ack history for Black students and all students — ignored for too long in history textbooks and teaching.

To this urgent issue we bring our combined research and educational expertise. Nanre Nafziger, the first author of this story, has researched how Black/African peoples can reclaim their histories and cultures, and Sabrina jafralie, who has a PhD in teacher education, has researched Quebec curricula and also brings experience as a Québec-born-and-raised teacher at a Montréal high school.

Essential to combat anti-Black racism

Teaching Black history is essential to fighting against anti-Black racism reinforced through negative depictions of African and Black histories.

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History education is important for raising critical and actively involved citizens and increasing acceptance and understanding. Educators speak of developing a “historical consciousness” — which includes learning to examine causes and consequences, and to revisit and interpret sources. This is a critical building block for fighting racism and negative depictions of racialized groups.

Quebec curriculum development like most north American curricula, has historically leaned towards a Eurocentric narrative.

Black/African history education is largely absent in Quebec’s history curricula, reinforcing the erasure of the contributions of Black people to the development of Québec but also to world history. For example, history and citizenship secondary education (Cycle 1) refers to Black/Afro-Canadian history only in naming enslavement and oppression.

This creates a narrow and damaging history that fails to recognize the diverse range of achievements by Black people. It neglects the rich cultural heritage of Afro-Canadians and reinforces systemic inequities in how knowledge is produced and disseminated.

Sabrina writes: I was fortunate that my Afro Nova Scotian mother taught me our history across Canada. However, it was not present in my education until I created it in high school.

Historical fight for Black history

Researchers have raised concerns that Québec’s “interculturalism” — a long standing province-specific take on how to address and integrate cultural differences — fails to take into account the complexities of identities and omits important histories.

Such an approach further compounds anti black racism in schools.