Chapter 19: It’s Being Done in The State of Hawai’i: Ethnic Studies as a Requirement for Public High School Graduation

The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate how a mandatory Ethnic Studies course can be an ideal site for engaging secondary students in the exploration of complex topics related to race, class, gender, and sexuality in the high school setting. It is organized into three main parts. First, the chapter provides readers with an overview of the Ethnic Studies course that was developed at Kailua High School (KHS)—a small public high school in the State of Hawai‘i. This includes a brief summary of the course’s historical context, theoretical foundations, objectives, and units of study. Second, it introduces three strategies from philosophy for children Hawai’i (p4cHI) that were essential to the course’s pedagogical framework: intellectual safety, the community ball, and plain vanilla. Third, a partial transcript of a KHS Ethnic Studies classroom discussion is given to provide readers with a window into how each of these strategies can be used to engage high school Ethnic Studies students in an “intellectually safe” (Jackson, 2001, p. 460) inquiry about the intersection of culture, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. At the chapter’s conclusion, social studies teachers will be prompted to think how they might apply the three p4cHI strategies and the discipline of Ethnic Studies to promote multiculturalism, empathy, inclusion, and social justice in their school communities.