Competing Definitions of World History in American Schools

In this presentation I will address issues of teaching world history in middle and high schools. Today, more young Americans than ever receive formal instruction in the subject variously labeled world history, world civilizations, or world cultures. Challenges to world history education from advocates of overtly triumphal versions of Western Civ seem to me inconsequential. The reason, however, is not that arguments for history education informed by world-historical research are so persuasive but that educational officials continue to perceive world history as a mildly useful and largely innocuous exposure to “other cultures” as well as “our own.”

            I will propose that a wide cognitive gap continues to exist between scholars and teachers of what has been called the “new” world history on one hand and school decision-makers on the other over the definitions of world history education. In decision-making forums, debate has tended to center on questions of balance between study of the Western heritage and attention to “non-Western cultures.” The non-American history standards prescribed in many states represent a compromise between Western heritage and multiculturalist history. Leaders in world history scholarship and pedagogy have not had great impact on this decision-making, except in the design of the AP world history course. Thus, the definition of world history as the study of change among various aggregates of human beings at different scales of time and space up to the global scale (or cosmic scale for “big history” advocates) has not had nearly enough impact on school world history.  Many curriculum designers continue to presume that world history has to do with the heritages of various ethno-racial groups represented in the American population in addition to the heritage of the West. This state of affairs needs to change if preparation of  “global citizens” is a serious educational goal.