Discussions of Black history and school desegregation in many K-12 schools have been narrowed to a few heroic figures and moments. Historic representations are currently challenged by a nationwide movement to uphold White supremacy and deny the violent history of racism in the US. The revisionist claims are challenged in this qualitative narrative…

Folklife, a type of inquiry that focuses on "ways of life" as its central lens, is constantly changing. Rather than focus on cultural loss or salvaging, folklife inquiry is more powerful when it is positioned to offer insights about human experience through the sharing of personal lived histories in safe and supportive environments. At…

Eliza West and Emily Toettcher explain how a partnership between school and museum has evolved into a four-year enquiry into local history. The article focuses on the successful introduction of an oral history element in the GCSE syllabus and how the investigation into 'remembered' history helps students to appreciate the complexities of truth and…

The purpose of this oral history is to document the lived experience of the learning environment of African American students and culturally specific practices of African American teachers who taught in the legally segregated Louisville Central High School. Historically, segregated African American schools have been depicted as inferior…

As part of my PhD practice-based research on Tlicho lands (a self-governed Indigenous region in Canada's Northwest Territories), drawing is being used to embody intangible cultural heritage (which includes activities such as oral history and the social practice of walking). Recent work to emerge from this research consists of two drawings created…

This article provides a portrait of the challenges and promise of Latino schooling in California's agricultural Central Valley, site of one of the largest and socioeconomically vulnerable Latino populations in the nation's most populous state. Through surveys, interviews, and participant observation, we document a multi-year "Placed-Based…

Problem Statement: Contrary to traditional historiography, which mainly focuses on men's experiences and ignores the women, historiography today includes all people, genders and social groups. Accordingly, school history also needs to regard female actors of the past in order to present a more gender-balanced past that makes visible not only the…

Central to the urban university's academic mission is supporting scholarship that expands knowledge and "service to the state" and local region. Documenting local history is an aspect of scholarship that supports the community directly. This manuscript addresses the role of the urban university in collaborating with community…

This project used oral history contributed by community story-tellers as source material for choreographic work performed in the community. The oral histories focused on four major areas: arrival (migration), social life, spirituality, and segregation/civil rights. Public performances took place at the university, local schools, and the community…

When multicultural educators and archivists collaborate to design projects that engage students with multicultural history through archival research, students can learn in-depth research skills with primary source documents, creatively share their knowledge, and, on a broader level, engage with their local community history. The projects shared in…

There are documented accounts of the influential role of U.S. aid in the development of Taiwanese design education. Missing from the historical records of design education, however, are the perspectives of local design practitioners who participated in the design workshops during the period of U.S. aid to Taiwan, 1963 to 1966. Using face-to-face…

In spring of 2010, three high school teachers and their students paired with a college teacher and her advanced writing class to collaborate on oral history research and writing. While many people think of oral history as "just stories," the authors introduce it to students as a rigorous method for documenting historical events, cultural…

This article is about two initiatives at the Brooklyn Historical Society that extend our efforts to build community and create a platform for ongoing public engagement, in the face of emotionally charged topics. The first project is a powerful oral history program and exhibition that promotes conversation about the war in Vietnam, the war's…

The Arizona Heritage Project began in 2003 when the Salt River Project (SRP) celebrated its centennial. This Arizona utility sponsored five student groups engaged in documenting Arizona history. Cactus Shadows High School in Cave Creek, Arizona--an old cowboy town about 20 miles north of Phoenix--was one of the recipients of a $3,000 grant to…

A typical U.S. high school student today might be able to recite some milestones of civil rights history--the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56; the Freedom Rides of 1961; and (some would add) the election of the first African American president in 2008. But how many students understand that these events, which historians call out as milestones,…