Revisiting Watkins’ Black Curriculum Orientations: Building on Curricular Contributions of Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Abstract Watkins’, Harvard Educational Review, 63 (3), 321–339 (1993) Black curriculum orientations challenge us to explore education—why we teach, what we teach—in its sociopolitical context, the way it is politically brokered and negotiated, the political ideology to which it tends, the ways it curates our identities, and is responsive to our lived experiences. This study revisits Watkin’s (1993) conceptualizations of Black curriculum orientations and draws from literature that (1) nuances and complicates these conversations and contentious debates, (2) situates and contextualizes these conversations within the sociopolitical realities of the Black community, and (3) includes and amplifies the voices of HBCU administrators, faculty, and students whose curricular contributions have been historically silenced. To distill the extant literature on Black curriculum orientations, this study surveys peer-reviewed journal articles, scholarly books, memoirs, and archival data that captures conversations from faculty, administrators, and students at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) about the purpose, meaning, and value of education.