The College Board has released the official framework for its new AP African American studies course.
Dr. Marvin T Chiles
The release builds upon the pilot program that College Board released and implemented in select U.S. public high schools last year.
“I have no issue with College Board putting African American Studies into practice in high schools,” said Dr. Marvin T Chiles, an assistant professor of African American history at Old Dominion University. “Looking through what they put together, I have no issue with what's here. This is pretty much what academics -- Black studies scholars, African American studies scholars, African American historians -- this is what's been talked about and written about and discused at the collegiate level for the better part of probably four or five decades now."
Development of this 234-page framework document included the input of high school teachers and more than 300 African American studies professors from more than 200 U.S. colleges.
The framework states that students will learn to evaluate concepts and historical developments that influenced Black experiences; recognize connections between Black U.S. communities and the broader African diaspora; analyze thoughts on various freedom movements; understand the diversity of African societies; and identify themes of literature and art of the African diaspora.
“As a race scholar and Black academic, I find a lot of value in the framework’s organization: Origins of the African Diaspora; Freedom, Enslavement and Resistance; The Practice of Freedom; and Movements and Debates,” said Dr. Terrell L. Strayhorn, a professor of higher education at Illinois State University. “As an HBCU scholar and director of the Center for the Study of HBCUs, it’s significant that the AP course framework includes the founding of historically Black colleges and universities, which have been a major driving force in America, in Black communities, and in growing the Black middle class, to name a few.”
The course is meant to be introductory-level and has no prerequisites students must take prior.
