DOCUMENT RESUME HE 032 674 ED 432 966 Berkin, Carol Ruth; Howell, Martha C.; Ortiz, Altagracia; AUTHOR Armstead, Myra B. Young; Zinsser, Judith History. CUNY Panel: Rethinking the Disciplines. Women in TITLE the Curriculum Series. Towson Univ., Baltimore, MD. National Center for Curriculum INSTITUTION Transformation Resources on Women. Ford Foundation, New York, NY.; Fund for the Improvement of SPONS AGENCY Postsecondary Education (ED), Washington, DC. ISBN-1-885303-12-2 ISBN 1997-00-00 PUB DATE 68p.; For related documents in this series, see HE NOTE 032-663-689. Towson University, 8000 York Road, Baltimore, MD 21252; Tel: AVAILABLE FROM 800-847-9922 (Toll Free); Fax: 410-830-3482; Web site: http://www.towson.edu/ncctrw ($10). General (020) Collected Works PUB TYPE MF01/PC03 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE *College Curriculum; *College Instruction; Elementary DESCRIPTORS Secondary Education; Ethnicity; Females; Feminism; *Feminist Criticism; Higher Education; *History; History Instruction; Models; Puerto Ricans; Race; *Research; Research Methodology; *Sex Bias; Sex Differences; Sex Fairness; Sexuality; Social History; Theories; United States History Gender Issues; *Womens History IDENTIFIERS ABSTRACT This collection of five essays examines the ways in which history, as a discipline, currently reflects ongoing scholarship on g.nder, race, ethnicity, social class, and sexual orientation. In "Rethinking History," Carol Ruth Berkin reviews the incorporation of social history into elementary, secondary, and postsecondary textbooks. In "History--Writing from the Margins," Martha C. Howell examines the effects of social history on the profession and the interdisciplinary nature of much of the scholarship on gender, race, ethnicity, and social class. In "Puerto Rican Women's Historiography and the Inclusive Curriculum," Altagracia Ortiz traces the development of Puerto Rican women's history over the last several decades and notes the lack of inclusion of Puerto Rican history into the curriculum. In "American Social History," Myra B. Young Armstead argues that the study of issues surrounding gender, race, ethnicity, and social class have directly challenged conventional historical wisdom and augmented historians' understanding of the past. In "Measuring Impact," Judith P. Zinsser argues that while the field of women's history has grown exponentially over the last several decades, women's experiences continue to be subsumed under men's history or fall prey to old denigrating prejudices. Most essays contain references. (MDM) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ******************************************************************************** /4- I I CUNY Panel: Rethinking the Discipli e Ii D O U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) t1134his document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. 0 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. BEST COPY AVAILA 01) ° Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. -*AZ. Women the Curriculum HISTORY CUNY Panel: Rethinking the Disciplines Carol Ruth Berkin Baruch College, CUNY Martha C. Howell Columbia University Altagracia Ortiz John Jay College, CUNY Myra B. Young Armstead Bard College Judith Zinsser Miami University National Center for Curriculum Transformation Resources on Women 1997 Women National Center for Curriculum Transformation Resources on Institute for Teaching and Research on Women Towson University 8000 York Road Baltimore, MD 21252. Phone: (410) 830-3944 Fax: (410) 830-3469 E-mail: [email protected] http://www.towson.eduincctrw Copyright © 1997 National Center for Curriculum Transformation Resources on Women Science: Reprint of "The CUNY Academy for the Humanities and Rethinking the Disciplines," 1994. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, and including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage Center retrieval system, without permission in writing from the National for Curriculum Transformation Resources on Women. Resources on The National Center for Curriculum Transformation Foundation and Women is partially supported by grants from The Ford Improvement of the U.S. Department of Education, Fund for the acknowledged. Postsecondary Education, whose support is gratefully reflect The viewpoints expressed herein, however, do not necessarily those of the funding agencies. Printed on recycled paper by Uptown Press, Baltimore, MD ISBN 1-885303-12-2 Table of Contents iii CONTENTS Preface Rethinking History 1 Carol Ruth Berkin Writing from the Margins 9 History Martha C. Howell Puerto Rican Women's Historiography 20 and the Inclusive Curriculum Altagracia Ortiz 29 American Social History Myra B. Young Armstead 40 Measuring Impact Judith P Zinsser 52 Contributors 5 Towson University, Baltimore, MD History v PREFACE In the fall of 1992 the SEMINAR ON SCHOLAR- SHIP AND THE CURRICULUM: THE STUDY OF GENDER, RACE, ETHNICITY, AND CLASS, under the aegis of the City University of New York Academy for the Humanities and the Sciences, and generously funded by the Ford Foundation, undertook a series of meetings devoted to "Rethinking the Disciplines." The Academy Seminar had already spent four years examining ways in which the study of gender, race, ethnicity, and class has slowly been transforming the curriculum of the university. Panels had explored women's studies, ethnic studies, area studies, interdisciplinary studies, pedagogical issues, and teaching about such topics as AIDS. The Academy Semi- nar draws upon faculty at CUNY who are members of the CUNY Academy, upon those interested in these specific issues and upon those who have themselves taken part in one of the several curriculum transformation projects within CUNY beginning in the 1980s.* * Two at Hunter College beginning 1983 among those teaching introductory courses and in 1985 among faculty in the professional schools; two sponsored by the Center for the Study of Women and Soci- ety with Ford Foundation grants for the Community Colleges and for Integrating Materials on Women of Color into the Senior Colleges; four semester-long seminars funded by the New York State Department of Education's Vocational Education Program for technical and vocation- al education faculty within the University; and six year-long seminars organized by the Office of Academic Affairs of the University for Bal- ancing the Curriculum for Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and Class. Towson University, Baltimore, MD Rethinking the Disciplines vi fifth year the It was timely, therefore, that in its Academy Seminar should ask directly how much the new theory and curriculum changes that have been identified pursuit of our dis- over the years have actually affected the ciplines. The four areas targetedLiterature, History, So- ciology, and Biologyrepresent disciplines in which a have great deal of new "theory" now exists, new journals proliferated, and considerable work has been done under and disseminate the many aegises to identify, explicate, transformed perspectives that have been formulated. There is no lack of materials now, no absence of theoretical frameworks, no question of the level of sophistication and argumentation, and no dearth of pedagogical analyses demonstrating the importance of these new methodolog- ical approaches, this new knowledge base. For HISTORY, each panelist was asked to consider the issues from a set of questions framed to bring forward what is happening from her perspective in the discipline. These questions probe the ways history currently reflects the ongoing scholarship on gender, race, ethnicity, and class: have there been any shifts in the ways research is taught to graduate students in this field, for example, or are the questions asked by the discipline in any way different? If there have been changes, have they begun to show up in introductory textbooks? More fundamentally, do our panelists believe that If there have been efforts to reconceptualize the discipline? think disciplinary changes have on the other hand, panelists been minor, do they care to comment on whyin the light of so much new scholarship on gender, race, ethnicity, and disci- class, changes remain marginal to the practice of the pline? 7 National Center for Curriculum Transformation Resources on Women History vii Has our new wealth of knowledge affected our teaching? Has it accomplished any significant paradigm shifts in traditional disciplines? Dorothy 0. He lly Series Editor November 30, 1992 S Towson Uniiersity, Baltimore, MD History 1 HISTORY Rethinking History Carol Ruth Berkin It is always a problem to assess the impact of new scholarship upon a social science or humanities discipline. In part, the problem lies in the fact that few of these disci- plines are so centralizedideologically, methodologically, or even in terms of authority hierarchythat any single rejection or acceptance of a new approach (no matter how dramatic) can be pointed to as definitive. My own disci- plinehistoryis so fragmented, both in terms of methods and interpretive paradigms, and it is so divided and subdi- vided along axes of chronology, national boundaries, areas such as politics, economics, and so on, with each segment boasting its own journals, conferences, and figures of au- thority, that new approaches do not so much challenge or reshape the discipline all at once; rather they challenge or reshape small commonwealths within it. This means that interpretative and methodological changes and refinement come unevenly, and that a critical mass of scholarship develops at a different pace on each topic. And, because historians are, I believe, notoriously individualistic about their work, scholars developing new approaches have little in the way of strategic planning or even cooperative enter- prise focused on developing a literature that illustrates and exemplifies the strengths of that approach. Finally, while Towson University, Baltimore, MD Rethinking the Disciplines 2 there is certainly a literature that focuses on race, gender, class, or ethnicityand any combination thereofthere is the meaning of no consensus among its practitioners on these terms or on the analytic models that most effectively deploy them. Nor is there any consensus on the ways in which these categories of analysis intersect or stand in ten- sion with one another. one would have had to be buried in the And yet . . . stacks of a library for the past two decades not to believe that the scholarship on gender/et al. has had a dynamic im- pact on the discipline of history. Helter-skelter, the new scholarship has forced dialogue (and heated argument) on chronology, on peri- every eternal verity of the field: on odization, on the hierarchy of events and issues we study, and on the critical actors in the history we are analyzing and reconstructing. I do not mean to disparage these signs of success. But, I do not think that they cover all that the organizers of this seminar had in mind when they asked "have the disci- plines changed as result of the scholarship on gender, race, ethnicity, and class." For these changes reflect the impact of gender/class and such as topics rather than categories of analysis. Only if we look at them as a classification of sub- ject matterwomen, African Americans, Asian Ameri- labor organizing, or the cans, working class movements or Italian-American immigrants to the United Statescan we shift is no small thing; but it see a shift in the disciplinea is a preliminary step rather than a revolution. It is probably salutary to review that "preliminary step." Over the past two decades, an extensive literature found its way into journals, on most of these topics has anthologies, conference panels, and monographic work. It has become part of the body of knowledge historians can and are expected to draw upon. Once it reaches a critical 0 National Center for Curriculum Transformation Resources on Women