History for All: Addressing the Exclusion of Women and Minority Voices in US History Document Readers

Popular document readers for US history courses are not inclusive. Representation of women and racial minorities is disproportionately sparse, and in some cases nonexistent, in the materials offered to US history students. Even materials from College Board's Advanced Placement United States History test suggest a document reader that has almost no women's voices in comparison to the number of documents written or created by men, and almost no representation of racial minority voices. This poster presentation will look at document readers used in AP US History and college survey courses to show evidence of these discrepancies and to suggest immediate changes that can, and should, be made.