Women’s History is Insufficiently Covered in Current AP History Courses. It’s Time for Women’s History to be Learned.
Our Proposal
As AP history students and educators, we have proposed the creation of a stand-alone AP United States Women’s History course. This course would offer highly motivated high school students the opportunity to undertake academic work about women’s history while earning an opportunity to have access to college credit. Piloting such a course would also provide students the opportunity to engage with a historical narrative in which all students see themselves within the American story.
There is an unquestionable disparity between the representation of women and men in history courses at the high school and college levels.
In past and present history courses and curricula, the contributions of women have been omitted—particularly women’s contribution to the American political sphere. In Advanced Placement United States Government and Politics, none of the required Supreme Court cases nor required “foundational” documents were written by or pertain to women. Students across grades are robbed of education about the women who shaped America; young women are robbed of role models and representation, which contributes to low political efficacy for girls. Madison, Hamilton, and Roosevelt remain household names. Yet what of Paul, Wells, Chilsholm, and Stanton?
The College Board, March 2024
“Providing high school students across the country with more opportunities to learn about the critical contributions and historical impact of women is inspiring, and the commitment shown by Serene Williams, Kristen Kelly, and their team of students to raise support for the development of an AP course in the field of Women’s Studies is exciting.”
Our Founders
In the summer of 2022, Kelly and Williams were awarded Harvard University’s Schlesinger Grant. With this grant, the two were able to study women’s history documents at the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, one of the largest archives in the nation. They quickly realized the abundance of female-related information yet to be featured in history textbooks and raised their sights on taking their women’s history curriculum to a stand-alone Advanced Placement offering.
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Kristen Kelly has a M.A. in Cultural Historical Religion from the Graduate Theological Union-Berkeley and teaches all high school levels. She created a popular “Gender & Sexuality in the Bible” course and co-taught the interdisciplinary Women’s Studies courses as well as AP Government & Politics courses with Serene. Kristen loves collaborating with scholars and teachers and has presented at The National Women’s Studies Association Conference, The National Council for Social Studies, & The Berkshire Conference of Women’s Historians. Kristen loves teaching religion and history from an intersectional lens, focusing especially on gender and sexuality issues.
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Serene Williams earned her B.A. degree from Purdue University and her M.A. from San Francisco State University, both in political science. For 20 years she has taught courses at the high school and collegiate levels. She teaches numerous AP courses and has written curriculum for many women’s history courses. Serene frequently presents about teaching intersectional feminist political history at national conferences. Serene is also an independent historian who publishes about the political history of women and olunteers as a Wikipedian. Serene is currently working on a campaign to improve articles about the Equal Rights Amendment.
“The youth of America deserve to hear these stories traditionally left untold—the history of over fifty percent of our population who are currently a mere sidebar of inclusion drowned in the river of history dominated by male perspectives.”
— KATE R, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT
Our Press Features
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The 19th News: U.S. History Classes are Mostly about Men. Two Teachers are Looking to Change That.
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CNN Opinion: This is the AP Course that America’s Kids Really Need
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The GirlTalk Magazine: Rewriting His-Story: A.P. United States Women’s History
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The Almanac: More Than a Sidebar: Two Atherton Teachers are Working to Give Women their Rightful Place in AP U.S. History Exams
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PR Newswire, Sacred Heart Schools, Atherton: Educators Petition for Creation of New AP Women's History Course
