The Cultural Revolution in most schools, be it the US or Europe, tends to be around 10th/11th grade World History, post-World War II sections, usually in the context of discussing aspects of the Cold War. There is also usually World History in 6th/7th grade, but the Cultural Revolution is a bit intense for middle-school kids so its not always part of the formal curriculum frameworks.
here are the standards where I teach in California..
http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/docum...socscistnd.pdf (pg 46, 10.9:4)
here is another chosen at random..
http://www.ksde.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=esCgbNTivg8%3d&tabid=171 5&mid=12309&forcedownload=true (Page 8, "Cold War and Beyond")..
Its in plenty of international curricula, though its up to the individual teachers for in-class emphasis. In other words, I agree with you but disagree. The framework is already in place, but I agree with you that more teachers need to emphasize this in their day-to-day implementation of the dense curriculum.
Agreed, but how should we assess students on this? It is A LOT of information for "standardized tests" and when you fly through the year, in fact, think about all thirteen as a process, A LOT of details get lost in the process. We ask a lot from our kids today, probably WAY more then even moderately well-educated parents might now. I'm willing to wager that over 60% of the parents of my students would NOT pass my class, but think they would because they passed their own history classes 20 years previous.