Western curriculums should be the dominant narrative for Western society

The argument

Those who live in Western society should have an education primarily based on Eurocentric ideals, and the case is made in terms of sequence rather than superiority. Understanding the fundamentals of one's society is a crucial first step before exploring other cultures and voices, because a student who does not know how their own institutions came about has no framework against which to place anything else they are taught. The historical reach of those institutions is offered as the reason they count as fundamentals. From the Roman Empire to the expansive British Regime, European influence spreads throughout the world. It is imperative to have a sufficient understanding of the empires that have laid the foundation for modern society — on this view a Eurocentric curriculum is not a parochial choice but a study of the arrangements that shaped the world the student already lives in. Rather, some would argue that schools need even more focus on European history than they currently give it. A recent survey found a shocking lack of Holocaust knowledge among Americans, which proponents present as evidence that existing coverage is already inadequate, and as an illustration of what is lost when the most consequential episodes of that history are taught thinly. This brings more evidence for why schools need to allocate even more time to mastering European history. The final claim extends the benefit beyond the West itself. Raymond English, a former curriculum specialist, argues that Eurocentric curriculums would benefit all of society, not just Western society. English claims that most of the developing world is trying to "Europeanize" to match Western society, and that a Eurocentric curriculum would be a major step forward for developing worlds and their paths to "Europeanize."

Premises

Counter-arguments

While society has been built from Western civilizations, the demands of modern multicultural society require an education of diverse voices. Globalization has created an increasingly diverse society; having a solely Eurocentric education is a one-sided and outdated narrative. Being educated in diverse voices can even develop one's racial literacy, an important skill for modern society.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The sequencing is assumed rather than defended, and "one's own society" is doing contested work. Western societies are not culturally singular, so a pupil's own civilisation is not self-evidently the Eurocentric account — and nothing establishes that studying another culture requires first mastering one's own, since comparison is generally how each comes to be understood. [Rejecting P2] The Holocaust example argues against the position it is offered for. The gap identified is in knowledge of a specific atrocity, which a curriculum organised around European achievement is precisely what tends to underserve; the corrective is depth and honesty about a difficult episode rather than more hours on Rome and empire. The premise also treats European influence as foundation without addressing how it was extended — through conquest, enslavement and colonial administration — which is part of the same history and the part usually omitted. [Rejecting P3] That developing nations seek to Europeanise is a claim from a single curriculum specialist, offered without evidence and now decades old, and it reasons from what some countries are said to want to what schools elsewhere should teach. The conclusion also outruns the premises: even granting that European history deserves substantial attention, that supports its inclusion rather than its dominance, which is what is actually in dispute.