The Human Development and Family Studies Team – Reconsidering Tradition

Following more than a month of confrontations from a large contingency of student leaders calling for curriculum changes, faculty members from the department of Human Development and Family Sciences meet to discuss students’ demands to decolonize their curriculum, or center indigenous experiences and ways of knowing, and re-establish themselves as an anti-racist organization.

In dialogue about possible changes, many members of the faculty team experience dissonance and express disbelief about upending their curriculum. As their colleagues, students and scholar consultants consider the canon, which undergirds their curriculum – many of the faculty are flummoxed about how to reconstruct a curriculum that does not draw upon the scholarship targeted by student leaders.

The team decides more time is needed for their own learning and exploration. They invest in professional development, in-services and reading groups to consider critical perspectives on human development and family sciences. Through these explorations, the team develops a better understanding of how the canon was established, and they achieve a better understanding of how continuation of their curriculum in its current form reifies the socialization of their students into a professional worldview that is problematic, incomplete and ineffective.

Key Take-Aways
  • The Issue: Student leaders are calling for curricular change, and faculty are confused as to how they may approach their discipline without relying on the work of scholarship regarded as colonial and racist.
  • The Deliberation: To account for their knowledge gaps, faculty invest in dialogue, external consultation and ongoing professional development.
  • The Growth: The faculty come to understand the role of curriculum in shaping future human services practitioners, and how lack of examination may socialize students to reproduce systemic racism.