Since Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 101 into law in 2021, freshmen have had the option between taking a semester of Ethnic Studies or World Geography to fulfill their 9th grade social studies graduation requirement.
But starting with the Class of ‘30, a semester of Ethnic Studies will become mandatory for all California high school students for graduation.
The mandate is generally flexible with how high schools choose to implement Ethnic Studies, with some schools incorporating the material into other already existing subjects such as English and History while others have created a separate class for Ethnic Studies, like at SHS.
Next year’s freshmen will be taking Health/Driver Education for one semester while Ethnic Studies will fully replace World Geography in the other semester.
At SHS, the Ethnic Studies course was first started by history teacher Mike Davey, who taught it before history teacher Bismah Siddiqi started teaching here in 2022. To adjust the curriculum, Siddiqi — who teaches both World Geography and Ethnic Studies — also worked closely with LGHS Ethnic Studies teacher Christie Pacheco to keep it consistent across the district.
In the traditional high school curriculum, standard social studies classes primarily cover European history, while Ethnic Studies covers different racial groups in the U.S.
“A lot of what we learn and go over in ethnic studies is not necessarily taught in mainstream classes, so we focus on groups such as African American, Asian Americans, Native Americans and Latino Americans. It’s adding diversity to the content,” Siddiqi said.
Though Ethnic Studies will add more insight into the minority communities of America, Siddiqi says there will be some losses for students as World Geography is removed.
“It’s important to see the world from multiple different perspectives and understand different cultures and politics that are going on,” Siddiqi said. “I do think there will be a loss in that sense, because Ethnic Studies focuses on the U.S. versus the world.”
To make up for the loss, World History classes will be absorbing some of the curriculum from World Geography by switching around and modifying some units.
Though this mandate was signed into law four years ago, the fight for Ethnic Studies in high school and college education has a long history, dating back to the civil rights movement.
Efforts to teach Ethnic Studies began in 1968, when student strikes at San Francisco State University started by student minority advocate groups led to the creation of the first American College of Ethnic Studies in 1969.
Protests for the movement continued into the 1990s and onwards. By 1993, over 700 Ethnic Studies programs existed in the U.S., though the high school mandate is exclusive to California and its growth into other states depends on the political climate.
Despite the united cause, the movement has faced its fair share of challenges over the years: lack of funding, political disapproval and internal conflicts about what topics and groups of people the subject should include.
Even in the district, Ethnic Studies initially faced disapproval from some LGHS parents who claimed it taught Marxist ideology and hurt the self-esteem of white students with the Critical Race Theory — an academic framework that analyzes how race and racism have shaped American law, institutions and society systemically.
Still, proponents say Ethnic Studies is a necessary and valuable class for high schoolers, and their arguments won the battle in the state.
But on a personal level, Siddiqi admits that the change does have downsides.
“I love both classes. I really do. I think they both have a lot of benefits for students, and I wish there was a way we could teach both of them,” Siddiqi said. “I’m a little sad that World Geography is going away, but I do understand that Ethnic Studies is really important, and I believe that myself.”
