Race and the Evidence of Experience: Accounting for Race in Historical Thinking Pedagogy

ABSTRACT How can history pedagogy account for racialized experiences impacting historical thinking in the present? In contrast to a more universalized set of historical thinking skills, this article asserts a framework for historical inquiry through students’ racialized experiences. What does historical inquiry through racialized experience look like? Rather than merely make room in the curriculum to validate racialized experience, students require tools to confront and historicize their experiences in a racialized world. Through three essential questions addressing the relationship between historical thinking and racialized experience, I emphasize historical scholarship that centers racially marginalized experiences. These essential questions lead into a framework for reorienting historical inquiry in the classroom, complimenting rather than replacing mainstream historical thinking pedagogy.