Inside the Black Box of Divisive Concepts and Difficult History: Introducing a Typology of Collective Trauma in Social Studies Education

Abstract

Trauma studies scholars emphasize naming or acknowledging trauma to promote healing. In response to the recent political and curricular whiplash in the Commonwealth of Virginia, this paper investigates the prevalence and nature of traumagenic events in Virginia’s social studies standards. Data analysis suggests that conceptual insights from trauma studies literature are broadly applicable in the study of traumagenic events in social studies. The findings foreground the role of positionality in the study of traumagenic events and highlight the importance of active verbs and visible actors in acknowledging both trauma and healing in the standards. This paper concludes with a typology for examining collective trauma in social studies curricula and beyond.