Jefferson Union High School District’s ethnic studies curriculum features oppression and privilege, Gender Unicorn, 1619 Project, and “Palestinian Dispossession” of lands, identity, and culture through “Zionist settler colonialism”
Incidents
SUMMARY
Jefferson Union High School District’s (CA) ethnic studies curriculum features topics such as intersectionality, oppression, privilege, and settler colonialism; and lessons that inlcude The Gender Unicorn, The 1619 Project, and the study of “Palestinian dispossession of lands/identity/culture through Zionist settler colonialism.”
In 2024, the district revised its 2023 curriculum by removing the terms “Zionist” and “Anti-Zionism.”
ETHNIC STUDIES CURRICULUM
Course Overview
The curriculum course overview states that ethnic studies “cultivates communities that are committed to holistic wellness, liberation, and solidarity” and to “critical hope and liberatory education.” Ethnic studies “challenges and dismantles systems of oppression” through the implementation of “cycles in which each person: practices identifying and analyzing social problems caused by racism; plans and implements an action-orientated solution; and reflects the process” and “challenges and dismantles systems of oppression.”
Unit 1: Self and Stories
The first unit of the curriculum teaches students about their “racialized intersectional identity” to help “build community, empathy, and solidarity.”
Included in the unit are lessons that include “The Gender Unicorn” and “Worldview” from University of California, Berkeley’s Integrated Action Civics Project that asks students to share their political views and which political issues they care about.
Unit 2: Systems of Oppression
A unit titled “Systems of Oppression” centers on “oppression” and “envisioning a just society.” Content includes “power, privilege, hegemony, implicit bias,” and “White Supremacist settler colonialism,” as well as the “Palestinian dispossession of lands/identity/culture through settler colonialism.”
Assignments include a lesson titled “Hegemony and Normalization” from Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium (LESMCC), a “Check Your Privilege” activity from Do the Work! An Antiracist Activity Book, and a reading from The 1619 Project.
Another assignment under “worldview with a colonizing worldview” is titled “How did Balfour Declaration and the Mandate for Palestine create tension?”
Unit 3: Social Movements and Solidarity
“Unit 3: Social Movements and Solidarity” focuses on the “resistance and resilience of my people in organizing against anti-injustice” and the “transformative solidarity between people and other communities of color in reimagining a better world.” The unit assignment requires students to “compare and contrast two social movements through writing.” Suggested topics include the Black Panther Party, Black Lives Matter, and the “Self Determination of Palestine.”
Unit 4: Community Empowerment and Agency
The fourth unit, “Community Empowerment and Agency” states that the course will “practice taking informed action in the pursuit of social justice” and will complete a final project that “may include building educational materials, advocating for policy change, or creating intervention strategies.”
2023 ETHNIC STUDIES CURRICULUM
In 2024, the district revised the curriculum by removing the terms “Zionist” and “Anti-Zionism.”
Under “Unit 2: Systems of Oppression” in the original 2023 ethnic studies curriculum, the district had originally included “Zionist settler colonialism” when examining the “Palestinian dispossession of lands/identity/culture.”
Additionally, in “Unit 3: Social Movements and Solidarity,” the original curriculum included the “Self Determination of Palestine and Anti-Zionism.”
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