Unpicking The Ethnocentric Curriculum by Sienna Mullen

The term ‘ethnocentric’ describes an attitude or policy that gives priority, and therefore unjust superiority, to the culture of one particular ethnic group, while disregarding others. Blatantly, the ethnic group is the white majority, which dominates and has the unfair advantage over all ethnicities in the education system. I could write all day about the institutional racism within the education system and schools but I’ve decided to zoom in on the broad topic of the ethnocentric curriculum, and how one can break and change this.

Think back to your days in the history classroom. Remember learning about the Tudors? White. Remember learning about Oliver Cromwell, a glorified advocator of slavery and oppression? White. Remember learning about Queen Elizabeth I yet not touching on the slavery that was occuring simultaneously during her reign? White. Remember learning about black history, both past and present, and the devastation that was slavery? No, neither do I.

Using history is a fairly obvious choice, and is nothing that you wouldn’t have heard or thought of before- not that I am taking the easy way out- but it serves as a prime example and demonstration of the ethnocentric curriculum; enforcing white supremacy, forcing black submission as they are denied the chance to learn about their heritage.

As a white person, I can say with full confidence, and I am not an anomaly, those glorified white figures of history, most of whom we ignore their inherent flawed and racist character- Oliver Cromwell immediately springs to mind, amongst others- whilst it has given me advantages that were
even unconscious to me, have no real benefit to my growing morals, ideologies and values, and if this is not against yours, I urge you to think again.

But how does this disadvantage black people if they’ve been learning white history for years with some still succeeding? That is an ignorant thought to consider, yet one that has been circulating and repressed time and time again. The first thing to consider is that this problem of poc being negatively affected by the ethnocentric curriculum has not just arisen overnight; it was just suppressed for years and years until George Floyd lost his life and black people were empowered by exhaustion from years of repression that the media had to take notice of it. And for the first time, many white people were there to show their support, and recognise that this is very much an issue to do with them, standing side by side in alliance with their black counterparts, ready to amplify their voices. Furthermore, the promotion of the attitude of ‘Little Englandism’ (titled by Ball,1994) ensures white students are empowered and glorified and students of ethnic minorities are ignored. Sociologist Bernard Coard (1971; 2005) explains how the ethnocentric curriculum may produce underachievement of poc. He too uses history as an example, arguing that the British are prone to being depicted as bringing civilisation to the ‘primitive’ peoples they colonised, creating an image of black people as inferior which undermines black children’s self-esteem, disadvantaging them and leading to their failure.

I cannot imagine being only a child of age 5 or 6 unconsciously having it drilled into my head that I am inferior. Other various sociologists have disputed Coard’s claims, but the fact remains that if even one black child feels the way Coard describes, then the curriculum, set and reviewed by our white majority government, is at fault. Of course this could very well lead to disadvantage and even failure when it comes to exams; there is a multitude of evidence out there to suggest a self-fulfilling prophecy can be created. This is essentially sabotage by the white majority, to ensure their continued supremacy as they are the ones who will graduate with a respectable 2:1 from Oxford University in Classics with one thing leading to another, and next thing you know you’re the next white prime minister, still ignoring the chant for change. Yes, I am talking about the travesty that is Boris Johnson. And all this can be traced back to his sense of supremacy instilled in him from the age of 5 due to the ethnocentric curriculum. Education is powerful, and dangerous in the wrong hands. Meanwhile, his black classmate is learning they will never be granted a position of power. But imagine if he (or she) was the prime minister? Perhaps the threads of inferiority would have been unpicked in the curriculum by now.

Let's interrogate another subject which also promotes white culture, disadvantaging people of colour: English Literature. As an A level English student myself, I can assuredly confirm that ethnic diversity is not present in the curriculum our school follows. In the letter our school community received in response to Amy Djang and Nichol Yesuthasan’s open letter begging for the curriculum to be revised and to incorporate much more diversity into the curriculum, the school defensively argues “in English we examine the decolonisation of England’s oldest colony- since we study Barry’s novel, ‘A Long Long Way’; and authors such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Khaled Hosseini feature at A level”. This statement is problematic in itself, but I have 2 major problems with this. 

Firstly, although I am only in year 12 and have not completed the second year of the A level course as of yet, I can say that we do not study the works of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie or Khaled Hosseini. That is a blatant lie. What they may have been referring to is the fact that a handful of students may have selected one of their works to study for their coursework- there is an NEA element to english A level, where students are granted some autonomy to select a work of literature of our choice- it is not compulsory to choose a black author, and I would claim only a handful of students choose Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie or Khaled Hosseini’s works to study in depth for their NEA. It is not that we wouldn’t want to study their works at all, the desire is there, but the students do not have the ultimate power to make texts by black authors compulsory. Furthermore, ‘A Long Long Way’ explores Irish history, not the history of poc, so whilst I’m not claiming that Irish history isn’t important, I myself am part Irish, this is not what we asked for proof of. We asked for proof of a strong incorporation of black literature in our curriculum. If this is their only evidence of diversity in the English Literature curriculum, a subject that has the potential to explore black literature in immense and precise detail, then this is criminally insufficient. The English curriculum itself is flexible to an extent. For example, our teachers could have picked ‘The Colour Purple’ by Alice Walker or ‘The God of Small Things’ by Suzanna Arundhati Roy to study at A level. Granted there is not an immense selection of black literature on the AQA syllabus that we follow, but nevertheless there are still opportunities to study prevalent black literature, and whilst I recognise that teachers are perhaps uncomfortable teaching such texts since it is not in their area of specialty and they would not want to do their students disservice by blindly navigating their way through unknown territory, you’ve got to break the chain at some point, right? Even if that is the proposed argument, then let us study black literature in KS3 where the syllabus is immensely flexible compared to exam classes; instil anti-racist attitudes and equality into us from the age of 11. English literature is a powerful subject, if used correctly.

Secondly and finally, the fact that students have to wait until A level and choose it- in my year approximately 30 of 140 students are currently studying english- is despicable. Why are we denied the right to study black literature, and therefore black history and culture, until we turn 17? Why has
the school deemed it acceptable to let us learn about William Shakespeare, a poignant part of white literature but not Maya Angelou and her significant contribution to literature and society? We, as students, are ravenous for knowledge that can serve to accelerate change in my generation. Knowledge is power, after all.

As I have already stated, I am white- I am not part of the minority and I have never been made to feel inferior due to my race, and so I can only hope to sympathise with the desperation, hindrance and suppression my black counterparts have experienced. But I too am desperate for change. I crave it. I, as a white 17 year old, want to learn in depth about racism both past and present, and not learn to glorify white history, but instead be taught to criticise my race’s errors to learn from the mistakes and demolish this idea of white supremacy. Only education has the power to do this.

It is not until we are educated on the injustice of racism that the white race can begin to use their privilege to amplify what black people have already been shouting all along. Education is the catalyst for real change; incorporating black history, literature, music, and food into the curriculum will enable the studying, interrogating and critiquing of racism in which all future generations will learn that racism is inherently and absolutely wrong, inspiring sparks for real change, and protestation in any deviation from equality. By unpicking the tangled web of lies that is the ethnocentric curriculum, only then can any real change and equality come.