PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - KEENAN, HARPER BENJAMIN
TI  - The Mission Project: Teaching History and Avoiding the Past in California Elementary Schools
AID  - 10.17763/1943-5045-91.1.109
DP  - 2021 Mar 20
TA  - Harvard Educational Review
PG  - 109--132
VI  - 91
IP  - 1
4099  - http://harvardeducationalreview.org/content/91/1/109.short
4100  - http://harvardeducationalreview.org/content/91/1/109.full
SO  - herp2021 Mar 20; 91
AB  - In this article, Harper B. Keenan investigates the treatment of violence in elementary history education through a case study of a fourth-grade unit on the colonial history of California featuring “the mission project,” a long-standing tradition in California’s elementary schools that has students construct a miniature model of a Spanish colonial mission. Grounded in broader social and historical contexts, the study explores how the use of model making invites children to engage with colonial history and what the assignment reveals about how adults teach children about the violent past. Keenan argues that the mission project perpetuates a societal pattern of “ritual avoidance.”