Contested Curriculum: LGBTQ History Goes to School
Today, many states have proposed so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bills that prohibit public school teachers from mentioning LGBTQ topics in the classroom. But a few states, like California, have taken decisive steps in the other direction. They mandate inclusive education that treats LGBTQ history as essential to the curriculum. At once a history of an evolving movement and an activist handbook, Contested Curriculum navigates the rocky path to LGBTQ-inclusive K-12 history education in the United States and recounts the fight for a curriculum that recognizes the value of queer and trans lives.
 
What began in fits and starts in activism and educational materials across the late twentieth century led to the passage of California’s landmark FAIR Education Act in 2011, ensuring that LGBTQ history has a place in the K-12 classroom. Historian Don Romesburg, the lead scholar who worked with advocacy organizations to pass the act, recounts the decades-long struggle to integrate LGBTQ content into history education policy, textbooks, and classrooms. Looking at California and states that followed its lead, he assesses the challenges and opportunities presented by this new way of teaching history. Romesburg’s powerful case for LGBTQ-inclusive education is all the more urgent in this era of anti-gay book bans, regressive legislation, and attempts to diminish the vital role that inclusive and honest history education should play in a democratic nation.
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Contested Curriculum: LGBTQ History Goes to School
Today, many states have proposed so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bills that prohibit public school teachers from mentioning LGBTQ topics in the classroom. But a few states, like California, have taken decisive steps in the other direction. They mandate inclusive education that treats LGBTQ history as essential to the curriculum. At once a history of an evolving movement and an activist handbook, Contested Curriculum navigates the rocky path to LGBTQ-inclusive K-12 history education in the United States and recounts the fight for a curriculum that recognizes the value of queer and trans lives.
 
What began in fits and starts in activism and educational materials across the late twentieth century led to the passage of California’s landmark FAIR Education Act in 2011, ensuring that LGBTQ history has a place in the K-12 classroom. Historian Don Romesburg, the lead scholar who worked with advocacy organizations to pass the act, recounts the decades-long struggle to integrate LGBTQ content into history education policy, textbooks, and classrooms. Looking at California and states that followed its lead, he assesses the challenges and opportunities presented by this new way of teaching history. Romesburg’s powerful case for LGBTQ-inclusive education is all the more urgent in this era of anti-gay book bans, regressive legislation, and attempts to diminish the vital role that inclusive and honest history education should play in a democratic nation.
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Contested Curriculum: LGBTQ History Goes to School

Contested Curriculum: LGBTQ History Goes to School

Contested Curriculum: LGBTQ History Goes to School

Contested Curriculum: LGBTQ History Goes to School

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Overview

Today, many states have proposed so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bills that prohibit public school teachers from mentioning LGBTQ topics in the classroom. But a few states, like California, have taken decisive steps in the other direction. They mandate inclusive education that treats LGBTQ history as essential to the curriculum. At once a history of an evolving movement and an activist handbook, Contested Curriculum navigates the rocky path to LGBTQ-inclusive K-12 history education in the United States and recounts the fight for a curriculum that recognizes the value of queer and trans lives.
 
What began in fits and starts in activism and educational materials across the late twentieth century led to the passage of California’s landmark FAIR Education Act in 2011, ensuring that LGBTQ history has a place in the K-12 classroom. Historian Don Romesburg, the lead scholar who worked with advocacy organizations to pass the act, recounts the decades-long struggle to integrate LGBTQ content into history education policy, textbooks, and classrooms. Looking at California and states that followed its lead, he assesses the challenges and opportunities presented by this new way of teaching history. Romesburg’s powerful case for LGBTQ-inclusive education is all the more urgent in this era of anti-gay book bans, regressive legislation, and attempts to diminish the vital role that inclusive and honest history education should play in a democratic nation.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781978824096
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Publication date: 04/15/2025
Series: Q+ Public
Pages: 284
Product dimensions: 5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range: 16 - 18 Years

About the Author

DON ROMESBURG is a professor of women's and gender studies at Sonoma State University in California. He is the editor of The Routledge History of Queer America

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Series Foreword by E. G. Crichton
Introduction    Can LGBTQ History Education Save Democracy?
1        The Prehistory of LGBTQ History Education
2        The State’s the Place?: Sidelined Reforms Become Opt-In History 
3        Making California FAIR (with Carolyn Laub)
4        Resource FAIR: Materials and Trainings Empower Educators (with Rick Oculto)
Conclusion    As California Goes…?
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

Notes on the Art xi
Series Foreword xvii
e. g. crichton
Introduction: Can LGBTQ History
Education Save Democracy? 1
1. The Prehistory of LGBTQ History Education 27
2. The State’s the Place? Sidelined Reforms
Become Opt-In
History 55
3. Making California FAIR 95
with Carolyn Laub
4. Resource FAIR: Materials and Trainings
Empower Educators 139
with rick oculto
Conclusion: As California Goes . . . ? 177
Acknowledgments
197
Notes 201
Index 000
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