The United States is known as a country of immigrants. For centuries, people have immigrated to the U.S. from all over the world. With this knowledge, I was shocked when I came to America and witnessed how immigrants and people different from main-stream middle class families are treated. I especially became aware that I was different and that I might be treated differently. While I know that ethnocentrism is not only found in the United States, I did not expect some of the harsh treatments that I received or that I witnessed others receive. I started to think about this and also about why American people and people of my own culture can be ethnocentric. Then, I realized that this is only because they do not know or understand about other cultures.
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In the U.S. specifically, it could help to ease the conflicts that have become obvious as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement we can hear about frequently in the news and also as a result of the presidential campaigns where we have seen a lot of ethnocentric comments from certain candidates. However, as Brassard (2010) states, “the fact remains that anthropology is largely left out of or otherwise obscured in public high school curricula in the United States” (p. 10). Popson and Selig (2012) elaborate that “Today, junior high and high schools with a separate anthropology course appear to be primarily private or independent schools, charter/magnet schools, or public schools in wealthy school districts” and “none of anthropology’s five fields is included in any state’s social studies requirements” (p. 9, …show more content…
With this curriculum change, states will have to put extra care into aiding in the design of anthropology curriculum because most of the studies I was able to find expressed that the teachers who developed the curriculum basically had design all of their materials themselves (Bennett, 2005; Berkowitz, 2002; Brassard, 2010). This is because, as Brassard (2010) explained, “most anthropology textbooks are written at the college level, to say nothing of monographs, most of which are unacceptable in style or content for high school students” (p. 10). Even if there are not many choices for anthropology textbooks at a high school level, a simple search reveals many textbook options that are written in a way that high schoolers could easily
In the U.S. specifically, it could help to ease the conflicts that have become obvious as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement we can hear about frequently in the news and also as a result of the presidential campaigns where we have seen a lot of ethnocentric comments from certain candidates. However, as Brassard (2010) states, “the fact remains that anthropology is largely left out of or otherwise obscured in public high school curricula in the United States” (p. 10). Popson and Selig (2012) elaborate that “Today, junior high and high schools with a separate anthropology course appear to be primarily private or independent schools, charter/magnet schools, or public schools in wealthy school districts” and “none of anthropology’s five fields is included in any state’s social studies requirements” (p. 9, …show more content…
With this curriculum change, states will have to put extra care into aiding in the design of anthropology curriculum because most of the studies I was able to find expressed that the teachers who developed the curriculum basically had design all of their materials themselves (Bennett, 2005; Berkowitz, 2002; Brassard, 2010). This is because, as Brassard (2010) explained, “most anthropology textbooks are written at the college level, to say nothing of monographs, most of which are unacceptable in style or content for high school students” (p. 10). Even if there are not many choices for anthropology textbooks at a high school level, a simple search reveals many textbook options that are written in a way that high schoolers could easily