Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-3-2024

Journal Title

AAPI Nexus Journal: Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders Policy, Practice and Community

Volume Number

21

Issue Number

1 & 2

First Page

293

Last Page

314

Disciplines

Curriculum and Social Inquiry | Race and Ethnicity | Secondary Education

Abstract

In recent years, political pressure to address systemic racism, police brutality, and racialized violence in California has resulted in the passage of laws and policies that mandate public schools, colleges, and universities to require Ethnic Studies courses. Amidst this expansion, an array of policies and practices are emerging within and across systems that reflect what is believed to be core knowledge in Ethnic Studies and subfields like Asian American Studies. This article distills observations from one site among these different systems—secondary schools—and describes a “flattening,” or watering down, of Asian American Studies in emerging curricula and instructional practices. It discusses four forms of flattening—subsuming, reducing, decontextualizing, and omitting—and offers recommendations for responding to these tendencies.

Notes

AAPI Nexus Journal granted "free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit, and display [this] work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship." The article is also available on the original website: https://www.aapinexus.org/2024/04/03/article-flattening-asian-american-studies-in-secondary-education/

Original Publication Citation

James O. Fabionar and Jesse Mills (2024) “Flattening” Asian American Studies in Secondary Education: Strategies and Recommendations for Conceptualizing the Field in Public Schools. AAPI Nexus: Policy, Practice and Community: 2024, Vol. 21, No. 1 & 2. https://www.aapinexus.org/2024/04/03/article-flattening-asian-american-studies-in-secondary-education/

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