essentialism

1 :  an educational theory that ideas and skills basic to a culture should be taught to all alike by time-tested methods — compare progressivism

2 :  a philosophical theory ascribing ultimate reality to essence embodied in a thing perceptible to the senses — compare nominalism

3 :  the practice of regarding something (such as a presumed human trait) as having innate existence or universal validity rather than as being a social, ideological, or intellectual construct