2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

This roundtable brings together scholars, teachers, activists to discuss their research, curriculum and classroom experiences in integrating gender (as well as class, race, ethnicity, sexuality -  lgbtq) into the K-12 history/social studies curriculum.  In addition, the roundtable participants will address necessity of ongoing partnerships between the academy, including Schools or Departments of Education, the K-12 schools as well as with external institutions or resources such as museums, history projects, or history societies as a means of strenthening and enriching the teaching of history/social studies. Today K-12 teachers (in the US and globally) face enormous challenges as they try to bring gender, class, race and sexuality into their curriculum: standarized testing, Common Core restrictions, cutbacks in the time allotted to the teaching of history/social studies during the school day and week, as well as the political attacks on teachers and the public schools.  All these participants bring their own scholarship, activism, curriculum development and teaching, as well as their use of external resources such as the Howard Zinn Project, the Shirley Chisholm Project of Brooklyn Women's Activism and the Elizabeth Sacker Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art to the topic of enriching the social studie/history curriculum.