Teaching about 9/11 and Terrorism and Against Islamophobia

The Research

The research presented here focuses on how the terrorist attacks that occurred in the U.S. on September 11, 2001 (9/11) and the resulting War on Terror (WoT) are included in US social studies curricula and classrooms. The findings here are primarily drawn from a survey of 1047 US secondary school social studies teachers conducted in November 2018 (Stoddard, 2019). These teachers were part of a national random sample of middle and high school teachers who were emailed an invitation to participate in the online survey in November, 2018. We also conducted follow-up phone interviews with a sub-sample of 30 teachers who participated in the survey. In addition to the data generated in the survey, I also draw here from previous studies conducted with Diana Hess and graduate students from the University of Wisconsin—Madison and William and Mary. This series of studies began in 2003 and has focused on answering questions such as “what is 9/11?” “what is terrorism?” and “what was the US response to 9/11?” (Hess & Stoddard, 2007; Stoddard & Hess, 2016; Stoddard, Hess, & Hammer, 2011). We asked these questions of curriculum developed for teaching on the first anniversary of the attacks, the first two editions of popular US social studies textbooks published after 2001, and of state social studies academic standards. The 2018 survey represented an opportunity to go beyond analysis of curriculum to attempt to answer the question: What are teachers teaching about 9/11 and the WoT?   

The findings presented below utilize both descriptive quantitative analysis from our survey data and the review of standards, as well as qualitative analysis of data from our studies of curriculum and of data collected as part of the survey and follow-up interviews. I use the term “we” throughout these summaries as the survey was informed by the earlier collaborative studies.

Findings and Implications

Our analysis of U.S. curricula, textbooks, and state academic standards identified a number of consistent themes in how 9/11 and the WoT are included (Stoddard et al., 2016). These materials consistently include a focus on memorialization, heroism, and the shock of the 9/11 events in the U.S. and world. However, we often found these materials lacking in their inclusion of specific details, context, and the events leading up to and resulting from the attacks (e.g., War on Terror, USA Patriot Act).

Another theme that emerged was that there was little focus on controversies related to pre- or post-9/11 related issues and events. This includes a lack of focus on the evidence justifying the invasion of Iraq, holding combatants at Guantanamo Bay (Cuba), and the role of the U.S. in the Middle East among other areas that may have contributed to the attacks. Other topics, such as the surveillance provisions in the USA Patriot Act are acknowledged in later editions of textbooks and standards – after the Bush administration left office in 2009.

Finally, we found conceptual confusion between the various sources as to what or whom were identified as terrorism or as terrorists—with an almost exclusive use of Middle Eastern or Arab examples of terrorism after 9/11. Prior to 9/11, there was a greater focus on other groups labeled as terrorists (e.g., IRA, Shining Path) as well as US domestic terrorism (e.g., Oklahoma City Bombing). Examples specific to the focus on Muslim-Americans and Islamophobia related to teaching and learning about 9/11 and the War on Terror in these studies are included below.

Our survey was an attempt to understand how teachers engaged their students in these topics. What we found was not surprising: most US teachers we surveyed focused primarily on the 9/11 events on the anniversary of the attacks each year. Their primary goal was to memorialize the attacks and share the horrors of the day with their students—students who do not have direct memory of the attacks themselves as they were born after 2001. The most frequently identified strategy was the use of news footage or documentary film footage from the day of the attacks in an attempt to help students understand the shock and horror people in the U.S. and the world felt. Themes such as memorialization, heroism, and nationalism were common.

The emphasis on the victims, heroes, and events of the day meant that the more nuanced aspects of the attacks, and the resulting U.S. and global response (both domestic and foreign) were largely absent. For example, 50% of U.S. history teachers and 40% of teachers from other social studies classes reported teaching some aspect of Islamophobia or anti-Muslim attitudes in the U.S. By comparison, 86% of U.S. history teachers reported teaching about terrorism and 75% about Osama bin Laden. Only five percent of the U.S. History teachers, and nine percent of World History teachers, we surveyed reported perceiving the value of teaching about 9/11 and WoT as useful for “developing student religious and social tolerance.” So, while they see Islamophobia as a significant topic to teach about—they did not report using 9/11 related issues to try to combat these attitudes.

In fact, when asked about challenges to their teaching about 9/11, the “other” category was the second highest reported for all three subject areas. In addition to a lack of time and inclusion in the curriculum, three of the most commonly identified “other” responses related to a student lack of information on the events (≈32%), the challenge of misinformation or conspiracy theories (≈13%), and lack of understanding of Islam or active anti-Muslim sentiments shared in class(≈7%). These three challenges are very much related and are exacerbated by the choice to teach about 9/11 on the anniversary as a memory event, reliant on video footage that reinforces a narrative of a shocking attack by Muslim terrorists. This narrative was very much alive and well in 2018 as it aligned with the Trump administration’s attempt to ban travelers from predominantly Muslim countries to the U.S.

Our research suggests a major issue in how the majority of secondary school social studies teachers in the U.S. teach about the events of 9/11 and WoT. There is little historical context or depth in their engagements with students. Further, by continuing to focus on 9/11 as a memorial event and emphasis on heroes and Muslim villains, with the U.S. as victim, teachers have likely reinforced rather than challenged the endemic anti-Muslim sentiment within much of U.S. society and political rhetoric. The Texas academic standards even use the polarizing language of “radical Islamic fundamentalism” to teach their students about the “development and impact of radical Islamic fundamentalism…in the second half of the twentieth century.” This focus on terrorism being largely associated with Muslim countries and individuals has helped to create spaces for misinformation, conspiracy theories, and Islamophobia in the current populist and nationalist context in the U.S. and Europe.

Interestingly, the teachers we surveyed also provided examples for how they attempt to address these issues in class and also work to support their Muslim students. Some avoid these issues for fear of a discussion that could be harmful to their Muslim students. Others focused explicitly on teaching about Islam and examining more closely who terrorists are and what they represent. The teachers in our survey also reported wanting class materials that would help them bring in different and varied perspectives into their class (e.g., veterans, refugees, Muslim Americans). Below we present three examples to help teach about 9/11 in context and in ways that challenge Islamophobia.

Practical Guidance for Teachers

Historical Context: Teachers who we found were effective in teaching about the 9/11 attacks and WoT were simply doing a better job of teaching them as a significant historical event that has impacted the globe, the US, and their lives instead of as collective memory. World history teachers in particular focused on the context of 9/11, the long history of U.S. and European intervention, colonization, or exploitation of Middle Eastern nations to further their own capitalist or foreign policy goals. This includes the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 to Cold War era examples such as the arming of Mujahedeen in Afghanistan as an effort to stop the USSR. Teachers also focused on more recent events leading up to the 9/11 attacks and failures on the part of the U.S. to stop the attacks. Finally, they examined the US response – and in particular the more controversial aspects of the U.S. response (e.g. invasion of Iraq). Sources that humanize and personalize these perspectives may also be particularly powerful – including recordings or documentaries that include veterans talking about their experiences with Iraqis and Afghanis, like The Interpreters (Caballero & Khan, 2018).

Support for Muslim Americans: A second focus is to engage students in better contextualizing and considering the experiences of Muslim Americans initially following the attacks as well as the outpouring of support at that time. For example, students could read (or listen to) then-President Bush’s (2001) speech given on September 17^th, 2001 at the Islamic Center in Washington, DC. They could also examine the outpouring of support as well as anger received in the form of emails by the Arab American Journal (2001). Storycorps (Sodhi & Sodhi, 2018; Storycorps, 2015), a series of recorded conversations, are available and capture the experiences of two Sikh brothers who discuss their brother who was killed for appearing to be Muslim, and one by two men in Dearborn, MI, who capture the reactions of other Muslim-Americans in that heavily Muslim and Arab community.

Who is a terrorist? What is terrorism? In order to challenge the ongoing narrative that all Muslims are terrorists and threats to the U.S. and other Western nations in particular, students could be engaged in examining in more depth what terrorism is and who engages in it, worldwide and domestically. This is particularly urgent in the U.S. and other Western countries with the rise of domestic White nationalist groups engaging in terrorist acts. Students could be engaged first in identifying key characteristics in how terrorism is defined and then engage in classifying different historic and contemporary examples according to whether they meet the definition of terrorism or should be classified as some other form of violence. Taking a more critical historical approach to studying 9/11, the events and causes leading to it and the response after, would help students to both understand the historical context of the event as well as its connections to today.

Q & A with Jeremy Stoddard