Race, Language, and the Passive Voice: Hardship narratives in U.S. Social Studies Textbooks from 1860 to the present
While United States historians’ inclination to write in affect-inducing ways has waxed and waned throughout the past 150 years, racial biases concerning such writing have persisted through today. Adapting Mark Phillips’ (2013) concept of historical distance coupled with a form of linguistic analysis...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Journal of Social Studies Education Research
2020-06-01
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| Series: | Journal of Social Studies Education Research |
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| Online Access: | https://jsser.org/index.php/jsser/article/view/2002 |
| _version_ | 1797905517428867072 |
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| author | Jeremy Jimenez |
| author_facet | Jeremy Jimenez |
| author_sort | Jeremy Jimenez |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | While United States historians’ inclination to write in affect-inducing ways has waxed and waned throughout the past 150 years, racial biases concerning such writing have persisted through today. Adapting Mark Phillips’ (2013) concept of historical distance coupled with a form of linguistic analysis known as stylistics, I examine 50 U.S. history textbooks from 1860 to 2016 in order to analyze which individuals and groups are discussed as experiencing suffering and whether or not these hardship narratives are apt to elicit compassion from their readers. I find that textbooks published after the Civil War consistently contain discourses that encourage readers to be concerned with the welfare of elites and whites, at first exclusively focusing on white elites’ hardships and then eventually including all whites. At the same time, these texts consistently neglect to acknowledge the hardship experiences of domestic marginalized groups and, when textbooks do discuss their hardships, their narrative style is likely to limit readers’ capacity to have concern for their oppression. Specifically, I find that the most enduring textbook writing characteristic for U.S. textbook authors from the mid-19th century through the present day is to discuss acts of violence by non-white groups using the active voice while describing violence by white Americans towards non-whites in the passive voice, which impacts readers’ capacity to recall and empathize with the hardship narratives. Understanding how history textbooks continue to propagate these selective uses of compassionate discourses has significant implications for understanding and addressing not only history instruction, but for contemporary civil rights struggles as well. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-10T10:07:49Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-4f469a9b0bd34221ace69c42b12896bb |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1309-9108 1309-9108 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-10T10:07:49Z |
| publishDate | 2020-06-01 |
| publisher | Journal of Social Studies Education Research |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Social Studies Education Research |
| spelling | doaj.art-4f469a9b0bd34221ace69c42b12896bb2023-02-15T16:22:24ZengJournal of Social Studies Education ResearchJournal of Social Studies Education Research1309-91081309-91082020-06-01112126446Race, Language, and the Passive Voice: Hardship narratives in U.S. Social Studies Textbooks from 1860 to the presentJeremy Jimenez0State University of New York (SUNY) at CortlandWhile United States historians’ inclination to write in affect-inducing ways has waxed and waned throughout the past 150 years, racial biases concerning such writing have persisted through today. Adapting Mark Phillips’ (2013) concept of historical distance coupled with a form of linguistic analysis known as stylistics, I examine 50 U.S. history textbooks from 1860 to 2016 in order to analyze which individuals and groups are discussed as experiencing suffering and whether or not these hardship narratives are apt to elicit compassion from their readers. I find that textbooks published after the Civil War consistently contain discourses that encourage readers to be concerned with the welfare of elites and whites, at first exclusively focusing on white elites’ hardships and then eventually including all whites. At the same time, these texts consistently neglect to acknowledge the hardship experiences of domestic marginalized groups and, when textbooks do discuss their hardships, their narrative style is likely to limit readers’ capacity to have concern for their oppression. Specifically, I find that the most enduring textbook writing characteristic for U.S. textbook authors from the mid-19th century through the present day is to discuss acts of violence by non-white groups using the active voice while describing violence by white Americans towards non-whites in the passive voice, which impacts readers’ capacity to recall and empathize with the hardship narratives. Understanding how history textbooks continue to propagate these selective uses of compassionate discourses has significant implications for understanding and addressing not only history instruction, but for contemporary civil rights struggles as well.https://jsser.org/index.php/jsser/article/view/2002social studies textbooksracismlanguageempathyhistorical distance |
| spellingShingle | Jeremy Jimenez Race, Language, and the Passive Voice: Hardship narratives in U.S. Social Studies Textbooks from 1860 to the present Journal of Social Studies Education Research social studies textbooks racism language empathy historical distance |
| title | Race, Language, and the Passive Voice: Hardship narratives in U.S. Social Studies Textbooks from 1860 to the present |
| title_full | Race, Language, and the Passive Voice: Hardship narratives in U.S. Social Studies Textbooks from 1860 to the present |
| title_fullStr | Race, Language, and the Passive Voice: Hardship narratives in U.S. Social Studies Textbooks from 1860 to the present |
| title_full_unstemmed | Race, Language, and the Passive Voice: Hardship narratives in U.S. Social Studies Textbooks from 1860 to the present |
| title_short | Race, Language, and the Passive Voice: Hardship narratives in U.S. Social Studies Textbooks from 1860 to the present |
| title_sort | race language and the passive voice hardship narratives in u s social studies textbooks from 1860 to the present |
| topic | social studies textbooks racism language empathy historical distance |
| url | https://jsser.org/index.php/jsser/article/view/2002 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT jeremyjimenez racelanguageandthepassivevoicehardshipnarrativesinussocialstudiestextbooksfrom1860tothepresent |