Hacienda La Puente Unified School District ‘Intersectional Ethnic Studies’ program seeks to teach students from TK-12 to ‘develop a critical lens.’

The Hacienda La Puente Unified School District’s TK-12 Intersectional Ethnic Studies program seeks to teach students to “develop a critical lens” and “critically examine concepts such as race, class, gender, and sexuality in relation to power, political systems, social structures, and social justice movements.” The program intends to infuse “intersectional ethnic studies pedagogy and curriculum from grades TK-12.”

The document describes “Intersectional Ethnic Studies” as a dynamic and collectively constructed curriculum and pedagogy that centers the histories, cultures and struggles of marginalized communities in the US.” It also “seeks to analyze systems of oppression and the relationships of identity and power impacting” a long list of groups. Lastly, it is “rooted in both individual and collective empowerment, centering the importance of education as a collective exercise.”

The district’s vision for the course is to “empower students to be lifelong learners who challenge systems of oppression and cultivate intersectional solidarity with diverse groups by critically analyzing the history, stories, and voices of marginalized communities.”

The stated mission of the program is for students “will be empowered to develop a critical lens to civically engage and become agents of social transformation that address the needs of their community on a local and global level.”

The program mission also states that it will provide “professional development for TK-12 teachers that are both infusing IES in their academic disciplines and developing IES classes, courses and pathways that supports Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, culturally relevant and culturally sustaining teaching practices, decolonial pedagogy, community responsive pedagogy, and anti racist/anti oppression pedagogy.” This includes “critically examine concepts such as race, class, gender, and sexuality in relation to power, political systems, social structures, and social justice movements.”

The program’s guiding values and principles state that students will “critique empire building in history and its relationship to white supremacy, racism, and other forms of power and oppression” and “challenge racist, bigoted, discriminatory, and imperialistic/colonial beliefs and practices on multiple levels.”

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At a March 5, 2024, District Advisory Committee meeting, a question was asked about what the “difference between critical race theory and ethnic studies” was. In response, it was stated that it “is a concept taught in law schools” but that “in TK-12 Ethnic Studies, Critical Race Theory is not something that we are teaching in the classrooms.”