Facing the past: how slavery is taught in the United States today

Abstract

In this thesis my aim is to introduce the way Americans teach and learn about their own history with special focus on the history of slavery. The findings reveal that teaching slavery needs to be improved in various areas of the education system, because the data claims that a huge number of Americans are unaware of the basic information about slavery. Drawing on various studies and research in the field the thesis presents the brief history of slavery and analyzes what Americans really teach about it pertaining to the expectations of the states in their school curricula, the methods and attitudes of history teachers towards slavery, students’ general knowledge about it and the materials and content of history textbooks.