Abstract
This paper explores the benefits and value of college students’ conducting critical family history (CFH) projects, which may serve as curricular material to expand students’ understanding of complex aspects of history and immigration. This article unpacks how one student came to see herself and others from a deeper perspective, particularly through the lens of someone who chose to continue digging into her enslaved ancestors’ roots. Using narrative inquiry, a college instructor and former student collaboratively reflect on the lessons learned from using a CFH project in a college-level class primarily for preservice teachers. A unique aspect of this paper is that it gives voice to a former student in the class, which provides a way of seeing the complexities and dehumanizing components of the lives of enslaved Africans in the U.S.—often sanitized out of history books. In addition, a university librarian suggests approaches to genealogical research, by focusing more on the lived experiences of ancestors that go beyond dates and locations. The perspectives from both a former student and the college instructor add multiple dimensions on lessons learned from a critical family history project, which uses students’ family histories as funds of knowledge as the primary curriculum.
Highlights
This article was primarily a collaborative effort by a teacher educator whose former student sought to further research her ancestral roots after conducting a Critical FamilyHistory (CFH) project, as part of a multicultural education class assignment
The methodological approach for this qualitative research is narrative inquiry, which is dialogical, relational, and based on lived experiences of those included in the research
While much of this research began with a question of the value of having students conduct critical family histories as portals of understanding their own lives and others—especially for those students who may be marginalized in some way, the findings were unexpected
Summary
This article was primarily a collaborative effort by a teacher educator whose former student (pseudonym of “Alicia”) sought to further research her ancestral roots after conducting a Critical FamilyHistory (CFH) project, as part of a multicultural education class assignment. One of the university’s librarians, the third co-author, who has a keen interest in genealogy, provided support and guidance to students. Census records indicate that for 20 years, she was either pregnant, or had a child under the age of two years, or both Social histories suggest she gave birth at home, most likely attended by a relative or a neighbor, but without a doctor. She had to make her family’s clothes [and based on historical research] it took a week to make one pair of socks. This kind of information helps researchers grasp how family roles have changed
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