Abstract
Purpose of the Project
The purpose of this project was to develop an instructor's resource guide for teaching an introductory and interdisciplinary course in Chicano Studies.
Delimitations of the Project
This resource guide does not proport to make available new theoretical models in the social sciences that apply exclusively to Chicanos or other members of La Raza. The emphasis is placed on an examination of a number of social science models with a critical analysis as to their cross cultural application.
Importance of the Project
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, in its report of October 1971 entitled "The Unfinished Education", makes the case that the educational institution is failing the unique needs of Chicano students in the southwest to the extent that in California 64 percent of Chicano students do not graduate. The causes for the systematic failure of the school to reach the Chicano student are many and include historical, social, psychological, economic, and cultural factors. The premise upon which this project is based is that teachers are failing the Chicano student in part because they lack the attitudes and training that are essential in meeting the unique cultural needs of the student. There is in the social sciences a preponderance of reliance by teachers at all levels on those conceptual models that tend to conclude that Chicanos are ahistorical, apolitical, socially deviant, psychologically pathological, and culturally oriented to a backward and totally negative folk culture. Such bipolar social science models that view the Chicano along a continuum that has Anglos at the positive pole and Chicanos at the opposite negative extreme will continue being legitimate until other alternatives such as are suggested in this guide are included in social science curriculum.
Methods for Surveying Related Literature
Background information necessary for the development of this project was searched for in standard references under the headings: anthropology, Chicano studies, economics, ethnic studies, history, political science, psychology, social science, and sociology.
References include:
Ameri can Anthropologist
Aztlan, Journal of Chicano Studies
Conference Reports of the Chicano Council on Higher Education El Plan de Santa Barbara
Journal of the American Psychological Association
Journal of the American Sociological Association
Publications of the Caucus of the Chicano Social Scientists Quinto Sol Articles from El Grito
Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature
Organization of the Remainder of the Project
The content and organization of this project are as follows: Chapter I briefly describes historical development in Chicano Studies within the context of a third world political student movement. The relationship of colonialism in the third world is related to the educational institution in the United States and its effect on people of color who are American citizens.
Chapter II stresses the rationale of Chicano Studies in a dialectical analysis that shows curriculum needs as they relate to an individual, cultural, and social action perspective. This chapter also contrasts Chicano Studies curricular models as they were proposed in 1968 with a curriculum model presently in use five years after the inception of Chicano Studies.
Chapter III deals with the relationship of the resource guide to Chicano Studies curriculum. The interrelationship of the learning objectives of a possible course in which the resource guide can be used is discussed as are the corresponding issues of pedagogy and measurement of learning.
Chapter IV consists of a series of instructional units in selected areas in the social sciences that the writer sees as essential in an introductory course in Chicano Studies. A number of conceptual models are examined from the Chicano perspective which demands legitimate cross cultural applicability with reference to Chicanos and other people of La Raza in the United States.