bill believe that it is inappropriate to indoctrinate students in public school with a singular political agenda, an unraveling of this story makes clear that it is impossible to avoid such a quandary when curriculum insists that an objectivity of knowledge exists. As such, I advocate for a more fundamentally postmodern rethinking of social science curricula in which no single narrative is granted validity at the expense of all others.
Recommended Citation
Teevens, Alexa, "Arizona House Bill 2281 and the Politics of Knowledge in Public Schools" (2012). CMC Senior Theses. Paper 469.
http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/469