Showing papers in "Theory and Research in Social Education in 2009"
TL;DR: In this paper, a qualitative case study examines the experiences of students and teachers struggling to address issues of national and cultural identity within Northern Ireland in order to investigate dynamics that may remain less visible in contexts where differences and conflict are less overt.
Abstract: Teaching about controversial issues is a powerful tool in the repertoire of civic educators. Despite widespread agreement concerning the social, academic, and civic benefits to be gained from discussing controversial public issues within the classroom, empirical research reveals that doing so is a rare occurrence. While the literature explains this fact by detailing the many challenges confronted by teachers, less attention is given to the emotional and cognitive risks that lead students to evade, and at times actively resist, engaging with controversial issues. This qualitative case study examines the experiences of students and teachers struggling to address issues of national and cultural identity within Northern Ireland in order to investigate dynamics that may remain less visible in contexts where differences and conflict are less overt. Findings reveal a range of responses whereby students attempt to preserve the viability of current understandings and to minimize the risk of critical self-reflectio...
83 citations
TL;DR: The authors explored the reasoning employed by high school students to answer a set of multiple-choice history questions using think-aloud and interviews with a small sample (n=13) of urban 10th graders.
Abstract: This article explores the reasoning employed by high school students to answer a set of multiple-choice history questions. The questions come from New York State's Global History and Geography Regents exam. The Regents exams, together with a particularly well-regarded and ambitious set of content standards, are the cornerstone of the state's standards-based accountability system. Using “think-aloud” and interviews with a small sample (n=13) of urban 10th graders, the knowledge and skills elicited by a small sample of items are explored. This article begins with a discussion of the state standards and the discipline-based knowledge and skills that they describe. It continues with a report on the extent to which the student-participants were exposed to the material included in the administered items by a teacher whose pedagogy was commensurate with state standards. The bulk of the paper focuses on two test items that were particularly effective at discriminating between high and low performers. The reasonin...
64 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined how two history teacher candidates, Monica and James, learned to teach historical thinking and reading in a discipline-specific teacher education program and found that although both teachers excelled in the program and in their field placements, they graduated with different strengths.
Abstract: This study examines how two history teacher candidates, Monica and James, learned to teach historical thinking and reading in a discipline-specific teacher education program. Data include pretests and posttests, interviews, observations, and university course assignments. Qualitative data analysis reveals that although both teachers excelled in the program and in their field placements, they graduated with different strengths. Whereas James focuses on developing students' historical understandings, Monica focuses on reading comprehension and student engagement. Monica's attention to students' developmental needs and personal interests helps her structure and scaffold students' work. James' strong disciplinary understandings provide him a framework for analyzing students' work and developing discipline-specific curriculum. Upon graduation, each teacher demonstrates different aspects of the knowledge base of teaching.
47 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the underlying nature of our contemporary situation and argues for a synthesis of citizenship education and ecological consciousness, arguing that such an approach is imperative for the good of society and the health of the planet.
Abstract: Civic educators strive to develop the kinds of citizens who can identify and address the significant challenges of life in society. A case can be made that we have failed in this fundamental task. In spite of our efforts, contemporary societies seem ill-equipped to cope with the enormous social and environmental issues of our age. The problem is not merely with the broader population. Academics, too, have been unable or unwilling to assess the challenges we face. This essay explores the underlying nature of our contemporary situation and argues for a synthesis of citizenship education and ecological consciousness. The author suggests that civic education should be conducted within, rather than outside or beyond, a broader environmental context. Such an approach is imperative for the good of society and the health of the planet. The author argues that we can no longer afford anything less.
44 citations
TL;DR: The authors report a qualitative case study of interpretive activity inside the current wave of the international education movement in U.S. schools, finding a diverse set of interpretations that were spread across a two-dimensional framework with four quadrants: intent (civic and enterprise) and affinity (national and global).
Abstract: We report a qualitative case study of interpretive activity inside the current wave of the “international education” movement in U.S. schools. We used a sociological framework to examine how competing interpretations are mobilized in relation to one another and to the urgent discourses of Globalization and Terror. Data were gathered in interviews of a sample of movement intellectuals—activists positioned between powerbrokers and school practitioners. We found a diverse set of interpretations that were spread across a two-dimensional framework with four quadrants: intent (civic and enterprise) and affinity (national and global). We conclude that the cognitive praxis of this sample extends prior patterns—it is plural and contentious, and national security plays a central role. Within these tendencies, however, are features unique to the current wave. We end with implications for the social studies field.
40 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined how mentoring experiences might encourage teachers to consider and adopt a problem-based historical inquiry (PBHI) framework for teaching, and found that teachers must ground these supports in their own experience before they become fully accessible.
Abstract: This case study examined how mentoring experiences might encourage teachers to consider and adopt a problem-based historical inquiry (PBHI) framework for teaching. We mentored six teachers over 15 months as they planned and implemented PBHI teaching, reflected on their experiences, and then engaged in peer mentoring of other teachers. Data included surveys, planning artifacts, interviews, and observations. Qualitative analyses of data found all teachers' conceptualizations of practice were affected to varying degrees by mentoring experiences. Results suggest promise for using modeling and scaffolding to assist teachers in linking theory to practice, but suggest that teachers must ground these supports in their own experience before they become fully accessible. Findings support claims that mentoring and collaboration may encourage teachers to de-privatize their knowledge and use each other as resources for making connections to common principles that build a professional knowledge base of wise practice.
37 citations
TL;DR: This article presented four portraits of experienced social studies teachers engaged in critical teacher research, while engaging their students in more democratic conversations, and reported that they were transformed by their teacher research as they developed greater awareness of issues of race and ethnicity and worked as advocates for their marginalized students.
Abstract: This study demonstrates the potential for teacher research to lead to critical inquiry and change in social studies classrooms. It presents four portraits of experienced social studies teachers engaged in critical teacher research. These teachers posed critical questions about the means and purposes of schooling, while engaging their students in more democratic conversations. In the process they referred to critical theory to analyze classroom data and to articulate new understandings. The teacher research cycle seems to have empowered both the teachers and their students. The teachers reported that they were transformed by their teacher research as they developed greater awareness of issues of race and ethnicity and worked as advocates for their marginalized students. As a result of their teacher research, they reportedly pursued more culturally relevant instruction in their classrooms.
34 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a textual analysis of two seasons of The Amazing Race is presented to demonstrate how teachers can help students identify and critique oppressive views of the world promoted through reality television.
Abstract: This article draws on research in the fields of visual culture and critical media literacy to establish a rationale for utilizing popular culture in social studies classroom instruction. One reality television show, CBS's The Amazing Race, introduces viewers to diverse people and places. Although the decision to use this show to support social studies instruction may come from well thought-out pedagogical objectives, this medium could still project a message of “culture-gazing” or ethnocentric representations of the world. The author provides a textual analysis of two seasons of the show to demonstrate how teachers can help students identify and critique oppressive views of the world promoted through reality television. Practical suggestions are offered for reconstructing anti-ethnocentric views of the world after these images have been disrupted.
25 citations
TL;DR: Home geography was the principal means by which primary students in the United States learned about the social world from the 1890s through the 1920s, and an analysis of its development calls into question several assumptions about the history of social studies and its relationship to other subjects as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Home geography was the principal means by which primary students in the United States learned about the social world from the 1890s through the 1920s. This subject was rooted in the German subject of Heimatkunde, and it reflected the changing nature of the academic discipline of geography in the late nineteenth century. Its content focused on basic human activities, starting with the experiences closest to students and gradually expanding outward. This curriculum was fundamentally similar to that which would later be known as "expanding horizons," and an analysis of its development calls into question several assumptions about the history of social studies and its relationship to other subjects. Most notably, it demonstrates that the elementary curriculum did not have a single invention or founding but evolved gradually out of previous patterns and was influenced by developments both in the United States and Europe. In addition, the relationship between home geography and the university discipline makes it clear that at the primary level, the transition to "social studies" did not involve replacing earlier, disciplinary content with the integrated study of the social world, but merely reflected a new name for a curriculum that was already well in place.
22 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined the efficacy of mandatory community service to prepare all high school students in a large urban school district for civic engagement and found that mandatory service was insufficient in influencing students' civic engagement orientations unless accompanied by opportunities for receiving social support.
Abstract: This study examined the efficacy of mandatory community service to prepare all high school students in a large urban school district for civic engagement. The principal hypothesis asserted that mandatory community service was insufficient in influencing students' civic engagement orientations (CEO) unless accompanied by opportunities for receiving social support. Survey data for this study were collected from all seniors in the district's 17 high schools (N = 1,741) and ordinary least squares was applied in a hierarchical regression in four stages. Findings supported the moderating effect of social support in mandatory service-learning especially having a mentor. Students' CEOs, however, were most affected by their perceptions of neighborhood vitality and civic discourse access. Recommendations center on improving the urban district's mandatory community service policy by implementing systems and community partnerships that enable equitable student access to socially supportive community adults and promot...
17 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines character education within the context of early twentieth-century, Black schooling and discusses how school founders, Mary McLeod Bethune, Nannie Helen Burroughs, and Charlotte Hawkins Brown, used the language and practice of character education to help their students confront racism and navigate a segregated society.
Abstract: The author examines character education within the context of early twentieth-century, Black schooling and discusses how school founders, Mary McLeod Bethune, Nannie Helen Burroughs, and Charlotte Hawkins Brown, used the language and practice of character education to help their students confront racism and navigate a segregated society. These educators used a variety of indirect character education strategies to achieve two primary purposes. First, by developing and showcasing the character of their students, they sought to gain respectability and economic security for their graduates. Second, they used character education as a tool to nurture strong and spiritually vibrant Black communities. Their emphasis on community building reflected both African traditions and early twentieth-century conceptions of civic responsibility.
TL;DR: This article investigated the effect of loosely and tightly linked graphs on construct comprehension with a mixed-model design with reading ability as a between-subjects factor and graph treatments as a within-subject factors.
Abstract: Graphs are often conjoined with text passages in history textbooks to help students comprehend complex constructs. Four linkages connect text and graphs: appropriate elements, fitting patterns, suitable labels and causal markers. Graphs in current textbooks contain few such linkages and seldom mirror the construct under study. An experiment conducted with seventh grade students investigated the effect on construct comprehension of loosely and tightly linked graphs. The experiment (n=118), employed a mixed-model design with reading ability as a between-subjects factor and graph treatments as a within-subjects factor. An analysis of variance with planned Helmert contrasts showed that proficient and advanced readers scored significantly higher on construct comprehension with a tight graph supporting a text passage as opposed to a loose graph.
TL;DR: This paper showed that social studies advocates were not antagonistic towards history, that most students were not taking the four-year history sequence, and that most schools did not quickly adopt the new social studies classes recommended by the NEA Committee on Social Studies report in 1916.
Abstract: Numerous critics of the social studies have argued that the four-year pattern of chronological history courses in place in most U.S. schools was suddenly and pervasively replaced by interdisciplinary courses recommended by the NEA Committee on Social Studies report in 1916. In this historical study, the author challenges this view. By drawing upon educational discourse and practice- as represented by a local survey of Elyria, Ohio, supplemented by regional data-the author demonstrates that social studies advocates were not antagonistic towards history, that most students were not taking the four-year history sequence, and that most schools did not quickly adopt the new social studies classes recommended by the NEA Committee.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors evaluate a social studies teacher education vision statement as it relates to Parker's (2003) "advanced" conception of citizenship education for democratic society and argue that the vision statement could unintentionally constrain understandings of democracy rooted in pluralism by inadvertently reflecting taken-for-granted cultural beliefs held as middle-class European-American.
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to evaluate a social studies teacher education vision statement as it relates to Parker's (2003) “advanced” conception of citizenship education for democratic society. The vision statement, titled “Powerful Vision of Social Studies,” was created by a group of practicing teachers and teacher educators as part of a seminar focusing on the effective mentoring of beginning teachers. It represents an attempt by the participants to answer the question of what sort of social studies practice is worth mentoring beginning teachers for. Using constructs of the “culturally acceptable self” derived from recent work in cultural psychology to guide our analysis, it is argued that the vision statement could unintentionally constrain understandings of democracy rooted in pluralism by inadvertently reflecting taken-for-granted cultural beliefs held as middle-class European-American.
TL;DR: The Moraine Park School as discussed by the authors was one of the first institutions to join the Progressive Education Association (PEA) and served three terms as the PEA president, and used it in schools he built for the families of workers in his dam construction projects in the Miami Valley Conservancy and in the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Abstract: Arthur E. Morgan and other self-made business leaders opened Moraine Park School in 1917 to provide a form of character training that they feared had ended in the United States. These men believed that young people gained the best social education when they had to run their own companies because such opportunities enabled students to acquire the commercial habits, develop the ability to judge material values, and develop ethical perspectives. Calling this component the masculine element, they wanted young people to work on their own in schools in ways the rise of corporations and large cities made difficult. Appealing to the popular image of the self-made entrepreneur, Morgan's idea made Moraine Park School popular. It was one of the first institutions to join the Progressive Education Association (PEA), and Morgan served three terms as the PEA president. In addition, Morgan applied his idea of social education to Antioch College when he became president, and he used it in schools he built for the families of workers in his dam construction projects in the Miami Valley Conservancy and in the Tennessee Valley Authority. Although hailed in his time as an innovator, Morgan did not make an important philosophical contribution to educational thought because he considered the opportunity to create businesses as a separate element apart from academic subject matters.
TL;DR: In this article, Histories of Social Studies Thought and Practice in Schools and Communities are presented. But they focus on the history of social studies in schools and not on the practice of social education.
Abstract: (2009). Introduction: Histories of Social Studies Thought and Practice in Schools and Communities. Theory & Research in Social Education: Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 426-431.
TL;DR: A document-based historical study explores the nature of the Jewish social studies curriculum in American Jewish schools in the early 20th century (c.1910-1940) as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: This document-based historical study explores the nature of the Jewish social studies curriculum in American Jewish schools in the early 20th century (c.1910–1940), a period of significant growth and reform in the modern American Jewish education enterprise. “Jewish social studies” refers to school programs in which Jewish history, Jewish civilization, and/or Jewish life were taught. The article describes the types of ideological and pedagogical issues Jewish educators contemplated when devising the purposes and practices of American Jewish schooling overall and Jewish social studies in particular. More generally, the study illustrates the kinds of affordances and constraints social studies educators in almost any context face in the process of curriculum development and reform.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the Dewey and Citizenship Education and the importance of social education in the development of a good Citizenship Education curriculum, and present a survey of the literature.
Abstract: (2009). Dewey and Citizenship Education. Theory & Research in Social Education: Vol. 37, No. 2, pp. 284-292.
TL;DR: This article explored how teachers, students, and education officials viewed the social studies curriculum in the local context of Atlanta, and the broader state of Georgia, during the post-Civil Rights era, when integration was a court-ordered reality in the public schools.
Abstract: This historical investigation explores how teachers, students, and education officials viewed the social studies curriculum in the local context of Atlanta, and the broader state of Georgia, during the post-Civil Rights era, when integration was a court-ordered reality in the public schools. During the desegregation era, Atlanta schools were led by Atlanta Public Schools (APS) Superintendent, Dr. Alonzo Crim. Brought to Atlanta as part of a desegregation compromise, Dr. Crim became APS's first African American superintendent. In particular, the authors investigate how national social studies movements, such as Man: A Course of Study (MACOS), inquiry-based learning, co-curriculum activities, and standards movements, adapted to fit this Southeastern locale, at a time when schools were struggling to desegregate. Local curriculum documents written in the 1970s reveal a traditional social studies curriculum. By the 1980s, APS's social studies curriculum guides broadened to include a stronger focus on an enacted community-inside the classroom and around the world. In oral history interviews, however, former teachers, students, and school officials presented contrasting perspectives of how the social studies curriculum played out in the reality of Atlanta's public schools during the desegregation era.
TL;DR: One of the most consistent accusations hurled at academia by conservative critics over the years has been that of liberal or left bias as mentioned in this paper, and the underlying theme of these polemics has been one of an ideologically hide-bound university faculty abusing the trust and offending the sensibilities of its students.
Abstract: One of the most consistent accusations hurled at academia by conservative critics over the years has been that of liberal or left bias. From William F. Buckley’s (1951) lament about the secular nature of the Ivy League curriculum to Dinesh D’Souza’s (1991) screed against “political correctness” to David Horowitz’s (2007) recent campaigns for an Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR), the underlying theme of these polemics has been one of an ideologically hide-bound university faculty abusing the trust and offending the sensibilities of its students. Horowitz aims his critique squarely at colleges of education:
TL;DR: The Post-American World as mentioned in this paper argues that power is fundamentally being redistributed in the world, an assertion that is compelling, salient, and convincing. But more than that, it will be disorienting for those who believe in the permanency of Pax Americana along with the presumption of evergrowing economic profitability.
Abstract: The Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies on August 8, 2008 were an impressive spectacle. Jaw-dropping exhibitions followed one after another, a concert of color, sights, and sounds, all executed in seemingly perfect synchrony. Given China’s miserable human rights and environmental records, I was predisposed to view these particular games adversely. Yet, I could not help but be impressed. Fareed Zakaria’s new book, The Post-American World, left me with a similar feeling. Reading the title, I was leery of its contents, thinking that this was yet another in a long series of Thomas Friedman-esque flat earth narratives that simplistically render the world. As I read the book, however, I enjoyed the way Zakaria used evidence, provided historical illustrations, and accomplished all of this in a highly readable book. Academics can learn something from his concise and assertive account. But more than that, Zakaria convincingly argues that power is fundamentally being redistributed in the world, an assertion that is compelling, salient, and convincing. The book will be disorienting for those who believe in the permanency of Pax Americana along with the presumption of evergrowing economic profitability. Zakaria writes about the U.S. economic situation in less than flattering ways: