Our research found important points of convergence in the debate on how to teach history. A clear majority of Americans wants American history to be taught in ways that include both the inspiring and the shameful; that highlight the histories of minority groups alongside history that elevates a shared American identity; and that allows students to learn from the past without feeling guilty or disempowered by the actions of prior generations.

Learn more in Chapter 2: Points of Convergence on page 28.

Our research found that the greatest disagreements are over two questions: first, how to draw connections between the past—especially past injustices—and present-day America and second, over the degree of emphasis currently given to the histories of minority groups.

Learn more in Chapter 1: Points of Divergence on page 20.

We fully believe there are serious and substantive disagreements about the relationship between America’s past injustices and our present. However, Americans across ideology and demographics are more united on key approaches for how to teach U.S. history than we think.

This is not to minimize the significance of the areas where we disagree or to suggest we should overlook these points of disagreement. But rather, our intent with this report is to help generate better conversations, dialogue, and debates about how to teach history—the kind of engagement that leads to progress and learning instead of division and hostility.

Learn more in Chapter 1: Points of Divergence on page 20. See also Recommendations on page 42.

Our report offers recommendations aimed at generating better conversations, dialogue, and debate—the kind of engagement that leads to progress and learning instead of division and hostility. At the core of our recommendations are ways we can stop seeing imagined enemies and situate our disagreements in contexts that bind us together in how we want to tell our common story.

Our recommendations include:

*Do not accept debates about teaching history framed in extreme binaries. Instead, assume greater complexity in the beliefs of Americans.

*Cultivate more shared spaces for people to sensibly discuss and question these topics.

*In communicating about how to teach history, use language that is concrete and accessible. Where possible, use language and framings customized to the local context.

*Media should reject the presumption of conflict in the conversation about teaching history and when reporting, distinguish between areas of genuine disagreement and areas where Americans agree.

*Organizations in the education space should build cross-cutting coalitions to push back against the highly toxic polarization of the history wars and set healthier norms for how communities address disagreements.

*Support and lead interventions to reduce perception gaps.

*Challenge zero-sum thinking.

Learn more in "Recommendations” on page 42.

Technically an academic construct that explores how race shapes public policy, CRT has today become a triggering shorthand for contentious conflicts around the teaching of racial identity and how historical oppression relates to present day inequality.

While the public debate about teaching history does not feature a common definition of what is or is not CRT, our research captured Americans’ views on a range of issues that are often associated with CRT in our public discourse.

In summary, we found widespread agreement to teach students a thorough, truthful account of our past, including the history of racial injustices and the histories of Americans of different racial groups. Americans regardless of political party support celebrating Civil Rights leaders and teaching the history of racism and the history of different racial groups. We also found disagreements on two main issues: how much we emphasize the experiences of minorities and women in how we teach history today and how we draw connections between past injustices—and today’s America.

Our report focuses on Americans views of American history and national identity and what they understood to be the views of their fellow Americans. We are a nonpartisan 501c3 nonprofit and our report does not endorse any particular curriculum, standards, or public policy positions. However, drawing on our experience addressing polarization and division, we do provide recommendations on how Americans and public leaders can have more constructive conversations about how to teach our history and to push back against conflict entrepreneurs who seek to foment polarization.

This report is on Americans’ attitudes towards teaching U.S. history. We focused this research on areas of U.S. history that feature prominently in the ‘history wars’. This includes a range of issues commonly associated in the public debate with Critical Race Theory. As a result, this report does not cover all facets and areas of U.S. history and could be bolstered by future research that examines other areas such as religion, gender, war, relationships with America’s indigenous people, LGBTQ, and more.

To determine how accurate Americans are in their estimates of each others’ views on teaching American history, we first measured the percentage of each political party who agreed with each statement. Next, we calculated a “perception gap” for each person, which quantifies the accuracy of their estimates of the views of the opposing party. The perception gap for each item was computed by calculating the percentage difference between each respondent’s estimate of how many people held a certain view and the actual percentage of people who held that view. For example, if a Democrat estimated that 35 percent of Republicans believed that “Americans have a responsibility to learn from our past and fix our mistakes”, when in fact, 93 percent do, then their perception gap for this issue would be 58 percentage points.

After performing this calculation for each item for each person, we then created an averaged perception gap for each person by averaging across each of the items to which that person had responded. The perception gap for each person, therefore, represented the average deviation of that person’s estimates from reality across all the statements. Once we had computed an average perception gap for each individual, we could then analyze within each party by averaging the perception gaps of every person who self identified with that party.

For Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and for the Hidden Tribes segments, the perception gap was created simply by averaging across estimates they made for the opposite party. Because Independents had estimated the views of both Democrats and Republicans, a perception gap was calculated for each of their estimates of the views of both parties, respectively.

Learn more in “Methodology” on page 17.