Abstract
Educational bans in America are on the rise and target critical historical education. Prior work on the Marley Hypothesis has found that racial identity is tied to knowledge of history and endorsement of antiracist policies. I conducted a study to investigate the relations between beliefs and attitudes about race, knowledge of the history of discrimination against Black Americans, and endorsement of antiracist historical education. Participants (N = 230) completed a survey measuring their essentialist and social constructionist beliefs about race, their knowledge of Black American critical history, and their critical consciousness as predictors of beliefs about antiracist historical education within the US. I found that beliefs about race were related to perceptions of historical discrimination, which predicted the endorsement of antiracist historical education through critical consciousness. My findings suggest that current educational bans may have long-reaching consequences for equity in America.