The Wiley handbook of social studies research 9781118787076, 1118787072, 9781118768747

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The Wiley Handbook of  Social Studies Research

The Wiley Handbooks in Education offer a capacious and comprehensive overview of higher education in a global context. These state‐of‐the‐art volumes offer a magisterial overview of every sector, sub‐field and facet of the discipline—from reform and foundations to K–12 learning and literacy. The Handbooks also engage with topics and themes dominating today’s educational agenda—mentoring, t­echnology, adult and continuing education, college access, race and educational attainment. Showcasing the very best scholarship that the discipline has to offer, The Wiley Handbooks in Education will set the intellectual agenda for scholars, students, researchers for years to come. 1  The Wiley Handbook of Learning Technology Edited by Nick Rushby and Daniel W. Surry 2  The Wiley Handbook of Cognition and Assessment Edited by Andre A. Rupp and Jacqueline P. Leighton 3  The Wiley Handbook of Home Education Edited by Milton Gaither 4  The Wiley Handbook of Diversity in Special Education Edited by Marie Tejero Hughes and Elizabeth Talbott 5  The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick

The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research Edited by

Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick

This edition first published 2017 © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Registered Office John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK Editorial Offices 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148‐5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley‐blackwell. The right of Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick to be identified as the authors of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and authors have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services and neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication data applied for 9781118787076 (hardback) A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Cover image: © OktalStudio/Gettyimages Cover design by Wiley Set in 10/12.5pt Minion by SPi Global, Pondicherry, India Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Notes on Contributors vii Forewordxvi Acknowledgmentsxviii 1 Introduction to the Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick

1

Section I: Foundations of Social Studies Research

7

2 A Concise Historiography of the Social Studies Stephen J. Thornton

9

3 The Intellectual History of the Social Studies Thomas Fallace

42

4 Quantitative Research and Large‐Scale Secondary Analysis in Social Studies Paul G. Fitchett and Tina L. Heafner

68

5 Qualitative Inquiry in Social Studies Research Todd Dinkelman and Alexander Cuenca

95

6 Practitioner Research in the Social Studies: Findings from Action Research and Self-Study 132 Meghan McGlinn Manfra 7 Exemplars from the Field of Social Studies Education Research Patricia G. Avery and Keith C. Barton

Section II: Frameworks Guiding Social Studies Research 8 Critical Theory(s) Catherine Cornbleth

168

189 191

9 A Critical Race Theory Analysis of Social Studies Research, Theory and Practice 209 Oscar Navarro and Tyrone C. Howard

vi Contents 10 Gender and Feminist Scholarship in Social Studies Research: A Dynamic Theoretical Framework Living on the Edges Chara Haeussler Bohan

227

11 Sexuality and Queer Theory in the Social Studies J. B. Mayo, Jr.

254

12 Social Constructivism and Student Learning in Social Studies Stephanie van Hover and David Hicks

270

13 Democratic Citizenship Education: Research Across Multiple Landscapes and Contexts 287 Antonio J. Castro and Ryan T. Knowles

Section III: Teaching and Learning Social Studies

319

14 Teaching and Learning about Controversial Issues and Topics in the Social Studies: A Review of the Research Li‐Ching Ho, Paula McAvoy, Diana Hess, and Brian Gibbs

321

15 Disciplined Inquiry in Social Studies Classrooms John W. Saye 16 Becoming an “Expert” Social Studies Teacher: What We Know about Teacher Education and Professional Development Margaret Smith Crocco and Ellen Livingston

336

360

17 Children’s Learning and Understanding in their Social World Anne‐Lise Halvorsen

385

18 Leveraging Literacy: Research on Critical Reading in the Social Studies Ilene R. Berson, Michael J. Berson, Danielle V. Dennis, and Rebecca Lovering Powell

414

19 Emergent Bilinguals in the Social Studies Cinthia S. Salinas, Noreen Naseem Rodríguez, and Brooke Blevins

440

20 The Problem of Knowing What Students Know: Classroom‐Based and Large‐Scale Assessment in Social Studies S. G. Grant

461

21 Media and Social Studies Education Jeremy D. Stoddard and Alan S. Marcus

477

22 The Diffusion of Technology into the Social Studies Cheryl Mason Bolick

499

23 Global Education David L. Grossman

518

24 Social Studies Scholarship Past, Present, and Future Carole L. Hahn

569

Index596

Notes on Contributors

Patricia G. Avery is a Professor of Social Studies Education in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Her research focuses on citizenship education and political socialization. Her most recent publications address civic deliberation in online and classroom contexts. These publications have appeared in Journal of Public Deliberation, PS: Political Science & Politics, and The Social Studies. Keith C. Barton is Associate Dean for Teacher Education and Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at Indiana University. His research focuses on students’ understanding of his­ tory and human rights; the history of the social studies curriculum; and classroom contexts of teaching and learning. He has conducted research on the teaching and learning of history in the United States, Northern Ireland, New Zealand, and Singapore. He is coauthor, with Linda S. Levstik, of Doing History: Investigating with Children in Elementary and Middle Schools; Teaching History for the Common Good; and Researching History Education: Theory, Method, and Context; and is editor of Research Methods in Social Studies Education: Contemporary Issues and Perspectives. Ilene R. Berson is a Professor of Early Childhood at the University of South Florida and coordinates the Early Childhood Doctoral program in the Department of Teaching and Learning. She leads international studies on integrating social justice and child advocacy into early childhood teacher preparation, and conducts participatory research to explore young children’s civic engagement through multiple literacies. She studies the intersection of technology and the pedagogy of inquiry in the early years with a focus on children’s affordances of digital innovations. Her most recent publications have appeared in the Journal of Research on Technology in Education, Social Education, the Journal of Social Studies Research, and Social Studies and the Young Learner. She has been the principal investigator on numerous grants, collaborating with national and international organizations such as the Spencer Foundation and the Library of Congress to develop innovative solutions that promote young children’s well‐being and educational outcomes.

viii

Notes on Contributors

Michael J. Berson is a Professor of Social Science Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the University of South Florida and a Senior Fellow in The Florida Joint Center for Citizenship. His areas of inquiry include promotion of critical visual literacy with primary sources in the elementary grades, visual research methods in education, digital citizenship, and pedagogy of the Holocaust. His research on child advocacy and technology in social studies education has achieved global recognition. His most recent publications have appeared in Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, Social Education, the Journal of Social Studies Research, and Social Studies and the Young Learner. He has been the principal investigator, coprincipal investigator, or primary partner on grants from numerous funders, including the United States Department of Education, the Library of Congress, Florida Department of Education, the Spencer Foundation, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Brooke Blevins is an Assistant Professor of Social Studies Education at Baylor University. She teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in secondary education, social studies education, and multicultural education. Her research interests include citizenship education in the digital age, action civics, critical historical thinking, and preservice teacher education. Dr. Blevins is a member of the Social Studies Inquiry Research Collaborative (SSIRC), which examines the impact of authentic intellectual work in social studies c­lassrooms. Her work has been published in journals such as Theory & Research in Social Education, Social Studies Research and Practice, The Social Studies, Multicultural Perspectives, and the International Journal of Social Studies Research. Dr. Blevins is a former secondary teacher and has a passion for equipping practicing teachers with the resources needed to engage in humanizing social studies education. Chara Haeussler Bohan is a Professor in the Department of Middle and Secondary Education in the College of Education & Human Development at Georgia State University. Her research interests include educational history, social studies education with a focus on gender and race, educational biography, and curriculum and instruction. She has published more than 70 publications, in leading journals such as Action in Teacher Education, Educational Foundations, Journal of Excellence in College Teaching, Social Education, Social Studies Research and Practice, Theory & Research in Social Education, and Vitae Scholasticae. She has authored a book entitled, Go to the Sources: Lucy Maynard Salmon and the Teaching of History (Peter Lang, 2004), and coedited several books, including Histories of Social Studies and Race (Palgrave, 2012). She currently serves as the codirector with Dr. Robert Baker of a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant “Courting Liberty: Slavery & Equality Under the Constitution.” Cheryl Mason Bolick is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her scholarly interests include the areas of social studies teacher education, and integration of technology in social studies and in social studies teacher education. She has a special focus on using digital history resources to support students’ historical thinking. Antonio J. Castro is an Associate Professor in the Department of Learning, Teaching, and Curriculum at the University of Missouri. His research interests include the recruitment,



Notes on Contributors

ix

preparation, and retention of teachers for culturally diverse contexts and urban schools, as well as multicultural citizenship and democratic education. Catherine Cornbleth is Professor Emerita, and was Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education at the State University of New York’s University at Buffalo, for 25 years. She has more than 30 years of work in the areas of critical theory and practice including the  practice of research, policymaking, curriculum, and teaching. Her publications have appeared in anthologies, translations, and a range of journals including Educational Researcher, American Educational Research Journal, Journal of Curriculum Studies, Teachers College Record, and Anthropology and Education Quarterly. She has published eight books, most recently Understanding Teacher Education in Contentious Times: Political Cross‐Currents and Conflicting Interests (Routledge, 2014). Margaret Smith Crocco is Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University. She was also Dean of the College of Education at the University of Iowa, and Chairperson of the Department of Arts and Humanities at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her scholarly focus has been on diversity issues in social studies, women’s history, technology use in teaching, and the history of education. She has published widely in these areas, including eight books and scores of articles. She has also done significant curriculum development work tied to documentary films, including, most prominently, Teaching the Levees, keyed to Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke about Hurricane Katrina. She received her AB degree from Georgetown University and her MA and PhD degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. Alexander Cuenca is an Assistant Professor of Social Studies Education at Saint Louis University. His research focuses on social studies teacher education, teacher education policy, and the pedagogy of teacher education. He has edited two books: Rethinking Social Studies Teacher Education for the Twenty-First Century (coedited with Alicia Crowe, Springer, 2015) and Supervising Student Teachers: Issues, Perspectives and Future Directions (Sense Publishers, 2012). His most recent publications have appeared in Social Education, Action in Teacher Education, and Studying Teacher Education. Danielle V. Dennis is an Associate Professor of Literacy Studies in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the University of South Florida. Her research focuses on literacy assessment, policy, and teacher education, particularly in global contexts. Her most recent publications address the influence of urban teacher residency programs on teacher prepar­ ation, the role of planning in building preservice and in‐service teachers’ understandings of literacy development, and the use of video as a scaffold for supporting preservice teachers’ navigation of literacy teaching and learning. These publications have appeared in Kappan, Action in Teacher Education, and The Teacher Educator. Todd Dinkelman is Associate Professor of Social Studies Education in the Department of Educational Theory and Practice at the University of Georgia. His scholarly interests center on social studies teacher education, especially its ground‐level enactment as revealed by self‐study and qualitative methods. His work reflects his interest in understanding and developing teacher education practices that promote critical, reform‐oriented visions of

x Notes on Contributors social studies teaching and learning. His research has appeared in journals such as Theory & Research in Social Education, The Journal of Teacher Education, Teaching and Teacher Education, and Studying Teacher Education. Thomas Fallace is Associate Professor of Education in the Department of Secondary and Middle School Education at William Paterson University. His research interests include social studies education, curriculum history, and the history of ideas. He has published three books and numerous feature articles for journals such as Educational Researcher, American Education Research Journal, Review of Educational Research, and Teachers College Record. Paul G. Fitchett is an Associate Professor in the Department of Middle, Secondary, and K–12 Education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His research interests include social studies education, teacher working conditions, education policy, and secondary dataset analysis. His most current research examines the various intersections among education policy, teacher working conditions, and students’ opportunity to learn. These publications have appeared in Teachers College Record, Education Policy, Education Policy Analysis Archives, The High School Journal and The History Teacher. Brian Gibbs taught social studies in East Los Angeles, California, for 16 years. He is an Assistant Professor of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests include critical, democratic and justice‐oriented teaching practices and the impact of teacher choice and decision‐making in the implementation of pedagogy and curriculum within the context of policy‐driven standardization. S. G. Grant is a Professor of Social Studies Education in the Graduate School of Education at Binghamton University, NY. His research interests lie at the intersection of state curricu­ lum and assessment policies and teachers’ classroom practices, with a particular emphasis on social studies. Grant served as senior consultant and writer on the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for State Social Studies Standards and as the project manager for the New York Social Studies Resource Toolkit project. In addition to publishing five books, his publications have appeared in Theory & Research in Social Education, Social Education, Teachers College Record, and the American Educational Research Journal. David L. Grossman is a Senior Adjunct Fellow in the Education Program of the East– West Center in Honolulu, and an internationally known scholar of and advocate for global, international, and intercultural education. Previously he served as Dean of the Education Division of Chaminade University of Honolulu, and Dean of the Faculty of Languages, Arts, and Sciences at the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd). Prior to moving to Hong Kong, he was director of the Stanford Program on International and Cross‐Cultural Education (SPICE) at Stanford University, and Director of the Center for Teaching Asia and the Pacific in the Schools (CTAPS) at the East–West Center. While at HKIEd, Dr. Grossman cofounded a Centre for Citizenship Education that created a regional net­ work for dialogue and research on citizenship education throughout the Asia‐Pacific region. Through the Centre he facilitated research on citizenship education that resulted in a series of publications that he coedited with Centre colleagues: Citizenship Education in



Notes on Contributors

xi

Asia and the Pacific: Concepts and Issues, Citizenship Curriculum in Asia and the Pacific, and Citizenship Pedagogies in Asia and the Pacific. Recently he also coedited Social Education in Asia with Joe Tin‐Yau Lo, and Creating Socially Responsible Citizens: Cases from the Asia‐Pacific Region with John J. Cogan. He has also published in the areas of teacher education, global education, intercultural education, and action research. Dr. Grossman has received the Distinguished Global Scholar Award, from the International Assembly of the National Council for the Social Studies, and the Arthur King, Jr. Curriculum Innovation Award, for outstanding contribution to curriculum research and development in the Asia and Pacific region, from the Pacific Circle Consortium. Carole L. Hahn is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Educational Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. Author of books, chapters and articles on comparative civic education, global education, and gender and social studies, she was the U.S. national research coordinator for the IEA Civic Education Study and past president of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS). She is a recipient of the NCSS’ Jean Dresden Grambs Career Research Award and the Distinguished Global Scholar Award of the International Assembly of NCSS. Her publications have appeared in Theory & Research in Social Education, Citizenship Teaching and Learning, Research in Comparative and International Education, Comparative Education Review, Social Education, and the Oxford Review of Education, as well as in handbooks by SAGE, Wochenschau, Erlbaum, and Macmillan. Anne‐Lise Halvorsen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University. Her research and teaching interests are elementary social studies education, project‐based learning, the history of education, the integration of social studies and literacy, and teacher preparation in the social studies. Her publications have appeared in the Journal of Curriculum Studies, Teachers College Record, and Theory & Research in Social Education. She is the author of A History of Elementary Social Studies: Romance and Reality (Peter Lang, 2013) and the coauthor of Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students (Cengage, 2012). She is a former kindergarten teacher and a former curriculum writer for the State of Michigan. Tina L. Heafner is a Professor in the Department of Middle, Secondary, and K–12 Education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her administrative responsi­ bilities include directing the College of Education Prospect for Success, the MEd in Secondary Education and the Minor in Secondary Education. Tina’s research interests explore effective practices in social studies education such as professional development schools, technology integration, content literacy development, and service learning. Other research interests include policy and curriculum issues in social studies and content‐based online teaching and learning. Publications include seven coauthored books and four edited books. She has published numerous articles in peer‐reviewed journals such as Teachers College Record, Educational Researcher, Educational Policy, Peabody Journal of Education: Issues of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations, Kappa Delta Phi, Theory & Research in Social Education, Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, Teacher Education and Practice, The High School Journal, and Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education.

xii Notes on Contributors Diana Hess is the Karen A. Falk Distinguished Professor of Education and Dean of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin‐Madison. Previously, she was the Senior Vice‐President of the Spencer Foundation. Since 1997, she has been researching how teachers engage their students in discussions of highly controversial political and constitu­ tional issues, and what impact this approach to civic education has on what young people learn. Her first book on this topic, Controversy in the Classroom: The Democratic Power of Discussion won the National Council for the Social Studies Exemplary Research Award in 2009. She is the coauthor, with Paula McAvoy, of the book, The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education which won the 2016 Outstanding Book Award for the American Educational Research Association. David Hicks is an Associate Professor of Education specializing in History and Social Science Education. His research interests include examining the nature and purpose of the teaching of history in a standards-based setting; the integration of multimedia and digital technologies to support the teaching and learning of history and social science; citizenship education; and disability studies and parental advocacy. Li‐Ching Ho is an Assistant Professor of Social Studies Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin‐Madison. Her research interests center on global democratic citizenship education and environmental citizenship educa­ tion. She has p­ublished articles in the Journal of Curriculum Studies, Teachers College Record, Theory & Research in Social Education, and Teaching and Teacher Education. Tyrone C. Howard is Professor and Associate Dean in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies at UCLA. His research interests include the study of race, culture, and the social context of education. His most recent works have examined the influence of c­ulturally responsive teaching on educational research, theory and practice. His recent work has also examined the educational experiences of Black males in U.S. schools. His works have appeared in the Journal of Negro Education, Urban Education, Theory & Research in Social Education, and Teachers College Record. Ryan T. Knowles is an Assistant Professor at Utah State University in the School of Teacher Education and Leadership with an emphasis on social studies education and cultural studies education. His research centers on connections between education and democracy, as well as quantitative research methods. Ellen Livingston earned her EdD in social studies education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and an AB in history at Princeton University. She has contributed to numerous curriculum projects, including Teaching the Levees (keyed to Spike Lee’s documentary about Hurricane Katrina, When the Levees Broke), Let Freedom Swing: Conversations on Jazz and Democracy, Pursuing Your Passion: Lessons from the YoungArts MasterClass, Rock and Roll: An American Story (www.teachrock.org), Mapping the African American Past (maap.columbia.edu), and a study guide for the award‐winning documentary, Pray the Devil Back to Hell. Her scholarly research focuses on the use of documentary film in social studies classrooms and the development of effective professional development materials to promote media literacy. A former staff writer for The Miami Herald and Senior Editor of



Notes on Contributors

xiii

The Reader’s Catalog, she is an experienced educator, journalist and editor whose written work has appeared in a wide variety of publications. Meghan McGlinn Manfra is an Associate Professor of Social Studies Education in the College of Education at North Carolina State University. Her research focuses on inte­ grating action research into teacher professional development and the integration of digital history materials into secondary social studies education. She is a former high school his­ tory teacher. She is also the past chair of the National Council for the Social Studies’ College and University Faculty Assembly and the American Educational Research Association’s Social Studies Research Special Interest Group. She is the editor of the Contemporary Issues in Technology and Social Studies Teacher Education journal and coeditor of the technology section of Social Education. Alan S. Marcus is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Connecticut and is a University of Connecticut Teaching Fellow. His scholarship focuses on social studies education, specializing in teaching with film and museums. Alan collaborates with museum educators across the United States and interna­ tionally, is a Faculty Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, runs a study abroad program in England for preservice teachers, and collaborates on research with fac­ ulty at the University of Nottingham in the UK. Alan earned his PhD from Stanford University. He previously taught high school social studies for seven years. He is a coauthor of Teaching History with Museums: Strategies for K–12 Social Studies (Routledge, 2012) and Teaching History with Film: Strategies for Secondary Social Studies (Routledge, 2010). Most recently Alan was a lead writer for the new State of Connecticut Social Studies Frameworks. J. B. Mayo, Jr. is an Associate Professor of Social Studies Education in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Minnesota. His research interests include the inclusion of LGBT and queer histories in standard social studies curriculum, stu­ dents’ identity formation in GSAs, the intersections of racialized identities and sexual orientation, teacher education as an inclusive space for queer identities, and the lived experiences of queer teachers. His most recent publications address teaching about marriage equality, the lives of Two Spirit indigenous people, the role GSAs play in the social studies and in teacher education more broadly, and teacher preparation for urban contexts. These publications have appeared in Educational Researcher, Theory & Research in Social Education, The Journal of Social Studies Research, Multicultural Perspectives, and The Social Studies. Paula McAvoy is a philosopher of education and program director for the Center for Ethics and Education at the University of Wisconsin‐Madison. Her research interests include: democratic education, cultural and religious accommodations, and the ethics of teaching about politics. She is the coauthor, with Diana Hess, of the book, The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education (Routledge Press), which won the 2016 Outstanding Book Award for the American Educational Research Association. Oscar Navarro is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo. His research interests include social justice teaching, c­ulturally

xiv Notes on Contributors and linguistically diverse students, and secondary education which is informed by his experience as a high school history teacher in South Central Los Angeles. Current research examines the ways that social justice educators in urban secondary schools are sustaining and enhancing their practice through a teacher‐led critical inquiry group. His publica­ tions have appeared in Urban Education and Teacher and Teacher Education. Oscar is also a member of the People’s Education Movement, Los Angeles and UCLA’s Black Male Institute. Rebecca Lovering Powell is an instructor at Florida Southern College and a doctoral can­ didate in Literacy Studies at the University of South Florida. Her research focuses on beliefs and practices of teachers integrating language arts and social studies, literacy teacher edu­ cation, children’s literature, and reading and writing development. Her most recent publica­ tions address ethnocentricity in children’s literature and social justice through literacy lessons. These publications appear in The Early Reader in Children’s Literature and Culture: Theorizing Books for Beginning Readers and Social Justice, the Common Core, and Closing the Instructional Gap: Empowering Diverse Learners and Their Teachers. Noreen Naseem Rodríguez is a doctoral candidate in the program area of Social Studies Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a former bilingual elementary educator whose research interests include elementary social studies, teacher education, bilingual education, preservice and in‐service teachers of color, immigration, and critical race theory. Her recent publications address the teaching of Latina/o and Asian American history through critical race frameworks in elementary and teacher education settings and have appeared in The Urban Review, the Bilingual Research Journal, and Social Studies and the Young Learner. Cinthia S. Salinas is a Professor in the Social Studies program area, and is an affiliate fac­ ulty member in the Bilingual/Bicultural and Cultural Studies in Education program areas in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Texas at Austin. Her focus in the social studies includes more critical understandings of historical inquiry in elementary bilingual and secondary education late arrival immigrant ESL classroom set­ tings as well as broader understandings of citizenship. Her work also examines the social studies teachers’ enactment of curriculum and instruction in an era of high‐stakes testing. She was a contributing member of the Social Studies Inquiry Research Collaborative (SSIRC). Cinthia has published in journals such as Theory & Research Social Education, Social Studies, the Bilingual Research Journal, the High School Journal and Multicultural Perspectives, and has a coedited volume, Scholars in the Field: The Challenges of Migrant Education, that addresses the needs of migrant children and their families. John W. Saye is Mildred Cheshire Fraley Distinguished Professor of Secondary Social Science Education at Auburn University and is Director of the Persistent Issues in History Network (pihnet.org). His research interests include authentic pedagogy, problem‐based inquiry, teacher thinking, and collaborative communities of practice. His recent publica­ tions address authentic pedagogy, problem‐based inquiry in history and civics/ government, and the use of lesson study in collaborative communities of practice. These publications have appeared in Theory & Research in Social Education, the Journal of Social



Notes on Contributors

xv

Studies Research, Contemporary Issues in Technology and Social Studies Teacher Education, the International Journal of Problem‐based Learning, and Social Studies Today: Research and Practice. James P. Shaver, Professor of Education and Dean of the Graduate School Emeritus, Utah State University, was editor of the Handbook of Research on Social Studies Teaching and Learning (1991), and he argued for and was the first editor of the Research Supplement in Social Education. He has been president of the National Council for the Social Studies and has received NCSS citations for Exemplary Research in Social Studies and for Contributions to Social Studies Research as an Editor. He has served in editorial positions on, and pub­ lished numerous articles in, a variety of journals. His books—including Teaching Public Issues in the High School, with Donald W. Oliver; Democracy, Pluralism, and the Social Studies, with Harold Berlak; and Facing Value Decisions: Rationale‐building for Teachers, with William Strong—reflect his early curricular interests. Questions of epistemology, research design, and the external validity of social studies research have been his more recent interests. Jeremy D. Stoddard is an Associate Professor in the School of Education and an associated faculty member in the Film and Media Studies Program at the College of William & Mary. His work is grounded in authentic pedagogy and assessment in democratic education, and in particular focuses on the role of media in teaching and learning history, politics, and citizenship. His research has appeared in journals such as Teachers College Record, The History Teacher, Theory & Research in Social Education, and Curriculum Inquiry. He is also coauthor of two books: Teaching History with Film and Teaching History with Museums (Routledge). His current project is a design‐based research project that utilizes a computer‐ supported collaborative simulation to engage students in developing a better understanding of political media messages, the role of media in politics, and how to engage in civic action using new media. Stephen J. Thornton is a Professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the University of South Florida. His research interests include the social studies teacher as ­curricular‐instructional gatekeeper, the history of curriculum change and stability, English learners in social studies, and geographic perspectives on American history. His books include Teaching Social Studies That Matters: Curriculum for Active Learning (2005), which was chosen by the American Library Association for the Choice List of Outstanding Academic Titles; with David J. Flinders, The Curriculum Studies Reader (4th ed., 2013); and, with Barbara C. Cruz, Teaching Social Studies to English Language Learners (2nd ed., 2013) and Gateway to Social Studies (2013). He was program chair for Division B (Curriculum Studies) of the American Educational Research Association and consultant to the state of Georgia’s curriculum revision to infuse geographic perspectives into world history programs in 2008, and coauthor of the National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies (2nd ed., 2010). Stephanie van Hover is an Associate Professor of Social Studies Education at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. Her research interests include the teaching and learning of history in standards-based settings.

Foreword

The first reference book developed specifically for researchers in the field of social studies education, the Handbook of Research on Social Studies Teaching and Learning, was pub­ lished in 1991, initiating a short sequence of such volumes. Seventeen years later, in 2008, Levstik and Tyson’s Handbook of Research in Social Studies Education provided an import­ ant update of the status of the field and the research challenges that lay ahead. Now, in mid‐2016 at this writing, Manfra and Bolick’s Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research nears publication. This handbook, like its two predecessors, will be an important resource for a spectrum of users. The book’s three sections encompass a wide variety of topics, grouped within the categories of (a) foundations for social studies research, (b) frameworks for guiding such research, and (c) research on social studies teaching and learning. The second section, on foundations, has two chapters that are significant departures from the content of the first handbook. After rather heated, indecisive discussion by the first handbook’s advisory committee, I decided as editor that, rather than including a chapter on gender issues, all authors would be asked to be attentive to gender issues relevant to their topics. Unfortunately, the hoped‐ for permeation of the text did not occur: Brief sections in two chapters—on “culturally diverse students” and “teaching and learning economics”—are the only gender citations in the handbook’s subject index. In contrast, the current handbook has chapters on “gender and feminist scholarship” and “sexuality and queer theory” that reflect the growing societal awareness of the effects of gender and sexual discrimination. As I write today, two news topics indicate the growing relevance of the two chapters: discriminatory government actions to restrict restroom use by transsexual individuals and, in a different arena, the p­ossibility that this year the United States will finally join other nations in electing a woman to the presidency. Seasoned social studies researchers will quickly identify which of the 23 topical chapters in the 2016 handbook are of interest to them. Most will also find Chapter 24, “Social Studies Scholarship Past, Present, and Future,” Carole Hahn’s concluding commentary on the current state of social studies scholarship as reflected in the three social studies research

Foreword

xvii

handbooks, to be informative. Neophyte researchers, including many graduate students, less familiar with the field and searching for viable research ideas and compatible method­ ology, may want to turn first to that resource—not only for the overview of the field, but for the explicit and implied suggestions of potentially productive research areas, strategies, and methods. Hopefully, each reader will find the handbook to be helpful in the formulation of fruitful research questions and the design of productive studies. James P. Shaver Montana City, Montana

Acknowledgments

The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research was developed with the diligent support and work of many people, including members of the advisory board, chapter authors, reviewers, graduate assistants, and the editorial team at Wiley. We have been humbled by the generosity of so many, who have spent considerable time and energy providing their support and insight. A special thank you is reserved for the authors who tirelessly worked on their chapter manuscripts, ever attentive to the weight of this project and the need to “get it right.”

Advisory Board Members of the advisory board provided essential guidance during the early stages of this project and continued to support our work as we ushered the handbook through its many iterations. The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research Advisory Board Members included (listed alphabetically): ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●●

Patricia Avery, University of Minnesota Margaret Smith Crocco, Michigan State University J. B. Mayo, University of Minnesota Walter Parker, University of Washington Cinthia Salinas, University of Texas James Shaver, Utah State University Stephen Thornton, University of South Florida

Reviewers Peer review was an essential component of this project. Again, we were deeply appreciative of the thoughtful and thorough reviews we received. The response we received illustrated the wealth of expertise in our field. Reviewers included:

Acknowledgments ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●●

Patricia Avery, University of Minnesota Keith Barton, University of Indiana Michael Berson, University of South Florida Tom Brush, University of Indiana Steven Camicia, Utah State University Ken Carano, Western Oregon University Hillary Conklin, DePaul University Margaret Smith Crocco, Michigan State University Rich Diem, University of Texas at San Antonio Paulette Dillworth, Auburn University Ron Evans, San Diego State Sherry Field, University of Texas at Austin Joe Feinberg, Georgia State University Jillian Carter Ford, Kenesaw State University Bill Gaudelli–Teachers College Jill Gradwell: SUNY Buffalo State Patrice Grimes, University of Virginia Carole Hahn, Emory University Thomas Hammond, Lehigh University Todd Hawley, Kent State University Tina Heafner, University of North Carolina at Charlotte David Hicks, Virginia Tech University Elizabeth Hinde, Metropolitan State University of Denver Benjamin Jacobs, New York University Wayne Journell, University of North Carolina at Greensboro Bruce King, University of Wisconsin at Madison Toni Fuss Kirkwood-Tucker, Florida State University Ryan Knowles, Utah State University Linda Levstik, University of Kentucky Daisy Martin, Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity Christopher Martell, Boston University JB Mayo, University of Minnesota Brad Maguth, The University of Akron Theresa McCormick, Auburn University Kevin Meuwissen, University of Rochester Scott Metzger, The Pennsylvania State University Geoff Mills, Southern Oregon University Jason Obrien, University of Alabama in Huntsville Judith L. Pace, University of San Francisco Walter Parker, University of Washington Summer Pennell, University of North Carolina Gabriel Reich, Virginia Commonwealth University Judith Pace, San Francisco State Charlotte Roberts, North Carolina State University E. Wayne Ross, University of British Columbia Cinthia Salinas, University of Texas

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xx Acknowledgments ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●●

John Saye, Auburn University Sandra Schmidt, Teachers College, Columbia University Avner Segall, Michigan State University Stephanie Serriere, Indiana University Beth Sondel, North Carolina State University William (Bill) Stanley, University of Colorado at Boulder Jeremy Stoddard, The College of William and Mary Christoph Stutts, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Stephen Thornton, University of Central Florida Judith Torney-Purta, University of Maryland Cheryl Torrez, University of New Mexico James Trier, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Philip VanFossen, Purdue University Stephanie Van Hover, University of Virginia Scott Waring, University of Central Florida Christine Woyshner, Temple University

Graduate assistants As editors we were assisted by talented graduate assistants. Charlotte Roberts at North Carolina State University and Christoph Stutts at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill reviewed chapter drafts, collated databases, and assistant with copyediting. We hope this experience will also positively shape their work as future social studies researchers and teacher educators.

Editorial team Finally, we would like to thank Jayne Fargnoli at Wiley Press for her early support of this endeavor and all of the editors and staff at Wiley that brought this handbook to fruition.

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Introduction to the Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick

For over 25 years, Shaver’s (1991) Handbook of Research on Social Studies Teaching and Learning has been a foundational text in the field of social studies education. It was pub­ lished by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) “to provide a comprehensive view and analysis of research in the field” (p. ix). The literal and figurative weight of that text, with its thick brown, hard back cover and gold letters, has been a perennial presence in the field since it was published. Levstik and Tyson’s (2008) Handbook of Research in Social Studies Education expanded on the previous handbook by including chapters about topics with considerable “research activity,” “a major emphasis in the NCSS standards,” or “an emerging or reemerging field within the social studies” (p. xix). They documented a vital and diverse field, while also illustrating the complexity of the field and the challenges faced. We envisioned the present Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research (2017) as building on and extending previous work by providing a comprehensive, contemporary discussion of issues facing our field. The task of picking up where previous handbooks left off seemed enormous. We understood the footsteps we were following and the high expectations for our work. Each of the authors we worked with took seriously the aim of this text—to clearly and concisely document the current state of the art in social studies research, while also charting a path forward for future research in the field.

1.1 Audience This handbook has been developed for readers as a research reference text. It includes detailed chapters focused on the history of the field, research methodologies, theoretical frameworks, and current and emerging trends in social studies educational research. It is an authoritative reference guide for both novice and established researchers. The primary intended audience The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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includes social studies researchers, teacher educators, and graduate students. This text will also be helpful to preservice and in‐service teachers, educational leaders, curriculum specialists, and policy makers interested in improving social studies teaching and learning.

1.2 Purposes The field of social studies has evolved, matured, and shifted in focus since the Shaver (1991) handbook was published. At that time Armento wrote in the handbook (1991) about a “quiet revolution” in social studies research brought about by “four societal forces – public debate, funded projects, the cognitive psychology movement, and fervor in the social s­ciences” (p. 185). As a result of these social forces, she observed “fundamental” shifts in the research on social studies. Important among these shifts were the new epistemological traditions being employed by social studies researchers, especially “interpretive and critical analysis” representing a “more inclusive range of perspectives” (p. 186). She identified five characteristics that marked the evolution of social studies research, including: “changes in paradigms, in views of teachers, in the units of analysis, in instructional foci, and in the definition of the field” (p. 186). Contemporary social studies researchers have inherited the legacy of this “quiet revolution.” This current handbook demonstrates the extent to which our field has grown as a result of social and intellectual shifts over the past 25 years. The chapters in this handbook trace the emergence of new topics and concerns, as well as the evolution of educational research methodologies. As the field of social studies education has matured, we have witnessed an expansion in the form and function of educational research. Today, a majority of social studies educational researchers use qualitative research methodologies and, increasingly, they are engaging practitioners as collaborative partners in research endeavors. The shift from mainly experimental or quasi‐experimental designs to interpretive or critical approaches has led to changes in the way social studies researchers approach theory—from those interested in generating theory through scientific inquiry to predict student behavior and outcomes in social studies classrooms to those interested in using theory as a lens to interpret observed phenomenon in a naturalistic setting. The epistemo­ logical diversity of our field as well as the concomitant range of theoretical frameworks and research methodologies being employed by social studies researchers has enhanced the scope of the “body of knowledge” or “knowledge base for teaching and learning” (Barton, 2006) that defines our field. This Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research describes contemporary trends in social studies research as well as the epistemological diversity of this work. Similar to the 1991 handbook we wish to raise issues of theory and methodology. The current field of social studies education represents a diverse field with myriad research traditions and trends. This text highlights the richness of our field while providing a reference book to support future research endeavors. The guiding objectives for this text include: ●● ●● ●● ●● ●●

Provide an accurate accounting of the state of the field of social studies education. Explore current theoretical frameworks dominating the field. Present an overview of the major research paradigms dominating the field. Represent important trends in research in social education. Explore areas of need for future research.



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1.3  Development of the Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research This handbook project began with a phone call to James Shaver. He listened to our ideas and encouraged us to consider topics absent in earlier handbooks. Retired now for several years, he graciously answered our call to serve on the advisory board of this text. We are greatly appreciative for his encouragement and insight. Our next step was to convene an advisory board. James Shaver was joined by Patricia Avery, Margaret Crocco, J. B. Mayo, Walter Parker, Cinthia Salinas, and Stephen Thornton (some of whom had served as authors and reviewers for the 1991 and 2008 handbooks). The advisory board informed and guided the development of the handbook; they assisted with the development of a list of topics for the chapters, with suggested authors and reviewers. Once we had a list of topics for chapters, a table of contents was sent to reviewers. After revisions to the table of contents, authors were recruited based on their expertise. They were asked to submit abstracts and tentative outlines for each chapter. These outlines were reviewed by members of the advisory board. After receiving feedback, the authors then developed and submitted drafts of their chapters which were again sent out for blind review to members of the educational research community. Based on feedback they received, the authors submitted revised drafts for final review by the editors and members of the advisory board. This lengthy and iterative process of submission and review ensured that each chapter was thoroughly vetted and met the high standards of the project.

1.4  Scope and Structure The scope and structure of this Handbook of Social Studies Research evolved through delib­ erations with our advisory board members and based on reviewer feedback. We asked authors to approach the social studies as an interdisciplinary field. As such, we did not include separate chapters for the disciplines that make up the social studies, e.g. history, economics, geography. As Hahn points out in her summative chapter, however, the bulk of current research in our field has focused on history instruction. This handbook reflects that trend. Readers will also note that the majority of the chapters focus primarily on research conducted by social studies educators in the United States. This is due to the publisher’s desire to create a handbook that reflects the work of the Social Studies Research Special Interest Group (SIG) of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), as well as was the product of the close affiliation of many of our authors to the College and University Faculty Assembly (CUFA) of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS). Our text is divided into three sections: I.  Foundations of social studies research II.  Frameworks guiding social studies research III.  Teaching and learning social studies While there may be some overlap across these sections, we determined to first focus on the history of the field of the social studies, the epistemic diversity within the field, and the methods used by researchers. This introduction provides a necessary foundation for the analy­ sis of contemporary research on social studies teaching and learning. Of course, the chapters in each section and across sections should be viewed as in conversation with each other.

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1.4.1  Section I. Foundations of Social Studies Research The first section begins with two comprehensive overviews of foundational and theoretical work in our field. Using these chapters as a starting point, the section moves on to focus on research methodology. In light of continued concern about the rigor of social studies educational research, we include chapters on quantitative and qualitative research method­ ologies to continue the conversation about these methodological approaches and the c­haracteristics that define “quality” research in these traditions. Although some might argue that having separate chapters only further bifurcates quantitative and qualitative research, we cannot ignore the real differences in epistemological approaches between the methods, nor the persistent debates in educational research regarding the merit of qualitative research and what constitutes “scientific” educational research (see also Berliner, 2002, Gutiérrez & Penuel, 2014; IES, 2013; Rudolph, 2014; Wieman, 2014). Looming over current extant research in our field is the age‐old question about the dis­ connect between research and practice (Barton, 2006; Shaver, 1991, 2001; Stanley, 2005; Van Manen, 1975). As such, we include a chapter on practitioner research which represents a relatively new and emerging research domain in our field. Here we trace the increasing interest in the social studies to expand beyond traditional approaches of outside‐in research to engage practitioners in sharing their “insider knowledge” to bring about change. Combined the chapters in this first section, including a discussion of “exemplar” research in our field, offers a common language for evaluating published research. The cumulative effect is to provide a starting point for future research, including the consideration of ways to expand on previous work and to pursue new methodological approaches and topics for study.

1.4.2  Section II. Frameworks for Guiding Social Studies Research Within the field of the social studies, attention to epistemology has been understood as connecting our field to more general scholarly traditions. Social studies scholars have linked epistemological frameworks to inquiry or methodological frameworks. For example, Van Manen’s (1975) three scholarly traditions included the empirical‐analytic, interpretive, and critical sciences. Armento (1991) referred to three research traditions: positivist, inter­ pretive, and critical. Similarly Cornbleth (1991) focused on “three research paradigms and their associated conceptualizations and treatment of context” distinguished between the “empirical‐analytic; symbolic, or interpretive; and critical” (p. 265). The scholarly traditions of social studies research have been distinguished based on relevant epistemological dis­ tinctions as well on theoretical and methodological distinctions (see also Cornbleth, 1986). In determining the theoretical frameworks to include in the present handbook we evalu­ ated contemporary research to identify the most persistent, as well as emerging, frame­ works referenced by social studies researchers. Today the critical tradition has emerged as an important direction in social studies research. In an effort to acknowledge this direction, this handbook includes chapters focused on critical theory, critical race theory, gender and feminist theory, and sexuality and queer theory. It is important to note that we combine some topics and theoretical frameworks, e.g. gender and feminist theory; sexuality and queer theory. This was done to reflect the way in which researchers interested in these topics “pick up” and extend the relevant theories.



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There have been persistent calls in social studies education to reform social studies teaching and learning to make it more student‐centered and to improve student learning outcomes. Social constructivism has often been use by both empirical‐analytic and inter­ pretive researchers in the social studies to guide “best practices” in the classroom. The advi­ sory board and reviewers called for a chapter on social constructivism and student learning to begin to clarify what we mean when researchers reference this framework, as well as to provide guidance about what has come before and how to move forward. Finally, visions of social studies education as preparation for democratic citizenship remain a key and often stated purpose of the field. While democratic citizenship education may not be considered a theoretical framework such as those mentioned above, it does rep­ resent an important conceptual framework that social studies researchers have developed based on several theoretical traditions; democratic citizenship as a conceptual framework appears in empirical‐analytic, interpretive, and critical social studies research.

1.4.3  Section III. Teaching and Learning Social Studies In determining the topics for the final section we worked with our advisory board members as well as reviewed social studies research over the last decades to determine those areas of research on social studies teaching and learning that have had the most salience. In making final determination about the topics we also considered feedback we received from reviewers regarding the table of contents and chapter outlines. Combined, the chapters in this section trace areas of research that have impacted social studies teaching and learning. There is a considerable body of research and evidentiary base for each of these topics, as well as room for additional work. As is the case for other sections of this handbook, these chapters are included to provide an understanding of what has come before and what must be done in the future. Here too we asked authors to approach the social studies as an interdisciplinary field, rather than include separate chapters focusing on the various disciplines making up the social studies. The chapters in this section focus on important aspects of social studies teaching and learning, including teaching about controversial issues, engaging students in disciplined inquiry, integrating critical literacy strategies, leveraging contemporary media in instruction, and the diffusion of technology into social studies education. Chapters in this section are concerned not only with what to teach, but how to teach the social studies. The section focuses on teacher education for social studies and the special needs of young learners and emergent bilinguals. It also includes chapters focused on persistent contempor­ ary issues including assessment and global education. Collectively these chapters illustrate the richness and variation of scholarship within the field of the social studies. They also point to areas of need—for instance, for better measures of student learning outcomes and more consistent research on topics of deep concern. In the final chapter of this handbook, Carole Hahn summarizes the previous chapters and discusses five issues that will shape the future of social studies scholarship: the implica­ tions of globalization; disciplinary balance; evolving theoretical frameworks and research methods; contextual constraints; and scholarly humility. She, like other authors in this review of social studies research, acknowledges the need for future research that is respon­ sive to the contemporary needs of schools and students, while maintaining connections to

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and expanding upon previous scholarship in our field. As such, this handbook could be viewed as a guide for social studies researchers, not so much as a prescriptive tool, but to initiate reflection and dialogue about where our field has been and where it is headed. Our aim is for the Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research to become an essential resource for social studies educational researchers. Berliner (2002) describes educational research as “the hardest science of all” (p. 18) given the conditions in which we work—“We face particular problems and must deal with local conditions that limit generalizations and theory building” (p. 18). Perhaps this task is even more difficult for social studies researchers facing the per­ sistent marginalization of the field both within the K–12 curriculum and among funding agencies. This handbook responds to the contemporary context, including current calls for more rigorous research methods, by providing guiding chapters on both research method­ ology and theoretical frameworks. It captures what has come before and what seems to be on the horizon in order to inspire the next generation of social studies researchers, ever cogni­ zant that the real aim of our work is to positively impact teachers and their students.

References Armento, B. (1991). Changing conceptions of research on the teaching of social studies. In J. P. Shaver (Ed.), Handbook of research on social studies teaching and learning (pp. 185–196). New York, NY: Macmillan. Barton, K. C. (2006). Introduction. In K. C. Barton (Ed.), Research methods in social studies education: Contemporary issues and perspectives (pp. 1–10). Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Berliner, D. C. (2002). Educational research: The hardest science of all. Educational Researcher, 31(8), 18–20. Cornbleth, C. (1986). An invitation to research in social education. Bulletin No 77. Washington, DC: National Council for the Social Studies. Cornbleth, C. (1991). Research on context, research in context. In J. P. Shaver (Ed.), Handbook of research on social studies teaching and learning (pp. 265–275). New York, NY: Macmillan. Gutiérrez, K. D., & Penuel, W. R. (2014). Relevance to practice as a criterion for rigor. Educational Researcher, 43(1), 19–23. Institute for Education Science. (2013). Institute for Education Science: Request for applications – Education research grants. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Government Printing Office. Levstik, L. S., & Tyson, C. A. (Eds.). (2008). Handbook of research in social studies education. New York, NY: Routledge. Rudolph, J. L. (2014). Why understanding science matters: The IES research guidelines as a case in point. Educational Researcher, 43(1), 15–18. Shaver, J. P. (Ed.). (1991). Handbook of research on social studies teaching and learning. New York, NY: MacMillan. Shaver, J. P. (2001). The future of research on social studies – For what purpose? In W. Stanley (Ed.), Critical issues in social studies research for the 21st century (pp. 231–252). Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Stanley, W. B. (2005). Social studies and the social order: Transmission or transformation? Social Education, 69(5), 282–287. Van Manen, M. (1975). An exploration of alternative research orientations in social education. Theory & Research in Social Education, 3(1), 1–28. Wieman, C. E. (2014). The similarities between research in education and research in the hard s­ciences. Educational Researcher, 43(1), 12–14.

Section I

Foundations of Social Studies Research

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A Concise Historiography of the Social Studies Stephen J. Thornton

This chapter is an analysis of recent historical writing on the social studies. In 1916, the then new field of social studies was defined in an influential report issued by the National Education Association’s (hereafter, NEA) Committee on Social Studies. The committee described social studies as “subject matter [that] relates directly to the organization and development of human society, and to man as a member of social groups” (M. R. Nelson, 1994, p. 9). “Recent” is used here in two senses. First, having to draw the line somewhere as to how far back this review of “recent” work would extend, I settled on the period since 1996, which was the 80th anniversary of the 1916 NEA committee report and the 75th anniversary of the founding of the National Council for the Social Studies (hereafter, NCSS), respectively, two developments customarily considered significant events in the history of the field (Thornton, 1996). I sometimes cite work from before 1996 because either it is necessary for context or, less often, it deals with vital issues on which no substan­ tial new historical studies have appeared. Second, “recent” is also apt in that as late as the 1980s social studies research reviews and primers did not single out historical ways of knowing for distinctive treatment (e.g., see Cornbleth, 1986; Fraenkel & Wallen, 1988; Stanley, 1985). Throughout, when I am referring to matters such as “curriculum,” “instruction,” “reform” and the like, I mean in the social studies field and not in general. For the sake of brevity, I include history and geography in “the social sciences” and, in the text, use only the last names of authors cited except for historical figures. The organization of this chapter is partly chronological and partly thematic. I begin with how reformers first championed the idea of social studies programs and then focus on chang­ ing approaches to the topics and conduct of historical research in the field. I next explore the historiography of the social studies in four eras which are useful for purposes of analysis although admittedly less discrete from one another than as presented: (1) recent interpreta­ tions of the years 1890–1920 which were a prelude to the full emergence of the social studies, (2) 1921–1939, when the basic shape of the field in practice formed, (3) 1940–1969, when the The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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by‐then established field was attacked, usually on grounds of its alleged deficiencies intellec­ tually or in patriotism, but also when significant curricular‐instructional innovations were introduced, and (4) from 1970 to the first years of the 21st century, a time of considerable polarization which was often tied, directly or indirectly, to how curriculum and instruction should be adjusted to accommodate social pluralism. For each of these eras I explore the manner in which historians of social studies education have focused their attention (e.g., choice of sources, research questions, and concerns) and the conclusions they have drawn. Three more points about the approach of this chapter. First, I have tried to comply with the volume editors’ enjoinder to use references sparingly, however, this has proven difficult given that research on the history on the social studies has become voluminous in the last few decades (Jacobs, 2013). Nevertheless, this chapter is intended neither as a continuous narrative account of historical writing nor an exhaustive bibliography of it. My aim has been to trace the contours of a field more than its scope. Thus I select significant ideas and events that instantiate the social studies in order to analyze how they have been interpreted. It is possible, of course, that another writer may have selected different ideas or events for the same purpose. Readers are referred to four historiographical essays—Davis (1981), Lybarger (1991), M. R. Nelson (1999b), Woyshner (2005)—that provide additional p­erspectives on earlier historical writing (see also Brophy, Alleman, & O’Mahony, 2000; Thornton, 2001, 2008). Second, for the most part I stick to the social studies in the conven­ tional forms taken in school programs on and off campus (e.g., see Levstik, 2002; Wilen, 2000)—although as we shall see historical researchers have increasingly pushed the bound­ aries of what counts as “social studies.” Third, although recognizable forms of the social studies spread to other nations, particularly around the Pacific Rim, this review concerns the literature on the history of the social studies in the United States.

2.1  Changing Approaches to the History of the Social Studies Although much of the subject matter included under the aegis of “the social studies” was already present in American school programs, the field is customarily understood to have first made its national mark with the issuance of the NEA Committee on Social Studies report in 1916 (M. R. Nelson, 1994), which reflected “the larger progressive concern for helping the diverse, changing society adjust to the demands of the industrial world” (Fallace, 2009a, p. 617; see also Jacobs, 2014). For all the significance subsequently attributed to it as a break with older curricula more centered on history, Hertzberg (1981), in a study based almost entirely on primary sources, which is still the most thorough single‐volume account of the field’s early years, nonetheless concluded the NEA report did not appear to be received as a “confrontational challenge” by history teachers. She wrote, “Teachers were quite accus­ tomed to the position set forth in the report, much of which they had suggested themselves and which was staple fare at their association meetings” (p. 26). Nor was the report out of step with the contemporary evolution of thought about the nature of history as a discipline (Keels, 2009). (It should be recalled that history, geography, and the behavioral sciences had only recently, themselves, begun to take on the disciplinary identities familiar today and thus professional authority in these fields was only beginning to be asserted.) As Fallace (2008) suggests, it therefore seems questionable whether the characterization of 1916 as the turning point between what Evans (2004) calls a “traditional history” curriculum



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and a rival social studies bears the weight many later observers have placed on it. Moreover, the report did little to provide a curricular‐instructional blueprint which, perhaps, helps to explain why there has never been consensus regarding which of the report’s recommendations should receive emphasis (see Jorgensen, 2010). Still, education reformers of all stripes shared a belief in the ineffectiveness of the “old education” in civics, history, and geography, particularly its lack of application in life outside of schools (Fallace, 2015). For example, reformers pointed to textbooks then in use, including Leading Facts of American History, “whose title neatly captured its organizing principle” (Moreau, 2003, p. 230), as evidence of why students were unlikely to piece together disparate disciplinary knowledge into any coherent or useful whole. Based on an analysis of primary sources, Parker (1996) observes that social studies reformers of the time believed “history and the social sciences should not be learned for their own sake … but used.” Further, the reformers urged “use” of these subject matters “should be in artful combination,” that is, “integrated” (p. 12). These efforts indicate that the social studies movement (as it was often called at the time) was in step with progressive education writ large. As Graham (2005) later put it, progressive educators considered the disciplines to be “artificial and narrow constructs and thus l­imiting and ‘unnatural’” (p. 65). While integration of the academic disciplines has gone in and out of educational fashion more than once since then, an inclination toward the integration of the disciplines has endured among most social studies educators. For example, seven decades after the NEA report, social studies educator Raymond Muessig (1987) warned that a strictly disciplinary orientation to elementary‐school geography may  shortchange learning: “the geography that is integrated into the best social studies units may be richer and more useful because students experienced it in a broad, meaningful context” (p. 529). Nonetheless, while “the social studies” as a school subject was and is often taken to con­ note an integration of its disciplines, this by no means heralded the end of courses devoted to one discipline such as American history (which I use rather than “United States” history because it is wider in space and includes history prior to the founding of the United States (see Thornton, 2013)). Although American history was supposed to be reoriented from a dreary recounting of politics, constitutions, diplomacy, and wars to critical thinking about social and economic topics relevant to contemporary life, the social studies field, albeit with dissent from a minority, proved able to live with a curricular compromise between stand‐alone disciplinary courses and integrated courses (Levstik, 1996; Thornton, 2001; Thornton & Barton, 2010). Nothing about the social studies has attracted more attention from curricular historians, however, than the question of whether the newly minted social studies field marked a break or an evolution from its immediate curricular forerunner, sometimes referred to as “history and allied subjects.” Adherents of either perspective, however, conceive the “break” in sharply contrasting terms. That is, it was, respectively, either a move from an intellectually sound history curriculum to an activity‐centered program feckless in its fidelity to the rigor of the disciplines (e.g., Nash, Crabtree, & Dunn, 1997; Ravitch, 2003) or, just the opposite, the replacement of dull, chronological history by a program drawing where relevant from the social sciences to address the demands of contemporary social life (e.g., Evans, 2004; Ross, 2006). While both views share the opinion that the “struggle” of history versus the social studies was consequential (Woyshner, 2005), both also make the assumption that

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history and the social studies were quite different entities at the time, with the latter even­ tually “replacing” the former (see Fallace, 2009a). The weight of recent research undermines the assumptions underlying the “struggle” debate. Rather, the social studies seem to have been more of an outgrowth from, rather than a break with, the directions that history (and to some extent other social sciences) were tak­ ing. The notion of a “break” posits a misleading intellectual and educational bifurcation of history and the social studies which were, Keels (2009) points out, developing in “synchrony” between the late 1910s and late 1930s. He underscores that many prominent historians “saw no inconsistency between being an historian and a social studies educator” (p. 10). Although it may be premature to declare the “struggle” debate moribund, it does seems fair to say that it has lost a good deal of its vitality. Other issues and topics have meanwhile come to the fore. This is partly because of understandable curiosity about more contempor­ ary issues, including the more than three‐fourths of the field’s past which has occurred since the social studies secured a foothold in the schools. But, even more, it reflects a shift in what researchers consider historically noteworthy. Attention has shifted to a significant degree in a manner commended by Davis (1981): from “commission reports, assertions by prominent social studies figures, and pronounce­ ments by professional societies” to “accounts of curriculum development processes, school effects of innovations, and commonplace social studies classroom practices” (p. 29). Accompanying this shift, Tyack (1976) suggested attention to “ways of seeing” which, applied to the social studies, would lead to more pluralistic perspectives regarding race, gender, culture, ethnicity, and sexual orientation (e.g., Crocco, 2003/2004). Taken together, these two shifts have reoriented the topics of and approaches to historical research as well as interwoven them. None of this need, of course, prevent fresh attempts to use historical sources that concern “pronouncements,” what someone or a group thought should happen (e.g., Dilworth, 2003/04; Jorgensen, 2010). But the postmodern turn in historical scholarship signifies that the documents “are themselves representations of how people spoke, thought, and behaved” and thus scarcely objective evidence of historical “truth” (Arnold, 2000, p. 114). These days historians of the social studies need recognize—or ought to recognize given contemporary skepticism about the epistemological soundness of traditional approaches to empirical research (Segall, 2004)—that they are dealing with interpretations of interpretations which, in any case, may or may not have been read or heeded by the practitioners, officials, or pub­ lics to whom they are addressed. Explicit attention to human diversity in the social studies might lead to additional ques­ tions, for example: Who held authority over the curriculum? Whose experiences were rep­ resented in it? What social outlook did it embody? Answers to these questions provide a different way to frame and critique traditional social studies historiography. The so‐called “Old Masters” who created the field’s first “conventional” histories (Robinson, 1980) were striking for their lack of diversity—almost all male, white, (assumed to be) heterosexual, middle‐class, Christian (heavily Protestant)—who took themselves as a tacit standard by which social norms and educational ideals were gauged (see Crocco, 2003/2004). They were generally oblivious to how representative they may have been for, say, a teaching force which was largely female or for students of diverse religious backgrounds in urban schools, or for teachers or students who were of color. They took heterosexual gender norms and consonant assumptions about sexuality for granted (see Blount, 2004). The Old Masters



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and the next generation or two failed to “see” difference as anything but an aberration and they thereby set a normative tone. This tone became a remarkably long‐lived benchmark (Cornbleth, 1996).

2.1.1  Biographical Material and Methodology With implications for both diversity and research methodology, the significant proportion of the literature on history of the social studies that is biographical warrants comment. A number of scholars such as Woyshner (2009) have remarked upon the heavy reliance on biographical methods by historians of the social studies. Given the practical demands on researchers, this reliance may be understandable. Biographical materials are attractive sites for the efficient conduct of research studies as frequently they are the most complete, bounded, and accessible collections of primary sources available. Although somewhat allayed by the rise of oral histories which allow focus on people from diverse backgrounds (Crocco, 2009), biographical approaches can raise problems of elitism and representativeness because the powerful and the privileged are those individuals whose papers are likely to be archived. Biographical approaches frequently put, in Kaestle’s (1997) words, the focus on “leadership and organization rather than the educational behavior and attitudes of ordinary people” (p. 121). Hence the very features that make biographical studies appealing for efficiently completing a modestly funded research project may well have the effect of directing the investigator to human subjects who are unrepresentative of the times in which they lived. As Davis (2005) observes, the life experience of an individual does not necessarily coincide with broader currents of historical change during his or her lifetime. In spite of the growing attention called to the limitations of biographical studies, biogra­ phies of the Old Masters were, by the late 20th century, increasingly supplemented by biographies of their female counterparts. Historians of the social studies had traditionally ignored women’s contributions to the social studies because they consciously or uncon­ sciously c­onsidered the roles women took and activities in which they engaged to be of minimal significance (Levstik, 2005). It seems undeniable that even when women educa­ tors did work that was the equivalent of what their male counterparts did, their historical reputations have not been as high (Barton, 2005).

2.1.2  Revisionists Question “Conventional” Histories of the Social Studies Until well into the latter half of the 20th century, the “conventional” view of the social studies as an ipso facto step toward educational (and possibly social) betterment prevailed in the writing of social studies history. But in the wake of social and academic changes in the 1960s and 1970s, revisionists began to question the cultural monism and sexism to which the Old Masters had been largely oblivious. One proposed remedy was liberal and identified sources of exclusion as a step toward extending the same privileges to previously excluded groups. Thus, the remedy to the invisibility of Blacks (except for slavery and emancipation) in social studies courses was to add Black history and the group’s “contribu­ tions” (Watras, 2012). Many proponents of the renewed feminist movement, which took off

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in the 1960s and 1970s, adopted the same approach and added new material to existing social studies courses (Bernard‐Powers, 1997). Some scholars saw deeper problems than could be remedied by adding material to courses still organized around metanarratives focused on privileged groups. Gender and race are cases in point. For example, several scholars (e.g., Crocco, 1997; Levstik, 2005, 2009; Makler, 1999; Noddings, 2001) underscore that the social studies leaders had consistently ignored or demeaned both curricular content about women’s experience and the already‐noted professional activity of women. Thus, without reorientation of what counts as significant content or valuable professional activity, it should hardly be surprising that most histories of the social studies have had little to say about women. The same kinds of challenges confront the study of African Americans and other marginalized groups in the history of the social studies (e.g., Crocco, 1999; King, Crowley, & Brown, 2010; Preston‐Grimes, 2010). The effects of revisionist and critical stances on the writing of the early history of the social studies have been less apparent than in scholarship on contemporary social studies. This may reflect, for reasons already hinted at, that historical investigations of what Crocco (2001) called “missing discourses” can be difficult to execute compared to more well‐ trodden research paths. How does one address what was excluded or marginalized in the past? However important the topic, it can be vexing to reconstruct the past with few sources about the topic from the time.

2.2  Prelude to the Social Studies, 1890–1920 During this period, there was growing interest in the objectives and content that would eventually be called “social studies.” In addition to the already‐noted question of whether the social studies represented a continuation or break from its curricular forerunners (and the interrelated question of when did it “begin”?), recent historians of social studies education have examined this era from perspectives that the Old Masters largely or entirely ignored. For example, newer categories in historical inquiry such as gender and race s­timulated questioning of the Old Masters’ assumption that social studies was by definition “progressive” by asking, progressive for whom?

2.2.1  Role of Professional Associations At the same time, with a possibly more fine‐tooth comb than past scholars, contemporary social studies educational historians focus on whether the professional associations in the social sciences were in step with the rise of the social studies or resistant to it during this time period. The weight of recent historical scholarship leans to the former. These studies, dis­ proportionately about history associations and their leading figures, generally identify where the associations stood based on their pronouncements and curriculum frameworks. For example, two scholars, Bohan (2004) and Whelan (1997) trace the involvement of the American Historical Association (hereafter, AHA) in the rise of the social studies. Both scholars judge the AHA’s goals for history curriculum as more or less interchangeable with the commitment to educating for participatory citizenship in a democratic society that animated the social studies movement. Watras (2003/2004, 2004) takes this line of reasoning



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one step further and, based on primary‐source evidence, soundly refutes the oft‐laid charge that the rise of the social studies represented, in effect, the replacement of historians and other academicians in curriculum policy making by educational specialists from higher education and school systems. Ahmad (2000), however, shows that the rise of the American Political Science Association (APSA) had far less overlap with the rising social studies than did the AHA. Instead of a Deweyan‐like view of participatory democracy (see Carpenter, 2006; Fallace, 2009b), which was influential among many AHA historians in addition to proto‐social studies educators, the APSA at the time took “a thin or restricted view of democracy” and recommended formal, academic study of government (p. 56). Geographers, meanwhile, “worried about” the rise of the social studies “even as they distanced themselves from curriculum reform” (Schulten, 2001, p. 124). Rather than marching in step like the AHA, geographers and geographic educators more often saw in the social studies an unwelcome curricular rival. For all the significance customarily afforded them, however, the course titles referred to by these scholars are well removed from the specifics of the curriculum or how teachers were prepared to teach the curriculum. Understanding what courses of study, instructional methods and materials, and so forth were like requires looking deeper than the recommen­ dations of committees, even blue‐ribbon committees. With a few exceptions such as the examinations of well‐triangulated sources by Barton (2009) on home geography and by Jacobs (2009) on “Jewish social studies” historical accounts do not much elaborate on what underlay the course titles during this period.

2.2.2  Textbooks for Historical Sourcing Historical studies based on analysis of instructional materials, especially course textbooks, often use these sources as a proxy for the experience of classroom life (and by extension what students and teachers take away from that experience). As Stodolsky’s (1999) research on late 20th‐century classrooms underscores, this reliance should be regarded as relatively high‐inference as the diffusion or even use of instructional materials does not tell us how they are used (nor, for that matter, what other learning activities beyond the textbook occur during lessons). Nevertheless in the historiography of the social studies, textbooks are often the main source for the study of crucial elements of social studies programs. This is particularly true when historians consider issues such as diversity (or its absence). For example, Crocco’s (1997, 1999) work on the textbooks by Mary Ritter Beard (often coauthored with her hus­ band, Charles A. Beard) reveals that, while the texts contained conventional material on the workings of government, they also contained exercises in participatory democracy, a community civics in which citizenship is gender-inclusive. Tyack (2003) reviews studies of textbooks that defined citizenship as applied to the flood of so‐called “new” immigrants arriving from eastern and southern Europe. In these textbooks, Tyack concludes, “good citizenship came to be more a matter of conforming to an Anglo, middle‐class pattern of  behavior than learning how the political system works or participating in politics” (pp. 28–29; see also Bodnar, 2011; Woyshner, 2004). Still other studies (e.g., Foster, 1999; King, Davis, & Brown, 2012) which rely on textbook analysis show how these books seldom did much to foster cultural diversity and even

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perpetuated racist stereotypes (e.g., Fallace, 2012; Moreau, 2003; Schulten, 2001; Spearman, 2012). While the presence of racism in textbooks of the opening decades of the 20th century is not denied by any investigator, Fallace (2012) does point out that intellectual pioneers of the social studies field—among whom he includes John Dewey, Thomas Jesse Jones, Arthur Dunn, and James Harvey Robinson—may have fallen “short of the pluralism of Du Bois and Boas, [but] they were still more progressive than many of their peers …” (p. 52).

2.2.3  The Enacted Curriculum of Social Studies Programs As noted, however, studies based only on textbooks have limited ecological validity, their attention to “the institutional matrix in which teachers and students are embedded” (Jackson, 1968, p. 176; see also Cornbleth, 1982; Eisner, 1988). Nonetheless, historians of the social studies have seldom paid much heed to the reality that the same course can be enacted in very different ways, “depending on individual teacher’s goals, their sense of the purpose behind instruction in a particular discipline or area of the social studies, and the particular setting in which instruction takes place” (Levstik, 2008, p. 50). Generally speaking a surer sense of the impressions left on, say, a group of sixth‐graders from a study of the grasslands of Africa will be secured by knowing about their instructional encounters with the material than by consulting the inert generalities of a school‐district curriculum guide listing an outline of course objectives and content (Thornton, 2005). Other historical sources possessing greater ecological validity available to historians are school surveys conducted during the progressive era. Barton (2006) and Barton and Weber (2009) make good use of these sources from 1911–1932 for evidence of what happened to cur­ riculum and instruction in social studies classrooms. Significantly, their findings should serve as a caution, perhaps even a corrective, to many studies conducted about how progressive methods and ideas transformed American education. When evaluating surveys of classroom instruction there is scant evidence of newer, more progressive methods and much suggestive of traditional methods such as recitation centered on memorization of civic, geographical, and historical information. This kind of classroom routine runs counter to progressive goals and subsequent empirical research suggests its repeated incidence shapes how students perceive the meaning of a field of study and how to go about inquiry in it (Stodolsky, 1988).

2.3  The Social Studies Taking Shape, 1921–1939 It has been customary to regard this period, the interwar decades of the 1920s and 1930s, as the time when the social studies replaced history, geography, and civics as more or less separate subjects. While the social studies did take shape during this period answering the “replacement” question is more complex than one school program supplanting another. Recent studies suggest that curricular‐instructional change was slow, uneven across grade levels, and may have varied somewhat across locales (Barton, 2006; Barton & Weber, 2009; Fallace, 2008, 2009a, 2011). Moreover, there were also significant continuities including that the subject matter taught in the primary grades (Barton, 2009)—roughly kindergarten– Grade 3—remained relatively unchanged and the flagship status of American history in secondary programs persisted (Thornton, 2001).



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2.3.1  National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Historical writing on the process of educational change during this era is somewhat partial. Take the case of the historiography of the NCSS. That the NCSS was created in 1921, “to bring some order to the field and to promote the vision of social studies created by the 1916 NEA Committee on Social Studies” (Evans, 2004, p. 36), is uncontroversial. But research on what the NCSS actually did to influence the field and to what effects is mostly piecemeal. Evaluations of the influence that the NCSS did wield depend to some extent on how the organization defined its purpose. Historians, for example, have asked whether it was to pre­ sent an alternative to the disciplines or merely better coordinate them? Both impressions existed among NCSS members and other stakeholders (Thornton, 1996). As Evans (2004) documents, it is significant that the first name the new organization adopted for itself in 1921 was the National Council of Teachers of Social Studies dedicated to obtaining “the maximum results in education for citizenship from social studies” (quoted in Evans, 2004, p. 37). The next year, however, the name was changed to the National Council for the Social Studies and the field defined as: “The ‘social studies’ shall include history, government, economics, geog­ raphy, and sociology” (quoted in Evans, 2004, p. 37). Historians are correct to point out that, ever since, the NCSS has straddled these two perspectives (Shaver, 1996). In one of the few historical investigations relevant to the issue, albeit based mainly on secondary sources, Levstik (1996) powerfully underscores one of the main side‐effects of this split personality: that the field has been “plagued” by charges that it “fails to respect scholarship” (p. 29). Her account of the NCSS and history teaching mentions one manifes­ tation of this issue: starting in 1934, the organization went to some lengths to connect its programs to disciplinary scholarship. For instance, “the organization published a series of  bulletins, yearbooks, and articles in which social studies educators and historians c­ommented on current trends and issues in the field” (p. 29). Sometimes this took the form of historians providing “an update on the discipline” and educators providing “suggestions for teaching” (p. 29). While this demonstrates the NCSS did engage in sustained activity that was, far from hostile, supportive of disciplinary knowledge, historians of the social studies do not appear to have evaluated the effects of these types of publication programs. Another aspect of the NCSS which has received limited attention from historians of the social studies is its relative influence on secondary versus elementary education. Reflecting the composition of the membership, NCSS publications generally were directed at specialist teachers of the social studies in secondary schools rather than elementary‐school teachers who taught all of the subjects in the curriculum. For this and other reasons, the history of the NCSS and elementary education has very different contours from its secondary coun­ terpart. Levstik’s (2005) appraisal—that historians of the social studies have only produced relatively sketchy accounts of the NCSS and elementary education—seems accurate. In a recent book on the history of elementary social studies, Halvorsen (2013), for instance, briefly deals with the influence of the NCSS through the organization’s pronouncements, but this reveals little about who formulated them, let alone how, if at all, they affected classroom teachers and “supervisors.” Parenthetically, for “supervisors” I adopt a useful designation by Jarolimek (1996): “c­onsultants, assistant superintendents, curriculum directors, and other designations of individuals in positions of responsibility for the direction and supervision of instruction” (p. 110, n. 1). He concludes that, effectively, the NCSS’ influence on elementary social

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studies often flowed through supervisors who provided “a superb conduit for dissemina­ tion of current thought and practice in the field” (p. 107). Although he does not remark upon its gender implications, Jarolimek (1996) compiles a list of one dozen elementary supervisors whom he finds particularly praiseworthy; nine of these supervisors appear to have been female (in my estimation based on their first names) (p. 107). It is only in recent decades that (mostly women) historians of the social studies have called much attention to the gendered relationship between the NCSS and elementary edu­ cation with its largely feminine workforce (e.g., Levstik, 2005). This line of analysis suggests both a different and perhaps more profitable line of research that extends understandings of elementary social studies beyond the content prescriptions of committee reports (e.g., Bohan, 2005) and has the added benefit of raising questions about the assumptions the male‐dominated NCSS brought to activities in elementary social studies (Crocco, 2004).

2.3.2  American Historical Association Commission on the Social Studies While elementary social studies have received limited attention from historians of the social studies, the AHA Commission on the Social Studies is a fixture in historical accounts of the field. Nonetheless, it presents something of a puzzle from an historiographical standpoint. At work from the late 1920s into the 1930s, the Commission addressed most of the import­ ant issues about the social studies and involved many of the leading intellectuals of its day. It produced a series of well‐regarded books and, perhaps crucially for the attention it has subsequently received from historians, left a wealth of documentary records. For all this, historians do not seem to have ever really settled on what part of the Commission and its work, if any, is historically significant, and why. To be sure, scholars to greater or lesser degrees accept that the overarching reason the AHA convened the Commission was concern about whether the social studies curriculum was in tune with proper and orderly educational thinking (e.g., Watras, 2004) although they often add that at least some AHA members saw in the social studies a curricular rival more than an ally (e.g., Halvorsen, 2013). There is still less clarity among historians of the social studies about what the Commission accomplished and the significance of those accomplishments. (It may even be asked whether it makes sense to speak of what the “Commission” accomplished since all of its members did not agree on a final report.) For instance, there are at least three somewhat different viewpoints on what kind of curriculum the Commission endorsed. One seems to locate the Commission’s main significance in sidelining history in favor of the social studies: “That Commission concluded … that it would not be wise to attempt to impose a restricted, his­ tory‐bound curriculum on the social studies” (J. L. Nelson, 2001, p. 29). A second view also sees the Commission as a validator of the social studies but portrays the Commission as perhaps most of all as one in a series of history‐versus‐social studies struggles. Adherents of this view acknowledge the commissioners had differing opinions and thus predictably did not reach consensus on curricular recommendations but still maintain that somehow the Commission’s “work helped confirm the place of social studies in the curriculum” (Halvorsen, 2013, p. 75). From yet a third perspective (Evans, 2004), the Commission both endorsed the social studies rather than history and possibly strengthened the role of the social studies in the American curriculum but, nonetheless, failed in the most important sense because it issued no definite scope and sequence for what schools should teach.



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Watras (2004) produces the most stimulating hypothesis about the Commission. While he, too, acknowledges that the Commission hardly spoke with one voice, he attributes seminal importance to one of the volumes it published: Curriculum‐Making in the Social Studies (1936) by Leon Marshall and his daughter, Rachel Marshall Goetz. According to Watras (2010), Marshall and Goetz “suggested that social studies courses concentrate on processes all societies share” (p. 799). This thematic approach, he maintains, became a widely adopted and enduring organizational scheme in both the social studies and courses devoted to history alone. For example, even “today the NCSS preserves Marshall’s idea,” Watras (2010) argues, “by organizing the social studies around themes such as under­ standing how the environment influences people and how people live within different insti­ tutions” (p. 799; see also Watras, 2004). Although the continuity he discerns may not be as apparent to all observers, it does seem incontrovertible that social studies educators have repeatedly turned to social processes or themes to organize subject matter for instruction— and seem to have done so even prior to the appearance of the Marshall and Goetz volume (e.g., see Bisland, 2009).

2.3.3  Golden Age of Curriculum Development Watras’ thesis notwithstanding, the 1930s are regarded as “the golden age of curriculum development” in the social studies (Evans, 2004, p. 104) because of the construction of pro­ grams consciously designed to be “socially relevant” (Watras, 2010, p. 799). Two programs stand out in recent scholarship—the Rugg textbooks and the Hanna social studies series for elementary grades. Rugg textbooks.  First, historians have continued to be attracted to investigations of the bestselling and much‐touted and ‐criticized instructional materials envisaged by and con­ structed under the direction of Harold Rugg (e.g., Evans, 2007; Lagemann, 2000). This program had a social reconstruction ideology that put “emphasis on conflict” (Moreau, 2003, p. 29) in American history in accordance with, for example, “the socioeconomic analyses of Charles and Mary Beard” (Makler, 2004, p. 29). Recent scholars’ studies cover much ground familiar from earlier histories (M. R. Nelson, 1999b), particularly the disturb­ ing banishment of the Rugg materials from schools at the hands of right‐wing critics. These scholars have the benefit of ample primary sources including Rugg’s (1941) autobiography, newspaper accounts, and even transcripts from public hearings. As earlier scholars had done, they describe the Rugg materials as ahead of their time in introducing social problems neglected in most other social studies programs. For instance, he dealt with African Americans in (then) contemporary society whereas the group was typically ignored in social studies programs bar for slavery and emancipation. Makler (2004) notes, however, that the Rugg program also “reflects the contradictions and prejudices of the time.” For example, it is the presence of “colored people,” especially “Negroes” that “cause” what was then called “the Race Problem” (p. 34; see also, King, et al., 2012). Censorship of the Rugg materials remains one of the most vivid and publicized episodes of its type in U.S. history and arguably serves as a reminder in the 21st century of the limits of acceptance for social criticism in the social studies (see also Bosenberg & Poland, 2001). Nevertheless, Evans (2007) suggests that the near monopoly the censorship battles sometimes

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seem to have exercised over historical investigations of the Rugg materials could profitably be supplemented by greater attention to how his “social studies ideas” worked in curric­ ulum design (p. 103). It was, after all, for a time a curriculum pathfinder for the nation. While Evans (2007) himself supplies some attention to Rugg’s curriculum design, there is still next to no historical research which I have come across on how the Rugg materials were used in schools and to what effects. Hanna Social Studies series.  Recent historians have also examined another pivotal figure in the field’s history, Paul Hanna. Much of the older writing on Hanna tended to focus on critiques of his curriculum sequence (“expanding horizons,” defined below) rather than more comprehensive historical examinations of his work and influence. Soon after the Rugg textbooks began to appear during the Great Depression, Hanna began another textbook series that would prove one of the most long‐lived and widely adopted in the history of the social studies: the Hanna Social Studies series for the primary grades (later he added the upper elementary and junior‐high grades which did get used but were less popular than the primary series). Hanna’s biographer, Stallones (2002), p­rovides the fullest account of the Hanna program. His work suggests that the most d­istinctive social studies design elements were stories about basic human activities and an  expanding horizons curriculum sequence—beginning in the primary grades and moving outwards grade by grade from the individual to the family to the community to the state or region, to the nation and its neighbors. Although the idea of expanding envi­ ronments often is in one way or another attributed to Hanna, neither it nor basic human activities were his invention. Barton (2009) points out that both conceptual schemes had been part of, for example, “home geography” in the primary grades as early as the 1890s. Hanna’s chief contribution was the unprecedented dissemination of these schemes through his books. As noted, critiques of the Hanna approach have long set the interpretative tone—other questions seem to have gone unasked. For instance, he used stories about the lives of chil­ dren through which students encountered the same social and economic features of daily life in different parts of the United States and in other cultures around the world as well. Historians of the social studies do not appear to have explored how this tacit comparative approach to world cultures may have opened the potential to move beyond the well‐documented imperialist approach of earlier textbooks (e.g., see Schulten, 2001; Spearman, 2012). Hanna’s narrative approach has not generally exercised the same appeal for historians of the social studies as has the more analytic approach employed by Rugg (Bisland, 2009). Yet recent scholars demonstrate that Hanna’s self‐proclaimed social outlook was, at least in the 1930s, in significant respects comparable to Rugg’s (see Stallones, 2002). Both were dissat­ isfied with the continuing prominence of teaching information about history, geography, and civics versus active inquiry into how society actually worked. While the Rugg junior‐ high program was effectively removed (after selling millions of books) from schools no later than the early 1940s, the Hanna Social Studies series endured through the 1960s, selling more than 8 million copies (Lagemann, 2000). Hanna seems to have reserved his more radical ideas for social critique for another series he launched toward the end of the 1930s, which took a magazine format, Building America. (As taken up below, after World War II this series was to run into criticisms similar to those leveled at Rugg and it was abruptly discontinued.)



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Recent historians account for the warm reception of the Hanna Social Studies series by settling in one way or another on its unthreatening stories, fit with teacher‐centered methods, and integration with reading instruction. As Halvorsen (2013) puts it, Hanna’s textbooks were an appealing curricular‐instructional hybrid “because they were innovative in their packaging of the social studies curriculum as basic activities, [but] they were very traditional in their teacher‐centricity” (p. 116). Furthermore, in contrast to the Rugg junior‐ high series which featured social problems, Hanna emphasized social functions, and so while much of the same material was included, it was not marshalled to social reconstruction purposes (see Bisland, 2009). As Lagemann (2000) sums it up, Hanna’s books eventually gained a reputation for presenting a “bland” and white, middle‐class view of family and community life, which “pleased the school boards of middle‐America throughout the 1940s and 1950s and even thereafter” (p. 129).

2.3.4  Influence of American Historians on School History, 1920s–1930s During the 1920s and 1930s American historians provided the intellectual frameworks for school history. It was also not unusual for prominent historians such as Albert Bushnell Hart and the Beards to write school textbooks. Most historians still relied on a political framework but with “a progressive emphasis on the struggle between special interests and ordinary people” accompanied by more attention to social life than a gener­ ation earlier as evidenced by new topics such as “the conditions of everyday life, including household living and working practices of women and children” (Levstik, 1996, p. 25). Historians of the social studies have documented this progressive emphasis through biographies of prominent textbook writers as well as analyses of textbooks of the time (e.g., Crocco, 1997; Moreau, 2003). However, Fallace (2011) cautions about overgeneral­ ization, warning there may have been quite a few school districts like Denver, Colorado, which “adopted much of the rhetoric of curriculum reform, but left most of its history content intact” (p. 572). Nevertheless, coexisting with the substance and methods favored by progressive (or “new”) historians such as the Beards, which historians of the social studies generally look on with favor, was a narrative of celebratory nation‐building as the centerpiece of American history. Some scholars (e.g., J. L. Nelson, 2001), parenthetically, argue “there is a vast literature and long historical record of nationalistic and propagandistic history teaching in the schools” (p. 28) and that “traditional” school history has a propensity toward such an orientation. In such a national narrative, ordinary people, women, and people of color often tend to serve as a backdrop for a national story organized around great events and processes constituted of the experience of elite European American males. For example, in a carefully contextualized study of upper elementary‐grades American history textbooks by Mary Kelty, Barton (2005) analyzes how her texts were organized by themes reflective of progressive norms yet displayed unquestioning obei­ sance to America’s manifest destiny (see Stephenson, 1996). As Barton explains, Kelty used themes of “great movements” familiar to the social studies such as “ways of living among people under different conditions” and the “life of the common man” (p. 172). Nevertheless, she took for granted, for example, that dispossession from their lands was simply the price that American Indians had to pay for American nation‐building

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(see also, Foster, 1999). Similarly she evinced little sympathy for the enslaved (although she did relate their importance to developing the plantation economy of the antebellum South). Recent historians of the social studies have also noted that, in spite of whatever progres­ sive directions were adopted in school American history, it often still exhibited considerable continuity with the 19th-century approaches in which it served as a bellwether of nation­ alism and social conservatism (Foster, 1999; J. L. Nelson, 2001). As the work of Bessie Pierce in the interwar decades showed, powerful ideological forces remained embedded in school textbooks (M. R. Nelson, 1999a). For every case of censorship such as with the Rugg mater­ ials, there appear to be far more cases where American history textbooks simply were constructed to skirt fundamental social criticism or even were actively “corrupted for political ends” (J. L. Nelson, 2001, p. 28). This point is well illustrated by Foster (1999) when he notes that one permanent topic in American history schoolbooks has been the existence of “the poor.” Thus textbooks do mention that this group exists, but, “what is strikingly absent … is any discussion of how people come to be poor, why individuals from minority populations are disproportionately poor, and/or the role the capitalist system plays in p­erpetuating poverty” (p. 268). Finally about this era, some mention is warranted of the preparation of social studies teachers. But this topic has rarely been the subject of historical investigation in the social studies. Rather researchers have overwhelmingly concentrated on the fortunes and misfortunes of curriculum change efforts (Jacobs & Thornton, 2014). In what is perhaps the only sustained, document‐based analysis of this topic, Jacobs (2013) draws on old university catalogs and other artifacts from the time to reconstruct what went on in teacher e­ducation programs. He argues that concentration on curriculum change seems to have crowded out significant attention to the mismatch between the new and often integrated programs social studies teachers would be expected to teach and teacher education p­rograms that through the 1920s continued to prepare teachers for discrete history and geography courses.

2.4  New and Old Expectations: World War II and the Cold War, 1940–1969 It appears that most educational historians of the social studies, perhaps not consciously, generalize that, until the beginning of World War II in 1939, the field had been gaining cur­ ricular ground whereas, afterwards it was frequently either revamped for special purposes or challenged for curricular space, or both. In this sense, what was in place by 1939 became institutionalized as “social studies” and subsequently change has tacitly been measured by its extent of departure from that formative time. Historians of the social studies agree that the war ushered in consensus on many educational issues. It was widely recognized at the time and since that the social studies were an especially sensitive area of study given that the nation was engaged in a global war against enemies of a democratic way of life. Signs of this consensus include the development of courses in “air age” geography (Schulten, 2001) which was said to be needed in more global times and NCSS support of wartime domestic and internationalist policies of the government (Field, 2005; Nelson & Fernekes, 1996).



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2.4.1  Controversy and the Social Studies, 1940s Several educational historians (e.g., Evans, 2004; Halvorsen, 2012b; Thornton 2001, 2005) point out that unity of purpose during wartime went only so far. The most striking differ­ ences arose over the teaching of American history. Controversy was first sparked by the Columbia University historian Allan Nevins in a 1942 article in the New York Times in which he charged, with the American heritage in peril, American history was not being taught. He blamed the social studies. Over a period of a year or more the controversy swelled and even extended to the administration of a test on American history to people from various walks of life in order to ascertain how much or little Americans knew of their history. Eventually the NCSS, the AHA, and the other major professional association concerned with American history, the Mississippi Valley Historical Association (now the Organization of American Historians), joined forces to put the messy and embarrassing matter to rest and silence calls from politicians and others for intervention in history teaching. Contemporary historians of the social studies (e.g., Evans, 2004; Halvorsen, 2012b; Thornton, 2001, 2005) have not fundamentally changed the conclusions of earlier investi­ gations. Although their emphases vary, contemporary historians generally agree that Nevins’ central charge was factually incorrect and the collaboration between the three professional groups meant more to and was taken more seriously by the NCSS than by the historians’ groups. While the facts of the case are not really in dispute, the differences of interpretation focus on what the crisis over American history represented. On the one hand, Evans (2004) and Halvorsen (2012b) portray this conflict as an early episode in a “war” on the social studies which had begun even earlier. Thornton and Barton (2010), on the other hand, do not dispute that rancor was directed at the social studies. But they see the significance of the conflict more in historians and educators, when push came to shove, standing by the principles that inspired them to commit to the social studies in the first place—such as a common front against the use of school American history for baldly nationalistic purposes. (Based on factors such as the growth of specialization in higher edu­ cation, Thornton and Barton describe the parting of the ways for historians and social studies educators as only coming a generation or more later, by which time the professional identities of the two groups had fully diverged.)

2.4.2  Intergroup Education With intergroup education, the social studies also became involved in another ideolog­ ical groundswell during the war years: government propaganda presented the United States as an inclusive democracy, thus contrasting with Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. But U.S. propaganda occluded the actual state of racial and ethnic relations as events such as the race riots in Detroit in 1943 emphatically demonstrated. These types of contradictions stimulated the rapid growth of intergroup education (which is some­ times used as a synonym for “intercultural education” and is sometimes used to signify its successor) that was designed to build tolerance, understanding, and respect among racial, ethnic, class, and religious groups (Halvorsen, 2013). Program development in intergroup education was undertaken not only by the NCSS but also included efforts by

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organizations such as the AHA and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) (Halvorsen & Mirel, 2013). This diffusion of responsibility possibly explains why intergroup education is not included in some histories of the social studies field (e.g., Evans, 2004). When it does appear in the literature, it is often included in biographical studies of Hilda Taba (e.g., Bernard‐ Powers, 1999), a prominent leader in the intergroup movement who also worked in the social studies. One such study of her overall development as an educator up to the 1940s explains how Taba sought to recast the social studies so that, for instance, “teachers of American history … [would] help students develop a realistic concept of the United States as a multicultural society” (Bernard‐Powers, 1999, p. 200). Research on intergroup education in the social studies does little to trace the success or failures of these programs. Bernard‐Powers (1999) reports, for instance, that Taba believed the effectiveness of intergroup education programs depended on rigor and conviction rather than sentimentalism and hence she championed penetrating instructional programs. To date, few historians have provided evidence about whether the programs were enacted along the lines Taba wanted. Halvorsen (2013) casts doubt on it: she concludes that at least elementary‐ school intergroup programs commonly fell short of the standard Taba had set as teachers skirted controversy and employed anodyne methods showing no more than “contributions of diverse peoples and … values such as tolerance and appreciation of racial and cultural differ­ ences” (p. 128). Further, Halvorsen and Mirel (2013) examine an extensive and ambitious program in intergroup education in Detroit, largely locally developed, which was imple­ mented and even institutionalized for some years. Still, even with this conspicuous program, Halvorsen and Mirel admit there is scant evidence of the effects it had on the youth of Detroit.

2.4.3  Cold War Years and the Social Studies There have been a limited number of historical studies of the late 1940s and 1950s that focus on the social studies (versus broader educational currents). With the admittedly significant exception of “red‐baiting attacks” (Evans, 2004, pp. 99–101), when considered at all, these years tacitly seem to have been treated more as a time when old ideas faded away or as a precursor of the new social studies of the 1960s than in their own right. As noted, World War II witnessed the growth of intergroup education in which the study of cultural pluralism and inclusion of students from different groups were central. This apparent regard for diversity was reversed in social studies programs as the Cold War devel­ oped in the later 1940s. Thus, for example, intergroup education programs faded away as the curriculum was marshalled to support social and political orthodoxy intended to stare down collectivist, atheistic, totalitarian communism (Thornton, 2008). In this context, his­ torians have pointed out that attention to difference could bring accusations of disloyalty. A year after the war ended in 1945, for example, Hanna’s Building America magazine series, which focused on a social problems approach, was still used in thousands of schools across the country. However, following investigation by the California Board of Education, which judged it too radical, the series was discontinued by 1948 (Stallones, 2002). Although more episodically than consistently, the NCSS moved to defend academic freedom by passing resolutions on freedom to teach as well as in editorials in its official journal, Social Education (Nelson and Fernekes, 1996).



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According to Moreau (2003), fading away, too, was progressive history with its emphasis on the recent past as the background to contemporary problems. This approach fitted well with the social studies but was replaced by the less congenial consensus or neoconservative history. This new school of historians emphasized that there was a high level of agreement among Americans concerning core values or, to put it another way, these historians empha­ sized what Americans had in common rather than how the interests of different groups of Americans often diverged (Moreau, 2003). Researchers have examined course textbooks to gauge the ideological dimensions of instruction and concluded that by 1950, American his­ tory textbooks had abandoned a progressive outlook. For example, Moreau (2003) describes how consensus replaced conflict as the theme of discussions of labor unions (pp. 253–259). Likewise, in a manner akin to Richard Nixon’s famous “kitchen debate” with the leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev (Foner, 1998, pp. 262–273), these textbooks now extolled the “consumer freedom” that the American free‐enterprise system made possible. Yarrow (2008) traces, for example, how textbooks presented the higher productivity of the U.S. economy vis‐à‐vis the Soviet economy as proof that a free‐enterprise economy would always outstrip a planned economy.

2.4.4  Concern with Issues of Diversity Recent historians of the social studies have also looked at topics, issues, and students out of step with a “consensus” characterization of American life, which at the time tended to be ignored in official curricula (and by the NCSS) (see Howard, 2004). For example, in the 1950s, there was then a “general absence of Americans of African descent in [American history text] books” (Moreau, 2003, p. 277). In some places, African American educators found ways to respond to this situation. Some did so by participation in supplementary programs such as Negro History Week (Bair, 2012). Others, in the peculiar circumstances of the Jim Crow South, were forced to use state‐approved programs that featured little that was positive about the African American experience. Powerless to change the official cur­ riculum, some African American teachers developed supplementary instruction that spoke to equality for and the achievements of African Americans. In her study of mid‐century Georgia, for instance, Preston‐Grimes (2010) interviewed five (by then elderly) teachers who recalled “teaching about African American contributions to education, the human­ ities, and the sciences” and thereby “offered a counter narrative to the predominantly nega­ tive racial images of the day” (p. 42). In addition to these oral histories, in her study Preston‐Grimes conducted archival research and drew on primary sources such as Black educators’ newspapers (Preston‐Grimes, 2007). During the same time period educational historians have underscored that the school curriculum reified traditional roles for women and was silent on the subject of sexuality. Women experienced a narrowing of life options toward marriage and children as the normal life course, a retrenchment from earlier progressive ideas on gender equity (see Crocco & Davis, 2002). And the national alert for communists brought amplified s­crutiny to homosexuals whose very existence was judged subversive of normal American life (Blount, 2004). Signs of changes in civil rights and gender equity were beginning to appear in U.S. society, but they were yet to find significant expression in most social studies programs.

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Foreshadowing the curriculum reform era soon to come, during the 1950s social studies programs were criticized as too mired in social concerns to pay attention to what was alleged to be its opposite, academic rigor. Historians of the social studies have generally not gone out of their way to examine this criticism, let alone contest it. Fallace (2011) is the only recent scholar to probe deeper into this issue from a social studies perspective. Specifically he exam­ ines “life adjustment” instruction that sprang more from the thinking of postwar curriculum specialists than social studies specialists. Life adjustment was a human‐relations method that was sometimes employed in courses such as American history and civics with the objective of developing social competence for everyday life. Such competence was defined to include matters such as how to get along with other people. Fallace’s examination of curriculum guides shows that life adjustment was absorbed into the social studies in school systems he studied; however, it is less clear how widely this occurred across the United States.

2.4.5  Taba’s Contra Costa Experiment Around the same time, in 1951, Taba accepted a consultancy with the Contra Costa County schools, near San Francisco in California. She was to lead an ambitious elementary‐level curriculum experiment which is often regarded as the first major manifestation of a cognitive turn in the social studies. This has attracted the interest of historical researchers but again, apparently, mainly scholars writing biographical accounts of Taba. She believed that the social studies were too immersed in conveying information, which she thought futile since there was more information than there was time to teach it and, besides, information dated quickly. Instead she proposed that the curriculum be built around d­eveloping concepts. Moreover, Taba had not abandoned her beliefs in equity from her intergroup education days and insisted all children, not just the most academically able, could profit from conceptual instruction if the curriculum were properly constructed and learning activities centered on inductive inquiry. Some educational historians label the Contra Costa experiment as a precursor of the new social studies movement of the 1960s (e.g., Stern, 2010a) although it is not clear how the architects of the movement were influenced by Taba’s work. Curiously, as curriculum specialists universally seem to praise the “Taba method,” historians of the social studies do not seem to have devoted much effort to analysis of its character or its influence on practice. A brief but incisive exception is Fraenkel (1993).

2.4.6  New Social Studies Projects Educational historians point to the dawn of the era of the new social studies as the call in 1961 by the then‐prominent figure in American education, Charles Keller (1961), for a “revolution” in the social studies. He urged renunciation of the aim of “creation of good c­itizens” and instead embraced “the content and discipline” of the social sciences (p. 1). At the same time Jerome Bruner (1960), who became the leading figure in the 1960s era of curriculum reform, had already and famously proclaimed that “intellectual activity a­nywhere is the same, whether at the frontier of knowledge or in a third‐grade classroom” (p. 14). Today educational historians view Keller and Bruner as pushing the social studies in the same general direction: existing programs were condemned as lethargic because of



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their domination by the teacher‐led transmission of information (especially history). Fear was expressed that the nation’s most able students were being denied access to rigorous scholarship which would lead to loss of the Cold War. To an unprecedented degree, the federal government entered directly into curriculum affairs and was to fund many of the dozens of new social studies projects (Evans, 2012). Historical explanations of the new social studies date back to during the movement itself. To a possibly surprising degree, many of the interpretations made then have survived intact in recent studies (e.g., Evans, 2012; Stern, 2010b). To be sure, these new studies (the Stern volume is an anthology containing a number of separate studies) fill out many of the details of what the new social studies projects looked like as well as why the movement lost momentum by the end of the 1960s. But these histories are constructed along similar lines to research during the new social studies era itself, emphasizing, for example, analysis of cur­ riculum materials. This may help explain why they, in broad terms at least, confirm rather than transform overall impressions of the movement formed by earlier research. For example, they portray the movement, being embodied most of all in curriculum projects concerned with concepts and structure in a single discipline, as coming to grief because of both ineffective means of reaching an assumed national audience and poor fit with the established grade‐level course structure (e.g., see Hahn, 2010; Stoltman, 2010). Furthermore, they accept the movement (with notable exceptions such as the Harvard Social Studies Project which was devoted to citizenship education) was to a significant extent character­ ized, as Bruner put it, by a belief that “the behavioral sciences and their generality with respect to variations in the human condition” should be emphasized over “the particularities of history” (quoted in Mullen, 2004, p. 117). And they seldom quibble with the c­onsensus reached by earlier investigators on a key, perhaps the key, criterion by which the success of the movement should be judged, that is, its breadth of diffusion and implementation. All of these generalizations might, at least, be open to qualification. For example, as Helburn (1998) points out in his reflections on the High School Geography Project (HSGP) in which he had been involved, success may not always take the form of nationwide adoption of a curric­ ulum package (the typical form the projects took). There may have been other kinds of success as he concludes about the HSGP. He argues, for instance, that, while the extent of the influence of the project is hard to pin down precisely, the HSGP nonetheless succeeded in providing an international model for what was possible in teaching analytic geography in schools. Or take what Mullen (1999) shows about how, in New York State, Hazel Hertzberg led an effort to overhaul the 7th‐grade history curriculum (while she was simultaneously involved with the nationally oriented American Anthropological Association project). This grade level was devoted to state history. Recognizing that state history was unlikely to be dis­ placed, she set out instead to reconceive it. Significantly, Hertzberg spent considerable time and energy not only in curriculum design activities but also in curriculum diffusion efforts. As a result, the existing continuous chronological political and economic approach was replaced by study of three cultural eras, each of which emphasized a particular discipline such as archeology and anthropology in a unit on the Iroquois and sociology in the “turn‐ of‐the‐century city” (Mullen, 1999, p. 240). Thus, the audience was less than national (though New York was a highly populous state and so the potential audience was still very large), history was not pitted against the behavioral sciences but blended with them, the established subject matter (state history) for the grade level was retained, and curriculum diffusion was not taken for granted (Mullen, 1996, pp. 272–277).

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With the social upheavals of the late 1960s—including but not limited to the women’s movement, Black Power, the Indian movement, Chicano rights, an anti‐war movement, environmental activism, a nascent gay rights movement—the implied educational ideal of the new social studies scholar, a dispassionate behavioral scientist coolly inquiring but detached from events, appeared out of step with the activism of the times. The modes of inquiry of the new social studies carried over into the next decade, however, with the rise of the “new” new social studies, or what is sometimes referred to as an “affective revolution” (e.g., Fallace, 2006). In the social studies this “revolution” was aimed at individual and social relevance and among its main demands was attention to women’s studies and Black history.

2.5  Recent History, 1970 to the Opening of the 21st Century This most recent period, as might be expected, has the least historical writing. It appears that educational historians of social studies do not have the advantage of hindsight to the same degree as earlier periods, which limits their capacity to discern patterns. Also the blurring of the line between historical research and the tendency to use historical information to j­ustify some policy or practice in the present seems to have become more common. The “new” new social studies was not so much a renunciation of the first new social studies but an addition intended to bring social “relevance” to it (see Evans, 2011; Washington & Dahlgren, 2010). Howard (2004) writes, for instance, at the beginning of the 1970s “prominent advocates” of the new social studies “joined in the chorus for rethinking how issues of cultural diversity could be introduced” (p. 133). Those advocates included the staff at the Social Studies Curriculum Center at Carnegie‐Mellon University, who in 1967 had begun to develop The Carnegie‐Mellon Slow‐Learner Project. The goal of this project was to bring conceptual inquiry and relevant subject matter in an accessible form to cultur­ ally diverse learners, particularly disadvantaged students in inner cities. The staff consid­ ered the methods of the new social studies too valuable to be reserved for the elite audiences presumed by most earlier projects. “Although it was never stated explicitly,” this project was directed at social justice by “addressing the educational needs of the children of the ‘other’ Americans” (Penna, 1995, p. 157). The NCSS was also moved by the call for social justice. To an unprecedented degree, in the early 1970s it made a concerted effort to atone for the organization’s longtime indiffer­ ence toward and neglect of issues to do with pluralism by, for instance, adopting more inclusive curriculum guidelines (Binford, 2010; Garcia & Buendia, 1996; Howard, 2004; Nelson & Fernekes, 1996). In addition, over the next decade, the “NCSS sponsored a multi­ tude of programs, workshops, and presentations at national and state levels to inform social studies educators about previously neglected topics” (Howard, 2004, p. 138).

2.5.1  Ethnic Studies and Concern for Pluralism There is no dispute that during the 1970s and 1980s programs in ethnic studies were one of the main products of this concern for pluralism. Pioneer curriculum theorists in this area such as James Banks argued later that the programs were “to fully understand the cogent role race and ethnicity play in our society” through study of “European American ethnic



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groups as well as ethnic groups of color” (Banks & Banks, 1999, p. 213). The history of the social studies literature, however, has limited answers to questions such as whether there was consensus on the goals of these programs, how widely were they implemented, and what they looked like when they were enacted. For instance, in the 1970s, Carlos Cortez, a history professor who became heavily involved in education for pluralism, advocated pro­ grams that include, “from grade one on, the continuous parallel study of Anglo and Mexican cultural and societal patterns …” (quoted in Contreras, 2014, p. 21). To date educational historians have been unable to determine whether this and many related aspirations at the time actually guided curriculum construction and if, so, where and for whom the resultant programs were implemented, for example, in new courses or embedded in preexisting courses. Again we have records of what was advocated but the evidence about what was done is more fragmentary. Banks (Crocco, 1996) later said of the elementary social studies t­extbook series, of which he was coauthor, that more diverse examples were added to the organizing concepts of units of study in the already established courses. So, for instance, in a study of the concept “exploration” the perspective of Christopher Columbus would be b­alanced by inclusion of the perspective of the native peoples he encountered. Part of the difficulty in assessing the effects of the ethnic studies movement is that terms were not necessarily consistently used by and across individuals nor did terms’ meanings remain stable over time. Pluralism has been used interchangeably at one time or another with, for example, “cultural pluralism,” “ethnic studies,” and “multiculturalism.” There have also been debates as to which, if any, of these terms is properly synonymous with the others— see Garcia & Buenida (1996) and Howard (2004) for a small sample of the different usages. It appears the most common and lasting curriculum response was modification of exist­ ing social studies courses to incorporate more ethnic issues. Looking back at the content of instructional materials, Gay (2004) notes American history courses, for instance, “seem to have made significant progress in including the contributions of ethnically diverse groups.” At the same time, however, she warns that the success of these changes might be regarded as “somewhat dubious” since the courses may have also perpetuated “ethnic typecasting in that the same individuals and events are repeated over and over across the grades.” She further notes that inclusion was more fully realized for American Indians and African Americans than for Latinos and Asian Americans (p. 78). Historians have begun to explore how, in the 1970s and 1980s, and perhaps beyond, cur­ riculum developers did not always agree on how best to go about adding new material on groups such as African Americans into the curriculum. To begin with, studies seem to con­ firm Gay’s (2004) impression that infusion of African American content into standard social studies courses was not always as effectual as had been hoped. See, for example, a study of Atlanta’s desegregation‐era social studies curriculum during the 1970s and 1980s as revealed through textbooks on Georgia state history (Bohan & Randolph, 2012). In a study of the Dayton, Ohio, desegregation‐era response to building a more racially inclusive curriculum, Watras (2012) contrasts the aims of a Black history program intended to be “a vehicle for racial integration” (p. 184) with its successor, a “multicultural education” program. The latter, he contends, “treated ethnic and racial groups as separate and fixed entities” (p. 187) and hence contributed to “the schools’ failure to reinforce a racially integrated society” (p. 191). Still other studies describe programs, significantly in schools with majority African American student populations, heavily weighted to African American topics (e.g., DeCuir, 2012; Halvorsen, 2012a).

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2.5.2  Gender and Sexuality in the Social Studies Historians of the social studies have discerned significant parallels, in some ways but not all, between ethnic studies and how gender issues entered the curriculum. As noted, from the 1970s and onward, women became more visible in history textbooks, but greater visibility did not necessarily make them more central to the master narrative of the curriculum (see Clark, Allard, & Mahoney, 2004). In a manner foreseen by Mary Beard (Crocco, 1999), as long as the value of social activity was judged by the standard of its fit with experiences typically associated with males, then the addition of “more” treatment of women could be no more than a halfway house toward equality (Makler, 1999; Noddings, 2001). Still, during the 1970s and 1980s there was a considerable expansion of feminist activity within the NCSS and its publications as well as sustained attention to how new scholarship and chan­ ging views of gender should be incorporated in the school curriculum (Bernard‐Powers, 1997; Crocco, 2004). Possibly reflecting complacency and a sense that the battle had already been won, at the turn of the 21st century reforms in gender equity in the NCSS in particular (Crocco, 2004), as well as more generally, appear to have “stalled” (Hahn, Bernard‐Powers, Crocco, & Woyshner, 2007, p. 350). LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning) issues were evidently not a source of concern at the school or college and university level as their absence in school programs or NCSS governance and activities went almost entirely unmentioned until the 1990s when a trickle of attention began to be paid in the literature. But this does not appear to have been a sign of change in school social studies where only a few isolated incidences of attention to the matter seem to have occurred (Thornton, 2002). For example, Brensilver Berman (2014) examines high‐school and college American history textbooks from the final decades of the 20th century into the 21st for the kind of treatment they afford the LGBTQ experience as well as resistance to the implementation of LGBTQ material authorized for instruction by the state of California in 2011. She determined that textbooks generally, albeit unevenly across books, began in the 2000s to add LGBTQ history in the manner they had been doing for some time with other marginalized groups. While this attention slowly grew over time, it remained quite limited. There appears to be little evidence of how or if the added material was being taught.

2.5.3  MACOS Controversy By the opening of the 1970s, there was a backlash against many of the social changes asso­ ciated with the 1960s. This included social conservatives renewing their critique of the social studies (Evans, 2011). Historians of the social studies have paid particular attention to the most famous of these attacks which was directed at what was in some ways the most prominent new social studies project, Man: A Course of Study (MACOS). Bruner himself had been a chief architect of MACOS, which was an upper‐elementary program designed to engage children in active inquiry into the distinctions which made humans and their cultures different from other species (Dow, 1999). As new social studies projects go, it was one of the most elaborately designed and field‐tested as well as widely diffused (Evans, 2012). But what were presented in the curriculum as non‐judgmental cross‐cultural com­ parisons were condemned by social conservatives in Congress—the project had been



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funded in significant amounts by the taxpayer‐supported National Science Foundation. The conservative critique accused MACOS of actually being a course in cultural relativism which was offensive to what conservatives claimed were basic American values. The reception of MACOS at this time has been regarded by educational historians as a transition between the era of the new social studies and the culture wars which arose in the closing decades of the 20th century, as it symbolizes important elements of each time period. Interestingly, as Fitchett and Russell (2012) observe, by this time, the structural approach which MACOS might well be taken to exemplify was itself falling out of favor with progressive thinkers as well (p. 474). Moreover, a back‐to‐basics movement developed which, while not primarily concerned with the social studies, created a policy climate in which stress was laid on didactic instruction in traditional subject matters, the antithesis of MACOS (Halvorsen, 2013, pp. 156–157). Historians of the social studies have pointed out that critics of MACOS were not the only ones who felt that the social studies had taken a wrong turn. There was also clamor for a “revival” of the teaching of history. A number of critics alleged that history had been shoved aside by the behavioral sciences and special‐interest programs, which they said had deliv­ ered not so much curricular relevance as fragmentation. The historical writing on attempts to “revive” school history instruction tend to be polarized into advocates (e.g., Nash et al., 1997; Ravitch, 2003) and critics (e.g., Evans, 2004; Thornton & Barton, 2010) with the latter pointing out there was not much evidence from studies of school programs that history had lost ground in the curriculum nor that its problems would be rectified by simply adding “more” of it. As noted, although there had been previous campaigns blaming the social studies for the decline of history (as during World War II), what was different this time was that the concerns of cultural conservatives and what appeared to be the weight of the h­istorical profession seemed to coincide. In similar past struggles the historians, or at least a respectable number of them, had ended up siding with social studies educators. This time, historians of the social studies argue, was different (Thornton & Barton, 2010).

2.5.4  Advocates for History and the Disciplines The history advocates, funded by the conservative Bradley Foundation, launched the Bradley Commission in 1987 to promote the teaching of history. The Commission recom­ mended the elementary social studies should be centered on history and that secondary classes should cover six themes over four years. But these themes, Watras (2004) shrewdly observes, “seem similar to the processes of social groups that Marshall [in the 1930s] claimed should provide the framework for courses in the social studies” (p. 206); they appear to be the very method the Bradley Commission was ostensibly established to coun­ teract. First‐hand accounts of social science specialists and social studies specialists working together in setting curriculum standards appear to confirm that the former group often end  up endorsing social studies methods that, in the abstract, they may have opposed (e.g., Stanley, 2001, p. 2). In the 1990s, the federal government funded a national standards‐making process for history. During this process it became clear that social conservatives and historians, whatever their mutual disdain for the social studies, did not agree on what the curriculum should contain (Nash, 1997; Symcox, 2002). Conservatives in politics as well as a minority

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of historians wished to underscore American exceptionalism and the elites and heroic events associated with it whereas the dominant strain in the writing of historical scholar­ ship had shifted to the “new” social history which emphasizes the lives of ordinary people, the marginalized groups, and broad patterns of sociocultural change (Watras, 2004, p. 204). In the context of the foregoing discussion, Watras (2004) presents a sweeping hypo­ thesis—that reforms aimed at promoting active, inquiry‐oriented learning for students have mostly failed because of teacher attachment to didactic instruction, which teachers believe makes classroom control easier. This explanation he attributes to Hertzberg (1981). In contrast, Watras (2004) asserts that significant change in the enacted curriculum of class­ rooms has generally flowed from new instructional materials derived from the research of historians (which would seem to hold for other social studies subjects as well). That is, he attributes change and continuity not so much to teachers’ views of workable instructional arrangements as to the penchant for social studies educators (it is unclear to me who he includes in this group) to “imitate” the scholarly ways of historians (p. 206). It seems unlikely that Watras’ hypothesis could be either entirely proved or disproved as it is so broad and is merely adumbrated rather than fully developed. If nothing else, though, he provides a welcome, albeit perhaps unintentional, reminder that there is generally more than one influence on why teachers enact curricula as they do. Thus monocular explana­ tions of why teaching and learning look as they do, as seems to be assumed to some degree in studies based on, say, textbook content alone (see Thornton, 2006), are likely to lack ecological validity (see Cornbleth, 1982; Eisner, 1988). Oddly enough, Watras (2004) simply records without elaboration that social studies educators “imitate” subject specialists in the methods they adopt even though he must know this is anathema to many leading social studies educators. Shaver (1996), for example, bluntly rejects imitation of the ways of social scientists, “scholarcentrism” as he puts it, as incompatible with the (citizenship) mission of the social studies (p. 37). But to what extent has fidelity to disciplinary scholarship been characteristic of K–12 instruction? Several analyses of topics taught in U.S. history in the latter decades of the 20th century and into the 21st century suggest that historical scholarship is overlooked if it threatens a traditional rendition of the nation’s past. For example, Harrison‐Wong’s (2003) thorough study of how the decision to drop the atom bomb on Hiroshima was made—as treated in academic accounts versus in school textbooks—showed that an uncritical nation­ alist interpretation, largely discredited for two generations among professional historians, remained unquestioned in the texts schoolchildren were likely to encounter. Howley, Howley, and Eppley (2013) found treatments of agriculture perpetuated Jeffersonian rustic myths—the yeoman farmer, rather than agribusiness, still being presented as typical in recent decades—while Hilburn and Fitchett (2012) found that assimilationist myths p­redominated in the treatment of immigrants to North Carolina.

2.6 Conclusion The 20 years of research on the history of the social studies reviewed here suggests that not only has the volume of studies ballooned but also a broader range of investigative lenses, sources, and topics are being studied than in the days of the Old Masters. Developments with investigatory forms and sites have been interrelated. That is, topics once largely



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neglected by researchers such as the social studies experiences of African Americans during Jim Crow (Preston‐Grimes, 2010) have employed new lenses and use of previously untapped historical records. The reverse is also true: that new lenses have stirred imaginations to ask different kinds of questions that stretch traditional understandings of “the social studies.” For example, Woyshner’s (2004) work on the PTA (Parent–Teacher Association) and civic education employs the broader notion of “social education.” A second conclusion I draw from the last 20 years of research is that the social studies emerged more from a transition (with some bumps) from early curricular‐instructional arrangements than the more abrupt turn traditionally emphasized in the field’s historiog­ raphy. In considerable part this revamped idea of change reflects that boundaries between the social studies and its curricular‐instructional antecedents—the same seems the case with more than a few programs which were contemporaneous in later generations, too— were not always clearly distinguishable. For example, much of primary‐grades social studies was more or less a continuation of what was taught before the term “social studies” came into widespread usage (Barton, 2009). From this perspective, rather than approaching documents such as the 1916 NEA report on the social studies with veneration in order to extract original intent for the field, it might be more instructive to regard such documents as themselves part of a series of shifting interpretations of the field’s goals and scope. Their  historical significance lies more in what was made of them and the actions those interpretations inspired than in what its authors “really meant.” Third, as noted, many studies have limited ecological validity when it comes to questions of how curricula are actually made and what happens to them in classrooms. But educational policies do not implement themselves, nor do methods textbooks or schoolbooks tell us how teachers used them and to what educational effects, let alone what students took away from their social studies encounters. Although it may pose formidable stumbling blocks for historical studies since available sources are spotty, we nonetheless need more studies that focus behind the classroom door. There may be more written records than have been s­uspected, as Barton’s (2006) work, for one, shows. Another possibility is to conduct more studies that mine the memories of participants such as supervisors, teachers, and students (e.g., Alleman & Brophy, 1994). In recommending topics for further research I must stress that there seem any number of them so what follows is somewhat subjective. But, that said, perhaps the most glaring is a topic for which there appears to be almost no systematic historical research: LGBTQ issues. The culture wars also remain thinly studied—there is plenty of advocacy and debate, to be sure—but we are now getting far enough from their beginnings to have the perspective time can afford. Issues such as accountability and standards, too, where a few studies have begun to appear (e.g., van Hover, Hicks, & Stoddard, & Lisanti, 2010) now seem riper for historical investigation. The same “ripeness” factor also seems relevant to other topics which are relatively new in recent decades but on which the number of historical studies fails to do justice to their contemporary importance, such as technology or global education. Teacher education as it pertains to the special demands of a field which purports to be more than merely a junior version of the social sciences in higher education strikes me, from an his­ torical perspective, as another understudied area. Finally, unlike similar issues in the early 20th century, the now decades‐old arrival in schools of millions of English Language Learners and late‐arrival immigrants, a group for whom the social studies holds special rel­ evance, has been largely ignored by historians of the field.

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Finally, tacitly or explicitly, all historians of the social studies define what the field is and what it is intended to accomplish, otherwise they would lack a benchmark by which to judge the field’s boundaries or, for that matter, what succeeded or what failed. Nonetheless, the ten­ dency to let how closely some educational event or situation approximated a pre‐specified ideal may not be the most profitable approach to historical inquiry for the social studies. Rather, to adapt what John Dewey (1966) said about social life, histories of the field may be best able to provide a usable past if they extract what they can from “desirable” episodes in social studies practice “and employ them to criticize undesirable features and suggest improvements” (p. 83).

Acknowledgments I am grateful to the chapter reviewers as well as to Dr. Kevin Yelvington, Department of Anthropology, University of South Florida for their incisive critiques of an early draft of this chapter. Of course, I am solely responsible for the chapter’s shortcomings.

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Stephenson, A. (1996). Manifest destiny: American expansion and the empire of the Right. New York, NY: Hill and Wang. Stern, B. S. (2010a). Hilda Taba: Social studies reform from the bottom up. In B. S. Stern (Ed.), The new social studies: People, projects, and perspectives (pp. 41–61). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Stern, B. S., (Ed.). (2010b). The new social studies: People, projects, and perspectives. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Stodolsky, S. S. (1988). The subject matters: Classroom activity in math and social studies. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Stodolsky, S. S. (1999). Is teaching really by the book? In M. J. Early & K. J. Rehage (Eds.), Issues in curriculum: A selection of chapters from past NSSE yearbooks (pp. 143–168). Chicago, IL: National Society for the Study of Education. Stoltman, J. P. (2010). Geography and the new social studies: The High School Geography Project and Georgia Geography Curriculum Project. In B. S. Stern (Ed.), The new social studies: People, p­rojects, and perspectives (pp. 167–191). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Symcox, L. (2002). Whose history? The struggle for national standards in American classrooms. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Thornton, S. J. (1996). NCSS: The early years. In O. L. Davis, Jr. (Ed.), NCSS in retrospect (pp. 1–7). Washington, DC: National Council for the Social Studies. Thornton, S. J. (2001). Legitimacy in the social studies curriculum. In L. Corno (Ed.), Education across a century: The centennial volume (pp. 185–204). Chicago, IL: National Society for the Study of Education. Thornton, S. J. (2002). Does everybody count as human? Theory & Research in Social Education, 30, 178–189. Thornton, S. J. (2005). Teaching social studies that matters: Curriculum for active learning. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Thornton, S. J. (2006). What is history in US history textbooks? In J. Nicholls (Ed.), School history textbooks across cultures: International debates and perspectives (pp. 15–25). Oxford, UK: Symposium Books. Thornton, S. J. (2008). Continuity and change in social studies curriculum. In L. S. Levstik & C. A. Tyson (Eds.), Handbook of research in social studies education (pp. 15–32). New York, NY: Routledge. Thornton, S. J. (2013). Borderlands of the Southwest: An exercise in geographical history. Social Education, 77, 19–22. Thornton, S. J., & Barton, K. C. (2010). Can history stand alone? Drawbacks and blind spots of a “d­isciplinary” curriculum. Teachers College Record, 112, 2471–2495. Tyack, D. B. (1976). Ways of seeing: An essay on the history of compulsory schooling. Harvard Educational Review, 46, 355–389. Tyack, D. B. (2003). Seeking common ground: Public schools in a diverse society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. van Hover, S., Hicks, D., Stoddard, J., & Lisanti, M. (2010). From a roar to a murmur: Virginia’s history and social studies standards, 1995 to the present. Theory & Research in Social Education, 38(1), 80–113. Washington, E. Y., & Dahlgren, R. L. (2010). “The quest for relevancy”: Allan Kownslar and historical inquiry in the new social studies movement. In B. S. Stern (Ed.), The new social studies: People, projects, and perspectives (pp. 195–110). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Watras, J. (2003/2004). Relativism and indoctrination: The critical reception of the Commission on Social Studies. International Journal of Social Education, 18, 47–57.



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Watras, J. (2004). Historians and social studies educators, 1893–1998. In C. Woyshner, J. Watras, & M.  S. Crocco (Eds.), Social education in the twentieth century: Curriculum and context for citizenship (pp. 192–209). New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield. Watras, J. (2010). Social studies education, History of. In C. Kridel (Ed.), Encyclopedia of curriculum studies (Vol. 2, pp. 798–800). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Watras, J. (2012). Black history, multicultural education, and racial desegregation in Dayton, Ohio. In C. Woyshner & C. H. Bohan (Eds.), Histories of social studies and race: 1865–2000 (pp. 179–193). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Whelan, M. (1997). A particularly lucid lens: The Committee of Ten and the Social Studies Committee in historical context. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 12, 256–268. Wilen, W. W. (Ed.). (2000). Favorite lesson plans: Powerful standards‐based activities. Washington, DC: National Council for the Social Studies. Woyshner, C.A. (2004). From assimilation to cultural pluralism: The PTA and civic education, 1900– 1950. In C. Woyshner, J. Watras, & M. S. Crocco (Eds.), Social education in the twentieth century: Curriculum and context for citizenship (pp. 91–109). New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield. Woyshner, C. A. (2005). Notes towards a historiography of the social studies: Recent scholarship and future directions. In K. C. Barton (Ed.), Research methods in social education (pp. 11–38). Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Woyshner, C. A. (2009). Introduction: Histories of social studies thought and practice in schools and communities. Theory & Research in Social Education, 37, 426–431. Yarrow, A. L. (2008). Beyond civics and the 3 R’s: Teaching economics in the schools. History of Education Quarterly, 48, 397–431.

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The Intellectual History of the Social Studies Thomas Fallace

The year 2016 marks the centennial of the National Education Association’s (NEA) Committee on Social Studies report, the document historian Diane Ravitch (1987) identified as the “birth certificate of the social studies field” (p. 348). The role of history and the social sciences in the preparation of democratic citizens predates this important document by decades, but the publication of this report marks the single most significant event in the history of the field because the report endorsed the term social studies as a shorthand description for the teaching of history and social sciences in the schools, created and r­ecommended interdisciplinary classes, and named citizenship education as an explicit goal of the curriculum (Fallace, 2008, 2009; Saxe, 1991). Since the publication of the 1916 report, there has been a general consensus among policy makers, scholars, and many practitioners that preparation for democratic citizenship is the ultimate aim of the social studies, yet these groups have suggested many routes to this end, making the history of ideas in the field quite contentious (Evans, 2007; Thornton & Barton, 2010). In this chapter, I trace the history of ideas and identify some major intellectual contexts in the social studies. Specifically, I present three ideological orientations to the social studies—traditional, disciplinary, and progressive—that have consistently been present since the turn of the 20th century. These ideological orientations represent three major ideas about how and why the social studies ought to be taught. The traditional orientation to the social studies focuses on the transmission of cultural heritage; the disciplinary orientation focuses on socialization into discipline‐specific ways of thinking; and the progressive orientation focuses on the application of knowledge to real-world problems. I trace these orientations through three chronological periods, each reflecting an epistemology and a historically contingent ideological context. I argue that the traditional, disciplinary, and progressive orientations coexisted and evolved as they passed through these three chronological eras—the age of reform (1890–1938), the age of consensus (1938–1962), and the age of diversity (1962–present). Each chronological period reflected a set of consciously and The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.



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unconsciously held beliefs about the nature and purpose of knowledge, and each period reflected a major epistemological shift from the previous one. I am not suggesting that all scholars within a given period were in unanimous agreement; of course, ideological debates took place within each age. Rather I am suggesting that each period was characterized by ideas that were not seriously considered, just as much as they were by ideas that were discussed. During the age of reform, scholars rejected the 19th-century notions of static essences and latent potentials and drew upon an epistemology of contingency and growth to aim content toward social reform; arguments on behalf of universal rationalistic structures, maintaining the status quo, or continuing laissez‐faire individualism were marginalized (Kloppenberg, 1986; Menand, 2001; White, 1949). During the age of consensus scholars emphasized ideological agnosticism, as scholars and policy makers refined the definition of democracy in contrast to totalitarianism; ideological arguments for major social reform, economic collectivism, and/or utopian visions were virtually nonexistent (Ciepley, 2007; Fallace, in press; Fowler, 1978; Pells, 1985; Purcell, 1973; Whitfield, 1991). During the age of diversity scholars focused on difference and perspective as major features of postmodern life; arguments for scholarly objectivity, state neutrality, and/or the silencing or ignoring of oppressed groups were mostly rejected (Hartman, 2015; Menand, 2010; Stanley, 1992). These six ideological frameworks—three conceptual ideas (traditional, disciplinary, progressive) and three historical ideological contexts (age of reform, age of consensus, age of diversity)—reflect continuity and change in the history of the field because both elements are equally important when understanding how the social studies arrived at its current position in the curriculum (Thornton, 2008). Since the publication of the 1916 report, the social studies have had a rich, contested history that has been intimately related to influences inside and outside of academia and K–12 schools (Evans, 2004). The history of ideas focuses on the study of consciously and unconsciously held ideas, the contexts that engendered these ideas, and how those ideas changed and remained constant over time (Lovejoy, 1936). Intellectual history traces large‐scale patterns and assumptions in the discourse of intellectuals over time (Hollinger, 1985). Although educational ideas are shaped through interaction with practice, my study focuses primarily on the ideas themselves rather than the extent to which these ideas were adopted at the local and classroom level. In some cases, such as the textbooks of Harold Rugg (Evans, 2007) or life adjustment education (Fallace, 2012), certain ideas made a substantial impact on the local curriculum. But, in other cases, such as the recommendations of the Committee on Social Studies (Fallace, 2008) or the new social studies (Evans, 2011a, 2011b), the impact of these ideas was limited. Furthermore, because ideas at any given time are practically infinite, my narrative focuses only on those ideas that were influential on leading social studies theorists, particularly those who were on the vanguard of thinking in the field. Finally, although the social studies field is global, with a few exceptions my study focuses on scholars in the United States. Examining the history of ideas and intellectual contexts in the social studies allows us to consider how educators shared epistemologies and ideologies within and across generations. Such knowledge can inspire, humble, or deter us from pursuing intellectual paths and education reforms in the present. Furthermore, by considering how scholars were shaped consciously—and/or more significantly unconsciously—by broader ideological contexts, we can perhaps become more perceptive to the ideological forces that shape and constrain our ideas today. This chapter seeks to provide some broad theoretical and historical context for the chapters that follow in this handbook.

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3.1  The Three Orientations to the Social Studies Scholars have made many previous attempts to define and classify the major ideological currents in the history of the social studies. Fitzgerald (1979) identified three approaches to social studies education: traditional, mandarin, and progressive. In the history of the American curriculum, Kliebard (2004) traced four ideological traditions—humanism, developmentalism, social efficiency, and social meliorism—that competed and ultimately fused to form the basis of the American curriculum.1 Evans (2004) employed Kliebard’s four‐camp scheme in his history of debates over the social studies, but added critical pedagogy as a fifth group. Thirty years earlier, Barr, Barth, and Shermis (1977) identified three major strands in the history of the social studies—citizenship transmission, social science, and reflective inquiry.2 More recently Thornton (2005) contrasted two major traditions in the social studies—social science and social education, and Stanley (2010) likewise contrasted the tradition of social transmission with the tradition of social transformation. Barton and Levstik (2004) identified four stances on the subject of history—identification, analysis, moral response, and exhibition, and van Manen (1975) explored three research traditions in the social studies—interpretive, empirical‐analytic, and critical inquiry. Informed by these previous categorizations, I argue that the history of ideas in the social studies is best characterized by the three major ideological orientations introduced above. These orientations are distinguished from one another by what proponents of each orientation consider to be the immediate, observable outcome of teaching the social studies. The traditional orientation to the social studies focuses on the transmission and retention of prescribed facts, narratives, images, and content that ought to be committed to memory. Proponents view the transmission of information as an end in itself, although positive moral, patriotic, and cognitive outcomes are often listed as outcomes as well. The term tradi­ tional connotes the fact that most students have traditionally been taught this way over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries (Barton & Levstik, 2010; Cuban, 1991; Goodlad, 1984), and the fact that proponents believe that the aim of teaching social studies ought to be about transmitting specific traditions from the past (Hirsch, 1987; Ravitch & Finn, 1987). Whether teachers are transmitting a celebratory or critical account of the past and present, their orientation is traditional if they are leading students towards the “correct” or “true” answers. Consequently, Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States (1980) and James Loewen’s (1995) Lies My Teacher Told Me offer critical accounts, or even counternarratives, of American history by presenting alternatives to the allegedly ethnocentric, celebratory accounts of leading social studies textbooks. Yet because Zinn and Loewen present the past as a narrative of alternative, and allegedly more complete “correct” answers, these books reflect a traditional orientation to the social studies, despite their critical outlooks. “Social studies as an isolated affair are likely to become either accumulations of bodies of special factual information,” John Dewey (1938/1988) averred, “or, in the hands of zealous teachers, to be organs of indoctrination in the sense of propaganda for a special social end, accepted enthusiastically, perhaps, but still dogmatically” (p. 341). Dewey recognized little distinction between narratives that reflected the ideals of the status quo and those that sought to reconstruct society, if both approaches presented their narratives in a dogmatic manner. Accordingly, I define the traditional approach to the social studies as any attempt to transmit a body of predetermined and prescribed content to students, regardless of the social and/or political outlook of the author.3



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The disciplinary orientation focuses on the thinking, procedures, processes, and acts of disciplinary experts. Instead of focusing on the transmission of content, emphasis is on the cognitive and epistemological growth of students. Instead of leading students towards one correct answer or narrative, students engage in open‐ended inquiries into authentic problems in history and the social sciences. The term disciplinary connotes the idea that academic disciples are the best tools for overcoming epistemological nativity and empowering students with the cognitive discipline needed to construct and warrant their own assertions (Gardner, 1999). Disciplinarians are not opposed to the transmission of content, but they view facts as context for disciplined inquiry and understanding, not as ends in themselves. The progressive orientation focuses on the emergence of knowledge from real-world problems and the application of knowledge to real-world issues. Accordingly, the approach is characterized by the predisciplinary, transdisciplinary, or interdisciplinary nature of reality, and it focuses on the application of knowledge to the solving of problems. The term progressive connotes the fact that the orientation was forged during the progressive education movement, the idea that knowledge ought to be linked to the progressively emerging interests and/or developmental stages of students, and that knowledge ought to be applied towards the ends of fostering social progress.4 Many progressives are critical of academic disciplines, which they view as artificial, irrelevant, and mostly divorced from the day‐to‐ day concerns of democratic citizens (see Engle, 1960). Many progressives insist that the real world is not divided up into disciplines, nor should disciplined inquiry be an end in itself. Furthermore, some progressives assert that it is not enough merely to study a problem; one must also seek out and enact a solution. Like disciplinarians, progressives are not opposed to the transmission of content, nor are they opposed to knowledge produced by disciplinary experts, but they insist that knowledge needs to be fluid, dynamic, relevant, and introduced in the context of real-world problems. Each of these orientations more or less aligns with a learning theory (Bredo, 1997). The traditional orientation reflects a behaviorist approach to learning, in which behavior is conditioned through reinforcements in the environment, because the traditional approach focuses on the transmission, memorizing, and repeating of information (Hirsch, 1987). Students individually read and record correct answers as delivered by the teacher or textbook, commit them to memory, and demonstrate their learning through paper‐and‐pencil tests or short answer questions. Even if a student is “interpreting” a primary source, the assignment is traditional‐behaviorist in nature if s/he is expected to select a single correct answer or led towards a specific, convergent interpretation of the document, which is ­behaviorally reinforced by the teacher. The disciplinary orientation reflects a cognitive approach to learning, in which the cognitive or developmental structures of the mind are developed, challenged, or transformed, because the disciplinary‐cognitive approach ­necessarily has students emulate the disciplined inquiry of experts in order to generate an epistemological shift in their thinking (Bruner, 1960; Gardner, 1999; Wineburg, Martin, & Monte‐Sano, 2011). Students engage in open‐ended inquiry into authentic disciplinary problems—most commonly historical questions involving multiple primary sources— designed to disrupt their habitual, naive thinking and to appreciate the complexity of understanding the social world of the past and present. Rather than being led toward a single, correct answer as in the traditional orientation, in the disciplinary orientation students are taught to make arguments or assertions warranted by evidence they have compiled or collected t­hemselves. The progressive orientation reflects a situated approach to learning,

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in which the mind is considered and developed contingently in a specific sociocultural context, because the progressive‐situated approach draws upon the interest and/or developmental stage of the student, and seeks to connect knowledge directly to his/her immediate concerns, issues, and problems. Students often generate the questions themselves based on their local and immediate interests and seek out their own answers. Rather than committing correct answers to memory as in the traditional approach, or developing along a predetermined cognitive course as in the disciplinary approach, students acquire knowledge and skills that can be applied immediately to their local community and sociocultural context. In the progressive orientation students explore their social surroundings in the elementary grades, and in the middle and high school grades they engage in the discussion, deliberation, or debate of social issues or take action to address these issues. Recently, researchers in the disciplinary approach to history education (Barton & Levstik, 2004; Epstein, 2009; Schweber, 2004) have also employed a situated approach to learning, bringing them closer to the progressive orientation to the social studies. Ultimately the orientations can be distinguished by what is being assessed: traditionalists assess the acquisition of factual knowledge; disciplinarians assess epistemic growth and the acquisition of discipline-specific skills; and progressives assess the application of knowledge to real-world, non‐academic problems. The traditional, disciplinary, and progressive orientations were more or less in place by the turn of the 20th century, but proponents of each approach competed for prominence in the theoretical and enacted curriculum by self‐consciously defining themselves against each other (or at least, caricatures of each other). For example, in the 1890s, John Dewey contrasted his progressive ideas with what he dubbed “the German schoolmaster’s p­sychology” and “mental gymnastics” of the traditional approach of the 19th century (Fallace, 2011a). In the 1910s, William Bagley (1915) aimed his traditional approach directly at Dewey, whom Bagley accused of having “no commerce with recorded knowledge” (p. 5). In the 1920s Harold Rugg contrasted his progressive ideas with the “armchair philosophy” of academic professors (Fallace, 2008), and in the 1940s James Conant (1945) identified the traditional “mechanical repetition of uncomprehended words and phrases” as the “bane” of the social studies (p. 116). Likewise, Shirley Engle (1960) aimed his progressive focus on decision‐making at the “ground‐covering fetish” of traditionalists (p. 302). In the 1970s, James Shaver (1977) expressed his frustration with “our long standing and unthinking subservience to professors in academic disciplines” (p. 305). Jerome Bruner (1982) forged his disciplinary approach to the curriculum in response to the alleged “sentimentalism” of Dewey’s child‐centered progressivism (p. 117), and in the 1980s E. D. Hirsch (1987) introduced his neo‐traditionalism as a corrective to the progressives’ alleged assumption that “early education not be tied to specific content” (p. xv). However, even these overt and conspicuous disputes over the direction of the social studies were shaped by the larger historical and ideological contexts of the age of reform (1890–1938), the age of consensus (1938–1962), and the age of diversity (1962–present).

3.2  Historical and Epistemological Overview of the Three Periods Prior to the age of reform (pre‐1890), leading scholars of the 19th century approached the world in terms of static essences and latent potentials. Philosophically, they believed that all objects and beings in the universe were either moving towards an ideal state predetermined



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by their innate essence, or they followed transcendent laws reflecting an unchanging set of principles lying beneath the surface of reality. Taking Sir Isaac Newton’s Laws of Motion as their guide, philosophers and social theorists explained phenomena by “showing why what actually happened had to happen that way, why what is actual is (conditionally) necessary” (Brandom, 2009, p. 20). The leading social scientist of the 19th century, Herbert Spencer, best exemplified this approach. Spencer explained the entire universe by a single law of movement from a state of homogeneity to a state of heterogeneity. The “increase in heterogeneity so brought about is still going on, and must continue to go on,” Spencer (1864) explained, “and that Progress is not an accident, not within human control, but a beneficent necessity” (p. 33). Spencer argued that humans could not control the transcendent laws of nature, so they needed to learn to live in accordance with them; doing so guaranteed human progress. Leading social scientists in the 19th century believed that, just as the universe was governed by static essences and latent potentials, so too was the human mind, which was composed of a finite number of mental faculties such as observation, imagination, judgment, and will. These faculties could be strengthened like muscles, but they could only fulfill their innate potentials by following along the predetermined path provided at birth. In the 1890s, leading scholars led by William James, John Dewey, and Edward Thorndike challenged the validity of the faculty psychology and replaced it with a functional psychology, in which the mind acquired knowledge through interaction with the environment, not through the activating of separate, latent psychological faculties. James, Dewey, and Thorndike pointed to the significance of experience and contingent growth as the most important factors in education and life (Fallace, 2011a). Intellectual historian Morton White (1949) described this ideological transition away from static essences as a “revolt against formalism,” and philosopher Eric Bredo (1998) described it as a shift from describing the world in terms of “essential differences between given objects” to conceiving “of organic and cultural forms in functional terms as emergent within a continuing life process” (p. 449). Appreciating the full implications of Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, James, Dewey, Thorndike, historians James Harvey Robinson and Charles Beard, and anthropologist Franz Boas, attacked Spencer’s notions of universal laws, static essences, and closed systems. As Thorndike wrote in 1909: “Darwin showed psychologists that the mind not only is, but had grown, … and that the mind’s present can be fully understood only in the light of the total past” (p. 65). In place of static essences and latent potentials, scholars of the age of reform (1890–1938) suggested that all knowledge was contingent, socially mediated, open to revision, and tied to specific contexts and purposes.5 Thorndike was more positivistic in his outlook, insisting that he could establish laws of learning through his empirical laboratory work, while Dewey took a more pragmatic approach emphasizing the role of social and cultural context (Lagemann, 2000). Nevertheless, for both Dewey and Thorndike, the world was fluid, controllable, and responsive to reform. Accordingly, leading educators such as Harold Rugg and William Heard Kilpatrick cited both Dewey and Thorndike in support of their suggested reforms of the curriculum (Fallace, 2011b, 2015a).6 That is, knowledge was not waiting beneath the surface floating in metaphysical space as eternal truths or static essences waiting to be discovered through proper logic, as conceived by Spencer. Instead knowledge emerged through interaction with a specific context and history, was guided by specific inquiries, and was contingently tied to its context and past for its validity (Kloppenberg, 1986; White, 1949). Knowledge was created through inquiry, not through internal reflection. As a result, empirical studies proved only what they recorded; their

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f­ indings did not reveal or tap into some deeper metaphysical system. As Dewey (1909/1983) explained, “The influence of Darwin upon philosophy resides in his having conquered the phenomenon of life for the principle of transition,” instead of approaching the world in terms of “fixed form and final cause” (p. 7). Most significantly, scholars in the age of reform agreed that knowledge ought not to be merely discovered, it ought to be put to use toward the progressive reform of society. One contemporary identified the new outlook as “The Spirit of the New Humanity … the growing popular and scientific belief that the elements of human welfare are knowable and controllable” (Small, 1894, pp. 16‐17). Since knowledge was contingent and open‐ended, the world was itself open to revision and improvement. The rejection of static essences and the embrace of contingency provided the justification for the reforms of progressive education during its nascent years, which included the 1916 Committee on Social Studies report (Dunn, 1916), the scientific‐curriculum making movement of the 1920s (Fallace, 2015b), and the popular issue‐centered textbooks of Harold Rugg (Evans, 2007). With the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s, leading progressive educators fully embraced the idea that the road to authentic democracy was a citizenry informed about the present realities of social and economic life. They also agreed that the schools could and should be engines of social reform and reconstruction towards a more vibrant democratic future. However, the new brand of radical progressives offered a specific prescription for what the future ought to look like. For historian Charles Beard, educational sociologist George Counts, and curriculum theorist Harold Rugg, the future was collectivist in ideology. Counts (1935) argued that the schools ought to help build a new social order that was “highly socialized, coordinated and planned” (p. 303). Beard (1935) insisted that schools ought to teach “the subordination of personal ambition and greed to common plans and purposes” (p. 14). Likewise, in one of his popular social studies textbooks, Rugg (1931) related how society was entering a “new age of social planning” because the old laissez‐faire system had “brought about an enormous waste in every outstanding brand of industry” (p. 596). These radical progressives agreed that objectivity was impossible and that attempts to be objective were actually serving the forces of conservatism and the status quo. They argued that the existing school curriculum still emphasized the outdated 19th-century values of the individualist, laissez‐faire agrarian past, but should be focusing on the cosmopolitan, urban, collectivist future. To have the curriculum keep pace with the modern world, educators needed to have a specific vision toward which to direct students, and that vision was collect­ ivist in nature. This is not to suggest, that Counts, Beard, and Rugg were positivistic in their ideological outlook in a Marxian sense. They were, in fact, overtly relativistic and pragmatic (White, 1949). For example, Counts (1932) embraced the contingent nature of knowledge, arguing: “Complete impartiality is utterly impossible” (p. 16). Beard (1932) agreed, writing the assumption that schools “can provide definitive skills, good always and everywhere, has little warrant in our industrial civilization” (p. 33). Likewise, Rugg (1946) insisted, “concepts are finders of scientific laws, not mere summarizers of them” (p. xviii). They argued that it was the relativistic nature of knowledge itself that made the commitment to a particular social order necessary. However, by the late 1930s, the progressives’ overt rejection of transcendent truths and their accompanying functional approach to knowledge were no longer appropriate because relativity was considered the tool of anti‐democratic regimes such as the Nazis and Bolsheviks. This ushered in the age of consensus (1938–1962),



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during which intellectuals rejected extreme ideologies from the left and the right and focused on deliberation around a core set of democratic ideals, or “common vocabulary of norms” such as “property rights, free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of personal association and privacy, rejection of violence and faith in reason as a method of dealing with conflict” (Oliver & Shaver, 1966, p. 15). As early as 1919, African American educator Carter Woodson declared: “a better understanding of the races is now necessary to maintain that conservatism to prevent this country from being torn asunder by Socialism and Bolshevism” (p. 279). Woodson optimistically hoped that improved understanding of black history would lead to better cooperation among the American races, and he justified his view by appealing to growing fears of Communism. During the Great Depression, leading educators such as Dewey, Beard, Rugg, and Counts rejected the individualism and competitiveness of laissez‐faire economics. They praised the Soviet Union and embraced socialist rhetoric by endorsing collectivist solutions to the ailing economy (Pells, 2004; Ravitch, 2000). However, after Joseph Stalin’s purge of intellectuals in the Soviet Union, his signing of an anti‐aggression pact with the Nazis, leading liberal scholars in the U.S. distanced themselves from socialism and the Communist Party (Fowler, 1978; Pells, 1985; Whitfield, 1991). By 1938–1939 the fear of totalitarianism—a term applied to both Fascism and Communism—convinced most scholars in the U.S. to reject the commitment to specific political and cultural ideologies. The avoidance of secular relativism on the one hand (i.e., Nazism) and state indoctrination on the other (i.e., Bolshevism), led leading scholars to focus on pluralism, rights, processes, and values within a framework of core democratic ideals as a safe middle ground. The thrust of democracy, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. (1949) explained in his book The Vital Center: … is away from fanaticism; it is towards compromise, persuasion, and consent in politics, toward tolerance and diversity in society; … Its love of variety discourages dogmatism, and its love of skepticism discourages hero‐worship … the advocate of free society defines himself by telling what he is against; what he is for turns out to be certain means and he leaves other people to charge the means with content. (p. 245)

As a result, scholarly attention shifted away from the kind of conflict‐oriented narratives espoused by Dewey, Rugg, Counts, and Beard, toward consensus, the merits of democratic, reflective decision‐making, and the value‐formation process itself, centered on a core of democratic ideals. Cold War era educators who continued to cite Dewey, focused on his apolitical, process‐oriented book, How We Think (1910/1997a) instead of his more reform‐ oriented works such as Democracy and Education (1916/1968) (see Fallace, 2011b). During the age of consensus, the democratic way of life as embodied by the norms of suburban life went largely unquestioned and socializing students to such a life seemed logical and just. In fact, the desire to use the schools to create a well‐adjusted, complacent middle class was an explicit objective of Harvard President, James Conant. In the widely read General Education in a Free Society, Conant (1946) and his associates argued on behalf of a general education grounded in the humanities and social sciences, because “ours is at present a centrifugal culture in extreme need of unifying forces” (p. 108). Just as Woodson (1919) had argued 30 years earlier, Conant viewed education in the humanities and social sciences as an antidote to the intellectual encroachment of Communists, who allegedly prayed on class antagonisms and moral relativity. “The rise of totalitarianism,” Schlesinger

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(1949) explained, “signifies more than an internal crisis for democratic society. It signifies an internal crisis for democratic man. There is a Hitler, a Stalin in every breast” (p. 250). Life adjustment education was aimed in part to assure that students would be culturally assimilated and psychologically sound, so they would not be susceptible to Communism (Fallace, 2011c). Consequently, the major focus during the age of consensus was on procedural neutrality centered on a set of core democratic values such a human dignity, natural rights, religious faith, and sustained economic growth (Ciepley, 2007; Fowler, 1978; Purcell, 1973). Sociologist Daniel Bell (1966) famously dubbed the new Cold War paradigm of apolitical social science as “the end of ideology,” and sociologist Robert Merton (1949) called for “theories of the middle range.” Historians turned to “consensus history” (Novick, 1988). Bell (1960) argued that, “the impulses of the past century and half ” toward “chiliastic hopes, to millenarianism, to apocalyptic thinking” have been “exhausted” and are now considered by most intellectuals to be a “dead end” (pp. 370, 110). Bell explained how the “calamities of the Moscow Trials, the Nazi‐Soviet pact, the concentration camps, the suppression of Hungarian workers” led to a decline “in simplistic, rationalistic beliefs” (p. 373). Bell critiqued the tendency during the previous century and a half “to convert concrete issues into ideological problems” and concluded that democracy in the post‐ideological world ought to be characterized by “bargaining between legitimate groups and the search for consensus” (pp. 373, 110). That is, political problems ought to be approached pragmatically and incrementally, not subsumed into some grand narrative, universal truth, or ideological system. Such a pluralistic approach to democracy should focus on commonalities, not differences, and allow competing groups to negotiate towards consensus. As economist John Kenneth Galbraith (1958) sardonically remarked in his book, The Affluent Society,“These are the days when men of all social disciplines and all political faiths seek the comfortable and the accepted; when the man of controversy is looked upon as a disturbing influence; when originality is taken to be a mark of instability” (pp. 4–5). The social, cultural, and educational ideals of the Cold War were apolitical reactions to the overtly functional, presentist, politicized approach espoused by progressives. “The notion that democracies were held together by a consensus on procedures, and that this procedural consensus was sustained by a skeptical, … tolerant, scientific culture,” Ciepley (2007) explains, “became a hallmark of postwar political science” (p. 200). However, by the early 1960s, scholars considered the ideas forged during the age of consensus as obsolete in light of major social upheavals brought on by the Civil Rights movement and the escalating Vietnam War. During the age of diversity (1962–present), major unrest erupted in the American South in protest of racial segregation and on many college campuses around the globe in response to the alleged irrelevancy and bureaucratization of higher education. Many viewed the Cold War approach of apolitical, procedural neutrality as essentially endorsing the status quo of unjust domestic and foreign policies. However, rather than return to the functional and pragmatic approach of Dewey, with its quaint belief in social progress, scholars and activists of the 1960s and 1970s forged a more skeptical approach focused on the relationships among knowledge construction, perspective, and power. In science, Thomas Kuhn (1962) explored the impact of “paradigms” to limit which questions are asked and how scientific data are interpreted; in history, Hayden White (1973) examined the role of narrative tropes in shaping and distorting how the past is studied and presented; in anthropology, Clifford Geertz (1973) endorsed a local, symbolic, self‐referential approach to culture; in philosophy,



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Richard Rorty (1979) implored his peers to give up their fruitless search for an accurate representation of reality; and in education, Paulo Freire (1970) exposed the classist, oppressive assumptions in transmitting traditional knowledge. After the 1960s, intellectual historian Louis Menand (2010) explains: The vocabulary of “disinterestedness,” “objectivity,” “reason” and “knowledge” and talk about things like “the scientific method,” “the canon,” and “the fact/value distinction” began to be superseded … by attention to “interpretations” (rather than facts), “perspective” (rather than objectivity), and “understanding” (rather than “reason” or “analysis”). An emphasis on universalism and greatness was replaced by an emphasis on diversity and difference. (p. 80)

Feminism, neo‐Marxism, postmodernism, post‐structuralism, postcolonialism, and critical race theory represented some of the perspectival lenses through which scholars worked in the age of diversity (1962–present) (see Stanley, 1992). The emphasis on diversity in education was further endorsed by the 1978 Supreme Court decision Regents of University of California v. Bakke (Powell, 1977), which struck down race‐based quotas but endorsed racial and gender diversity as a laudable and legal objective in education. The embrace of multiculturalism (Banks, 2002), the theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1983), special education (Americans with Disabilities Act, 1990), and culturally responsive pedagogy (Gay, 2010) by educators further underscored the new values of inclusiveness and equity, and problematized the idea that there was a universal, consensus set of knowledge or pedagogy appropriate for all students. Emphasis on equal access was superseded by emphasis on equal outcomes (Coleman, 1968). In the 1980s and 1990s, certain scholars and policy makers launched a counter‐offensive against the alleged excesses of diversity (Bloom, 1987; Hirsch, 1987), engendering what came to be known as the “culture wars” (Hartman, 2015). As a result of this and other factors, policy makers pursued efforts to standardize the American curriculum by offering all students the same rigorous coursework grounded in the transmission of content. High‐stakes standardized testing emerged during the age of diversity because policy makers shifted their attention from equal access and equal opportunity to equitable outcomes across racial groups. The research of psychologist Kenneth Clark, cited in the Brown v. Board of Education (Warren, 1954) decision, first drew attention to the outcomes of educational inequality, because Clark’s work demonstrated how segregated schools had a psychologically detrimental effect on African American students, which affected their future academic success (Scott, 1997). After desegregation, the minimum competencies movement in the South laid the foundation for standardized testing in the late 1970s. As one contemporary prophetically commented in 1980, minimum competency tests ushered in “the beginning of a new, results‐oriented epoch” in education (quoted in Baker, 2015). Policy makers employed minimum competency tests as a means of ensuring that white and black students, who had re‐segregated as a result of white flight, could achieve equitable outcomes no matter which school they attended. With the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2001, President Bush cited the need for high standards for all children to counter the effects of low expectations toward low‐income students and students of color. To ensure that schools achieved annual yearly progress, they had to demonstrate through standardized testing that all subgroups—including students of color, low‐income students, students with disabilities, and English Language Learners—were improving each year. Despite the fact

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that business elites and corporate reformers have driven the accountability movement over the past two decades, its origin, shape, and trajectory had been affected dramatically by the values of the age of diversity (Evans, 2015). In other words, educators disagree about the causes and remedies for the recurring achievement gap between white students and s­tudents of color, but they agree that achievement gap among these groups is a major educational issue, perhaps, the major issue of the 21st century. In summary, an epistemological and ideological outlook has characterized each chronological period. During the age of reform (1890–1938), scholars approached knowledge in a functional and contextualized way; knowledge emerged through interaction with the environment, and ought to be put to use towards the solving of social problems. During the age of consensus (1938–1962), scholars focused on procedural neutrality and disciplinary integrity; knowledge was to be pursued independent of politics and values through transparent inter‐subjective processes centered on “bargaining between legitimate groups and the search for consensus” (Bell, 1966 p. 121). During the age of diversity (1962–present), scholars have approached knowledge through self‐conscious perspectival lenses; knowledge consciously and unconsciously reflects the interests of those in power unless multiple p­erspectives are actively sought out and included. As proponents for the three orientations to the social studies have passed through the age of reform, the age of consensus, and the age of diversity, they have shifted their justifications, but nevertheless maintained their advocacy for their positions. In the following sections I trace the history of the traditional, disciplinary, and progressive orientations through each chronological period.

3.3  The Traditional Orientation The traditional approach to the social studies focuses on the transmission of content. Since the nation’s founding, policy makers have emphasized the need to create democratic citizens through the memorization of specific information. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Noah Webster, Benjamin Rush, Thomas Jefferson, and Horace Mann each emphasized the need for public schooling to form the national character. Policy makers deemed the heterogeneous nature of American society as a major threat to the fragility of the new Republic and looked to schools to forge a more united citizenry through the transmission of a patriotic national narrative. Over the course of the 19th century, the states created common school systems meant to teach reading, writing, arithmetic, and the basics of national patriotism (Hirsch, 2009; Tyack, 2003). The U.S. was not alone in establishing public schools. In fact, all across Europe, increases in primary and high school enrollment went hand‐in‐hand with the rise of nationalism, imperialism, and military conscription, as the elites sought to forge the national identities of their subjects and citizens through the transmission of state‐endorsed narratives and information (Hobsbawm, 2010). The leading pedagogical approach of the 19th century was recitation. Noah Webster designed his “Federal Catechism” and “Moral Catechism” to be committed to memory and recited out loud (Tyack, 2003). Educators justified recitation of text with the faculty psychology approach to mind. All the faculties, Charles Francis Adams (1907) explained, “group themselves under three distinct heads; first, and highest, the imaginative; second, the reasoning; third, the observing, [because] … there is no attribute of the mind, … which will not find its proper place in one or another of these groups, and be subject to its laws”



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(p. 119). Education, Adams explained in language representative of the 19th-century epistemology of static essences and latent potentials, consisted of ensuring that each faculty is “properly and adequately developed” (p. 120). Memorization and recitation of text allegedly strengthened these mental faculties, as well as built and reinforced the character of the individual. During the age of reform, the National Education Association summoned the Committee of Ten to establish uniformity between high school programs and college entrance requirements. Charles Eliot, president of Harvard University and leading proponent of the faculty psychology approach to learning, led the effort. In 1893, the Committee published its recommendations, insisting that the nation’s secondary schools should not merely prepare boys and girls for college, but instead for the “duties of life” (p. 51). Therefore, all students should receive the same education, regardless of class, or mental ability. In opposition to the classical curriculum suggested by Adams, the Committee of Ten deemphasized the curricular standards of Greek, Latin, and Math in favor of newer subjects like Science, Modern Language, and History, which were considered more relevant to the changing social c­onditions. In preparation for the report, the Committee had divided its subject areas into subcommittees, including the History Ten, which had met in Madison, Wisconsin, the year before. The Committee of Ten was composed of historians, social scientists, and high school principals. Its report suggested a greater inclusion of history in the curriculum and the expansion of study beyond American history. The Committee still endorsed the memorization of facts, but stressed that “facts in history are like digits in arithmetic; they are learned only as means to an end” (p. 168). Specifically, history ought to inform “the mental power which we call judgment” (p. 168). The Committee explained how history provided the raw materials for students to make comparisons, to ponder the relationships between cause and effect, to accumulate data in support of an opinion, to estimate character, and “to apply the lessons of history to current events” (p. 170). In essence, history could be made relevant by inspiring critical thinking about the present. The Committee of Ten report was followed a decade later by that of the American Historical Association’s (AHA) Committee of Seven. Although the report did not differ much in its curricular recommendations of the Committee of Ten, it was more descriptive in its ideas regarding the usefulness of history and in the proper methods of instruction. The Committee of Seven’s report also included a subtle attack on the Committee of Ten’s approach to history, suggesting that “society is in movement, that what one sees about him is not the eternal but the transient” and that “too much has been made of the idea that history furnishes us with rules, precepts and maxims which may be used as immutable principles” (AHA, 1899, p. 19). This qualification demonstrates the aforementioned shift from an epistemology of static essences espoused by Spencer and Adams towards an e­pistemology of contingency and growth espoused by Thorndike and Dewey. Like the Committee of Ten, the Committee of Seven also suggested: “History cultivates judgment by leading the pupil to see the relationship between cause and effect,” and deemphasized the memorization of factual knowledge for its own sake (AHA, p. 440). “The study of h­istory,” the Committee explained “gives training not only in acquiring facts, but in arranging and systematizing them” (p. 441). In both cases, the curriculum and methods suggested by the Ten and Seven were traditional in their primary objective of transmitting objective, f­actual  knowledge written by professional historians. Yet both reports also

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anticipated the progressive approach to the social studies by recognizing critical thinking, citizenship, and relevance as key factors in education. However, by the 1930s and 1940s, the traditionalists were arguing that progressive reforms had gone too far in eroding the factual knowledge of American citizens. Instead of the facts, traditionalists alleged, students were being taught vague skills and dispositions. In 1938, John Dewey identified this controversy as one between “traditional and progressive education,” the former defined as “development from without” and the latter as “formulation from within” (p. 17). In Experience and Education Dewey (1938/1997b) attempted to reconcile this unnatural divide, insisting, that students needed to learn the facts, but the facts also needed to be connected to the students’ intrinsic concerns. The traditionalists, led by William Bagley and a group of educators who called themselves essentialists, underscored this ­perceived division to distinguish themselves from the progressives, whom they considered anti‐intellectual and ineffective (Null, 2007). During the age of consensus, especially in the 1950s, scholars emphasized the teaching of patriotism but were careful not to emulate the indoctrination of totalitarian regimes. Textbooks from the 1950s, according to one study, were “encyclopedias rather than history books” because they “made references to everything under the sun, but there is no connection between one thing and another” (Fitzgerald, 1979, p. 58). Most professional historians felt disenfranchised from the progressive‐oriented version of the social studies, and tended to lean towards the traditionalist position, which they associated with intellectual rigor and religious faith. Historians led a wave of criticism that erupted in the 1940s and 1950s. In a number of New York Times articles, historians cited survey results exposing the alleged ignorance of American youth about the basic facts of American history (Halvorsen, 2012). Furthermore, conservative and patriotic groups such as the American Legion attacked the popular, problem‐centered textbooks of Harold Rugg and blamed the progressive reformers for watering down the curriculum and making intellectual nourishment subservient to social reform (Evans, 2007). The most publicized and effective critique of progressive education was historian Arthur Bestor’s Educational Wastelands: The Retreat from Learning in Our Public Schools. Bestor (1953) attacked the progressives, who “have allowed themselves to become confused about the purposes of education, … by setting forth purposes … so trivial as to forfeit the respect of thoughtful men” (p. 2). Bestor supported a liberal education that transmitted the common knowledge of the past to all citizens through “disciplined intellectual training” (p. 10). He mocked those who “teach children” instead of teaching facts from history and the social sciences (p. 10). The launching of the satellite Sputnik into space by the Soviet Union in 1957 underscored fears that Americans were falling behind the Communists in the ideological war for world dominance. As a result, during the age of consensus, critics aligned the progressive approach with weakness and self‐indulgence, and aligned the traditionalist and/or disciplinary approach with the alleged strength and rigor of the academic subjects. During the age of diversity, traditionalism resurfaced when a body of highly publicized research such as the National Commission on Excellence in Education’s A Nation At Risk (1983) and E. D. Hirsch’s Cultural Literacy (1987) again decried the lack of content knowledge among America’s youth. Students were believed to be particularly deficient in historical knowledge (Gagnon, 1989; Ravitch & Finn, 1987). Critics again blamed progressive‐oriented social studies educators for allegedly replacing the intellectual rigor of history with “units … that emanated from student interests and concerns rather than from any



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coherent pattern of essential knowledge” (Gagnon, p. 5). Hirsch (1983) specifically targeted “pluralism” as a problem in education, because local authorities had too much power to choose texts that were culturally relevant to their students, instead of focusing on a common set of knowledge reflecting a national culture. Hirsch (1983) argued that literacy was dependent upon a common set of cultural references, which most students were not getting because progressive‐oriented educators had diluted and diversified the curriculum to meet the needs of diverse populations. Overall, neo‐traditional critics and policy makers argued that, in order to be effective citizens in a democratic society, students needed to have at least a general, factually‐based knowledge of America’s past. Although students should be taught to think critically, they first need a “solid foundation of historical knowledge necessary for informed inquiry” (Gagnon, 1989, p. 6). The schools, therefore, have a responsibility to present this essential knowledge, because students—especially disadvantaged and impoverished ones—are unlikely to get it from anywhere else. Furthermore, in the 1980s researchers from all three orientations began questioning the commonly adopted scope and sequence for the K–4 social studies curriculum known as “expanding horizons/environments,” which alleged­ly failed to transmit any content in history and the social sciences at all (Brophy & Alleman, 2006; Crabtree, 1989; Egan, 1980; Ravitch, 1987). The expanding horizons approach had begun with the progressive emphasis on the relevant and concrete world of children (Halvorsen, 2013). The irony of the traditional critiques of progressive reforms was that, throughout the 20th century, research consistently demonstrated that traditional history and social science (i.e., Civics and U.S. Government) had maintained their central place in the curriculum, despite repeated efforts to reform it (Barton & Levstik, 2010; Cuban, 1991; Fallace, 2008; Goodlad, 1984). That is, teacher‐and‐textbook‐centered instruction in single academic subjects dominated the curriculum in both classroom practice and course offerings. Nevertheless, in the 1990s, renewed emphasis on the transmission of factual knowledge led some states, such as Virginia, to overhaul their social studies standards to place more emphasis on the transmission of prescribed factual content (van Hover, Hicks, Stoddard, & Lisanti, 2010).

3.4  The Disciplinary Orientation The disciplinary approach to teaching history encouraged students to “do history” and “be historians.” During the age of reform, the Committee of Seven hinted at the disciplinary approach by suggesting that students engage in an occasional guided reading of a primary source. The committee wanted students to understand the complexity and difficulty of constructing historical narratives, but not to engage in such activity themselves as suggested by proto‐disciplinarians such as Lucy Maynard Salmon, Fred Marrow Fling, and Mary Shelton Barnes (Bohan, 2004; Bohan & Chisholm, 2011). On this point, the Committee of Seven was quite clear, “The aim of historical study in the secondary school, let it be repeated, is the training of pupils, not so much in the art of historical investigation as in that of thinking historically” (AHA, 1899, p. 481). Fred Morrow Fling developed the most innovative disciplinary approach in the 1890s. His goal was to teach students “the process by which we attain to historical truth—in other words to teach historical method.” By practicing the historical method, Fling argued, students would learn that “knowledge grows and certainty

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is attained though question and answer” and they would appreciate “how difficult it is to arrive at certainty.” Ultimately Fling hoped they would be able to distinguish “between good and bad, scientific and popular secondary [historical] works” (quoted in Osbourne, 2003, pp. 487–488). Very few educators recognized or adopted Fling’s approach. Not until the early 1960s, did the disciplinary approach again enter the curriculum. If the epicenter of pedagogical innovation during the age of reform was Teachers College, Columbia University, with its focus on child‐centeredness and social reform, then the epicenter of innovation during the age of consensus was Harvard University. Deliberately embracing the rigor and objectivity of the academic disciplines, professors at Harvard sought to distance themselves from the overt professional advocacy of the first generation of education professors (Lagemann, 2000). Harvard historian Bernard Bailyn (1960) provocatively attacked the past and present work of educational historians by dismissing much of it as “derived directly from their professional interests” (p. 9). Accordingly, professors in math and science sought to displace the influence of educationists with disciplinary curricular programs based on academic rigor, inquiry methods, and the infusion of technology (Phillips, 2014; Rudolph, 2002). It was in this context that Harvard psychologist, Jerome Bruner (1960) presented his famous argument “that any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development” in his book The Process of Education (p. 33). By “subject” Bruner did not mean the facts and details of a particular body of content. Instead he meant its underlying structure—the field’s central concepts, generalizations, and mode of inquiry used by scholars in the field. Bruner’s apolitical focus on the disciplines was a perfect fit for the age of consensus because it maintained the emphasis on student‐centeredness and critical thinking of the progressives, but incorporated the alleged rigor of academic work. Bruner suggested that students would learn more and retain the information longer, if they arrived at the facts themselves through carefully controlled experiments.7 The transmission of the basic structures of the field was more important than covering a superficial survey of the information in a field, as in the traditional approach. For history and the social sciences, this translated into having students construct their own knowledge by emulating the inquiry processes of disciplinary experts. Students sifted through strategically designed packages of primary sources to learn not only the content, but also an understanding of the structure of the disciplines. By the mid‐1960s historians, social scientists, and social studies educators across the country were designing their own inquiry‐ based projects and had piloted them in local schools (Stern, 2010). The “new social studies,” as it was called, emphasized the Brunerian distinction among the social studies disciplines, incorporated modern audio‐visual materials, and encouraged the in‐depth study of fewer topics (Stern, 2010). The most well‐known (and notorious) example of the new disciplinary approach was designed by Bruner himself. Bruner’s controversial Man: A Course of Study included a number of original and historic sources drawn from anthropology and was ­centered on the question “What is human about human beings?” (Dow, 1991; Evans, 2011a). During the age of diversity, the disciplinary orientation gained further momentum from the emphasis on perspective and culture, as well as new trends in cognitive theory emphasizing the domain specificity of learning. Lee Shulman’s (1987) influential article, “Knowledge and Teaching: Foundations of a New Reform,” introduced the concept of peda­ gogical content knowledge—“a special amalgam of content and pedagogy that is uniquely the province of teachers, their own special form of professional understanding” (p. 8).



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Shulman’s article complicated the perceived divide between disciplinary content and “generic principles of effective teaching” (p. 10). According to Shulman, subject teachers draw upon techniques and understandings unique to the discipline, not upon a universal set of interdisciplinary instructional tools. While not explicitly addressing epistemology or cognitive theory, Shulman’s article sparked a renewed interest in what made each discipline unique. Shulman inspired new psychological research suggesting that the discipline of history reflected its own domain‐specific schema, processes, and set of understandings, which differentiated novices from experts, and students from historians and social scientists (Gardner, 1999; VanSledright, 2004; Wineburg, 2001). As a result of the renewed interest in the methods of historians and social scientists, a wealth of research has centered on the endeavor of “historical thinking” in the 1990s. By embracing the perspectival and uncertain nature of knowledge exposed by scholars during the age of diversity, disciplinarians aimed to equip students with the skills to work through the conflicting perspectives of postmodern life. According to Lee and Ashby (2000), historical thinking provides “powerful ideas, which do not leave their owners helpless in the face of alternative accounts, shrugging their shoulders at a multiplicity of opinions” (p. 216). Similarly, VanSledright (2004) argues: “Good historical thinkers are tolerant of differing perspectives” and are also “skilled at detecting spin hype, snake oil sales pitches, disguised agendas, veiled partisanship, and weak claims … and know good arguments when they hear them, and who engage their world with a host of strategies for understanding it” (pp. 232–233). While the exact nature of historical thinking is contested and complex, educational researchers agree with Bruner that it involves a change in “the basic mental structures we use to grasp the meaning of the past” (Wineburg, 2001, p. 7). Overall, leading disciplinarians argue that the definition of historical knowledge includes not only an understanding of what happened in the past, but also an appreciation for how that understanding is and was constructed. Disciplinarians share a concern for the application of knowledge and deep, authentic learning with progressives. Disciplinarians argue that historical thinking equips students with healthy skepticism towards unwarranted assertions, the tools to decide between or among conflicting assertions, and a sense of cultural humility about their own assumptions. From a pedagogical and political perspective, the disciplinary orientation offers a middle path between the traditional and the progressive approaches, because it includes the import­ ance of background knowledge and context, focuses on critical thinking and the transfer of learning to the present, and embraces the work of academic professors. In addition, the focus on historical thinking has opened up improved lines of communication and collaboration among social studies educators and professional historians (see Sterns, Seixas, & Wineburg, 2000). Nevertheless, some progressives continue to express skepticism that the academic disciplines represent the best path to citizenship formation (Thornton & Barton, 2010).

3.5  The Progressive Orientation The progressive orientation to the social studies involves the learning of content in the c­ontext of real-world problems and the application of knowledge to real-world issues, an approach that was engendered during the age of reform and its rejection of static essences and latent potentials. Progressives like Dewey and historian James Harvey Robinson

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adopted the new functional psychology, embraced the epistemology of contingency and growth, and shared an enthusiasm for the application of history and the social sciences toward social reform. In Democracy and Education, Dewey (1916/1968) spoke directly to role of history in the curriculum, writing that the vitality of history is killed when it is “divorced from present modes and concerns of social life … knowledge of the past is key to understanding the present … the true starting point of history is always some present situation with its problems” (p. 251). Similarly, Robinson (1912) argued that, “We are in constant danger of viewing present problems with obsolete emotions and of attempting to settle them by obsolete reasoning,” an approach, Robinson argued, that allegedly prevented modern society from becoming, “perfectly adjusted to our environment” (p. 22). Robinson’s New History and the work of Dewey were quoted liberally in the 1916 report of the Committee of Social Studies, the document that formally launched the creation of the social studies. Dewey’s influence can be seen in the definition of the social studies, which is described rather vaguely as the subject matter that “relates directly to the organization and development of human society, and to man as a member of social groups” (Dunn, 1916, p. 9). The 1916 report suggested that history should be combined with the social sciences and made directly relevant to the contemporary concerns of the student. The Committee on Social Studies suggested a new instructional method in which the curriculum would be constantly changing from year to year, shifting its content and emphasis to respond to the social needs of the class. The Committee called this the “pedagogical interpretation” of functioning in the present, and accordingly suggested that history needed to be organized and delivered in a more innovative, utilitarian way (p. 43). The historical content suggested by the Committee was ethnocentric, celebratory, and fact‐ridden. “A primary aim of instruction in American history,” the Committee reported, “should be to develop a vivid conception of American nationality, a strong and intelligent patriotism, and a keen sense of the responsibility of every citizen for national efficiency” (p. 39). In this sense the social studies did not differ much from traditional history. Students were still expected to memorize historical facts, which reformers still believed inculcated patriotism and American values. The only difference was that the historical content was now to be fluid, responsive, and reconfigured in a more effective way towards the understanding and solving of social problems. In place of the four‐year history sequence recommended by the Committees of Ten and Seven, the 1916 report courses recommended a Community Civics class for eighth or ninth grade (after which many students dropped out of school) and a senior course called Problems of Democracy. Both of these proposed classes were progressive interdisciplinary explorations of problems facing U.S. society, and reflected the most innovative aspects of the Committee’s recommendations. These classes also marked a break, or at least the perception of a break, from the close alignment between the social studies curriculum and suggestions of academic professors (Fallace, 2008). “If the first thirty five years [of curriculum reform] were the day of the liberal arts professors,” progressive Harold Rugg (1946) boasted in the 1940s, “the last twenty have been that of the professors of education and the public school curriculum‐makers” (p. 639). Rugg was a self‐identified progressive and scientific curriculum designer. As such, he constructed a popular series of social studies textbooks, based on his systemic analysis of the major works by scholars he had identified as frontier thinkers. Rugg’s curriculum was not entirely antagonistic to academic content, just its traditional arrangement, because his issue‐centered textbooks contained substantial academic content arranged thematically around social problems.8



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During and after the Second World War, social studies educators continued the progressive focus on relevance and interdisciplinary inquiry, but refashioned their approach to embrace the age of consensus, based on apolitical reactions to the overtly functional, presentist, politicized approach affiliated with the reformers of the previous generation. In  one instance, a professional historian (Destler, 1950) charged that “the adoption of subjectivist‐presentist‐relativism as the basis of historical theory contributed to the rise of Fascism and Nazism and their conquest of the universities,” and Destler specifically linked Dewey and Beard with this relativist position (p. 504). Leading progressive social studies educators of the 1940s and 1950s refashioned the work of Dewey and other ­progressive educators to create frameworks for the discussion of social issues in the classroom. Balanced consideration and evaluation of social problems, anchored by a set of unwavering democratic principles, were considered antidotes to the indoctrination of totalitarian regimes (Fallace, in press). During the Second World War, Alan Griffin (1942) developed his reflective‐thinking approach to the social studies as a “conscious choice between authoritarianism and democracy,” that rejected “tradition” and “indoctrination” (pp. 40, 70). Similarly, progressive social studies educators Maurice Hunt and Lawrence Metcalf (1955) built on Dewey’s theory of inquiry and contrasted their approach directly with “the uncritical transmission of values” affiliated with the “totalitarian state,” yet embraced the “core values such as the dignity and worth of individuals, the method of intelligence, and political freedom” (pp. 8, 10). Likewise, Donald Oliver and James Shaver (1966) noted how “the success of Fascist regimes … as well as the Russian Revolution marked the beginning of a serious new challenge to modern democratic government” (p. 16). They argued that the concept of truth in a pluralistic society cannot be defined “in such unequivocal terms that all will see it and grasp it in the same way,” yet everyone can generally agree on the most vague level that the purpose of a democratic government is “to promote the dignity and worth of each individual who lives in the society” (p. 35). Hunt and Metcalf, and Oliver and Shaver argued that the protection of human dignity was a common value upon which all democratic parties could converge, even if their individual conceptions of this ideal differed. Likewise, drawing upon John Rawls’s (1971) Theory of Justice, psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg (1969) suggested that the human mind was equipped with a standardized moral framework into which various cultural values could be processed. “These aspects,” he wrote, “represent basic moral concepts believed to be present in any society … the enduring products of socialization must be conceived of in terms of cognitive‐structural changes … rather than in terms of the learning of cultural patterns” (p. 424). Kohlberg (1976) specifically critiqued the competing “values clarification” approach as turning students into “relativists,” something his cognitive‐developmental approach sought to avoid (p. 185). Thus, like Hunt and Metcalf and Oliver and Shaver, Kohlberg offered a framework that accepted value conflict, but avoided indoctrination and relativity by framing the discussion of social issues with objective, culturally independent cognitive‐developmental structures. Ultimately, these scholars pointed to the discussion of controversial public issues as a core component of the social studies curriculum and democratic society, but carefully built mechanisms into their schemes that avoided relativity and indoctrination. During the age of diversity, the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, and the c­ounterculture movement highlighted the moral complexity of fusing individual and group identity with democratic values. The simplistic fact–value dichotomy of the age of

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consensus would not be adequate for the social upheavals and moral polarizations of the 1960s. New materials resulted from students’ desire for a relevant curriculum that would provide them with, in the words of one curriculum, the tools to cope “in an age of crisis” (Massialas, Sprague, & Hurst, 1975), as well as incorporate the contributions of women, and ethnic minorities. While the idea of organizing the curriculum around student concerns was first argued in the progressive era, the issues of racial injustice, victimization, and civic disobedience made things much more complicated. Values could no longer be centered on the progressives’ racist, Protestant worldview, nor could they be processed through the consensus‐building frameworks of the Cold War, because the Civil Rights leaders explicitly embraced moral/ideological commitment and conflict. By the late 1960s, American values seemed irreconcilably divided. The minority equal rights movement soon morphed into multiculturalism, an approach in which the confluence of American values was undesirable and oppressive. Instead, progressives in the age of diversity argued that the value differences and contributions of women and ethnic minorities should be recognized and celebrated because, as Geneva Gay (2010) explained, “cultural diversity is a strength—a persistent, vitalizing force in our personal and civic lives” (p. 15). In accordance with the age of diversity, multiculturalists not only embraced cultural heterogeneity of American society, but its epistemological heterogeneity as well. Accordingly, Banks (2002) identified “the knowledge construction process” as one of five dimensions of multicultural education that all teachers needed to understand. Progressives during the age of diversity rejected Cold War notions of political neutrality. Instead they drew attention to the silencing of vulnerable groups in the political discourse and the implicit messages of omitting topics as part of the “hidden” or “null” curriculum disguised by the quest for objectivity (see Flinders, Noddings, & Thornton, 1986). As Parker (2003) pointed out, “Official state neutrality disguises actually existing power imbalances and often shifts attention to the supposed deficits of the excluded groups” (p. 27). More recently, Levinson (2012) maintained Parker’s sentiment, writing “civic identity is not a ‘neutral,’ shared space in which all can participate equally” because students’ ethnic, racial, and class identities “intersect with our civic identity in such profound ways that they cannot be disentangled” (p. 55). Scholars such as Engle and Ochoa (1988), Parker (2003), and Hess (2009) have further developed models of deliberation and discussion that make the appreciation of cultural diversity and power differentials a central part of democratic living. They encourage thoughtful discussion, consideration of evidence, role‐playing, and policy formulation as major aspects of social studies education. “As youth mature into would‐be citizens for a democracy,” Ochoa (1996) argued, “they must become skeptical, questioning and critical,” to combat the forces of mindless socialization caused by mass media and consumer culture. To nurture this skepticism, progressives have argued on behalf of addressing controversial (Hess, 2009) or taboo (Ayers & Ayers, 2011) topics directly in the classroom, because ignoring these issues empowers those who seek to maintain the status quo.

3.6 Conclusion This brief history of ideas and ideological contexts in the social studies has left out many significant books, ideas, and names, yet I hope the three orientations and three periods provide social studies educators with some intellectual tools for examining and understanding the



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past and present state of the field. Although it is difficult to discern what ideological framework will follow the age of diversity, certainly the continued emphasis on outcomes, s­tandards, and accountability have shaped and will continue to shape social studies education in the years to come (Evans, 2015). The recently published College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards has adopted language from all three orientations to the social studies, but the disciplinary perspective seems to have had the greatest impact on the document, because the “inquiry arc” outlined by the authors of the C3 necessarily leads through the academic disciplines. The nationally adopted (in the US) Common Core Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Studies (2010) also seems to lean toward the disciplinary perspective by focusing on close reading, employment of textual evidence, and text complexity. However, the Common Core simultaneously marginalizes some of the discipline‐specific aspects of reading a text such as historical context and intertextual corroboration (see Fallace, Fischer, & Neem, 2015). As we move further into the 21st century, the disciplinary perspective may be the most politically viable approach to take, an approach that may be at odds with the rich historical relationship between social studies theorists and the progressive orientation to the field.

Notes 1 Since the 1960s, the idea that the social efficiency doctrine, defined by Drost (1967) as “the position in education that calls for the direct teaching of knowledge, attitudes and skills intended to shape individuals to predetermined social characteristics” has made the biggest ideological impact on U.S. schools in the twentieth century has risen to prominence (p. 3). However, I believe that the term social efficiency is very misleading, and the impact of the idea on the curriculum has been greatly exaggerated. See Fallace, & Fantozzi, (2013). 2 My three‐orientation scheme probably aligns most closely with that of Barr, Barth, and Shermis (1977). However, their scheme was constructed prior to the explosion in research on historical thinking in the 1990s and 2000s. As a result, their reflective inquiry orientation does not a­dequately account for reflective inquiry in a particular discipline, such as history. My three‐orientation scheme distinguishes reflective inquiry in a specific discipline from the kind of predisciplinary or interdisciplinary study espoused by Dewey and Rugg, which I identify as the progressive approach. In addition, in contrast to Barr, Barth, and Shermis, my narrative stresses the simultaneous presence of all three orientations throughout the history of the field, and recognizes that the o­rientations are stops along a continuum rather than rigid categories. 3 Accordingly, William Bennett’s (1997) Children’s Book of Heroes could be characterized as a “counternarrative” because Bennett was seeking to revive certain political, religious, and mythical lessons that had allegedly been pushed out of the curriculum by progressives (see Ravitch, 1987). Therefore, like Loewen and Zinn, Bennett’s version of the social studies deliberately stood in c­ontrast to what was being taught in most schools. 4 The term progressive education is historiographically complex. Reviewing the vast literature on the essence, definition, limits, extent, and impact of progressive education is beyond the scope of this chapter. However, previously (Fallace, 2015a) I have used the deliberately vague definition of p­rogressive education as “the ambitious movement to reform American society by better preparing children for the modernizing world through relevant, hands‐on learning that catered to their individual differences.” (p. 14). This definition adequately distinguishes the term progressive from the traditional and disciplinary orientations. 5 The term “age of reform” originates with Richard Hofstadter’s (1955) Age of Reform, which covers the same years as my periodization.

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6 I believe that differences between the psychology of Dewey and Thorndike have been exaggerated. See Fallace (2015a), pp. 114–118. 7 Bruner’s MACOS curriculum would eventually come under attack for being morally relativistic (see Dow, 1991; Evans, 2011a; Fitzgerald, 1979). 8 Rugg’s textbooks transmitted a lot of information, which makes him look at times like a traditionalist such as Loewen or Zinn. However, I designate Rugg as a progressive because of his consistent and open antagonism towards the stand‐alone academic disciplines, as well as his self‐conscious identification with Dewey, Thorndike, and the progressive education movement.

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4

Quantitative Research and Large‐Scale Secondary Analysis in Social Studies Paul G. Fitchett and Tina L. Heafner

Educational research has moved from a field once solely dominated by quantitative research to a more qualitative line of inquiry. Social studies education research is no exception. This paradigm shift has provided rich, contextualized understanding of teaching and learning. However, we argue that quantitative research is worth revisiting for social studies researchers. It offers a macro‐level lens from which to examine the generalizability of theoretical p­ositions and conclusions drawn from qualitative research. Quantitative research also p­rovides increased opportunity to access resources, such as grants, for continued research endeavors, since policy analysts and policymakers are often attentive to the findings gener­ ated from quantitative analyses. The current push toward value‐added assessment has been bolstered by numerous quantitative studies recognizing teachers as the most important in‐school predictor of student achievement (e.g., Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain, 2005; Rockoff, 2004; Sanders & Horn, 1998). Furthermore, panels that consider the funding of external grants, both from foundations and government agencies, are more open to quantitative proposals. The Institute of Education Sciences (IES), one of the largest sources of external support for educational research, requires a quantitative element to funded projects (IES, 2013). Thus, understanding how to design and conduct quantitative research has the potential to make substantial contributions to the field, inform policy, and provide financial support for research. Inspired by a previous handbook chapter on the state of quantitative research in social studies (Fraenkel & Wallen, 1991), this chapter examines components of quantitative research that social studies researchers and educators should consider. It also highlights exemplars from key research journals of the field. Finally, we suggest that large‐scale secondary analysis is a fertile ground for social studies researchers interested in quantitative research.

The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.



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4.1  The Qualitative Shift in Social Studies Research Over 25 years ago, Wallen and Fraenkel (1988) conducted a review of quantitative research published in Theory & Research in Social Education (TRSE). They found over 60% of the research published in the journal was quantitative. In a more extensive review across several journals conducted for the Shaver (1991) Handbook of Research on Social Studies Teaching and Learning, Fraenkel and Wallen (1991) discovered that approximately 75% of the articles related to social studies education were quantitative. Yet, over the last quarter century, methodology has shifted substantially in favor of more qualitative research. Ehman (1998), following the Fraenkel and Wallen review, noted that qualitative and historical research represented 67% and 22% (respectively) of all studies published in TRSE by the end of the decade. Conversely, quantitative research (including mixed methods) accounted for 11% of all the studies. The decline in quantitative research and corresponding rise of qualitative research in social studies can be partially explained by the paradigm shift of education research as a whole. In the second half of the 20th century, researchers grew disenchanted with what they  believed to be the narrow confines of quantitative research designs (Lagemann, 2000). They argued that although they were observable and measurable, quantitative approaches limited exploration of the more complex sociocultural phenomenon embedded in ­education (Labaree, 1998). Influenced by anthropology’s established qualitative tradi­ tions, ­ education  research began to undertake ethnographic approaches (Lagemann, 2000). This epistemological turn coincided with growing movements in critical pedagogy, feminism, multiculturalism, and postmodernism, which critiqued positivist thinking and gravitated towards qualitative research. This trend filtered into social studies as well. In an earlier analysis of national survey data of social studies teachers sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Shaver, Davis and Helburn (1978) recommended that social studies research could benefit from more qualitative research, particularly ethnography. They argued that contemporary methodol­ ogies of the era (i.e., survey research and quantitative analyses) were constraining and unable to adequately describe rich instructional practices. Moreover, they contended that quantitative researchers, in attempting to divorce themselves from the subject of study, failed to adequately consider the perspective of the teacher and learner. Aside from work in the area of political socialization and international civic compari­ sons (e.g., Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1989; Galston, 2007; Kennedy, Hahn, & Wing‐on, 2008; Niemi & Junn, 1998; Torney‐Purta & Richardson, 2003), changes in disciplinary emphasis have also influenced the shift to qualitative methods. Over the last two decades, prominent researchers in history education (e.g., Barton, 2001; Lee, Dickinson, & Ashby, 1997; Seixas, 1994; VanSledright, 2002; Wineburg, 1998) have attempted to understand how learners make sense of history. Concomitantly, research on the teaching of social studies (e.g., Au, 2007; Gradwell, 2006; Grant, 2003; Hess, 2002; van Hover, 2006) has tradition­ ally sought to describe practices and dispositions of teaching within the social disciplines that contribute to social education. Researchers interested in the diversity of pedagogy, content, and experience (e.g., Castro, 2010; Epstein, 2009; Levinson, 2012) frequently seek to contextualize results using sociocultural perspectives that explain how knowledge is produced and propagated. Qualitative research lends itself to these research goals. Moreover, the empirical shift in social studies research toward qualitative research mirrors

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a more general change of focus in educational research toward knowledge with more concrete application (Labaree, 1998; Weiman, 2014).

4.2  The Renewed Potential for Quantitative Research In many ways, the move toward a qualitative orientation has benefited the social studies field. Findings of qualitative research are often easily accessible and understandable to e­ducators, offering illustrations of pedagogy and learning in school contexts. However, at times, the dominance of qualitative research has obscured the field’s ability to offer more generalizable findings. Shaver (2001) pointedly jabbed that “social studies/educational research is remarkable for its lack of consensus of a research mission” (p. 239); suggesting that efforts to be more epistemologically inclusive have stymied knowledge unanimity within the field. Au (2007) noted that many of the conclusions drawn from the qualitative teacher educa­ tion research in social studies are based on small sample frames. He advises researchers to be careful about how they interpret findings. Reviewers and other readers should critically examine the setting in which research was conducted, and in what conditions. There is sometimes a tendency to overstate results. Thus, the strengths of qualitative research should be balanced within the context of how the research was conducted. Quantitative research in social studies offers a complementary perspective from which to  examine and explore new knowledge for the field. Moreover, quantitative research, p­articularly when it uses large datasets, provides macro‐level, scalable analyses that can have implications for policymaking, while also informing teaching and teacher education at the micro‐level. Yet, as a recent meta‐analysis of educational research suggests, there is relatively little quantitative research related to social studies teaching and learning (Camburn & Won Han, 2011). Given the potential impact and generalizability of quantitative findings, grants sponsored by external organizations, such as the Institute of Educational Sciences and the American Educational Research Association, typically fund research that employs quantitative methods or mixed methods that include a quantitative focus. It would be advan­ tageous for social studies researchers who are interested in pursuing external grants and making policy contributions to consider how their line of inquiry and research interests align with quantitative research (or a mix of methods with a strong quantitative element).

4.3  Components of Quantitative Research Drawing upon several frameworks of research in social studies (Fraenkel & Wallen, 1991; Torney‐Purta & Amadeo, 2013; VanSickle, 1986) and across educational research (e.g., Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2007; Creswell, 2011; Howell, 2002; Shadish, Cook, & Campbell, 2002) the following section presents three key factors to consider when devel­ oping a quantitative research study: (1) the focus of inquiry; (2) methodological consider­ ations; and (3) interpretation of results. Though this framework is not exhaustive, it can be used as a first step for social studies researchers interested in quantitative research. In addition, we applied this framework to a review of all quantitative and mixed‐method research articles from 2003 to 2014 in three of the major research journals of the field (see Appendix).



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Approximately 6% of all articles in Journal of Social Studies Research were quantitative or mixed methods. In Social Studies Research and Practice, slightly over half (51%) were quantitative or mixed methods. In the flagship journal of the College and University Faculty Assembly of the National Council for the Social Studies, Theory & Research in Social Education, approximately 17% of all articles were quantitative or mixed methods. The following sections will highlight exemplars of quantitative research in the field.

4.3.1  Focus of Inquiry Development of  research questions.  Research questions frame the problem that is to be investigated in a study. Qualitative research questions typically lend themselves to answering the how and why (Creswell, 2011). They seek to explore, explain, and provide a narrative. Gathering data from the ground up, they inductively build theory, moving from specific to general. Quantitative research, on the other hand, seeks to answer questions or put forth hypotheses that move from the general to the specific through deductive reasoning. Therefore, it is essential that research questions or hypotheses are built around an existing theoretical or conceptual framework bolstered by current research in the field. Quantitative research attempts to (dis)prove theory by means of predicting, experimenting, measuring, and exploring (Creswell, 2011; Shadish et al., 2002). To illustrate these differences, consider the following two questions: 1. How do social studies teachers at one urban elementary school make instructional decisions when faced with accountability pressures and testing? 2. To what extent is the amount of testing and reported accountability pressures associ­ ated with the frequency of direct instruction among urban elementary school social studies teachers compared to their suburban counterparts? Question 1 would lead to an in‐depth examination of how teachers at a particular site make instructional decisions when faced with accountability and testing pressures. This inquiry would explore and explain how teachers in a particular setting react pedagogi­ cally to a given element of the educational environment (e.g., high‐stakes testing). Conclusions might suggest a new theoretical position, which is a fundamental role of qualitative research. Question 2 might require examining the correlations of different measures (degree of testing/accountability on frequency of direct instruction) compared at two school contexts. This second line of inquiry is less open‐ended. Embedded within this research question is an implicit hypothesis to be examined, based upon prior research and theory—the extent to which teachers rely on direct instruction is related to account­ ability pressures, testing amount, school context. Using data to examine the question will support, or possibly c­ontradict, an existing theoretical position or conclusion from previous research. Fraenkel and Wallen (1991), in their earlier survey of quantitative research in the field, lamented the lack of clearly stated hypotheses in many quantitative research designs. While hypotheses provide a scientific approach to research, not all quantitative lines of inquiry lend themselves to directional hypotheses. First, quantitative researchers form

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hypotheses to guide the analysis in a particular direction, which can hide potentially meaningful findings (Fraenkel & Wallen, 1991). For example in question 2, consider if the researcher sought to test an explicit hypothesis: H1: Increased testing and accountability pressures are associated with a higher frequency of direct instruction‐use among urban elementary social studies teachers compared to their s­uburban counterparts.

If the findings in fact indicated that the frequency of direct instruction increases for both groups of teachers, then the researcher would fail to reject the null hypothesis1 and might not report findings that fail to align with the assumption behind the inquiry, such as the overall impact of testing/accountability pressures. For instance, perhaps results indicated no discernible difference in frequency of direct instruction between urban and suburban teachers. One could argue that a finding of teachers’ instructional decision‐making being associated with accountability policy regardless of school‐level context would be mean­ ingful. Second, if only a few similar quantitative studies exist, it might be more appro­ priate to avoid stating specific hypotheses. In social studies, where the recent trend has been q­ualitatively oriented, this is salient. It is probably more appropriate to ask research questions than to formulate directional hypotheses based on studies with limited generalizability. Given the deductive assumptions behind most quantitative research designs, it is import­ ant that researchers support their questions or hypotheses with a theoretical or conceptual framework. These frameworks explain the relationship among phenomena to be tested or measured, offer justification for the variables examined, and outline the analytical proced­ ures followed (Fraenkel & Wallen, 1991; VanSickle, 1986). Failure to provide a sufficient framework in quantitative research can contribute to what is derogatively referred to as “fishing expeditions” or “p‐hacking,” where researchers put every possible combination in a  statistical model and scan tables for significant correlations (see also Gelman, 2013; Gelman  & Loken, 2013). It is important that quantitative researchers provide a strong empirical and conceptual foundation in developing a research design and conducting their research (or their analysis of data collected by others). Our review of quantitative research in the field of the social studies found that numerous studies failed to state clear, concise research questions supported by theoretical or conceptual frameworks that could be answered with the available data. Some researchers asked q­uestions that either did not align to a theoretical framework or conducted analyses not germane to their research questions. While exploratory data analysis is an important aspect of  quantitative research, some studies failed to anchor their research through explicit research questions or hypotheses. In addition, a number of studies included poorly worded research questions that seemed more appropriate for qualitative purposes (i.e., asking “how” a particular observed or reported phenomenon occurred, rather than “to what extent” or “in what capacity”). Vaguely worded research questions often contribute to a lack of clarity in the presentation of analyses and findings. We did, however, encounter some good examples of research questions based upon strong theoretical and conceptual frameworks and anchored by appropriate analytical procedures. In two quasi‐experimental studies that employed mixed methods, De La Paz, Malkus, Monte‐Sano, and Montanaro (2011) and Levy (2011) asked appropriate questions



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to guide the quantitative portions of their research. For example, De La Paz et al. (2011), in examining the efficacy of a professional development program, inquired: Did students whose teachers participated in our grant‐related follow‐up activities (networking group) improve more in their written responses to document‐based questions than students whose teachers who had no follow‐up participation (PD only group)? (p. 499)

Levy (2011), in studying the effects of project‐based learning on high school students’ civic efficacy, asked: To what extent and in what ways does students’ internal and external political efficacy develop during their participation in civic advocacy project? (pp. 244–245)

Cross‐sectional, correlational studies also benefit from strong research questions. Chin and Barber (2010) asked the following question in their international comparison of teachers’ beliefs on civic education: What similarities and differences exist in Australian, English, and U.S. teachers’ educational beliefs regarding these dimensions of civic education? (p. 396)

It should be noted that research questions estimating cross‐national differences need to employ appropriate data. In this case teachers from samples of schools were drawn from a nationally representative dataset. Similarly, Zhang, Torney‐Purta, and Barber (2012) e­ffectively used design‐specific questions to test an advanced statistical technique—cognitive diagnostic modeling (CDM)—to draw inferences about students’ civic knowledge and skills. This question guided their two‐part, multilevel study: What specific attributes of content knowledge and process skills underlie students’ performance on the IEA CIVED assessment of civic knowledge? (p. 8).

In each of the highlighted studies, research questions were bolstered by a strong literature review and theoretical/conceptual framework, which justified the analyses. For example, Zhang et al. (2012) positioned their research within social constructivist theory. Additionally, these researchers articulated questions that aligned with the analytical assumptions of their chosen methodologies (e.g., multidimensional Item Response Theory as a precursor to CDMs). The questions were explicitly stated prior to the description of the methodology, providing the reader with a frame of reference when considering the analytical choices of the researchers. Research design.  Research design refers to the procedures for collecting, analyzing and interpreting the data (Creswell, 2011). The line of inquiry and theoretical framework will drive the research design, which lays out the procedures for gathering evidence and for interpreting it. Experimental research design with random assignment of subjects to condi­ tions is traditionally recognized as the gold standard for quantitative research because it can isolate the intervention effect from covariates (Creswell, 2011; Shadish et  al., 2002). Experimental research design offers greater internal validity, whereby causal inferences can be made between the treatment (i.e., educational intervention) and the variable of interest

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(i.e., dependent variable). However, it is difficult for education researchers to employ exper­ imental designs, particularly at a large enough scale for generalizability. First, institutional obstacles such as staffing, class scheduling, and parent consent requirements often prohibit randomization. Moreover, ethical considerations prevent researchers from exposing or withholding an intervention to children and students. As a result, quasi‐experimental research designs have become more popular in educa­ tion. These field‐based experiments allow for research conducted in a natural setting. In contrast to experimental design, quasi‐experimental research designs use “fixed” treatment and control groups, while trying to account for group characteristics that might influence the dependent variable (Creswell, 2011; Shadish et al., 2002). Ways of matching samples, such as “propensity scoring” techniques, are increasingly used to control for between‐group differences (Murnane & Willett, 2011), while allowing researchers to examine the independent variable (i.e., treatment) of interest.2 In their review of social studies quantitative research of the late 1970s and 1980s, Fraenkel and Wallen (1991) found that 40% of all studies incorporated experimental or quasi‐­ experimental designs. The percentage has dropped substantially according to our most recent review. Researchers have moved to more correlational and explanatory models using survey data and large‐scale assessment data (see Fitchett & Heafner, 2010; Niemi & Junn, 1998; Torney‐Purta & Richardson, 2003). These studies are frequently less invasive to research participants and are more easily replicated. Survey data and large‐scale assess­ ments also include numerous items and scales of demonstrated reliability and validity. This allows researchers to use data and instruments for multiple lines of inquiry, and the large samples allow researchers to split samples and cross‐validate findings. Furthermore, survey and large‐scale assessment studies are often repurposed through secondary data analysis, which will be discussed later in this chapter. Most of these studies are cross‐sectional, using data collected at a single point in time. Cross‐sectional studies provide only indirect ­evidence about the effects of development or long‐term exposure to educational practices; thus, results must be cautiously interpreted. Longitudinal data (or panel data) designs, on the other hand, offer unique opportunities because they allow researchers to examine trends over a period of time and examine the sustainability of effects (Singer & Willett, 1996). They are, however, extremely difficult to conduct, since respondents must be uniquely identified (by name or code name) and tracked over time. In the review of quantitative research in major social studies research journals, we iden­ tified less than 10% of studies as quasi‐experimental.3 The vast majority of the research was non‐experimental, correlational studies. Of the few quasi‐experimental studies, the most robust study was conducted by De La Paz et al. (2011). In their study, the researchers exam­ ined the effectiveness of post‐professional development teacher networking on students’ outcomes on Document‐Based Questions. De La Paz et al. took care to provide a treatment (networking) and control (only professional development, without networking). They also used various statistical controls, including students’ pre‐test scores, to isolate the intervention of interest (networking). Other studies that employed an acceptable quasi‐experimental design included smaller samples (i.e., Halvorsen et  al., 2012; Hicks & Doolittle, 2008; Levy, 2011; Shand, 2009). Though not as robust statistically, these smaller‐scale studies still have the potential to inform the field by providing specifics about how various pedagogical interventions and curricula are implemented and might be expected to influence student learning.4



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As noted, a vast majority of the quantitative research reviewed was non‐experimental. In a cross‐sectional study across multiple states, Saye and colleagues (2013) examined how teachers made use of Authentic Intellectual Work and whether its use was associated with students’ performance on high‐stakes testing. As a large comprehensive study, the Saye et  al. findings offer scalable evidence that may inform social studies educators and researchers about how teachers engage in higher order instruction and encourage critical thinking in their classrooms. Callahan, Muller, and Schiller (2008) used secondary analysis of longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to examine the effects of schooling, including number of social studies courses taken, on voting patterns among immigrant stu­ dents. Callahan et al. followed student academic performance and civic engagement over a period of time, offering more robust evidence of schooling and social effects on civic engagement than research at a single time point. This study is one of a small number in the field of social studies research that made use of longitudinal data. (For another excellent example of longitudinal research, see Chapin, 2005.) Conversely, there were a few articles in which social studies researchers erroneously referred to their study as longitudinal when they collected data at separate points in time, but not from the same participants. We encourage future researchers to be more judicious with their use of the term “longitudinal” and consider using measures in their research designs to follow up with participants after a cross‐sectional study, particularly if the f­indings have the potential for long‐term implications (i.e., civic engagement).

4.3.2  Methodological Considerations Operationalizing variables: Issues of validity and reliability.  Because quantitative research is largely deductive, it is imperative that variables are clearly defined and based upon exist­ ing theory and research. This helps guarantee content validity. Content validity refers to how well a variable represents a concept as defined by the prevailing research literature of the field (Haynes, Richard, & Kubany, 1995; Messick, 1995). For example, if a scale score is developed purportedly measuring U.S. history knowledge, but only includes items related to World War II, the scale would not be content valid. Lack of content validity was a con­ cern in many of the studies we examined. Ill‐defined variables are difficult to interpret for the reader and can contribute to a poor model fit or misinterpretations of findings. It is important that researchers build their model and variables from a framework, either ­borrowed from other studies with adaptations or developed for the particular study. In addition to considering the theoretical fit of the model, it is advantageous for the quantitative researcher to combine items into scales. Using single‐items to represent com­ plex instructional and cognitive constructs fails to capture the complex nature of teaching and learning. Usually there is more meaningful variance in scale scores based on several items than in single items (Liu, 2004). In social studies, teaching and learning are often con­ ceptualized as having very complex pedagogies (e.g., Fallace, 2010; Levstik, 2008; Ross, 2006; Swan & Griffin, 2013; VanSickle, 1986). For example, one would not want to suggest that an emphasis on historical inquiry could be measured simply by the frequency of using non‐textbook materials in a history class. Creating factors from multiple items or measures helps to better operationalize a concept (i.e., provide face validity). In confirming face

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validity, a researcher often asks experts whether the items on an instrument measure what they are designed to evaluate (i.e., soliciting feedback from scholars of historical thinking on an instrument purported to measure epistemic cognition in history). It is also important to test for statistical validity. Here the question is whether the items correlate with a h­ypothetical latent factor (also referred to as confirmatory factor analysis). Various factor analysis techniques are accessible for researchers to examine statistical validity, including steps available in SPSS software. In addition to theoretical and statistical validity, it is important for researchers to take the additional step of examining the internal consistency (reliability) of their scale scores. Internal consistency, or homogeneity of content, examines whether items that are believed to be measuring the same construct actually are associated with each other. For example, consider the case that a survey instrument includes four items intended to measure community engagement with three items asking about volunteering, recycling, and collect­ ing for the homeless and a fourth item on canvassing for a national political candidate. This four‐item scale would probably not have a high reliability. The first three items are about community activities and the fourth is partisan and political in nature. Cronbach’s alpha (α) is the measure most often used to examine reliability and ranges from 0 to 1.0. Scales with a Cronbach’s α > .70 are considered adequately reliable. It is important to remember that reliability is data dependent (Fraenkel & Wallen, 1991). Therefore, researchers should test for internal consistency of their scales or factors when using different datasets, even if the same measures are being utilized. This is especially true if data are collected at intervals of more than a decade. For example, items designed to measure political activism in the 1960s might show quite different patterns of scale reliability in the 2000s. A similar issue is raised if items about future voting are used in scales of civic engagement when the data have been gathered from immigrant students who are not eligible for citizenship. In addition to these operational concerns about variables, quantitative researchers should choose dependent variables that align with their research questions and are likely to remain of interest to the field. Early reviews (Fraenkel & Wallen, 1991; Leming, 1986) found that most social studies research examined content knowledge, ignoring more complex cognitive and affective domains. Fraenkel and Wallen (1991) also lamented that social studies researchers frequently failed to provide justification for the choice of variables. Findings from our review revealed many of the same issues, particularly in regard to statistical reli­ ability and validity. In numerous studies, researchers developed surveys with limited discussion about the validity of survey items. Authors reported responses to single‐item Likert‐type questions to gauge instructional use, motivation, and learning outcomes. Additionally, a few studies indicated low reliability of scales, yet reported data interpreta­ tions without considering the limitations of their measures and therefore their findings. Some researchers even failed to report alpha reliabilities for summary scores. However, a few studies provided excellent examples of how variables might be combined to form cognitive and affective scales. Chin and Barber (2010) and Zhang et al. (2012) used survey data from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement Civic Education Study (IEA CIVED) study and constructed scales in order to operationalize students’ and teachers’ beliefs about civic education using factor analysis and Cronbach’s alpha. They provided a detailed rationale for how the scales were created and described how they handled instances of problematic statistical fit. In his examination of the utility of civic advocacy projects, Levy (2011) used factor analysis to create a series of



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scales on political efficacy and interest. In each of these studies, the researchers grounded their constructs in a rich theoretical and research context. They also took the time to examine whether individual items, which they assumed would fit on the basis of theory, were reliable in a statistical sense prior to using them in their analytical models. Sampling and the appropriate use of statistics.  In quantitative research, it is important that one is able to generalize findings to the desired population. Generalizability is the extent to which a researcher can draw conclusions about a larger group based on information derived from a sample or subset of that group. Since it is unlikely that a researcher can test an entire population, acquiring a generalizable sample is very important. Random sampling is both costly and time-prohibitive. Thus, most researchers use samples of convenience, which pose a threat to external validity. For example, there is substantial variability in regional and state social studies standards and accountability policies, so if a sample was drawn from only one region and generalizations were made to a national level, these interpretations would lack external validity. Researchers should report descriptive statistics of the sample characteristics, particularly if the study has been conducted with a sample of convenience (Fraenkel & Wallen, 1991). The criteria for choosing what to include in the description of the sample should reflect the research questions or hypotheses. Using a previous example, it would be necessary to include the frequency of urban and suburban teachers, their mean age (and perhaps range), demographics, mean/standard deviation of accountability percep­ tion, f­requency of testing policies, and the mean/standard deviation of direct instruction‐ use, just to name a few. Inclusion of demographic variables allows the reader to gauge the g­eneralizability of the sample, while also helping to guarantee the transparency of the interpretations. In addition to these procedures, researchers should consider statistical power—the prob­ ability that the given statistic can accurately analyze the rejection of the null hypothesis in a sample of a given size (Fraenkel & Wallen, 1991; Howell, 2002). In a previous review of social studies literature, VanSickle (1986) calculated that less than 42% of the studies he reviewed had sufficient power (in most cases this meant they had small sample sizes). Fraenkel and Wallen (1991) noted that less than 10% of the studies they examined reported findings generalizable to a larger population. In our review of research, none of the studies included specific analyses of power. Moreover, few studies provided demographic information on their sample. Many combined different regional and state samples without considering demographic or sample size differences. As an exception, VanFossen (2005), in a study of Indiana elementary teachers, provided evidence of stratified sampling described in a demographic table and compared his survey sample with demographics of teachers in the state. A few studies, using national and international data, did provide sufficient information on the generalizability of their findings (Chin & Barber, 2010; Fitchett & Heafner, 2010; Zhang et al., 2012). Future studies should address the limitation of general­ izability or at least provide evidence regarding how localized samples could be thought of as  representative of the population of interest. Furthermore, statistical power should be reported where appropriate. Over two decades ago, quantitative social studies researchers (Fraenkel & Wallen, 1991; VanSickle, 1986) remarked that the field overuses inferential statistics. They claimed that samples often lack generalizability to the population and that using more complex models of analysis was thus inappropriate. They argued that it is important that researchers make a

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clear justification for why they use a given statistical method; they should provide substan­ tial evidence, either through a description of sampling procedures or the inclusion of sample characteristics that reported results gleaned from a given sample are generalizable. In our review of quantitative research, we found troubling evidence of misused statistical measures, primarily in studies that attempted to measure the same participants at multiple data points. In these studies, some researchers used independent sample t‐tests instead of paired t‐tests. We also noted that in several studies, researchers reported single correlation analyses without conducting a more thorough multivariate analysis to determine the r­elationship among variables. On a positive note, we also found excellent examples of studies that employed multivar­ iate statistics. Chin and Barber (2010), Otten, Stigler, Woodward, and Staley (2004), and Zhang et  al. (2012) employed path analyses, diagnostic modeling, and factor analyses respectively to examine measurable constructs in teacher and student beliefs, learning out­ comes, and motivations. Callahan et  al. (2008) used multilevel modeling (hierarchical linear modeling) to examine the effect of student, classroom, and school community con­ texts on immigrant voting patterns. In addition, other studies displayed appropriate use of less‐complex statistical measures such as analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multiple regression (i.e., Fitchett & Heafner, 2010; Saye et al., 2013; Shand, 2009).

4.3.3  Interpretation of Results Inclusion of effect sizes.  Quantitative researchers are often quick to scan their findings to examine the p‐values. P‐value refers to the probability that the result found could have been produced by chance or random error, and p values of .05 or .01 are the usual standard. Statistical significance does not necessarily imply substantive or practical significance. A large sample size can lead to results that are statistically significant even when these find­ ings may be inconsequential. It is often appropriate to report the effect size—an indicator of the magnitude of the relationship (Fraenkel & Wallen, 1991; Howell, 2002; Shadish et al., 2002). Effect sizes are calculated in many different ways (e.g., Cohen’s d, eta‐squared, r‐squared) and they are interpreted differently. However, they add an important component to the analysis by allowing the researcher to prioritize model effects, particularly in studies with large samples sizes where there are many statistically significant findings. Similarly, in multivariate models, reporting and interpreting the regression coefficients provide ­additional information about which independent variables should be highlighted in findings and interpretation. In early reports of quantitative research in social studies (Fraenkel & Wallen, 1991; VanSickle, 1986), effect sizes were rarely reported. In our recent review of social studies research, we also found numerous studies publishing results without including corre­s­ ponding effect sizes. As an exception, Saye and colleagues (2013) provided detailed effect sizes for their correlational, analysis of variance, and multiple regression models. These additional statistics provide valuable information on the noteworthiness of a statistical find­ ing. Reporting mean differences in terms of the size of a standard deviation (e.g., Cohen’s d) can give an indication of substantive effects. Social studies researchers should be mindful of  reporting their effect sizes, however small, to give the reader a more comprehensive picture of the analysis.5



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Interpreting the findings.  Interpreting the result of quantitative analysis can be challenging. It is often the case that an important measure is found to be unreliable after the data have been collected, or the desired sample size could not be obtained. Certain research questions may have to be left partially unanswered. In comparison, qualitative research often gives substantial latitude to the researcher in how she/he interprets findings. The inductive nature of this paradigm encourages researchers to make meaning and seek out interpretable spaces within the data (Creswell, 2011; Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003). In quantitative research, reporting of the research results and the interpretation of findings are more constrained. It is particu­ larly important that researchers minimize their claims of causality, particularly in non‐ experimental research designs (i.e., correlational, exploratory, and survey designs). However, researchers (Robinson, Levin, Thomas, Pituch, & Vaughn, 2007) have noted that in leading educational research journals, a substantial number of studies have made causal claims without a legitimate basis for them. From an empirical standpoint, these findings misrepresent the data, design, analysis, and results. If referenced and cited uncritically, these erroneous interpretations can influence the theoretical and conceptual frameworks of future quantitative studies. Unsupported causal claims are also problematic because they undermine assumptions made in more robust studies. Rutkowski, Gonzalez, Joncas, and von Davier (2010) suggest that researchers use terminology like “variables are associated with or a relationship exists between x and y” (p. 148). In contemporary social studies research, few studies make outright causal claims, which is to be expected since we found no true experimental studies. The most robust quasi‐ experimental designs (De La Paz et  al., 2011; Halvorsen, et  al., 2012; Levy, 2011) were quick  to add caveats to their findings (i.e., issues of generalizability, fidelity of program implementation, etc.). However, we noted four persistent issues with quantitative research that should be addressed by the field. First, researchers should avoid using terms like “cause” and “impact.” These terms suggest causality. The degree to which differences in one variable are accom­ panied by corresponding differences in another variable does not prove the presence of a causal relation. Given the limited and rather simplistic design of most social studies quantitative research, this language should be avoided and replaced with non‐causal l­anguage such as “association” and “relation” between variables. Second, researchers should avoid committing ecological and atomistic fallacies, whereby, group‐level findings are interpreted down to the individual level or individual variables are interpreted up to the group level (Hox, 2010). These reasoning errors draw conclusions about individuals based only on data about groups, or vice versa. For example, it would not be appropriate to attribute the characteristics or outcomes of a group of teachers to an individual teacher. Similarly, it would be incorrect to attribute the opinions and reports of principals to an individual teacher’s work. Conversely, researchers should not assume that students, who are nested within schools, necessarily share common qualities. For example, even in a class where a high percentage of students are reading at grade‐level, some are not. Various multilevel analytical tools exist, including multilevel modeling (e.g., hierarchical linear modeling), to account for the clustering of students, teachers, and schools. Third, researchers in social studies need to be more transparent about the context of their studies, a point made in Au’s (2007) metasynthesis of qualitative research in social studies and also raised by Torney‐Purta, Amadeo, and Andolina (2010). Consider the following hypothetical study. A researcher is conducting a non‐experimental survey study examining

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the association between value‐added testing measures and teachers’ instructional decision‐ making. To accurately capture the effect of interest (instructional decision‐making), the researcher would need to examine a comparison group of teachers who are not working in an environment where value‐added measures exist. Simply reporting instructional decision‐ making descriptive findings for teachers working within schools where value‐added m­easures are collected does not provide sufficient evidence. In fact, a whole host of other variables might influence what teachers are doing. Without a comparative context, the interpretation of findings is limited. Lastly, in our review of quantitative research, few studies included a section on limita­ tions. These sections serve as a caveat to the reader, similar to the positionality statement made by qualitative researchers. It offers a plausible rationale for why the findings pre­ sented in the study might be biased and/or inaccurate. Perhaps the most candid limitations section we encountered was in the Halverson et al. (2012) study. The researchers noted that teachers implementing the literacy treatment in multiple ways called their program fidelity into question. This threat to internal validity was documented and presented in a reflective way. It may detract from attempts to draw implications. However, the acknowledgment of limitations also provides a level of intellectual honesty from which to interpret and context­ ualize results. Social studies researchers should be thoughtful and thorough in their inclusion of limitations sections, as many journals in the social sciences require.

4.4  Building on Opportunities for Large‐Scale Secondary Data Analysis Given the above considerations, it can be very difficult to build appropriate analytical models taking into account the nuances of sampling, using appropriate and reliable measures and instruments, and knowing what generalizations are appropriate. Compounding this dilemma, unlike other education disciplines such as special education and STEM, relatively little external funding exists to support social studies research. As a result, there are few resources to support sophisticated quantitative research in the field. Secondary data analysis of existing large‐scale datasets offers social studies researchers an avenue to examine and analyze phe­ nomena of interest at the macro‐level. Secondary data can be defined as data collected for other purposes or by an outside entity repurposed for analysis (Glaser, 1962; Smith, 2008b). From a practical standpoint, it eliminates the costs of data collection, affording the under‐ funded social studies educator the opportunity to build research models and test hypotheses. In the following section, we outline four specific advantages of secondary analysis, namely: sampling strengths, breadth of items and quality of scales, potential for multiple analyses and replication of studies, and the democratization of data access. As a final point, we will out­ line additional considerations and potential pitfalls to consider when using secondary data.

4.4.1  Sampling Strength of Secondary Data In his now famous retelling of events, British social scientist Galton (1907) found that an independent sample of fair attendees has the collective capacity to predict accurately the weight of an ox.6 This rather modest finding spurred a statistics revolution in social science



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by proposing that large numbers can provide better estimates than small groups. Referring to it as the “wisdom of crowds”, Surowiecki (2005) suggests that this phenomenon exists across society from stock market indices to finding lost submarines to sports betting. Theoretically, it is based on the idea that mistakes of the individual (errors) cancel each other out to produce a more representative value. Thus, large sample sizes provide the researcher with greater statistical power. However, collecting large samples is both time-consuming and often extremely difficult due to professional constraints and access to educational agencies (Glass, 1976; Hakim, 1982; Smith, 2008b). Secondary data offer researchers access to information that they could never acquire on their own or with a small team. More importantly, these datasets are quite expansive, allowing the researcher to analyze macro‐level issues previously only examined at a smaller scale (Smith, 2008b; Torney‐Purta & Amadeo, 2013). When incorporating complex sampling and weighting protocols, large‐scale secondary data can, in effect, a­ccurately represent populations in ways that most researchers cannot do, particularly at the state and national level (Coopersmith & Gruber, 2009; Rutkowski et al., 2010). Improved generalizability offers an additional level of credibility to the findings. Researchers able to draw implications from findings representative across a population have an enhanced potential to inform policy and practice in meaningful ways. They can also combat critiques that findings are particularistic and anecdotal.

4.4.2  Breadth of Items and Quality of Scales The affordances of secondary data analysis in social studies research goes beyond large sample size. Secondary datasets frequently include expansive, comprehensive assessments and tests or surveys that afford researchers the opportunity to develop sophisticated variables and scales for analyses (Rutkowski et al., 2010; Smith, 2008b; Torney‐Purta & Amadeo, 2013; Vartanian, 2010). In particular, developing reliable and valid tests of knowledge in social studies is a very complex process and difficult for any small team of researchers to accomplish. As noted above, quantitative researchers must take care that items corresponding to cognitive and attitudinal variables are both reliable and valid. Single‐item measures of learning and teaching are likely lacking in both categories. Secondary data frequently can include multiple items measuring a construct. The development of multiple item scales allows researchers to build more comprehensive analytical models based upon conceptual or theoretical frameworks. Secondary data often include contextual variables, such as demographics (race, gender), cultural capital variables (socioeconomic status, parents’ educational status), classroom‐ level variables (teacher licensure, instructional practices, class size), and school‐level/ community variables (urbanity, percentage minority, state and local education policies). The inclusion of these variables allows researchers to either examine or control for particular ecological or environmental factors that might complicate the relationship between the independent variables of interest and the dependent variables, making it possible to isolate the effects of interest (Podgursky, 2002; Torney‐Purta & Amadeo, 2013). This aspect of secondary data is particularly useful to social studies research, where teaching and learning are influenced by factors such as cultural identity as well as exposure to the curriculum (Fitchett & Heafner, 2013; Niemi & Junn, 1998; J. Smith & Niemi, 2001; Torney‐Purta, Barber, & Wilkenfeld, 2006). Even aspects of the national context can be systematically

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taken into account, as in Barber, Fennelly, and Torney‐Purta’s analysis (2013) of attitudes toward immigrants in 25 nations differing in their levels of openness to immigration (indexed by national policies prescribing the number of years required before an immigrant could apply for citizenship).

4.4.3  Potential for Multiple Analyses and Replication of Studies The expansiveness of secondary datasets also allows researchers to repurpose data for mul­ tiple research studies, across theoretical frameworks, and to answer a seemingly infinite number of research questions. Because large‐scale datasets are already collected, researchers have the ability to focus their attention on the development of sound theoretical frameworks and construction of (appropriately) complex statistical models (Glass, 1976; Smith, 2008a). Since the last reviews of quantitative research in social studies (Fraenkel & Wallen, 1991; VanSickle, 1986; Wallen & Fraenkel, 1988), the ability to develop and test various statistical models has improved dramatically. This is partially due to the proliferation of statistical software (e.g., SAS, SPSS, STATA, AM, LISREL, HLM, Winsteps) that affords researchers the capability to build complex multilevel models that use robust estimates with minimal by‐hand computation. These models allow researchers to account for various ecological factors at the classroom, school, or community level that might violate the independence of errors assumption. They also provide evidence of how these multiple levels are associated with learning and teaching. At the forefront of these initiatives has been the work of Judith Torney‐Purta and col­ leagues, who have used data from the IEA studies, in particular CIVED (see Torney‐Purta, Lehmann, Oswald, & Schulz, 2001). There have been a number of reports of secondary analysis of these data collected from nationally representative samples in 28 countries (Barber et al., 2013; Torney‐Purta & Amadeo, 2012, 2013; Torney‐Purta et al., 2010; Torney‐ Purta & Barber, 2011; Zhang et al., 2012). Their findings document substantial differences in civic knowledge and engagement across instructional exposure and nations. The more recent IEA study, the International Civics and Citizenship Study (ICCS), conducted in 38 countries in 2009, is now beginning to attract the attention of secondary analysts. In another example of repurposing secondary data across multiple studies, social studies researchers Fitchett and Heafner (see Fitchett & Heafner, 2010; Fitchett, Heafner, & Lambert, 2014a, 2014b; Heafner & Fitchett, 2012) used data from the National Center for the Education Statistics Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) and employed hierarchical linear modeling to examine the marginalization of elementary social studies within the context of state educational policy. Findings suggest relationships among state‐level accountability policies, teachers’ perceptions of classroom autonomy, and the amount of time spent on social studies in elementary classrooms. Though these two lines of research explore quite different aspects of social studies teaching and learning, they provide m­ethodological examples of how social studies researchers can build complex models and appropriately repurpose data to examine issues pertinent to the field. The accessibility of secondary data coupled with the explicitness of quantitative research procedures allow for the replication of studies (Smith, 2008b). Secondary data are useful because they have the potential to analyze previously examined variables using more r­epresentative samples. In their earliest analysis of elementary social studies marginalization,



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Fitchett and Heafner (2010) built their model based upon previous, smaller‐scale find­ ings—(a) social studies receives less time than math and English/language arts; (b) later grades receive more time than earlier grades; (c) social studies time has decreased within increased state‐level accountability practices. The novelty of the Fitchett and Heafner study was that it placed these smaller‐scale findings in a national context. The ability to confirm that a, b, and c were found at the national level validates the smaller‐scale studies and increases the impact of their findings. Moreover, the macro‐level context of these findings can generate policy interest and urgency that might not be recognized in smaller‐scale research (Torney‐Purta & Amadeo, 2013).

4.4.4  Democratization of Data Access: Examples of Secondary Data Applicable to Social Studies Researchers7 Though some researchers might be intimidated by the breadth and complexity of secondary data, when encouraged by individuals with statistical training, working with this data is relatively to accomplish (Rutkowski et al., 2010; Torney‐Purta & Amadeo, 2013). This makes the data quite democratizing (Smith, 2008b). In contrast to many state‐level datasets, which are restricted for political and bureaucratic reasons, large‐scale national and international datasets are often freely availability to the public. In the following section, we will highlight and present more specific information about resources for obtaining secondary datasets that might be of use to social studies researchers. Studies conducted by IEA – CIVED (1999) and ICCS (2009).  In recent decades, two large‐ scale cross‐national studies have been conducted by IEA (the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement in Amsterdam). The first was CIVED, a com­ parative study in 28 countries primarily from Europe but also the US, Hong Kong, and Latin America. Both a knowledge test of 28 items and an attitudinal survey were administered to 14‐year‐olds in nationally representative samples of schools (a total of 90,000 respondents tested in 1999) (Torney‐Purta et al. 2001). Many of the examples of secondary analysis cited in previous sections have used these data (e.g., Chin & Barber, 2010; Torney‐Purta & Richardson, 2003). The researchers have examined civic learning outcomes in relation to classroom climate, international context, and student characteristics. These data are freely available through ICPSR (Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research). The second recent IEA study relevant to social studies was the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS), a comparative study of 38 nations from Latin America, Asia, and Europe (the United States declined to participate). This 2009 international large‐ scale research initiative built upon the CIVED study from 1999 (and an earlier 1971 study). The study examined three domains of civic education: content, behavior, and cognition. The data included analytical tools to help researchers build simple and complex analytical models. Researchers have begun publishing from this data, primarily in European journals. Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE).  CIRCLE provides several datasets on student engagement, voting patterns, civic education, and political socialization among youth. Their data are also freely available through ICPSR. CIRCLE has published numerous reports on civic education that can be accessed at their website.

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Survey on the Status of Social Studies (S4).  The S4 is the largest and most comprehensive survey of social studies teachers in over three decades. Though a sample of convenience, the survey provides self‐reported survey data from teachers in 44 states on instructional decision‐making, workplace climate, professional development, use of technology, and p­erceptions of social studies content and curriculum. Initial analyses from this survey data were compiled in an edited book, The Status of Social Studies: Views from the Field (Passe & Fitchett, 2013). The instrument and data are available for public use. National Center for  Education Statistics (NCES).  NCES produces numerous secondary datasets that can be classified into assessments and surveys. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a national, low‐stakes assessment of students’ performance in various subject areas. Among the social studies disciplines, NAEP assessments include U.S. history, civics, economics, and geography. The tests are administered nationally approximately every four years. Prior to the 2010 data collection, these data can be used in conjunction with the High School Transcript studies in order to examine the relationship between students’ grades and course offerings across NAEP findings (see J. Smith & Niemi, 2001). Other sources of data include the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (NELS), which follows students for 10 years after 10th grade. Variables of interest include school extracurricular involvement, professional and academic trajectories, and civic engagement patterns later in life. In addition to these student‐related outcomes, NCES houses data related to the teaching profession. Mostly notably, it includes the SASS data, which can be used to examine school climate, workplace attitudes, and professional intentions. NCES data are free to the public, but access is contingent upon researchers following a strict data‐use security protocol. In addition to these datasets, we encourage researchers to explore the ICPSR. This online database connects researchers with potential datasets across areas of interest. The above list is far from exhaustive, yet serves as a starting point for researchers seeking to explore secondary data options for their lines of inquiry.

4.4.5  Potential Pitfalls When Using Secondary Data The accessibility of these data comes with a caveat. Researchers using secondary data analy­ sis can only examine the situation at the time the data were collected (E. Smith, 2008b). They usually cannot be used for quasi‐ and true‐experimental research because the data have been collected separate from the research study.8 Therefore, these data do not meet the criteria for causal inference (Podgursky, 2002; Shadish et  al., 2002). It is important that social studies researchers who use secondary data refrain from over‐attributing direction­ ality of effects to their findings (Rutkowski et al., 2010; Torney‐Purta & Amadeo, 2013). The findings in secondary analysis provide evidence of the associations among variables, but not cause and effect (E. Smith, 2008b). However, for quantitative researchers in social studies, they still have considerable value. In his comparison of hard science and education, Nobel Laureate and professor of both education and physics, Carl Wieman (2014), noted that unlike education, which is a relatively new science, the laws and principles of physics are rarely debated. New knowledge



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and ideas develop piecemeal. Moreover, physics does not have to consider the complexity of the human element, foundational to educational research and practice. Next to physics and other hard sciences, educational research is a relatively new frontier, where multiple epis­ temologies and contexts are considered, explored, and debated. Little in educational research is viewed as essential truth, thus limiting the predictive power of results in the field (Phillips, 2014). Researchers using secondary data analysis should recognize and report their findings as important within the scope of this ever‐fluctuating and growing field of  study. The findings from large‐scale secondary analysis can and should also be used to inform smaller‐scale contextual and qualitative studies (Gorard, 2002; Torney‐Purta & Amadeo, 2013; Trzesniewski, Donnellan, & Lucas, 2011). A second important point is that secondary data are not error‐free (E. Smith, 2008a, 2008b). The instruments used to collect secondary data may lack reliability and validity. The ways in which missing responses have been coded must also be considered. Moreover, when using self‐reported data, researchers have to be aware of social desirability bias. In their analysis of early SASS data, Henke, Chen, and Goldman (1999) found considerable variability between what teachers reported and what actually occurred in the classroom. Therefore, it is important for social studies researchers to consider: (1) how data were c­ollected; (2) who collected the data; and (3) the purpose of data collection. Being able to discern potential bias prior to analysis (or at least the reporting of findings) is an ethical component of the research process. In addition to reporting bias, researchers should c­onsider how items are constructed and whether their responses accurately reflect their intended purpose. Because items on assessments and surveys are interpreted across demographic groups, it is important to determine whether various characteristics might be associated with item responses. An advantage of large‐scale analyses is that they can be run separately by gender, which can provide insights into educational practices that may be more effective for girls or for boys. Avery et al. (2014) found that girls were more likely than boys to move toward the majority opinion in classes engaged in public issue deliberations. Technical reports that accompany secondary datasets often include such valuable information. Various item response theory (IRT) software exists, allowing researchers to examine reporting patterns in greater depth. Lastly, it is important to remember that p‐values should not be used as the sole criterion for reporting findings. Because secondary datasets often include thousands of individual data, statistical power is rarely an issue. However, the increased sample size also means that statistical significance is more likely to be found for differences with small effect sizes. Beyond significance, secondary data researchers should include the magnitude of the effect to provide a more accurate interpretation of findings. In addition, they should include mean, standard deviation, and confidence intervals surrounding key variables (E. Smith, 2008b). Providing a clear picture of analytical findings offers more accurate interpretations.

4.5  Conclusions and Recommendations Berliner (2002, p. 18) once noted that educational research was “the hardest science of all.” His comments were meant to capture the complexity of educational research, especially the human element of children, teachers, and schools. These complexities lend themselves to

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multiple methodologies and ways of knowing. Among the various fields of educational research, perhaps social studies research is the hardest of them all. Competing purposes, disciplines, and identities create a complex landscape for the researchers. Yet, social studies as a field has prided itself on being democratic in its recognition of multiple ways of know­ ing. Quantitative research is a valuable approach in the field. It should not be privileged, but placed on equal footing with the currently more popular qualitative methodologies. The studies acknowledged in this chapter are by no means the only quantitative research in the social studies. However, they offer a snapshot from the major research journals in the field. We encourage future authors to seek out these studies and others to inform their research. We also offer a few recommendations for how quantitative research in social studies might move forward in the future. First, we encourage potential researchers to con­ sider developing their methodology after determining their research question(s) of interest. Do not become hamstrung by one particular analytical approach in developing a research agenda. Let questions of interest drive the appropriate methodological choice. We were unable to adequately consider mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative), but this is one way to begin (for excellent examples of mixed methods research published in social studies journals, see De La Paz et al., 2011; Hahn, 1996; Levy 2011). Second, researchers who lack sufficient statistical prowess (either to conduct analysis or to write about its results) should ask for help. Each college and/or university has individuals who specialize in quantitative methods (often in departments of educational psychology and sociology) to help in devel­ oping research designs and conducting analyses. Also, the unaffiliated group, Supporting Quantitative Understanding, Analysis, and Research in the Social Studies (SQUARSS), offers a network of quantitative‐minded researchers. The collaborative nature of this group provides a supportive network for furthering quantitative research. Third, look both inside social studies and outside the field to find inspiration for research. As noted in our review of the research, there are relatively few quality quantitative studies in the social studies. Political science, economics, sociology, public policy, educational psychology, youth studies, and comparative education are excellent places to start looking for research topics related to social studies. The potential for quantitative research in social studies will expand only as far as it can help to answer important research questions. In this chapter, we provide future researchers with a rationale and research guidelines for considering how and why quantitative research is valuable. We also suggest that researchers consider the possibilities of large‐ scale secondary analysis. These sources provide a wealth of data and numerous opportu­ nities for researchers. Moreover, their accessibility and relatively low cost are a boon for the perpetually under‐funded social studies scholar. By embracing the capacities of quantitative research to inform and enlarge the field, the research landscape of social studies could explore frontiers that have the capacity to broaden the national impact of research.

Acknowledgments We would like to thank Judith Torney‐Purta (University of Maryland), Carole Hahn (Emory University), and Carolyn Barber (University of Missouri‐Kansas City) for their extensive feedback and thoughtful review of this chapter.



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Notes 1 In statistics, the research hypothesis is not proven. Rather, the null hypothesis (no observable effect) is rejected (Howell, 2002). This is an important distinction. Findings in quantitative research can suggest that there is a relationship among measured variables. However, it cannot prove that there is not some other factor, outside of the hypothesis, contributing to the association. 2 In the previous reviews of quantitative research, Fraenkel and Wallen (1991) and VanSickle (1986) included subsections on the importance of internal validity in experimental designs with specific attention given to various threats (history, test effects, instrumentation, etc.). While we agree these are important considerations, our review of quantitative research in social studies found limited evidence of experimental research. Therefore, we did not include these components in this chapter. 3 None of the studies reviewed met the criteria for experimental design as established by Shadish, Cook and Campbell (2002). 4 For an example of other excellent quasi‐experimental studies not included in the chapter, see R­eisman, (2012) and Avery, Levy, and Simmons (2014). 5 For the sake of brevity, we did not include Confidence Intervals (CIs) in our review. CIs provide estimates that allow researchers to examine the variability of the measured effect (Howell, 2002). 6 For the full story, read Surowiecki (2005) or Galton (1907). 7 The subsequent datasets and repositories are currently accessible at the following websites: CIVED and ICCS: http://iccs.acer.edu.au; Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE): http://www.civicyouth.org; Survey on the Status of Social Studies (S4): http://arc.irss.unc.edu/dvn/dv/UNCCdata; National Center for Education Statistics: http:// nces.ed.gov; Inter‐university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR); http://www. icpsr.umich.edu. 8 There is some disagreement at this point. Longitudinal (or panel) data may allow a researcher to conduct a quasi‐experimental, matched design (Podgursky, 2002; Shadish et al., 2002).

Appendix Articles Reviewed Açikalin, M. (2011). Turkish pre‐service teachers’ beliefs about the nature of social studies. Social Studies Research and Practice, 6(3), 18–35. Anderson, C. B., & Metzger, S. A. (2011). Slavery, the Civil War era, and African American representation in U.S. history: An analysis of four states’ academic standards. Theory & Research in Social Education, 39(3), 393–415. Bennett, J. (2009). The impact of mandatory community service and social support on urban high school seniors’ civic engagement orientations. Theory & Research in Social Education, 37(3), 361–405. Bolick, C. M., Berson, M. J., Friedman, A. M., & Porfeli, E. J. (2007). Diffusion of technology innova­ tion in the preservice social studies experience: Results of a national survey. Theory & Research in Social Education, 35(2), 174–195. Callahan, R. M., Muller, C., & Schiller, K. S. (2008). Preparing for citizenship: Immigrant high school students’ curriculum and socialization. Theory & Research in Social Education, 36(2), 6–31. Chapin, J. R. (2005). Voting and community volunteer participation of 1988 eighth grade social studies students 12 years later. Theory & Research in Social Education, 33(2), 200–217. Chick, K. A., & Corle, S. (2012). A gender analysis of NCSS Notable Trade Books for the intermediate grades. Social Studies Research and Practice, 7(2), 1–13. Chick, K. A., Slekar, T. D., & Charles, E. P. (2010). A gender analysis of NCSS Notable Picture Book winners: 2006–2008. Social Studies Research and Practice, 5(3), 21–35.

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Chin, K., & Barber, C. (2010). A multi‐dimensional exploration of teachers’ beliefs about civic educa­ tion in Australia, England, and the United States. Theory & Research in Social Education, 38(3), 395–427. Choi, Y., Lim, J. H., & An, S. (2011). Marginalized students’ uneasy learning: Korean immigrant s­tudents’ experiences of learning social studies. Social Studies Research and Practice, 6(3), 1–17. Conklin, H. G. (2010). Preparing for the educational black hole? Teachers’ learning in two pathways into middle school social studies teaching. Theory & Research in Social Education, 38(1), 48–79. De La Paz, S., Malkus, N., Monte‐Sano, C., & Montanaro, E. (2011). Evaluating American history teachers’ professional development: Effects on student learning. Theory & Research in Social Education, 39(4), 494–540. Fitchett, P. G. (2010). A profile of twenty‐first century social studies teachers. Journal of Social Studies Research, 34(2), 229–265. Fitchett, P. G., & Heafner, T. L. (2010). A national perspective on the effects of high‐stakes testing and standardization on elementary social studies marginalization. Theory & Research in Social Education, 38(1), 114–130. Fitchett, P. G., & VanFossen, P. J. (2013). Survey on the Status of Social Studies: Development and analysis. Social Studies Research and Practice, 8(1), 1–23. Retrieved from: http://www.socstrpr. org/wp‐content/uploads/2013/04/MS_06462_no1.pdf Franklin, C. A., & Molebash, P. E. (2007). Technology in the elementary social studies classroom: Teacher preparation does matter. Theory & Research in Social Education, 35(2), 153–173. Gehlbach, H. (2004). Social perspective taking: A facilitating aptitude for conflict resolution, histor­ ical empathy, and social studies achievement. Theory & Research in Social Education, 32(1), 39–55. Goldberg, T. (2013). “It’s in my veins”: Identity and disciplinary practice in students’ discussions of a historical issue. Theory & Research in Social Education, 41(1), 33–64. doi: 10.1080/00933104. 2012.757265 Gonzales, M. H., Riedel, E., Williamson, I., Avery, P. G., Sullivan, J. L., & Bos, A. (2004). Variations of citizenship education: A content analysis of rights, obligations, and participation concepts in high school civic textbooks. Theory & Research in Social Education, 32(3), 301–325. Halvorsen, A.‐L., Duke, N. K., Brugar, K. A., Block, M. K., Strachan, S. L., Berka, M. B., & Brown, J. M. (2012). Narrowing the achievement gap in second‐grade social studies and content area literacy: The promise of a project‐based approach. Theory & Research in Social Education, 40(3), 198–229. Heafner, T. L., & Fitchett, P. G. (2012). Tipping the scales: National trends of declining social studies instructional time in elementary schools. Journal of Social Studies Research, 36(2), 277–303. Heafner, T. L., Lipscomb, G. B, & Fitchett, P. G. (2014). Instructional practices of elementary social studies teachers in North Carolina and South Carolina. Journal of Social Studies Research, 36(1), 15–31. Hicks, D., & Doolittle, P. E. (2008). Fostering analysis in historical inquiry through multimedia embedded scaffolding. Theory & Research in Social Education, 36(3), 206–232. Hinde, E. R., Osborn Popp, S. E., Dorn, R. I., Ekiss, G. O., Mater, M., Smith, C. B., & Libbee, M. (2007). The integration of literacy and geography: The Arizona GeoLiteracy program’s effect on reading comprehension. Theory & Research in Social Education, 35(3), 343–365. Kaiser, C. M., & Wisniewski, M. A. (2012). Enhancing student learning and engagement using student response systems. Social Studies Research and Practice, 7(2), 137–149. Levy, B. L. (2011). Fostering cautious political efficacy through civic advocacy projects: A mixed methods case study of an innovative high school class. Theory & Research in Social Education, 39(2), 238–277. Lintner, T. (2006). Social studies (still) on the back burner: Perceptions and practices of K–5 social studies instruction. Journal of Social Studies Research, 30(1), 3–8.



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Lucey, T. A., Hawkins, J. M., & Giannangelo, D. M. (2009). U.S. history interpretations of pre‐service and in‐service teachers. Social Studies Research and Practice, 4(1), 42–55. Marcus, A. S., Levine, T. H., & Grenier, R. S. (2012). How secondary history teachers use and think  about museums: Current practices and untapped promise for promoting historical ­understanding. Theory & Research in Social Education, 40(1), 66–97. doi: 10.1080/ 00933104.2012.649466 Marcus, A. S., & Monaghan, M. (2009). Tasting the flouride: The potential of feature film to enhance the instruction of the women’s movement. Social Studies Research and Practice, 4(1), 13–30. Martell, C. C. (2013). Race and histories: Examining culturally relevant teaching in the U.S. ­history  classroom. Theory & Research in Social Education, 31(1), 65–88. doi: 10.1080/ 00933104.2013.755745 Noel, A. M., & Colopy, M. A. (2006). Making history field trips meaningful: Teachers’ and site educators’ perspectives on teaching materials. Theory & Research in Social Education, 34(3), 553–568. O’Brien, J. L. (2009). High school social studies teachers’ attitudes toward English language learners. Social Studies Research and Practice, 4(2), 36–48. http://www.socstrp.org/issues/PDF/4.2.3.pdf Otten, M., Stigler, J. W., Woodward, J. A., & Staley, L. (2004). Performing history: The effects of a dramatic art‐based history program on student achievement and enjoyment. Theory & Research in Social Education, 32(2), 187–212. Patterson, N. C., Lucas, A. G., & Kithinji, M. (2012). Higher order thinking in social studies: An analy­sis of primary source document use. Social Studies Research and Practice, 7(2), 68–85. Pryor, C. R. (2006). Pre‐service to in‐service changes in beliefs: A study of intention to become a democratic practitioner. Theory & Research in Social Education, 34(1), 98–123. Ragland, R. G. (2007). Adopting and sustaining use of new teaching strategies for American history in secondary classrooms. Journal of Social Studies Research, 31(2), 43–60. Ray, B. B., & Pemberton, C. L. (2010). Engaging 9/11 as a learning event: Teachers’ perspectives e­xamined. Social Studies Research and Practice, 5(1), 58–74. Rock, T. C., Heafner, T., O’Connor, K., Passe, J., Oldendorf, S., Good, A., & Byrd, S. (2006). One state closer to a national crisis: A report on elementary social studies education in North Carolina schools. Theory & Research in Social Education, 34(4), 455–483. Rockoff, J. E. (2004). The impact of individual teachers on student achievement: Evidence from panel data. American Economic Review, 247–252. Rule, A. C., & Montgomery, S. E. (2011). Reflections of pre‐service elementary teachers after learning about an African culture through mask‐making. Social Studies Research and Practice, 6(1), 58–74. Rule, A. C., Montgomery, S. E., Tallakson, D. A., Stichter, M. K., Barness, A., & Decker, K. M. (2012). Teacher candidate attitude changes after experiencing an arts‐integrated unit on Africa. Social Studies Research and Practice, 7(2), 15–31. Saye, J., & Social Studies Inquiry Research Collaborative. (2013). Authentic pedagogy: Its presence in social studies classrooms and relationship to student performance on state‐mandated tests. Theory & Research in Social Education, 41(1), 89–132. doi: 10.1080/00933104.2013.756785 Shand, K. (2009). The interplay of graph and text in the acquisition of historical constructs. Theory & Research in Social Education, 37(3), 300–324. Stufft, D. L., Bauman, D., & Ohlsen, M. (2009). Preferences and attitudes toward accommodations of traditional assessment in secondary social studies classrooms. Social Studies Research and Practice, 4(2), 87–98. Sunal, C. S., & Sunal, D. W. (2003). Teacher candidates’ conceptualization of guided inquiry and lesson planning in social studies following web‐assisted instruction. Theory & Research in Social Education, 31(2), 243–264. Tupper, J. A., Cappello, M. P., & Sevigny, P. R. (2010). Locating citizenship: Curriculum, social class, and the “good” citizen. Theory & Research in Social Education, 38(3), 336–365.

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VanFossen, P. J. (2005). “Reading and math take so much of the time…”: An overview of social studies instruction in elementary classrooms in Indiana. Theory & Research in Social Education, 33(3), 376–403. VanFossen, P. J., & Shiveley, J. M. (2003). A content analysis of internet sessions presented at the National Council for Social Studies Annual Meeting, 1995–2002. Theory & Research in Social Education, 31(4), 502–521. VanFossen, P. J., & Waterson, R. A. (2008). “It is just easier to do what you did before…”: An update on internet use in secondary social studies classrooms in Indiana. Theory & Research in Social Education, 36(2), 124–152. Vogler, K. E. (2005). Impact of a high school graduation examination on social studies teachers’ instructional practices. Journal of Social Studies Research, 29(2), 19–33. Wade, R., & Yarbrough, D. (2006). Service‐learning in the social studies: Civic outcomes of the 3rd–12th grade CiviConnections program. Theory & Research in Social Education, 35(3), 366–392. Williamson, I., Gonzales, M. H., Avery, P. G., Sullivan, J. L., Riedel, E., & Bos, A. (2003). Collectivistic values and individualistic language as predictors of endorsement of citizenship activities among high school students. Theory & Research in Social Education, 31(2), 203–217. Zhang, T., Torney‐Purta, J., & Barber, C. (2012). Students’ conceptual knowledge and process skills in civic education: identifying cognitive profiles and classroom correlates. Theory & Research in Social Education, 40(1), 1–34. doi: 10.1080/00933104.2012.649467

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5

Qualitative Inquiry in Social Studies Research Todd Dinkelman and Alexander Cuenca

In the Handbook of Research on Social Studies Teaching and Learning, Preissle‐Goetz and LeCompte (1991) claimed that a “ferment of activity” (p. 63) was afoot in qualitative social studies education research. Citing an emerging body of qualitative studies from the previous decade on social studies teachers, students, and curriculum, Preissle‐Goetz and LeCompte asserted that an increase in the amount of qualitative work was well under way. In that same volume, Cherryholmes (1991) noted the stirrings of qualitative research, but suggested that  “only a limited number of interpretive studies have been reported in social studies e­ducation” (p. 49). Like so many other educational researchers, social studies researchers in the 1980s and early 1990s began investigating the particularistic contours of social c­ontext and human activities. At the time, qualitative inquiry emerged as a critique of the vestiges of positivism entrenched in education research (Lagemann, 2000; St. Pierre, 2014). The qualitative paradigm represented “a redirection or renaissance of human efforts to understand human environment, beliefs, and behavior” (Preissle‐Goetz & LeCompte, 1991, p. 64). In the decades since, the field of qualitative inquiry in education research has continued to evolve. Drawing on the same ethos that led to early critiques of positivist and postpositivist r­enderings of education knowledge, the qualitative research community engaged (and continues to engage) in debates over epistemology, axiology, and methodology. These debates ushered in new lines of inquiries and fostered the development of new research communities. Today, qualitative research includes an array of approaches, activities, and practices linked together by a commitment to better understand and describe human experience. Because qualitative inquiry does not privilege a particular methodological practice, qualitative methods and methodologies are perhaps best described as a “confederation of practitioners who share a commitment to theoretically and conceptually formulating an engagement with the world that produces vivid descriptive accounts of human experiences” (Preissle, 2011, p. 688). The emergent heterogeneity of the last few decades has helped qualitative inquiry become the dominant paradigm in social studies education research. The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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In this chapter, we use Preissle‐Goetz and LeCompte (1991) as a starting point for our discussion, since the last comprehensive handbook to assess research on social studies teaching and learning (Levstik & Tyson, 2008) did not review qualitative research in a d­istinct chapter. We begin by exploring some of the key principles, concepts, and characteristics of qualitative inquiry. Then we turn our attention to the development of qualitative inquiry in social studies education since 1991. Moving from the descriptive to the evaluative, we turn to important, far more difficult questions to answer: What has the qualitative turn done for social studies education theory, research, and practice? What might the continued use and development of qualitative methods do for social studies in the future?

5.1  What is Qualitative Inquiry? Fundamentally, qualitative inquiry challenges the idea that the human experience c­onsists of a single, relatively stable, and objectively knowable reality. As such, qualitative inquiry pursues knowledge about the human experience through an array of theories, designs, methods, and techniques that help surface the multiple realities of human experiences. According to Denzin and Lincoln (2011), qualitative researchers are able to bring a diverse array of theories and methods to investigations of educational phenomena, such as: “semiotics, narrative, content, discourse, archival, and phonemic analysis … ethnomethodology, phenomenology, hermeneutics, feminism, rhizomatics, deconstructionism, ethnographies, interviews, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, survey research, and participant observation, among others” (p. 6). This kind of proliferation allows qualitative scholars to create different theoretical, conceptual, and instrumental assemblages that further understanding. For example, Vagle (2010) theorized a “post‐intentional” approach to phenomenology by drawing on the post‐structural work of Lather (1993) and St. Pierre (1997) to imagine “a phenomenology that works disruptively along the boundary between descriptive and interpretive approaches” (p. 398). Consequently, the proliferative nature of qualitative research can be considered a strength for a line of inquiry that claims multiple realities. As Preissle (2006) suggests, the qualitative label has endured precisely because “it is vague, broad, and inclusive enough to cover a variety of research practices that scholars have been developing” (p. 690). At the same time, this vagueness also presents a number of challenges. By embracing the complexity of human experience through an expanding panoply of approaches, qualitative inquiry has intrinsic ambiguity. This ambiguity is evident in the various definitions that exist for qualitative inquiry. These various definitions often emphasize different aspects of qualitative inquiry such as its epistemological assumptions, data collection methods, literature and analytical processes (see Table 5.1). For the novice social studies qualitative researcher, the absence of a clear, concise, and generally accepted definition for such an expansive line of inquiry can be frustrating. How are labels such as naturalistic, interpretive, or participatory related to stances such as hermeneutic, feminist, or post‐structuralist? What conceptual and methodological boundaries (e.g., autoethnography, critical discourse analysis, ethnomethodology) are more porous than fixed? What features distinguish a methodological community (e.g., researchers who use grounded theory) and a philosophical community (e.g., scholars who draw from symbolic interactionism)? None of these questions have simple or straightforward answers.



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What seems most clear is that qualitative inquiry is often easier to recognize than it is to define. As Flinders and Mills (1993) suggest, qualitative research tends to be “like a friend’s face in a crowd, we recognize a qualitative study when we see one; its features seem unmistakable, but few of us can explain why” (p. xi). In the vast literature on qualitative methodology, there is no shortage of attempts to establish a definition (see Table 5.1). From these, it is worthwhile spending some time examining features of what a “friend’s face in the crowd” might look like. The features in Table 5.1 are not exhaustive or exclusive, but they are meant to communicate some of the characteristics across the different kinds of studies that deploy the qualitative label. Moreover, the features described are applied features, focused mostly on what a qualitative researcher might do. Since qualitative inquiry defies easy or widely Table 5.1  Sample definitions of qualitative research Creswell (2013)

Qualitative research begins with assumptions and the use of interpretive/theoretical frameworks that inform the study of research problems addressing the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem. To study this problem, qualitative researchers use an emerging qualitative approach to inquiry, the collection of data in a natural setting sensitive to the people and places under study, and data analysis that is both inductive and deductive and establishes patterns or themes. The final written report or presentation includes the voices of participants, the reflexivity of the researcher, a complex description and interpretation of the problem, and its contribution to the literature or call for change. Qualitative research is a situated activity that locates the observer in the world. Denzin & Lincoln Qualitative research consists of a set of interpretive, material practices that make (2011) the world into a series of representations, including fieldnotes, interviews, conversations, photographs, recordings, and memos to the self. At this level, qualitative research involves an interpretive, naturalistic approach to the world. This means that qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of or interpret phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them. Merriam Basically, qualitative researchers are interested in understanding the meaning (2009) people have constructed, that is, how people make sense of their world and the experiences they have in the world. Bogdan & Qualitative research is an approach to social science research that emphasizes Biklen collecting descriptive data in natural settings, uses inductive thinking, and (2007) emphasizes understanding the subjects’ point of view. Preissle‐Goetz & Qualitative research is a loosely defined category of research designs or models, LeCompte all of which elicit verbal, visual, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory data. These data (1991) take the form of descriptive narratives like field notes, recordings, or other transcriptions from audio‐ and videotapes, and other written records such as pictures or films. Qualitative researchers also may collect artifacts—products or things people use—such as objects people make and records of what they say and do. Qualitative research is based on and grounded in descriptions of observations. These descriptions address the question, “What is happening here?” Most qualitative research designs are intended to ask this question. It can be asked about anything—ordinary occurrences, extraordinary events, or circumstances puzzling to an investigator. Glesne (2011) Qualitative research is a type of research that focuses on qualities such as words or observations that are difficult to quantify and lend themselves to interpretation or deconstruction.

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agreed upon conceptual definition, one approach to familiarize others with the features of our friend’s face in the crowd might be to look at the ways qualitative research is used. One common feature across qualitative inquiry is research as a situated activity. Embracing the notion that the human experience takes place in particular contexts, qualitative researchers often conduct their inquiries in situ. Qualitative studies in social studies education are conducted across a wide range of settings such as social studies classrooms (e.g., K–12, teacher education, urban, suburban, rural, and international) and community spaces (e.g., recreational centers, after or during school activities). Working in situated settings designates qualitative researchers as the primary instrument for data collection and analysis—another familiar feature. Direct engagement with the lives of participants means that researchers’ personal insights are part of the inquiry and become important to emerging understandings and potential claims. However, these interactions also demand a reflexive cognizance of the entanglements created when people study people. As such, qualitative researchers often acknowledge their complicity in the embodied relations of power and knowledge that exist when they enter a particular setting. In an example drawn from qualitative social studies education research, Mayo (2013) provides a powerful rendering of the reflexivity that characterizes qualitative research: I did not come to this study as a neutral party. When I first entered Freedom High School, I noticed the rainbow stickers because I, too, continuously seek evidence that any space I enter is safe for me to express myself fully, without keeping various identities hidden …. I also entered Freedom High School burdened by preconceived notions about the students and teachers who worked there. My “surprised” reaction to seeing rainbow stickers was based on an assumption that the privileged students who attended this school came from politically conservative homes where acceptance of queer people and issues was not the norm … I failed to take into account the overall diversity of thought among the students and faculty there. Given my positionality, I consciously guarded against a romanticized, uncritical view of what took place at GSA meetings, yet my belief in the efficacy of GSAs undoubtedly influenced how I engaged this study. (pp. 364–365)

Mayo’s reflexivity offers not just an account of location, but perhaps more importantly provides perspective and makes available to the readers of his research the ways in which he both shapes and is shaped by the research space that he entered. Unique social contexts yield another common feature of qualitative inquiry—data collection strategies that are responsive to the contextual features of situated settings. Interviews, observations, and documents are just some of the ways in which qualitative researchers capture data within situated activities. In social studies research for example, scholars have used innovative data collection techniques such as card or image sorting (Barton & McCully, 2010; Epstein, 2000) to qualitatively pursue students’ situated understandings. This approach to data collection helps researchers communicate stories or inductively reconstituted accounts of the phenomena under study. Qualitative researchers work to categorize, group, and organize data into discernible representations. This move from particularistic data to describing general patterns means that qualitative assertions emerge directly from the situated settings where they were collected. In reporting their findings, qualitative researchers often develop highly descriptive accounts; to illustrate instantiations of phenomena, qualitative researchers must communicate in ways that provide verisimilitude for readers (Creswell, 2013). Because qualitative



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researchers show evidence through rhetoric, there must be enough detail to describe the nuances of the phenomena being investigated. Research in social studies education includes many descriptive qualitative sketches of the various settings, actors, and forces that intersect in various social studies spaces (e.g., Grant, 2003; Saye & Brush, 2006; Segall, 2002). The features sketched in this section are applied features of qualitative inquiry. Yet, it is important to note that qualitative inquiry is not simply the application of techniques (e.g., conducting research in a situated setting, acknowledging complicity, grounding data in contexts, and descriptive reporting). Qualitative inquiry flows from the theoretical and philosophical perspectives of the researcher. In order to apply qualitative strategies, the researcher must settle certain paradigmatic questions about how the world works and how it should be studied (Guba, 1990). As Denzin and Lincoln (2011) contend, all qualitative researchers are philosophers, guided by principles that combine “beliefs about ontology (What kind of being is the human being? What is the nature of reality?), epistemology (What is the relationship between the inquirer and the known?), and methodology (How do we know the word or gain knowledge of it?)” [emphasis in original] (p. 12). How a qualitative researcher answers these questions directly influences the questions, techniques, and strategies used to study the human experience. Different interpretive communities provide different answers to these philosophical questions. For example, phenomenology, ethnography, and action research all have a complex history, literature base, and accepted set of practices that connect the underlying philosophical perspective(s) to strategies for generating an understanding of social phenomena. Ultimately, it is the philosophical commitments on the part of the qualitative researcher, as much as the methods, that animate the application of qualitative inquiry.

5.2  Quality in Qualitative Research If the definition of qualitative inquiry is amorphous, quality in qualitative research is even more difficult to settle. Each community within the qualitative confederacy has a different set of criteria for quality. These standards are constructed, maintained, and interrogated by the members that constitute that community. Furthermore, standards for quality in qualitative work within the various communities may change over time and are not immune from broader social and political forces (Denzin, 2009; Maxwell, 2004). For example, the self‐study of teacher education practices community has evolved over the past two decades to value different ways that researchers address their own biographies and histories, as well as the degree to which they acknowledge the role of the self in a research project (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001). Although various approaches to qualitative inquiry may differ, some general guidelines for monitoring the quality of qualitative research have developed over time.

5.2.1  Depth of Detail One important place to look for quality is in the depth of detail used to describe methods and analysis in qualitative research. Because qualitative research attempts to capture the dynamism and complexity of human experiences, the process of collecting data and communicating conclusions about that data should reflect similar qualities. Therefore, detailed descriptions of the rationales behind particular methods choices, the deployment of those methods in the

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field, the process of sorting and organizing data for analysis, and the winnowing of data into discernible themes speak to a special sort of diligence, responsibility, and thoroughness asked of researchers who address questions that are grounded in sense‐making, context, and unique social settings. These qualities work together to establish warrantability and  transparency for readers of qualitative research (American Educational Research Association [AERA], 2006). For example, in social studies research, scholars attend to the qualitative research process by taking special care to explain the various purposes for different methods (e.g., Serriere, Mitra, & Reed, 2011), the amount of time spent in the field (e.g., Brooks, 2011), the number of interviews conducted (e.g., Martin & Chiodo, 2007), the topics covered and types of questions asked during interviews or focus groups (Conklin, 2010), and the types of documents collected (Camicia, 2008). Scholars also are responsible for providing significant details and insights into the data analysis process. For example, in their investigation of discussions about controversial issues in Guam, Misco and Lee (2014) describe how they merged various themes identified in their research into a new category: “emergent themes of geographic tension within Guam, preservation of culture, cultural militancy, farming within the context of colonialism, and contested definitions of Chamorro all led to the tentative category of Chamorro Identity” (p. 422). Detailed, logically coherent descriptions of research design, methods, and analysis provide means to judge whether r­igorous and comprehensive practices were utilized.

5.2.2 Congruence Another important window into matters of quality is the congruence between research questions, data collection methods, data analysis techniques, and findings. In qualitative studies, research questions indicate both purpose and epistemological positioning (Hatch, 2002) and research questions ought to drive the selection of the kinds of tools and techniques used in qualitative investigations. The methods used to generate knowledge must match the ways in which a researcher, by asking specific research question(s), suggests knowledge can be known. Schmeichel (2011) for example, exhibits congruency in her study of the limited attention to women in the pages of Social Education during the 1980s. She asked two research questions from a critical feminist perspective: “How have women been marginalized in social studies education?” and “Were the feminist principles present in social studies taken up in service of neoliberal forces?” (p. 8). To answer these research questions she utilized post‐structural discourse analysis methods to uncover patterns relating to gender and neoliberalism in Social Education. Her methods choice was congruent with the forms of knowledge she identified in her research questions; it helped her surface knowledge as discourses and forces. Congruence therefore, enhances quality by substantiating the knowledge generated by a particular inquiry.

5.2.3  Thick Description The thickness of the findings in qualitative research provides another indicator of quality. As noted earlier, a familiar feature of qualitative research is its descriptive nature. Detailed and elaborated description is a method of representing the dynamic complexity of the



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human experience. “Thick description,” popularized by Denzin (1989) refers to an account that does more than describe what a person is doing: It presents detail, context, emotion, and the webs of social relationships that join persons to one  another. Thick description evokes emotionality and self‐feelings. It inserts history into experience … In thick description, the voices, feelings, actions, and meanings of interacting individuals are heard. (p. 83)

In other words, thick descriptions acknowledge and attend to complexity. Qualitative findings ought to illustrate patterns and exceptions to patterns, reveal the tacit nature of an experience, and should provide readers with scaffolds to make sense of the interconnectedness of a particular phenomenon. Several studies in social studies education, as noted above, have provided the kind of rich accounting of detail to describe the nuance of experience in different social studies settings.

5.2.4  Situated Knowledge How a qualitative study is situated within the broader scholarly community serves as another indicator of quality. In part, the value of the knowledge generated by qualitative research about social phenomena is the strength of the argument about the ways a study is positioned in relationship to previous research. Most studies provide a review of prior research to help frame the justification for the inquiry. Qualitative research evinces quality when the conclusions and outcomes of the study are situated within the conclusions and outcomes of related studies. Situating the outcomes of a qualitative study in prior research creates a warrant for its contribution. Castro (2013) in his study on the civic worldviews of social studies preservice teachers, provides an example of how the contributions of a study can be situated: While the research literature documents a shallow and limited understanding about the c­ onceptions of citizenship and democracy held by preservice teachers and a dominant preference for traditional and personally responsible forms of citizenship, findings from this study suggest that the roots of citizenship beliefs and conceptions of civic practice lie within each participant’s civic worldview. The idea that prior beliefs inform one’s vision for teaching has been well established in the teacher education literature (Raths, 2001; Richardson, 1996). However, uncovering the nature of these civic worldviews for preservice teachers has yet to be a major focus for social studies researchers. (pp. 235–236)

The findings of Castro’s research stake their significance in their contribution to what is known about preservice teachers’ conceptions of citizenship and democracy. The activity of constructing a relationship to previous research is an important marker of the strength of a study. Like the features of qualitative research, the indicators of quality outlined above are n­either exhaustive nor exclusive and like the multitude of definitions that exist for qualitative research, there are many lists that attempt to articulate quality in qualitative research (e.g., Cohen & Crabtree, 2008; Howe & Eisenhardt, 1990; Tracy, 2010). Once again, it is important to note the significant role that the different methodological communities within

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qualitative research have in establishing and ensuring quality. This variance does not mean the qualitative research abandons the project of standards, but instead suggests that standards must emerge from the nature of the inquiry. The features we address here speak mostly to the quality of studies measured on their own merits, by looking inward at their design and representation. We expand on this discussion in a later section by looking for quality in a different way—by looking outward at what qualitative research does and by linking assessments of quality to questions of value and influence. First we turn to the role of qualitative research in social studies education over the past 25 years.

5.3  The Ascendency of Qualitative Research in Social Studies Education The account sketched so far highlights the development, features, and continual redrawing of boundaries that characterize qualitative research in education. Broadly speaking, the educational research methods wars of the 1980s and 1990s left qualitative research with a place at the table of educational research. The prominence of its place is difficult to discern. By definition, the growing acceptance of new and different forms of qualitative methods speaks to an increased cache. On the other hand, the emphasis on “scientifically based research” in the early No Child Left Behind (NCLB) reform era (Eisenhart & Towne, 2003) revived vigorous debates about the relative merits of qualitative research compared to more established quantitative methods of educational research (Feuer, Towne, & Shavelson, 2002). These debates were likely heard more with respect to the fields of literacy, mathematics, and science, than the social studies. Whether similar flare‐ups might be expected in the future is difficult to say. However, the growing acceptance of qualitative educational research is clear, and facilitated by a number of developments, such as the increased availability and use of methods texts and courses that helped prepare a new generation of scholars to design and carry out qualitative studies (Erickson, 2011), financial commitments by governmental and non‐profit funding agencies to study the sociocultural factors of teaching and learning (Cochran‐Smith & Demers, 2008), and changing demographics of scholars in the 1980s that led to new questions and methods in the early 1990s (Lagemann, 2000).

5.3.1  Proliferation of Qualitative Research In this section we observe that the increasing embrace of qualitative research in social studies education paralleled trends in the broader education research community. Not only was there a stark and marked increase in the amount of qualitative research done in social studies, but the field also witnessed a proliferation of new and different kinds of qualitative research methods that embraced increasingly diverse questions. As Heilman and Segall (2006) noted, the late 1990s signaled a “coming of age” in which new social studies scholars “were more inclined to incorporate a variety of critical postmodern d­iscourses and dispositions … to ask new questions about social studies and use different methodologies to study the field” (p. 22). Although similar in broad contours to the larger movement of qualitative education research, the story of this ascendant methodology in social studies was unique to the field.



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As an enterprise, social studies education research developed in a context of affordances and constraints that looked different than what might be found in other subject areas. On  the affordance side, an argument can be made that the porous and often contested boundaries of social studies presented social studies researchers rich opportunities to explore diverse lines of inquiry (Nelson, 2001). Even within seemingly more focused domains of scholarship, such as geography or economics education, a diverse array of conceptual and empirical research projects developed. In addition, research in social e­ducation is relatively new on the scene. Though social studies education research stretches back to the field’s inception, the primary research journal in the field, Theory & Research in Social Education (TRSE), only became a quarterly publication in 1978 (Nelson & Stanley, 2013). Given this history, one view is that social studies education is wide‐open for scholars to pose research questions on virtually any aspect of the field. Social studies researchers can bring diverse methods of research to the challenge and benefit from the relative range and space afforded by the field. On the other hand, qualitative research in social studies has become increasingly popular as it faces a number of challenging realities. The persistent debates about the definition, nature and purposes of the social studies is a feature that cuts both ways. Many have argued that progress toward a useful body of knowledge proves elusive when research programs do not share at least a generally agreed upon set of assumptions and principles about what the field is supposed to accomplish (Levstik & Tyson, 2008; Seixas, 2001; Shaver, 2001, Wilson, 2001). In addition, the multi‐disciplinarity of social studies education influences both the sorts of research questions asked and the range of methods brought to bear on those questions. Not only does social studies education contend with a confederation of disciplines defined, in part, by the vestigial structures of U.S. higher education academic departments, but methods and scholarly advances in research within and across academic disciplines further complicate the prospects for a connected and coherent community of social studies researchers. This is especially true given that the community of researchers engaged in social studies research is relatively small and tasked with the ground‐level work and responsibility of running teacher education programs. Only a limited number of universities offer doctoral programs specifically in social studies education, and funding for social studies research is miniscule compared to fields such as math and science education. In these ways, the location of social studies in higher education somewhat curbs the potential for new research methodologies to gain traction. The social studies research context foregrounds the growing presence of qualitative research in social studies literature over the last few decades. That growth has been rapid, as indicated by our review of every issue of TRSE since the last handbook chapter review of qualitative research (Priessle‐Goetz & LeCompte, 1991). In that chapter, the authors point to a “ferment of activity,” although some of this research was found in “fugitive places such as dissertations, theses, and paper presentations” (p. 63). If TRSE represents the single best indicator of the status of social studies research, qualitative research clearly has gone above board from its early days (see Figure 5.1). To create this graphic, we looked at the 96 issues of TRSE published between Volumes 19(1) and 42(4). To screen each empirical research article, we used a combination of commonly understood attributes of qualitative research and descriptions provided by the author(s) of the research methods employed. Those studies that relied on text, textbook, document, and content analysis as the primary research method were categorized as qualitative research. Despite sharing some resemblance

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to features of qualitative empirical research, historical research was not counted as qualitative because of its distinct historical and disciplinary standing. Our interests were in  the balance of qualitative research studies across issues, years, and decades, and any d­iscernible trends. Our analysis documents the rise of qualitative research methods to become the dominant inquiry approach of scholarship reported in TRSE. Of course, social studies education research is not bound by one journal. More generally focused, and many higher profile, educational research journals publish social studies research; and a host of international, regional, and state level publications attract the same. In addition, a good deal of careful scholarship produced for dissertations may never find paths to publication. Certainly more of the entire, collective body of literature in social studies resides in other publications and unpublished manuscripts than finds a home in TRSE. Not only is it next to impossible to fully locate the extent and reach of social studies scholarship—i.e., “where is it?”—but the conceptual boundaries—i.e, “what is it?”—also pose a special challenge in reviewing social studies research. Questions include: What distinguishes social studies education research from related research in the behavioral and social sciences? How many degrees of separation remove a particular study from “teaching and learning” before it no longer qualifies as social studies research? In addition, plenty of boundary confusion is inevitable in a field that has no consensus about its identity. Furthermore, the dynamic, evolving nature of qualitative methodologies, in both the field of social studies and its constituting academic disciplines, complicates the easy categorization of those studies that push the boundaries of already settled and accepted research methods. Amidst significant challenges in “locating” social studies scholarship, we currently view TRSE as the best single‐source window for insights into the state of social studies education research. For the purposes of this review, we argue that TRSE serves to legitimate an e­volving social studies discourse and research community, at least in North America. As  the main research journal in the field, TRSE falls far short as the “official” record of scholarship in social studies, but it does provide a suitable marker for tracking trends and developments. From this standpoint, our analysis points to a turn toward qualitative research in social studies in the late 1990s, and the field has not turned back since. Over the entire 24‐year span reviewed, 245 of the 405 (60.4%) total number of empirical research articles in TRSE relied on qualitative methods. Breaking this span into decades reveals clear shifts in direction. In the ten years between 1991 and 2000, 64 qualitative studies were published among a total of 145 (44.1%). In the following decade, 2001–2010, 125 of the 195 (64.1%) published empirical studies employed qualitative methods. If the first four years of the current decade are any indication, the trend line is not only solidly behind qualitative research, but the momentum behind qualitative methods is accelerating. The 16 volumes published from 2011 to 2014 contained 65 empirical research articles, and a full 56 (86.2%) of these relied on qualitative research designs. Of course, an obvious corollary to the rise of qualitative research is the rapidly diminishing shift in other research traditions, primarily those riding under the quantitative banner, but also histories and conceptual explorations. The question of what this shift means for the field is one we will address in the following section. Before then, suffice it to note there can be little question that the social studies research has turned a corner from the days when qualitative research was relegated to “fugitive places,” as was likely the case in the 1980s and earlier.

36 34 32

32

# of non-qualitative studies # of qualitative studies

30

29

28 26

26 24

27

26

23

23

# of studies

22 20

20

16

15

14

13

12 10

19

18

18

10

14 12

12

18

14

12

10

11

12

8

7

6 4 2

2 0

1991–1992 1993–1994 1995–1996 1997–1998 1999–2000 2001–2002 2003–2004 2005–2006 2007–2008 2009–2010 2011–2012 2013–2014 Years

Figure 5.1  Number of non‐qualitative and qualitative studies in TRSE, 1991–2014.

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Our review of TRSE also provided some insight into two other important questions about the development of qualitative research in the field. We wanted to know whether any discernible patterns or trends were apparent in the kinds of research questions asked by qualitative researchers. Did certain topical areas on the map of social studies education research seem to generate more or less qualitative research than other areas? Another issue that interested us was focused on the characterization of qualitative research designs apparent across this 24‐year period. Specifically, we wanted to know what kinds of qualitative methods were used, and what kinds of observations could we make about the terms and manner in which researchers described their work? In our review one aim was to settle on a rough categorization scheme that might provide at least an empirically grounded idea of the areas of inquiry studied by qualitative researchers. Posing the question “What is this research about?” is easy enough. Categorizing the results is a different matter altogether. The great challenge is that research studies rarely, and arguably never, concern only one question. This problem is especially true of qualitative research. Much of the impetus for qualitative inquiry stems from an interest in learning more about complex, situated social phenomena by looking at them more or less holistically and as contextually situated. Qualitative research affords the ability to see the problem‐ space of an inquiry broadly. As well, the sense readers develop over the meaning of qualitative research is influenced, but not determined, by the choices researchers make in authoring their work. So identifying the issues addressed in qualitative research often becomes a challenging act of discernment. What a study is about is easy to determine on a surface level, and exceedingly complex the deeper one digs. Consider Conklin’s (2009) comparative case study of “two pathways” into middle grades social studies teaching. She draws on perspectives of teacher learning framed by sociological and cognitive perspectives to examine the various features of two distinct teacher education programs—one a middle school program and the other a secondary program—leading to initial certification in social studies. Conklin sought to account for a broad array of factors that influenced the social studies teacher education experiences of three focal students in each pathway. She found that prospective social studies teachers encounter complex interactions among the people, purposes, pedagogies, and settings of their programs. This study definitely is about preservice teacher education, as much as it is about social studies teaching and learning in the middle grades. This ambitious study also speaks to the program, university, school, and community contexts that frame the development of these six beginning social studies teachers. As well, the study is about the assumptions participants brought to their programs about the nature of effective teaching, capabilities of the students they encountered, and willingness to take risks in novel situations. If not explicitly teased out or directly addressed as such in her report, the research is about countless other aspects that permeate the work of teacher education. Clearly, the topical boundaries of this one case study are not easily fixed, and the same is true with nearly all qualitative research projects. For this reason, researchers often provide “keywords” to classify their work. Unfortunately for our purposes, TRSE does not publish keywords for articles. Left to our own, we devised a categorization scheme consisting of 20 different topic areas. We collaborated to review titles, abstracts, and select segments of the 245 TRSE articles identified as qualitative research. For each article, each of us generated our own keywords. We compared these keywords and agreed on a shorthand characterization of the general topic area  of each study, e.g., “professional development, inservice teacher education” and



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“global and international social education.” We worked to create a large enough number of categories to represent major research areas in the field without creating so many c­ategories that the forest would be lost for the trees. We then placed each study in a single category by prioritizing categories in the list of descending assignment represented in Table  5.2. That is, the great many studies that fell into multiple categories were placed into a single category via matching the keywords we created with the first category to appear in the category column of Table 5.2 reading from top to bottom. The results of this analysis provide some idea of the distribution of qualitative research in social studies education over the last 25 years. Followers of the field might find the number of studies categorized under particular areas of inquiry somewhat predictable. History teaching and learning is well represented at the top of the list, as is preservice teacher e­ ducation. The prominence of these two categories would be even more p­ronounced had we looked at studies two keywords deep. That is, quite a few studies

Table 5.2  Categories of qualitative research with examples in TRSE, 1991–2014 Category History teaching and learning Economics education Geography teaching and learning

Number of studies 33 1 3

Political Science/ citizenship/ issues teaching and learning Other Social Science education Preservice teacher education

0 28

Critical/authentic/reflective thinking Teacher beliefs/actions

6 15

Student beliefs/actions Technology Elem social studies Professional/inservice/graduate education Global/international education

4 15 13 9

Multicultural /diversity education Textbook/curriculum materials/ media analysis Nature of social studies School/community contexts Gender/sexuality/sexual orientation Standards/testing/accountability Instruction approaches/ interventions

15

24 17 18 1 7 9 10 17

Illustrative examples VanSledright & Afflerbach, 2000; Cunningham, 2007; Marcus, Levine & Grenier, 2012 VanFossen, 2000 Mitchell & Elwood, 2012; Schmidt, 2013 Hahn, 1996; Journell, 2011 Matthews, S. & Dilworth, 2008; Castro, 2013 Onosko, 1991; Swan & Hofer, 2013 Makler, 1994; Washington & Humphries, 2011 Heilman, 2001; Myers, 2008 Milson, 2002; Saye & Brush, 2007 Brophy, 1992; O’Mahony, 2006 Kenreich, 2002; Manfra, 2009 Merryfield, 1998; Misco, 2008; Peck, 2010 Tyson, 2002; Chikkatur, 2013 Dillabough & McAlpine, 1996; Hilburn & Fitchett, 2012 Martorella, 1991 Dimitriadis, 2000; Rubin, 2007 Schmidt, 2010; Mayo, 2013 Segall, 2003; DeWitt et al., 2013 Ochoa‐Becker, Morton, Autry, Johnstad & Merrill, 2001; Serriere, Mitra & Reed, 2011

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investigated the development of ideas and practices regarding history teaching and learning in preservice teacher education. Our method of placing research in different categories might be understood as offering a rough map of the terrain of qualitative research in social studies education, and the relative intensity of interest around each place on the map. More studies likely indicate greater interest. As such, the relative popularity of categories on this list also says something about the productive diversity or continued fragmentation of social studies education research, depending on one’s perspective. Perspective also colors the tentative conclusions that might be reached from looking at this distribution. Those who see social studies as primarily driven by social science disciplines will recognize the prominence of studies about history education, and may be concerned by the comparative lack, and in some cases the absolute absence, of attention given to other social sciences, as evidenced by the mere handful of studies about geography and economics teaching and learning. Perhaps even more alarming might be the absolute absence of qualitative research about teaching and learning in any social science discipline besides history, geography, economics, or political science. Similarly, the large number of qualitative studies about preservice teacher education may signal a vitally important issue in social studies education, or the popularity of this kind or research just as likely can be interpreted to indicate that some qualitative researchers are drawn to the convenience of phenomena proximal to where they work. Another notable finding is that we were unable to discern clear trends in the distribution of studies within categories over time. For example, history education research appears to have a relatively stable and continuous hold on the scholarly imagination of the field since 1991. One exception is the predictable appearance and then rise in popularity of “s­tandards/ testing/accountability” qualitative research post‐NCLB (after 2001). Another, less pronounced, example is the increasing incidence of qualitative studies on preservice teacher education since 2000. Qualitative methodology makes possible an almost limitless range of research questions, consistent with the qualities that define it as a genre of education research. These qualities permit distinctive kinds of research projects. However, the subjects of research addressed by qualitative social studies scholars seem more driven by the sometimes shifting, sometimes stable research interests particular to research subcommunities in the field. Our analy­sis may provide a helpful approximation of the major research fields pursued by qualitative scholars in social studies education. However, many important and fundamental questions await a more careful analysis. Another important set of considerations guiding our review addressed the diversity of research questions, theoretical orientations, and research designs within and across the studies present in each of the categories. Within more populous categories, such as preservice teacher education, we found substantial diversity in what researchers examined, the extent to which they situated their work in a body of related literature or a recognizable theoretical tradition, and the particular ways they articulated their methods of inquiry. For  example, Slekar (2006) employed a case study methodology consisting of classroom observations, document retrieval, and interviews to produce a narrative, “portrait of p­ractice” account of an elementary methods instructor at a small university. Also in the “preservice teacher education” category was Garrett’s (2011) “multi‐case study” of six secondary social studies student teachers at a large university that drew on psychoanalytic theory and “active interviews” to elicit their considerations of a documentary film about the



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influence of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath on people in New Orleans. These two examples provide a snapshot of the range of research found within a single category. Moving from research questions and theoretical orientations to methods, we also tried to attend to the ways authors described the methods of their studies. This meant paying close attention to abstracts and methods sections of articles for the words researchers used to name the general methodological approach, as well as the specific data collection and analy­sis methods they employed. In some cases, the authors made this work easy. In other cases, we had to make our best judgment on how to typify methods, such as when the general methodological approach (e.g., case study) was not specified in the methods section, but references were made to “case(s)” elsewhere in the publication. Table  5.3 provides the results of our review. As we claimed about Table 5.2, our findings should be read as a reasonable, though not exact, representation of the distribution of, if not trends in, qualitative research methods evident in contemporary qualitative research in the social studies. There were too few Table 5.3  Qualitative methodologies/methods in TRSE, 1991–2014 Methodology/methods Action research: participatory research, critical action research Anthropological Autobiographical Case study: instrumental case study, collective case study, descriptive case study, interpretivist case study, multiple case studies Critical Qualitative Inquiry Delphi study Design research Discourse analysis Discussion analysis Ethnography: ethnographic research Hermeneutics Interactive Qualitative Inquiry Life history Methods: field memos, interviews, documents, focus groups, informal observations, questionnaires, interviews, observations, survey, questionnaire participant observation Mixed methods Phenomenology Portraiture Practitioner research Self‐study Symbolic Interactionism Teacher Research Text Analysis: document analysis, textbook analysis, content analysis

Number of studies

Examples

6

Dinkelman, 1999; Gerwin, 2003

1 1 70

Urietta, 2004 Gillette & Boyle‐Baise, 1996 Conklin, 2010; Saye, Kohlmeier, Brush, Mitchell & Farmer, 2009; Van Hover, Hicks, & Sayeski 2012; Endacott, 2014 Tyson, 2002 Martorella, 1991 Breakstone, 2014; Saye & Brush, 1999 King & Womac, 2014 Goldberg, 2013 Silva & Langhout, 2011 Mathews, 2011 Kawai, Serriere, & Mitra, 2014 Jenne, 1997 Grant, 2005; Kenreich, 2002; Levstik, 2002; Dilworth, 2004; O’Mahony, 2006

1 2 4 2 3 5 1 1 2 91

12 3 2 1 3 1 1 23

Levy, 2011; Rock, et al., 2006 Peck, 2010; Heilman, 2001 Manfra, 2009 Martell, 2013 Ritter, 2010; Sevier, 2005 Mangram, 2008 Gerwin & Visione, 2006 Wade, 1993 Schmeichel, 2011

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instances of research within most of the categories we identified to discern trends. One notable exception concerned the two most populated categories—“case study” and the more catch‐all “methods” (for lack of a better descriptor)—and the shift over time towards what appeared to be growing acceptance of case study as a signifier of a general class that draws together distinct methods that previously stood by themselves as identifiers (e.g., interviews, observations, field notes, etc.).

5.3.2  Convergence and Divergence Considering the status of qualitative social studies research 25 years ago, our review of work in TRSE alone highlights an interesting juxtaposition of trends. We noticed a simultaneous convergence and divergence at play as the acceptance and quantity of social studies s­cholarly research articles have increased. On the convergence side, qualitative researchers now have available more shared language to communicate about their work. Terms such as case study, ethnography, inductive coding, and member checking now carry much easier currency than they did in our field in the early 1990s. Contemporary qualitative researchers do not have to spend as many words as their forebears in explaining why validity, reliability, and researcher bias in qualitative research do not carry the same meaning as they do for most forms of quantitative research. As well, most would agree the paradigm wars in the broader enterprise of educational research have been settled enough so that energy now might be directed toward the design and execution of qualitative study in their own right, and not just their defense. We are not suggesting that all qualitative researchers theorize and conduct their research in a language that is universally understood by all who march under the banner. Our own encounters with the various ways in which researchers claim “grounded theory” as a method of analysis, for example, put that idea to rest. Yet developing common ground in the discourse of qualitative research methodology makes it easier to share, compare, and challenge scholarly findings. If not always widely agreed upon, the language within qualitative research is currently far more recognizable and shared today than it was two decades ago. Of course, qualitative methodology is a field in motion. New ideas and approaches to inquiry develop, as well as the language to support and describe them. Yet we view a growing, shared qualitative research discourse as a great boon to the field of social studies research. At the same time that an emerging and consolidating language has led to something of a convergence among qualitative researchers, the rapid proliferation of new qualitative languages and methods fosters a divergence in the kinds of questions asked by social studies researchers and the methods used to investigate these questions. Simply put, qualitative research allows researchers to ask different kinds of questions than previously possible. Different research questions prompt the development of different methods. The proliferation of new qualitative research methods, approaches, and theoretical underpinnings discussed earlier explains a good part of the diversity of qualitative research projects in social studies education. This diversity is something one would expect to see mirrored in reviews of qualitative research in other subject areas, such as in science and language arts education. An  increasing number of studies push the boundaries of qualitative research partly because there simply are more boundaries to push today than there were 25 years ago. We might expect the expansion of the liminal frontiers of



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qualitative research to pick up its pace in the years to come since, as Cherryholmes (2006) so aptly put it, “Differences beget difference” (p. 10). In addition, contemporary qualitative research in social studies is marked by a d­ivergence that is amplified by the unsettled nature of social studies education, including the diverse intellectual traditions supporting it and persistent disagreements over purposes and p­ractices. In other words, the increasing diversity of qualitative research projects one would expect to see as the field of qualitative methodology itself matures may be even more noticeable in the social studies, given the history of social studies as a contested field over the past century. One could imagine a future for qualitative research in the social studies that invites a vibrant and increasingly exploratory use of diverse methods turned to more and more innovative research questions. The extent to which this prediction will prove accurate depends a great deal on the capacity of a comparatively small group of researchers within the field to take on this work. Also important will be developing a scholarly culture that provides encouragement and support for researchers willing to explore the boundaries of emerging approaches to qualitative research. The maturation of qualitative research in social studies education has been impressive, but it is still at an early stage. Continued development seems likely as the discourses around different qualitative research traditions circulate more widely, settle upon common reference points and shared understandings, and generate new methodological approaches to understanding the complexity of social studies education. Our review sheds light on key descriptive questions concerning the prevalence of qualitative scholarship in social studies education, the methods subsumed in this body of work, and the general subject orientation of this work. Drawing a page from the qualitative research tradition itself, we can move the analysis to more interpretive questions, questions that push the inquiry into evaluative considerations. What has the surge of interest in qualitative research done for theory, research, and the practice of social studies education? What now is known about the field that we did not know before the scholarly tide shifted? What sorts of openings for developing new insights has qualitative research provided to social studies education researchers? Who benefits from this ascendant approach to research in the field? In the coming decades, what further opportunities might qualitative research make possible and to what end? Clearly these interpretive questions are difficult to answer. As well, they surface lots of disagreement, grounded as they are in the diverse ideological, epistemological, and value orientations so  characteristic of the social studies research community. Challenging as they may be, we provide some reflections on these very questions in the concluding section.

5.4  The Qualitative Turn in Social Studies Education: So What? What has the qualitative turn done for social studies education theory, research, and practice? What might the continued use and development of qualitative methods do for social studies in the future? We can hardly imagine two more important questions to address in a handbook chapter review about qualitative methods. Thinking about these questions for this review, we recalled conversations with colleagues about research in social studies. We agreed these are the sorts of questions that sometimes invite quick, summary responses, such as “a great deal,” “not much,” or “maybe a little.” Such conversations easily

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can trail off, perhaps because the questions become exceedingly difficult to answer. Asking “So what?” of education research more broadly, not just about qualitative research in social studies education, invites the same kinds of responses (Lagemann, 2000; Levin, 2004). The  challenge of making warranted claims about what difference the longer history of educational research has made is just a larger, broader instantiation of the complexity involved in taking stock of the same question asked of qualitative social studies education research. We open this final section of our review of qualitative research in social studies education with what may seem like pretty obvious observations—summary assessments are easy and less superficial responses are difficult—because we think they speak to a special epistemological consideration in assessing what qualitative research has a­ccomplished so far and might accomplish moving forward. We call this epistemological challenge “the accordion problem” of knowing in qualitative research. The idea is that squeezing in toward specific knowledge claims made possible by qualitative research yields one set of notes, notes that reflect the basic tenets and strengths of the genre. Focusing attention on a well‐rendered qualitative study provides insights about this phenomenon among these social actors in a particular place and at a particular time. Here is what qualitative research offers at its best. Qualitative research permits analysis of any number of contextual layers, provides interpretive license for researchers to rethink findings in light of various theoretical orientations, gives space for richly descriptive accounts, and offers opportunities to generate new explanations to guide how we account for what happens in social studies. But widen the bellows, pull the treble apart from the bass, and those notes disappear. They are replaced by different sounds. Focusing down to a study‐by‐study level permits certain knowledge claims that fade as you work from the particular to the general.

5.4.1  Social Studies Research and the Development of a Knowledge Base Against this accordion problem, one option we considered was to approach the “what have we learned?” question with a well‐established strategy common to synthetic research reviews. That is, we might have appealed to the popular idea of a “knowledge base” derived from formal research on teaching and learning, as distinct, perhaps, from the knowledge practitioners develop in the course of their practice (see Hiebert, Gallimore, & Stigler, 2002). In this case, the aim would be assertions about what a large and diverse body of qualitative research has contributed to the knowledge base in social studies education. Appeals to knowledge bases have obvious allure. A knowledge base suggests a reasonably settled collection of recognized and shared understandings held by members of a research community. A knowledge base provides a convenient way of thinking about new research. New findings mostly add to a growing body of knowledge, and occasionally prompt a reconsideration of what knowledge was already there. A knowledge base asks a reviewer to consider some representative sample (for one could not possibly review all) of qualitative studies in social studies to identify what has been learned to fashion an amended and richer (if always incomplete) knowledge base. For example, we might point to any number of qualitative research studies on historical empathy in secondary social studies, and suggest any number of claims regarding what we know more about the development of historical empathy among elementary students as a result of these studies. Completing the image,



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this  new and improved knowledge base then would be available for use in subsequent efforts toward better theory, research, and practice in social studies education. This is the conventional approach. Yet we see several shortcomings with a knowledge base approach to thinking about the contributions of qualitative research. For one, we argue the very notion of a “research base” works rhetorically as much if not more than it does pragmatically. “Research base” can work in discussions to provide an image of a conceptual repository for research production. Whatever is learned always adds to the knowledge base, even if it is difficult to identify in practical terms what is already there. Second, we argue that it is all too easy to conflate research knowledge “created” with research knowledge “understood” (or even “accessed” or “read”) and/or with research knowledge “put to use.” The distinctions among these different senses of research knowledge matter in teasing out the meaning of a research base. What counts as a research base in each instance renders the term ambiguous. A knowledge base in civics education, for example, stems from a critical number of others who share similar views about what civics is supposed to accomplish, and who can point to a substantial enough body of work in the field that yields a largely consensus view of the key principles, relationships, facts, propositions and methods pertaining to a reasonably recognized, bounded set of activities known as teaching and learning in civics (see e.g. Kahne & Middaugh, 2010; D. Hess, 2008). Disagreements at any point along the way complicate the notion of a single, identified knowledge base. Extending this point, another challenge to the idea of a knowledge base is the question of its value, if represented only in a review of research and not in practice. At a minimum, we ask, if a study is published, and nobody reads it, what is the contribution to what sort of (or whose) research base? From the thousands of educational research articles published every year, the truth may be that only a handful of ideas ever cross over from the university to the schoolhouse (Schneider, 2014), and social studies education research appears to be no exception (Thornton, 2006). Finally, as a signifier intended to encapsulate rough assemblages of knowledge, the accumulated wisdom about a problem or field, the knowledge base in virtually every domain of educational research appears to be always found lacking. Whatever we might claim to know about how students learn or teachers teach social studies, it always seems the case that what we know is insufficient, hinting perhaps that if we only had a larger knowledge base, we might reach the tipping point of “now we have enough” to  think and act for improvement. Perhaps the field does not need another handbook chapter (e.g. Cornbleth, 1991; Hicks, van Hover, Doolittle, and VanFossen, 2012; Levstik, 2008; Wilson, 2001) to rest its case in a knowledge base that is forever “not enough.” For these reasons, we take a different path.

5.4.2  Social Studies Research and its Impact on Stakeholders Instead we chose to evaluate the contributions qualitative research has made to social studies over the past 25 years by asking who benefits and how. This shift reroutes considerations of progress away from an ever‐evolving research base and toward particular social studies interest groups. What difference has qualitative research made to various stakeholders in  social studies education? Not that this question is any more tractable than the knowledge base question; in some ways, it is even more complex. Empirical claims that

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draw ­relationships between research and influence in the complex social spaces of schools and elsewhere are hard to support. Anecdotal evidence and speculation abound, but here too the accordion problem presents itself. What difference research has made in a particular educational setting with this teacher or these learners is difficult enough to know. Broaden the view to include lots of educational settings, teachers, and learners, and already tentative claims become more and more unsupportable. Still, reframing the question of “so?” (Shaver, 2001, p. 243) toward stakeholders shifts the discussion away from relatively uncontestable claims about what research contributes to this or that knowledge base and more toward what qualitative research does for whom and how. To start, in the search for ways that qualitative research has made a difference, arguably no two groups hold higher stakes than social studies teachers and students. How the educational experiences of those in either group is any better or worse off for the qualitative turn in  social  studies education research is hard to say, but, generally speaking, qualitative research as a class in the broader world of educational research likely suffers criticism on this count. The widely accepted view is that educational researchers operate in a different world than teachers and students (Labaree, 2008; Lagemann, 2000), and even the public at large (Yettick, 2015). There is little reason to believe this disconnect is less the case in social studies (Leming, 1992). Research travels from university to classroom via pathways that are difficult to trace and littered with roadblocks. As well, despite an enormous volume of reform‐­ oriented social studies research, we find no evidence to suggest that teacher‐centered content coverage methods have lost their hold in U.S. social studies ­classrooms (Cuban, 1993; Goodlad, 1990, Levstik, 2008; Newmann & Associates, 1996; Saye & SSIRC, 2013). If  anything, a growing body of social studies qualitative research suggests that the influence of the recent wave of accountability and Big Test reform measures has served to ratchet down the “cover and move on” character of many social studies (Grant & Salinas, 2008) with some exceptions (Gradwell, 2006). On a macro level, if the basic grammar of social studies and schooling have remained unchanged for the past 25 years or longer, then the search for differences made by qualitative research, or any form of educational research for that matter, in the lives of teachers and students essentially signals case closed. Yet we contend that the state of affairs is more complicated and more heartening than this somewhat discouraging narrative suggests. A broad view search for evidence of widespread influence in North American classrooms obscures the less visible counterexamples of progressive change made in all levels of social studies education prompted by critical engagement with qualitative research. Such changes matter, even if they are not always easy to pinpoint, and virtually impossible to aggregate. Perhaps we need to look in different ways for different measures of influence. Measuring the influence of qualitative research in social studies against a standard of transformed schools, widespread shifts in classroom life, and significant influence on educational policy is likely to breed frustration and disappointment. However, by reconsidering the standards for “making a difference,” and searching in the right places, a stronger and perhaps more realistic case can be made for what qualitative research has done and might do for the field in the coming years. Arguably the primary consumers of qualitative research in social studies education include those who produce it and other scholars, as well as those students who encounter this research in preservice and in-service teacher education settings. As well, in different ways, social studies research, including qualitative studies, informs social studies professional development activities, just as these very activities have provided a site for



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recent professional development research, including a fair amount of qualitative research (van Hover, 2008). For novice and experienced teachers, meaningful engagement with qualitative studies has tremendous potential to foster new perspectives on the difficult work of teaching social studies, encourage reconsiderations of methods and purposes of work in the field, develop a sense of community as readers see their professional lives represented in the stories of others, and encourage conversation among current and future social studies educators about the problems and promises of the field. We ourselves know qualitative research has such potential for we each have seen examples in our own teaching of qualitative research working in this way. Reading Epstein (2009) puts front and center the nexus of racial identities and interpretive frameworks both teachers and students bring to history classrooms. Her research might be used not only to raise this issue, but also to prompt reflection about the different ways race, identity, and interpretive frameworks can be leveraged in the classroom. Hess’ (2009) work might do the same for the discussion of controversial public issues. She provides examples of classroom discussion that illustrate the power of authentic discussions in classrooms. In addition, her work offers invaluable empirical support, a “research says” offering, for the role discussions might play in moving the field toward more ambitious learning. These are just two of the many examples we could provide from our own experiences teaching social studies research. Simply put, we find the greatest potential contribution of qualitative research in its use to heighten sensitivities to important instructional, curricular, and contextual features of life in schools that might otherwise go unnoticed. Qualitative research can help educators see educational phenomena in more sophisticated ways. The rich descriptions and analyses in context available to readers of qualitative research can make possible other views of social studies teaching and learning that simply are not as accessible via quantitative research. Deeper and richer understandings about the field lead to more and better ways of working within the spaces of social studies. In this way, qualitative research makes a very real contribution to more powerful and meaningful social studies teaching and learning. Qualitative research raises for consideration previously unconsidered aspects of social studies education, prompts teachers and teacher educators to rethink their practice, and provides ideas about future directions in theory, empirical research, and practice. Continuing the argument, of course the hope is that students benefit from their engagement with teachers who are wiser about their work. Again, the processes that link qualitative research to improved student learning in the social studies are difficult, if not impossible, to identify with any certainty. Difficulties be damned, we know that the institutionalization of all manner of models to draw causal relationships between measures of “teacher quality,” as  well as those teacher education programs held at least somewhat responsible for these measures, and “student achievement” is a growth industry among policymakers in the  current context of educational reform (Baker et  al., 2010; Berliner, 2014). Working this chain of logic backwards, we know of no means to identify the relative contributions made by isolated determinants of teacher quality, such as engagement with educational research, qualitative or otherwise, that could then be drawn directly to specific instances of  social studies student learning. Even so, the value of more thoughtful, skilled social studies teachers is uncontested. Though difficult to identify and quantify, the contributions qualitative research make for social studies teachers and students are no small achievements.

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In addition to teachers and students, we also contend that social studies scholars themselves have directly benefited from the surge of interest and acceptance of qualitative research in the last 25 years. A wider field of opportunities to pursue different research methodologies serves social studies faculty in several different ways. One obvious benefit rests in the reward systems of higher education. Published peer‐reviewed research is a key, if not the most highly regarded, measure of value in many schools and colleges of education, as tenure, promotion, merit pay, and prestige accrue from scholarly production. The growing acceptance of qualitative research means that opportunities for scholars to chart new research agendas has widened as well. Schools and colleges of education, and the ­universities that house them, also benefit from the new lines of inquiry made possible by qualitative research. Accomplished scholars raise the profile of their home institutions through increased recognition and better positioning for grant competitions. One might consider an ascendant qualitative research tradition a zero sum gain, when measured against a corresponding loss of footing for quantitative research. Even if true, our argument is the broadened research field made possible by qualitative methods attracts an increasingly diverse body of researchers who otherwise might have chosen not to pursue careers in social studies education research. Our review suggests that qualitative research has fundamentally changed the work of social studies research. Qualitative methods have opened up social studies scholarship to new avenues of intellectual pursuit. Over the last quarter century, qualitative inquiry has created innovative opportunities for researchers to ask different kinds of questions, pursue a much wider array of research designs, and publish work that addresses the contexts and process of teaching and learning in ways formerly limited by a more quantitative orthodoxy. The evidence provided by our review of TRSE suggests that social studies researchers have availed themselves of these opportunities. The appeal of a broader landscape of research opportunities may explain part of the growth. As well, though often time‐consuming, many qualitative research studies can be undertaken with minimal funding and in relatively convenient research settings. Both points are relevant to this discussion because they provide some context for understanding several critiques of social studies research, and of qualitative social studies research in particular, based on repeated observations that much of this research consists of seemingly unreplicatable, isolated, individualistic, and short‐ term studies disconnected from larger contextual frameworks (Adler, 1991, 2008; Shaver, 2001; van Hover, 2008). Besides broader and more diverse research possibilities, we contend qualitative research also serves researchers in an even more important and often unacknowledged way—it makes social studies researchers smarter about what they do. Systematic, intentional inquiry into any aspect of social studies can develop habits of mind, understanding, and ways of seeing that aspect in more sophisticated ways. Quantitative research may have similar payoffs in this regard, but qualitative studies push the researcher in distinct ways— to live with ambiguities, set aside the drive for certainty, steep in the complexity of context, and practice creating narratives. Qualitative research can direct attention to the latent and manifest features of educational settings in ways that are difficult to capture in quantitative research designs. The discernment called for in conducting qualitative research, and in interpreting the work of others can prompt a reconfiguration of sense about educational teaching and learning social studies that positions social studies educators to better inquire, teach, and serve.



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One case in which qualitative research stands to make a special contribution is the developing suite of practitioner research methods. If it is true that qualitative research affords meaningful opportunities to address knowledge embedded in local settings, then a productive initiative that should become more prominent among social studies researchers is to champion the use of qualitative research methods among social studies educators in their own settings. Action research, self‐study, teacher research groups, and other forms of practitioner inquiry stand to benefit the teachers who engage in it, as well as their students (Zeichner & Noffke, 2001). A more concerted effort to promote teacher research could pay off in ways that university‐ and college‐based qualitative research apparently struggles to accomplish. The research‐to‐practice connection made possible in various forms of practitioner inquiry is a built‐in feature of this work, when the work is embedded within practice (Crowe & Dinkelman 2010; Johnston, 2006). The influence extends to others when the work is done collaboratively, as is so often the case in this genre of research (LaBoskey, 2004). This work might mean teaching about teacher research in initial teacher certification programs, and in graduate and professional development programs (Dinkelman, 2003). Examples of such work appear in social studies teacher education research (McAnulty & Cuenca, 2014; Ritter, Powell, & Hawley, 2007; Trout, 2010; Hostetler et al., 2013) and from social studies teachers in public schools (Martell, 2013). Even more, spaces traditionally reserved for higher education research, such as journals and conferences, might be opened to include the work of K–12 classroom teachers. Social and electronic media might do even more to make visible the knowledge generated by teachers through these ground‐level approaches to social studies research. At its best, qualitative methodology prompts consideration not only of what methods work best for what sorts of questions, but also encourages deliberation about why a particular research interest is worth pursuing in the first place. Why we should care about inquiring into this rather than that aspect of education is a question all researchers should address. However, in stepping into the complexity of “how things work” and why people believe and act as they do in particular situations, in taking on the broad landscape of possibilities that educational phenomena afford, and in setting the boundaries of problem spaces at the center of their scholarship, we believe qualitative researchers are provided a broad view that encompasses questions regarding the value of their work, and not just technical proficiency. The qualitative turn in educational research brings an open‐endedness and intimacy to educational research that highlights ethical concerns that were previously less considered or simply unacknowledged (Howe & Moses, 1999). As Erickson suggests, good qualitative research “has a critical vision of ends as well as of means toward ends” (Moss et al., 2009, p. 504). In this sense, qualitative research stands to improve social studies research for the perspectives it prompts about not only how research is done, but what for. These perspectives stand to make us smarter too. The intelligence we have in mind here is consistent with the sort William Stanley has championed for the entire period of qualitative research we review here (1991; 2001; 2011). Stanley draws on Dewey and other pragmatist thinkers to argue phronesis, or practical judgment, as the primary aim of social studies education. Practical judgment necessitates a continual reconsideration of means and ends in encountering a problem, within ever‐ changing political and social contexts. Practical judgment acknowledges the limits of what we can know about “how things work.” For Stanley, and Dewey and many others, inquiry requires an open‐minded, responsible, and whole‐hearted search for knowledge, along

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with tentativeness, humility, and will to continue reconsidering knowledge in light of diverse and new perspectives. The parallels are striking between this stance and what qualitative methods asks of researchers. For this reason, a good part of the payoff for social studies qualitative research done so far, as well as its prospective contributions, lies in its potential to develop our practical intelligence about what it means to work with prospective teachers, future researchers, and colleagues to promote better practice in social studies education. We acknowledge the risk of advancing practical intelligence as an important contribution of qualitative social studies research over the last 25 years. This stance relies far more on the strength of the argument than any empirical phenomena we could point to as evidence that the field is any better off for taking the qualitative turn. We simply do not know the extent to which qualitative inquiry makes the difference we speculate it might. Like Stanley, we draw on Dewey’s articulation of a way to consider the worth of a particular social arrangement: “How numerous and varied are the interests which are consciously shared? How full and free is the interplay with other forms of association?” (p. 83). It is hard to look at the ascendancy of qualitative methodology in social studies and not see that more numerous and varied interests have been opened up by the diversity of research questions, methods, and theoretical orientations. How clear and free the interplay around this activity has been is difficult to assess. To tap the educative power of qualitative research more fully, social studies researchers should strive to cultivate a profession climate that welcomes, encourages, and seriously entertains the diversity that qualitative methods have brought to the field (Barton, 2006, pp. 4–9), a point we return to in the final section. So far, we have pointed to researchers, teacher educators, teachers, and by extension their students, as the principal beneficiaries of qualitative social studies research. The potential of qualitative research to make a difference extends beyond these groups. Participants in research projects often benefit from their engagement with research activities. Interviews, focus groups, card sorts, think‐alouds, video recall reviews of tentative narrative representations—these ways of collecting data from participants also involve them in the research process and often prompt their reflection on experience. Going further, emerging research traditions as diverse as action research, critical/radical pedagogies (DeLeon & Ross, 2010), critical postmodern (Segall, Heileman, & Cherryholmes, 2006), self‐study (Crowe, 2010), and emancipatory research (Tyson, 2002) each have called in distinct ways for more explicit attention to the manner in which research projects might work in the interests of participants and not just those of the researcher(s). Here again, the differences made for those who participate with researchers in the conduct of qualitative research is largely unknown and perhaps unknowable, but any discussion of influence must acknowledge this group. Finally, although we have already pointed to the unlikelihood that social studies qualitative research has done a great deal to move educational policy, it is hard to trace the influence of qualitative research in contributing to a climate in which educational reform policies are aided or abetted (Donmoyer, 2012). By their nature, educational policies tend to be created globally, and enacted locally. So the possibility of some influence on policy issues is real too. If policy influence is an aim, the field should continue efforts to get qualitative research in the public eye and in ways that are likely to capture more widespread attention than has been the case with academic journals and books, also a point referenced in the following section. We should remember, though, that the search for differences that



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social studies qualitative research has made in the policy sphere is not only difficult in this field. Research on the utilization of educational research in policy‐making affirms that influence runs through historical, social, and political channels that often have little to do with the quality of educational research itself (D. Hess, 2008; Levin, 2004; Lubienski, Scott, & DeBray, 2014). In this discussion of the differences made by social studies qualitative research, we sidestepped the conventional “knowledge base” manner of framing research reviews in favor of looking to what this approach to inquiry does for different stakeholders. If looking to a mythical knowledge base is troubling, we acknowledge our approach is too. Are the benefits and progress we have described any less “real?” Does serious engagement with all sorts of qualitative research in actuality help teachers, teacher educators, and researchers develop richer and more useful ideas about how to do their work better? Perhaps encounters with qualitative research can dull capacities for productive ways of seeing teaching and learning problems as much as they can help. Have 25 years of burgeoning interest in qualitative methodology advanced the field in the ways we argue here? Returning full circle to the opening of this section, one might observe that these questions also invite off‐the‐ cuff responses—“no, not really,” “maybe a little,” or “absolutely,” and so forth. The challenging work is to elaborate these responses. Difficult as these questions are to answer, we believe such questions are vital to consider as we look forward to next steps in tapping the potential of qualitative research to continue and extend its contributions in the future.

5.5  Recommendations for Qualitative Social Studies Research Qualitative methodologies have changed the landscape of social studies scholarship in the last several decades. This much is clear. In this review, we eschewed a knowledge base approach to assessing the merits of the qualitative turn. Instead we argued the differences made by qualitative research lie more in its contribution to expanding and diversifying what gets seen as the problem space of social studies education, who sees this problem space in increasingly differentiated and perhaps more sophisticated ways, and how encounters with qualitative research shift what educators see when they theorize and practice in the field. Our approach is unlikely to satisfy everyone, particularly those who may continue to raise questions about the scientific rigor of various methods within the qualitative research paradigm. The contention around the “scientifically‐based” education research discourse over the last decade (National Research Council, 2002; Eisenhart & Towne, 2003) may signal that education research paradigm wars may not be completely settled (see Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004). As the genre continues to develop and diversify, some may fear an “anything goes” expansion of what counts as quality research, and the undisciplined applications of methods with insufficient theoretical clarity. Others may express doubts about what qualitative work has to tell us about anything besides the local. As well, research communities within the “qualitative confederacy” themselves contend with a long and growing list of tensions, including the weighting of researchers’ interpretations vis‐à‐vis those of participants, the politics and power dynamics of qualitative research, forms of representation, and the extent to which qualitative research should advocate particular social agendas (Freeman, deMarrais, Priessle, Roulston, & St. Pierre, 2007). Criticisms and tensions are not likely to disappear. If anything, there is little reason to expect that the boundary arguments

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so characteristic of the qualitative research community writ large are likely to play out to any lesser degree in social studies research settings in the years to come. In this context, we offer several recommendations to enhance the capacity of the social studies research field to take advantage of ongoing developments in qualitative research. For one, social studies researchers should welcome and participate in the ongoing discussion about qualitative methodologies. This does not mean that every new approach named and championed under the qualitative banner must be unquestioningly accepted as worthwhile. Rather the call in this instance is for careful, open, and respectful communication about what new theories, methods, designs, and questions might contribute to the field. By contribution, we mean more than mere additions to an ever‐expanding, unproblematized knowledge base, or research conducted simply because “little is known” about the question. We encourage a wider and more pragmatic perspective that works to draw connections be­tween knowledge production and potential improvements in social studies teaching and learning. An alternative is the risk that insular post‐holing among researchers will contribute to, and possibly exacerbate, historically divisive tensions already well established in social studies about the purposes and conceptualization of the field. Social studies scholars never have enjoyed a shared epistemology, research method, or set of problems that would generate a clear research agenda; qualitative research methodologies have complicated the story only further. How the field responds to this complication has serious consequences. Simply put, social studies research will miss out on the continued developments in qualitative methodologies to the extent that scholars are unable to make productive, generative discussion about research methods a commonplace in the field. A major feature of this conversation must be what distinguishes high or better quality qualitative research from not so high or poorer quality qualitative research. This may seem like an obvious point. However, at conferences, in print, and in conversations we both have noticed an uneasy casting about for language to describe evaluative criteria that set apart exemplars of social studies qualitative research. In part, the question calls for attention to more technical research considerations, most of which apply to quantitative methods too. Are the methods of a study appropriate for the research question? Does the theoretical framing of a study make sense, given what the researcher wishes to learn? Is there coherence across the various steps of a study? Were the qualitative methods described faithfully and fully carried out? Is the written account of the research clear, compelling, and convincing? Is the narrative depicted in the report “thick” and complete enough to convey the richness of the features that matter in a study? Are the conclusions carefully enough constructed to avoid overreach, yet ambitious enough to push thinking forward? Are the warrants for whatever case is being made adequate, at least with integrity to the theoretical stance that frames the study? On these counts, graduate courses in qualitative research methods stand to make an important contribution, as does more and more varied research in qualitative methodologies itself. Going further, we contend that the question of what makes for good research involves more than technical proficiency. As Howe and Moses (1999) claim: Educational research is always advocacy research inasmuch as it unavoidably advances some moral‐political perspective … Any research that is used at all is used for something, and the range of uses is limited from the outset by how the research is conceived and designed. (emphasis in the original, p. 38)



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At some level, social studies research is positioned vis‐à‐vis ethical and political commitments, as well as perspectives about the nature and right conduct of social education. These aspects might be given more explicit consideration in qualitative research in the field, and might figure more heavily into determinations of quality and value. We believe social studies research of any sort should be motivated by more than the merit and self‐promotion culture prevalent in higher education. Qualitative research presents opportunities to explore different facets of social studies in different ways than were available to social educators only 25 years ago. We encourage qualitative researchers to pursue these opportunities with a view of quality that encompasses what a study might do—to improve the work of teaching and learning, to address policy concerns, and to further understanding of both marginalized and dominant narratives of experiences with social studies education. The diversity inherent in the social studies can prove productive and should be encouraged, especially when accompanied by a call to make diverse standpoints and perspectives explicit in social studies scholarship. A pragmatic regard for technical proficiency and the careful consideration of educational ends should guide the next generation of scholars to ask new research questions and use innovative qualitative methods to answer them.

5.5.1  The Role of Theory in Qualitative Research in the Social Studies Any discussion about the quality of qualitative research must draw on theories. Our review leads us to comment on particular uses of theory in qualitative social studies research, e­specially in light of critics who highlight the “low profile of theory” (Crocco, 2006, p. 232) in social studies research (Heilman & Segall, 2006; Segall, 2013). The struggles experienced by qualitative research for a seat at the social studies research table has been rivaled only by the disagreements around this loaded term. As we understand the critiques, part of the criticism is that social studies researchers have too often failed to attend to the conceptualization of key terms; as well as the theories of learning, curriculum development, teacher development and decision‐making, and processes of thinking behind so much of the work in the field (Barton & Avery, 2016; VanSledright, Kelly, & Meuwissen, 2006). Another part of the criticism is the observation that there has been too little social studies scholarship that exclusively examines questions of “grand theory”—the developments in social theories in diverse disciplinary traditions (primarily social sciences, humanities, and cultural studies) across the academy (Crocco, 2006; Seixas, 2001). And still a third theory gap in social studies, we suggest on the basis of this review, exists around the theories that account for the wide range of qualitative methods, as subjects of inquiry in their own right, that appear in the burgeoning literature discussed in this chapter. With respect to qualitative research, these criticisms suggest the field might do more to directly address the theory at work in particular studies, theoretical developments in social research more broadly, and theoretical aspects of qualitative methodologies as objects of investigation in their own right. Our review of TRSE in the past 25 years locates the rise of qualitative research in our field exclusively in empirical investigations using qualitative methods, and not in investigations of qualitative methodologies and their philosophical underpinnings. Of course all empirical investigations involve theories. The ever‐expanding frontiers of qualitative research orientations amplify the need for researchers to carefully consider and

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articulate their own. Qualitative studies make use of different sorts of theories to support different aspects of the research process. This point is overlooked too often in discussions about one’s “theory,” as if the participants in that discussion all share a common understanding of both what kind and what use of theory is signified by the term. A partial list of the ways theory is invoked in qualitative research includes broad research traditions (e.g., cognitive psychological, critical, social constructivist, feminist), disciplinary grounded theories that address particular phenomena of interest to established or emerging social science discipline communities (e.g., ecofeminism, rational choice theory, functionalism, critical race theory), epistemological theories in support of research methods (e.g., social constructivism, positivism, grounded theory, phenomenology), references to prior scholars whose work is believed to have helped frame the problem field (e.g., Dewey, Foucault, Noddings, Rawls, Rorty), and the assemblage of key conceptual constructs, hopefully including their descriptions and the relationships among them, employed in a particular investigation (e.g., civic agency, historical empathy, situated discourse, teacher beliefs). We offer this partial list fully aware that each usage and example is contested. Theory and theoretical framework are shifting signifiers in qualitative research. As such, what one person may hold as an exemplar of theoretically grounded qualitative research might be viewed by another as hopelessly atheoretical. The only way we see through such differences in perspective is more open, frequent, and generous dialogue about what we mean by theory and its uses. Future contributions of qualitative research to social studies education in part will turn on how qualitative researchers address questions of theory in social studies education research. Here the difficulty is compounded by competing views of the grounds, practice base, and very definition of social studies. Even as the growth and acceptance of qualitative research in social studies scholarship have led to more of a shared language around research methods, we do not mean to suggest that social studies researchers need to agree on all matters of theoretical concerns to advance the field. Indeed we view the simultaneous p­roliferation of different ways in which theory is employed in support of qualitative social studies research as an encouraging development. Rather the suggestion we offer is a call for researchers to be mindful of the diverse ways theory is used to frame, support, and clarify different aspects of empirical qualitative work. Theories that frame the problem or conceptual boundaries of a particular study also may clarify some aspects of decisions regarding research design, but they do not always function in this way. For example, an epistemological theory used to justify particular case study methods may stand independent of the theoretical framework for the research problem. More attention to clarifying how different theories serve different functions across the span of the research process leave researchers better prepared to interpret qualitative research in social studies education. As  well, greater transparency about the use of theory could move the field forward by helping researchers get past the ambiguities and the unnecessarily contentious jockeying for position so characteristic of “theory talk” in social studies.

5.6 Conclusion If popularity alone is any indication of the vitality and importance of a research tradition in a field of study, qualitative research clearly has established itself as the favored scholarly methodology in social studies education. In the last handbook chapter review of qualitative



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research in social studies teaching and learning, Preissle‐Goetz and LeCompte (1991) detected stirrings afoot in the embrace of research designs and methods relatively new to the field. In the almost 25 years since, the stirrings have become a powerful force that leaves qualitative research the indisputably dominant research approach used in making sense of social studies teaching and learning. A much more expansive and diverse language of qualitative research is now a commonplace feature at social studies conferences, in social studies graduate degree programs, and in various media featuring social studies research, including, of course, academic journals. This much is clear. Less apparent is, what has come of the qualitative turn, of what might be described as no less than a transformation of the social studies research landscape? In this chapter, we have discussed this question in terms of who benefits and how. In a relatively small research community with interests spread in so many directions, our approach is admittedly more speculative than grounded in clear and “quantifiable” contributions. Qualitative inquiry has not prompted large‐scale, sustained, and coordinated programs of research; neither has it helped clarify a stable core set of research problems and methods around which scholars might rally. From a large‐scale perspective, every indication is that qualitative research rose to prominence at the same time that the experiences of students in many K–12 social studies classrooms changed very little. If anything, the hopes of many progressive social studies reformers may have grown more distant in the wake of accountability, testing, and standards reforms in the last two decades. Yet qualitative researchers in social studies by and large are not drawn to the various research designs and methods of qualitative research for what they might reveal and help us better understand on a large scale. We contend the main contributions of qualitative research to social studies are difficult to pinpoint, and likely reside in the thoughts and practices of countless educators and researchers who have used qualitative research to become smarter about what they do and believe. If true, then social studies researchers have sufficient reason for continuing to explore the rich and increasingly varied ways of understanding social studies that qualitative methods afford.

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Segall, A., Heilman, E. E., & Cherryholmes, C. H. (2006). Social studies—the next generation: Re-searching in the post‐modern. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Seixas, P. (2001). Review of research in social studies. In V. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (4th ed., pp. 545–565). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association. Serriere, S. C., Mitra, D., & Reed, K. (2011). Student voice in the elementary years: Fostering youth‐ adult partnerships in elementary service‐learning. Theory & Research in Social Education, 39(4), 541–575. Sevier, B. (2005). “What does this have to do with us?”: Pursuing transformative possibilities and cultural relevancy in a social foundations teacher education course. Theory & Research in Social Education, 33(3), 347–375. Shaver, J. P. (2001). The future of research on social studies—for what purpose? In W. B. Stanley (Ed.), Critical issues in social studies research (pp. 231–252). Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Silva, J. M., & Langhout, R. D. (2011). Cultivating agents of change in children. Theory & Research in Social Education, 39(1), 61–91. Slekar, T. D. (2006). Preaching history in a social studies methods course: A portrait of practice. Theory & Research in Social Education, 34(2), 241–258. St. Pierre, E. A. (1997). Nomadic inquiry in the smooth spaces of the field: A preface. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 10(3), 365–383. St. Pierre, E. A. (2014). A brief and personal history of post qualitative research: Toward “post inquiry.” Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 30(2), 2–19. Stanley, W. B. (1991). Teacher competence for social studies. In J. P. Shaver (Ed.), Handbook of research on social studies teaching and learning. New York, NY: Macmillan. Stanley, W. B. (2001). Epilogue. In W. B. Stanley (Ed.), Critical issues in social studies for the 21st century (pp. 253–257). Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Stanley, W. B. (2011). Education, wisdom, and the cultivation of humanity. In J. Kincheloe & R. Hewitt (Eds.), The end of philosophy? A manifesto of revival. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Swan, K., & Hofer, M. (2013). Examining student‐created documentaries as a mechanism for engaging students in authentic intellectual work. Theory & Research in Social Education, 41(4), 133–175. Thornton, S. J.(2006).What matters most for gatekeeping? A response to VanSledright. Theory & Research in Social Education, 34(3), 416–418. Tracy, S. J. (2010). Qualitative quality: Eight “big‐tent” criteria for excellent qualitative research. Qualitative inquiry, 16(10), 837–851. Trout, M. (2010). Social skills in action: An ethic of care in social studies student teaching supervision. In A. Crowe (Ed.), Advancing social studies education through self‐study methodology: The power, promise, and use of self‐study in social studies education (pp. 119–137). New York, NY: Springer. Tyson, C. A. (2002). “Get Up Offa That Thing”: African American middle school students respond to literature to develop a framework for understanding social action. Theory & Research in Social Education, 30(1), 42–65. Urietta, L. J. (2004). Dis‐connections in “American” citizenship and the post/neo‐colonial: People of Mexican descent and whitestream pedagogy and curriculum. Theory & Research in Social Education, 32(4), 433–458. Vagle, M. D. (2010). Re‐framing Schön’s call for a phenomenology of practice: a post‐intentional approach. Reflective Practice: International and Multidisciplinary Perspectives, 11(3), 393–407. VanFossen, P. J. (2000). Teachers’ rationales for high school economics. Theory & Research in Social Education, 28(3), 391–410. van Hover, S. (2008). The professional development of social studies teachers. In L. S. Levstik, & C. A. Tyson, (Eds.), Handbook of research in social studies education (pp. 352–372). New York, NY: Routledge.



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Practitioner Research in the Social Studies

Findings from Action Research and Self‐Study Meghan McGlinn Manfra

Analyzing the findings from practitioner research studies in the social studies, including action research and self‐studies, provides new insights for our field regarding social studies teacher education, professional development, and K–12 social studies teaching and learning. Until recently, practitioner research has “had little currency in social studies education” (Johnston, 2006, p. 57). As our field continues to strive to better understand what works in the social studies classroom, researchers increasingly focus on recognizing and utilizing the insider knowledge of those enacting social studies instruction. Practitioner research provides an opportunity to engage in grass‐roots, or “bottom-up,” inquiry that fundamentally alters the power dynamic of traditional educational research (Johnston, 2006). The potential ­outcome is to emancipate both the researcher and the research(ed) subjects toward more democratic forms of inquiry (Carr & Kemmis, 1986; Kemmis & McTaggart, 1982). This approach is in keeping with the democratic and civic aims of the social studies (Parker, 2003, 2008) and the centrality of reflective inquiry in our field (Engle, 1971; Engle & Ochoa, 1988; Shaver, 1965, 2001; Stanley & Nelson, 1994). In Avery’s (2008) opening letter as editor of Theory & Research in Social Education, she traced a 25‐year trend in social studies educational research that included an expansion of both theoretical frameworks and research methodologies. She argued, “Such theoretical perspectives, methodologies, and methods expand not only the questions that are asked but also the kinds of research that are valued” (p. 8). As the other chapters in this Handbook (2017) suggest, traditional approaches to inquiry still dominate the field of the social studies. Most social studies educational researchers take up positions as speculative outsiders, investigating phenomenon from perches outside of the action (Johnston, 2006), often as an “all‐seeing and thereby invisible” participant observer (Wild, 1982, referenced in Stenhouse, Verma, Wild, & Nixon, 1982). While this approach to research continues to be venerated within higher education institutions, “these [social studies] research projects have only p­erpetuated the schism that divides schools from schools of education” and had very little impact on actual practice (Kornfeld & Marker, 1997, p. 493). The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.



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Practitioner research is oriented in a different direction. It seeks to understand insider perspectives and develops out of concerns emerging from everyday practice (Cochran‐ Smith & Lytle, 1993, 2009; Stenhouse et  al., 1982). Agency rests with the practitioner: “the insider identifies questions and is responsible for interpretations and descriptions of his or her learning” (Johnston, 2006, p. 63). This might include studies within individual classrooms or “collaborative efforts in social studies research and development” (Kornfeld & Marker, 1997, p. 493; see also Noffke, Clark, Palmeri‐Santiago, Sadler, & Shujaa, 1996), including in professional development schools (PDSs) (e.g., Crocco, Faithfull, & Schwartz, 2003), or as part of the work of self‐study collectives (e.g., Cuenca, Schmeichel, Butler, Dinkleman, & Nichols, 2011; Hawley et al., 2010). Practitioner research is uniquely suited to the field of social studies given its enduring commitment to democracy, democratic education, and social justice. Researchers have traced action research and self‐study back to the work of early pioneers in our field, including Alice Miel’s The Shortchanged Children of Suburbia (Miel & Kiester, 1967; see also Yeager, 1998, for a more thorough description) and the professional development materials that accompanied Jerome Bruner’s (1970) Man: A Course of Study (McKernan, 2008). According to proponents of action research and self‐study, practitioner research fundamentally shifts the balance of power to engage practitioners as researchers who contribute to the knowledge base (Cochran‐Smith & Lytle, 1993, 1999; Lincoln, 1998). In practitioner research settings, teachers are repositioned as professional decision makers (Kincheloe, 2003); practitioner research promotes a “communal focus” in which teachers or other practitioners and s­tudents are working collaboratively to understand practice and to work toward more democratic forms of schooling (Hostetler, 2012, p. 68). Published reports of practitioner research in the field of social studies have mainly been written by teacher educators. These studies range in scope and context. At the same time, teacher researchers at the K–12 level have reported on their experiences conducting research during social studies instruction in elementary and secondary classrooms and while engaging community members in participatory action research. Collectively, these practitioner researchers provide our field with insider knowledge, or anemic perspective, about what works and what must change. Their work has the potential to improve social studies educational research and practice by linking theory and practice (praxis) (Campbell, 2013; Cochran‐Smith & Lytle, 2009; Given, 2008).

6.1  Forms of Practitioner-Oriented Research “Practitioner research” is an umbrella term used to describe approaches to research focused directly on issues related to practice. Similar to Dinkleman (2003), in this chapter I use an “inclusive, broad definition” of practitioner research to include “action research” (which is often used interchangeably with “teacher research”) and “self‐study.” Borko, Whitcomb, and Byrnes (2008) also describe “action research,” “participatory research,” “self‐study,” and “teacher research” as a distinct genres of “p­ractitioner research” (p. 1029, see also Rearick & Feldman, 1999, for a more thorough description of various distinctions across these types of practitioner research). Cochran‐Smith and Lytle (1993) further make distinctions between “practitioner inquiry” and action research.

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In discussions about the distinctions between various forms of practitioner research, authors acknowledge similarities regarding the focus of the research, the importance placed on collaboration, and the desire for systematic inquiry about practice (e.g., Crowe & Dinkleman, 2010; Cochran‐Smith & Lytle, 2009). According to Johnston (2006): Action research and self‐studies are similar in at least eight ways, including: 1) the bottom‐up nature of research questions, 2) the importance of collaboration, 3) a focus on reflection, 4) a shared research paradigm, 5) the influence of teacher orientations, 6) teachers marginalized and/or empowered by research, 7) the influence of sociocultural contexts of schools, and 8) ethical issues. (p. 63)

Proponents of the various forms of practitioner research also often cite the same intellectual grounding for their work, including Dewey’s (1933) reflective inquiry and experiential education (1938) and Schön’s (1983) reflection‐in‐action (see Hendricks, 2009). And despite nuanced disagreement about the particularities regarding the various forms of practitioner research, there seems to be widespread agreement that a common element across these forms of inquiry is the way in which they diverge from more “traditional” forms of research. For example, in Lincoln’s (1998) description of a “set of shifts” in educational research toward more interpretive approaches, she identifies three groups: constructivists, critical theorists, and action researchers. Action research emerges from “growing understanding among groups of educational researchers that school reform, educational improvement, and social welfare in general are going nowhere without the active participation of those who have in the past been the so‐called ‘targets’ of improvement” (Lincoln, 1998, p. 21). In  other words, action research engages insiders in the research process to bring about change. Change is a primary aim of action research and self‐study, and many have linked these forms of research to Dewey’s pragmatic approach to developing knowledge through action (e.g., Hostetler, 2012; Johnston, 2006; Powell, 2010). As such, the epistemology of practitioner research is one of knowledge in action (McNiff & Whitehead, 2002). According to Hendricks (2009), “knowledge is something that action researchers do—their living practice—rather than a fixed, static or absolute entity” (p. 3). As result, context is not controlled, rather it is studied in detail to understand the impact of the context on the outcomes (e.g., Stenhouse et al., 1982); participants are not chosen at random, but rather are part of the professional [and, perhaps, personal] life of the researcher. According to Lincoln (1998), “Action researchers act on the premises that appropriate action can only be theorized by the community in which the action is to take place; that theorizing about the purposes and outcomes of action is a locally appropriate process” (p. 17). This linkage between theory and action is an important element of self‐study as well. Although action research and self‐study overlap in that they both involve practitioners engaging in studies about practice, they have different histories and areas of emphasis. Johnston (2006) likens action research to a lamp: “It looks outward. It shines light on some aspect of teaching practice and helps us to see more clearly and carefully in order to promote change” (p. 57). Whereas, self‐study is like a mirror: “We look systematically at the self as a way to understand who we are as teachers and how understanding the self can provide insights into our teaching” (p. 57). Johnston is clear that she uses the lamp and mirror as images to suggest different areas of focus, rather than suggesting action



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research and self‐study are opposites. Both forms of research engage practitioners in systematic inquiry about issues relevant to practice.

6.1.1  Brief History and Overview of Action Research Cochran‐Smith and Lytle (1993) describe teacher research as “systematic and intentional inquiry” (p. 7). “Teacher research” is used to describe action research that occurs when teachers investigate their classroom practices, professional knowledge, and/or professional contexts, such as school policies, curricula, or textbooks. Within the field of social studies, long dominated by the work of social studies teacher educators, action research and teacher research may be particularly relevant and applicable. Most contemporary accounts of the history of action research situate the movement within the social context of the early 20th century. For example, Noffke (1997) traces it back to John Collier, leader of the Commission of Indian Affairs (1933–1945), and McNiff & Whitehead (2002) point to the work of John Dewey and Hilda Taba. The most direct historical references to action research can be found in the work of Kurt Lewin, an industrialist who sought new methods for improving productivity in the mid‐20th century (Adelman, 1993; Hendricks, 2009). According to Hendricks (2009), Kurt Lewin was the first to describe the action research cycle in the 1930s: “Lewin viewed action research as a spiraling process that included reflection and inquiry on the part of its stakeholders for the purposes of improving work environments and dealing with social problems” (p. 5). Action research was later adapted to the field of education by Stephen Corey, who was the first to bridge John Dewey’s educational philosophy with Lewin’s sociopsychological theories in his Action Research to Improve School Practices (1953; see also Schubert & Lopez‐Schubert, 1997, for a full description). After a period in which educational research in the U.S. was mainly dominated by large‐ scale, quantitative projects, action research experienced a revival in American educational research and teacher education beginning in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1999, Cochran‐Smith and Lytle detailed a, by then, decades‐long reemergence of interest in teacher action research and other forms of practitioner‐based inquiry. They traced this reemergence back to a “paradigm shift in researching, teaching, and assessing writing that evolved during the 1970s and 1980s” (p. 15) as well as growing awareness in the U.S. of work being conducted in Great Britain and Australia (see Manfra, 2009a, for a more detailed history). Referencing the work of Berthoff (1987) and others, Cochran‐Smith and Lytle (1999) identified a movement newly committed to taking “a different view of the teacher—as knower and thinker” or “RE‐ searcher” (p. 15). This paradigm shift positioned teachers as something other than mere consumers of educational research; teachers were seen as agents responsible for generating theory “grounded in practice” (p. 15). In summary, Cochran‐Smith and Lytle (1999) identified five major trends to characterize the U.S. movement: a) the prominence of teacher research in teacher education, professional development and school reform; b) the development of conceptual frameworks and theories of teacher research; c) the dissemination of teacher research beyond the local level; d) the emergence of critique of teacher research and the teacher research movement; and e) the transformative potential of teacher research on some aspects of university culture. (p. 15)

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Around the same time, Zeichner (1999) described “the new scholarship in teacher education.” Similar to Cochran‐Smith and Lytle, he explained the interest in new approaches to educational research relevant to teacher education as due to the “substantial growth in the use of naturalistic and interpretive research methodologies” as well as in “critical, feminist, and post‐structural analyses” and an emerging interest in “teacher thinking” (p. 8). Others also accounted for the development of action research as part of larger movements within the social sciences, such as the increasing use of ethnographic and naturalistic methods (e.g., Lesko, 1998; Lincoln, 1998; McKernan, 1996). Despite the belief that the action research movement that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s in the United States constituted a “movement” and “not just the latest fad” (Cochran‐Smith & Lytle, 1999), there was tremendous variability in the aims and methods espoused. In describing “methodological variations of action research,” McCutcheon and Jung (1990) document the manner in which “alternative paradigms” including positivism, interpretivism, and critical science shaped the aims, scope, and methods undertaken in action research studies. They viewed action researchers as members of a loosely connected “family” able to accommodate a variety of experiences and epistemological assumptions: “Action research can take on different characteristics because underlying it are different epistemological assumptions, which in turn shape methodological choices as well as how problems are formulated” (McCutcheon & Jong, 1990, p. 150). Similarly, van Manen (1990) acknowledged that “there is no agreed upon set of research techniques or procedures that many or most action research projects and models use” (p. 152). Nonetheless, he did point to a set of assumptions identifiable across various forms of action research. In pointing out these assumptions and critically interrogating them, van Manen encouraged they be reformulated “into tentative alternative principles that may be the basis of a more self‐reflective human‐science form of action research while restoring our relation to children” (p. 152). According to Cochran‐Smith and Lytle (1999), this work and others that endeavored to understand appropriate conceptual frameworks for action research resulted in interrelated, yet distinctive, conceptualizations of the inquiry that included: “teacher research as social inquiry, teacher research as ways of knowing within communities, and teacher research as practical inquiry” (p. 17). In many ways, these three conceptualizations might be viewed as a continuum with critical and emancipatory action research positioned as distinct from more practical forms of inquiry (Kinsler, 2010). Since the 1990s, it has become increasingly clear that there is the potential for a bifurcation in the action research literature between practical and critical forms of practitioner research (McKernan, 1996). Table  6.1 provides an overview of the distinctions between these forms. Practical action research is a “way to generate or enhance practical knowledge” (Cochran‐ Smith & Lytle, 1999, p. 13); it focuses on the day‐to‐day issues that teachers face and the immediate needs of the classroom. As a result of practical action research, teachers pursue questions relevant to their “craft knowledge”—what they previously knew to be intuitive to practice. In the process, this knowledge might shift or change. Critical action research aims beyond improving practical knowledge to improving society. It is based on a critical “researcher identity” that is “rooted in a critical approach to knowing and knowledge such as [that] provided by feminism, critical theory, post‐colonialism, queer theory, or critical race theory” (Lesko, 1998, p. 104), which “alert researchers to petrified knowledges, dangerous exposures, and telling secrets of school lives, and are necessary for praxis” (p. 104). Proponents of critical action research critique more benign



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Table 6.1  Summary: Practical action research compared with critical action research (originally published in Manfra, 2009a) Critical action research

Practical action research ●● ●●

●● ●●

“Practical‐Deliberative” (McKernan, 1996) Concerned with practical knowledge or “craft knowledge” Interest in day‐to‐day issues of practice May result in improved practice and student performance but not social or cultural change

●●

●●

●●

●●

●●

“Critical‐Emancipatory” (McKernan, 1996) Concerned with social and cultural factors that impact school Interest in democratic participation and emancipation Seeks deep change and enlightenment within the classroom Implicit goal toward improving society

forms of practical action research because they ignore the “political sphere” (Noffke, 1997), risk solidifying practices that are detrimental to students, and fail to develop “an appreciation of the social forces that shape the school” (Kincheloe, 1995, p. 71). Despite the debate about the differences in the approaches to action research in the educational research literature, there appears to be some potential to develop a middle ground (Manfra, 2009a). Due to the nature of the action research process, teachers engaged in practical inquiry can move toward understanding critical issues in their classroom; c­ritical action research may emerge from practical issues faced by teachers. “Missing within the gap between practical and critical action research is a sense of the nuance of teacher practice  –  the reality of classroom life that is mutually steeped in practical and critical c­oncerns” (Manfra, 2009a, p. 41).

6.1.2  The Action Research Process Despite conceptual variation, there actually appears to be less methodological variation in discussions about the action research process. Most authors agree that the action research process follows a cycle similar to other forms of interpretive research: selecting a focus, ­collecting data, analyzing and interpreting data, taking action, reflecting, and continuing/ modifying the study (Gall, Gall, & Borg, 2007). However, it is important to note that action research is conceived as a spiral process, with each new understanding leading to new questions and new action. The cycle of steps, or spiral, might include: look, think, plan, act (Stringer, 2014) or planning, acting, observing, and reflecting (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1982). During the action, or “acting” phase, action researchers collect and analyze a variety of data. Most commonly, action researchers collect qualitative data, although quantitative data may also be used. In many ways, action research appears similar to other forms of social science research, however, its emphasis on change is an important distinction. According to Mitchell & Ellwood (2012): Action research typically relies on research methods, data sources, and analysis techniques that are familiar to most social scientists. But it also involves linking research to action, and theory to praxis, often through activities that are designed to serve dual purposes: working toward the project’s action goals and generating data and analysis for its research goals. (emphasis in original, p. 142)

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The linkage between research and action has significant implications for the researcher and her collaborators, especially with regard to theory generation. Within the field of the social studies, Obenchain, Ives, and Gardner’s (2007) collaborative action research study provides a clear example of the manner in which the teacher’s “critical reflection on the application of theory into practice, or action, was central to this study” (p. 25). Due to the nature of interrogating knowledge in action, action researchers take a markedly different stance towards notions of theory development (Stringer, 2014). For example, Elliot (1991) wrote, “It [action research] aims to feed practical judgment in concrete situations, and the validity of the ‘theories’ or hypotheses it generates depends not so much on ‘scientific’ tests of truth, as on their usefulness in helping people to act more intelligently and skillfully” (p. 69). Here, theory is seen as knowledge in action, and it enables the researchers to “‘re‐see’ the world, or see through taken‐for‐granted conceptual categories” (Elliot, 1991, p. 451) and “can inform a process of enlightenment” from which new processes can emerge (Elliot, 1991, p. 18). Action research can result in transformation and innovation of teachers’ practice, professional knowledge, or views on their context. According to Bransford, Derry, Berliner, Hamerness, and Beckett (2005), innovation requires “the ability to ‘unlearn’ previous routines … and ‘let go’ of previously held beliefs and tolerate the ambiguity of having to rethink one’s perspective” (p. 51). This aligns with Brause and Mayher’s (1991) characterization of action research as “reflection‐in‐action.” They believe that: … teaching practice directly stems from teacher beliefs (implicit or explicit theories); that change in practice depends on change in belief (theory); that the best sources of change in belief (theory) are: reflection‐in‐action on one’s current practice. (parentheses in original, p. 23)

By linking theory and practice (since theory is developed through understanding practice), action research mitigates much of the common concerns about educational research, including that it might misrepresent participants and experiences. Action research accepts the multiple theories stakeholders espouse to “explain how and why events occur as they do” and seeks to “finds ways of incorporating them into mutually acceptable ways of understanding events that enable them to work toward a resolution of the problem investigated” (Stringer, 2014, p. 39).

6.2  Brief History and Overview of Self‐Study Like action research, self‐study also situates theory within practice. According to Zeichner (1999), “The birth of the self‐study movement in teacher education around 1990 has been probably the single most significant development ever in the field of teacher education research” (p. 8). He argues that self‐study is one of a few examples of movements that have been able to overcome the prevailing “disconnection between research, policy, and p­ractice;” the research “has had an important influence on practice in teacher education” (p. 12). Perhaps, more importantly, this work has occurred when “teacher educators have courageously exposed and then confronted the shortcomings in their work and the gaps between their rhetoric and the reality of their practice” (p. 17) and “offered a challenge to academic theories of teacher education that are formulated at a distance from the practice of teacher education” (p. 12).



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Self‐study is “a recent and still emerging field” (Crowe & Dinkleman, 2010, p. 3). Crowe and Dinkleman (2010) suggest that self‐study draws on many of the same ideas as “reflective teaching” (Zeichner & Liston, 1996) and “practitioner research” (Cochran‐Smith & Donnell, 2006). They argue that the, “confluence of these three movements is no accident, for they draw on many of the same ideas about effective teaching, teacher development, and paths to improve practice” (references in original, Crowe & Dinkleman, 2010, p. 6). Similar to action research, self‐study offers an “insider” or emic perspective and includes the “critical and systematic examination of their [practitioners’] practice” (Martell, 2015, p. 45). Further implying the interrelationship between action research and self‐study, Dinkleman (2003) alludes to Cochran‐Smith and Lytle’s (1993) language about teacher research as “systemic, intentional, and critical self‐inquiry about one’s work” (p. 22) to define self‐study as “intentional and systematic inquiry into one’s own practice” (Dinkleman, 2003, p. 8). Although self‐study originates from very specific personal and professional aims, it is seen as contributing to larger conversations in the field of educational research (Hawley, 2010a; 2010b). For example, Loughran (2004) wrote, “Furthermore, by engaging in a systematic inquiry of my own practice around race and ethnicity, I can contribute to the ‘improvement of teaching locally and globally’” (reference to Loughran, 2004, p. 17 in original, p. 2). With these aims in mind, the American Educational Research Association’s (AERA’s) S‐STEP Special Interest Group (SIG) was founded in 1992 by “teacher educators who were interested in studying their own practices” (Johnston, 2006, p. 62), and it has since become one of the largest SIGs based on membership numbers. The use of “self‐study” can be traced to other social science traditions. For example, according to Loughran (2004), self‐study is often used to reference pedagogical approaches that engage students in self‐reflection on their own learning, in psychological studies concerned with self‐ image and identity as they relate to learning, and by institutions or u­niversities that engage in program evaluation. According to Crowe and Dinkleman (2010), it is actually a benefit that self‐study defies easy definition; they point to the “persistent, rich, and deep” conversations within the field as evidence of the vitality of the approach. They describe self‐study as both “a community and as a research genre” (p. 2) that avoids prescriptive approaches to research in favor of open communication and adaptability. Crowe and Dinkleman describe the self‐study community as “a community of educators who share an enthusiasm for closely examining their own practices, developing understanding about how their work helps others learn, and sharing ideas about improving the ways we come to know and teach in education” (p. 4). It includes a diverse array of researchers focused on understanding the social and institutional contexts of teaching with an aim toward finding solutions to issues associated with practice. Self‐study “represents a theoretical and philosophical argument for the integration of research and teaching as an integrated whole” (Crowe & Dinkleman, 2010, p. 2), purposely blurring the lines between research and practice, scholarship and instruction. Proponents of self‐study insist that inquiry “is nested in the actual practices and experiences of teacher education” (Crowe & Dinkleman, 2010, p. 4); as a research genre, self‐study is a form of inquiry attuned to the unique contexts and issues associated with teaching and teacher education. According to Pinnegar & Russell (1995): As both the subject and the researcher of an inquiry, each author provides simultaneously the experience of volatile research settings and the analysis of the experience in the ways that may allow others to understand and use the findings in their own practice. (p. 6)

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Similar to action research, the emphasis is on the particular nature of the experience of  the research as well as the generalizable nature of the findings for others’ practice. “Self‐study in this strict sense is grounded in the idea that we teach ‘who we are,’ and  emphasizes the relationships between beliefs and action” (Crowe & Dinkleman, 2010, p. 6).

6.2.1  Self‐Study Methodology Although self‐study shares many of the same features of inquiry as action research, including the research cycle and emphasis on naturalistic inquiry, the focus is more personal and self‐reflective. According to Feldman, Paugh, and Mills (2004), self‐studies “bring to the forefront the importance of self, … make the experience of teacher educators a resource for research … [and] urge those who engage in self‐study to be critical of themselves and their roles as researchers and teacher educators” (p. 959). For example, in her comparison of self‐study to other forms of practitioner research, Johnston (2006) emphasizes the personal goals and experiences of the researchers. She writes: If the teacher’s orientation is focused on reflective inquiry, then self‐study research may be more appropriate. In self‐studies, personal goals, experiences, and perspectives are the subject of inquiry. Who we are as teachers or students, what we do as we teach and learn, what we think about social justice issues in our lives and the world, who we are in relation to other people and learners is the stuff of self‐studies. (p. 67)

Similarly, LaBoskey’s (2007) work on the methodology of self‐study yielded five distinguishing characteristics. She found that self‐study research (1) is self‐initiated and focused, (2) is improvement‐aimed, (3) is interactive and collaborative, (4) includes multiple, mainly qualitative, methods, and (5) casts validity as a process based in trustworthiness.

6.3  Findings from Action Research and Self‐Study in the Social Studies Despite the methodological differences outlined above, within the field of the social studies, the similarities between action research and self‐study appear to outweigh the differences. Within the social studies, action research and self‐study remain distinct from other forms of empirical inquiry in the explicit commitment to bridge theory and practice and to improve practice through research. As such, in this review of research from action research and self‐studies in the social studies, findings are integrated. The studies describe here provide examples of the potential for action research and self‐study to help social studies researchers better understand teacher professional development, teacher education, and specific approaches to K–12 social studies teaching and instruction, including historical thinking and the critical examinations of race and c­ulturally relevant education in social studies classrooms. By exploring the research methods and findings of practitioner research in social studies teacher education and professional development, social studies researchers can better understand and extend previous work.



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6.4  Practitioner Research about Social Studies Teacher Education Within the social studies, there has been continued interest regarding the usefulness of p­ractitioner research to improve social studies teacher education (Adler, 1993). Areas of specific interest include the social studies methods courses associated with preservice teacher education as well as professional development experiences for teachers. Adler (2008) argues, “Research can contribute to designing, understanding, and implementing practices that will prepare good teachers who will stay in the profession and who will continue to develop and change through their years as teachers” (p. 331). Action research and self‐study conducted by social studies teacher educators have focused on improving the social studies methods course, including its design and the manner in which it is taught. There is a notable body of research that deals specifically with preparing preservice teachers to engage K–12 students in developing historical thinking skills.

6.4.1  Practitioner Research and Social Studies Methods Previous reviews of research on the education of socials studies teachers (e.g., Adler 1991, 2008; Armento, 1996; Banks & Parker, 1990) and Crocco and Livingston’s (2016) review in this current Handbook point to the primacy of the methods class as a site of education for preservice social studies teachers. Although the social studies methods course continues to be an essential element of social studies teacher preparation, there remains a perennial lack of understanding about the extent to which methods courses impact preservice teachers and their eventual classroom practice (Meuwissen, 2005). As such, there are repeated calls for more research about social studies methods courses and opportunities for dialogue b­etween social studies methods instructors (Gradwell, 2010). Hong and Adler’s (2009) review of research on methods courses in social studies and diversity education found that most studies are action research studies and self‐studies. This is not surprising since, for teacher educators, action research and self‐study projects can provide valuable data for understanding teacher education, including the professional theories and assumptions of the preservice teachers they work with and the most effective strategies for meeting their needs. Combined, the extant research on social studies teacher education conducted through action research and self‐study provides an important body of knowledge, which social studies teacher educators can begin to build upon in order to better address the gaps in pedagogical content knowledge in preservice training and support. Importantly, these studies also provide insight about the affordances and limitations of different approaches to the methods course regarding engaging teachers in using specific pedagogical techniques, such as engaging students in historical thinking in the K–12 classroom and becoming more critically reflective educators. Synthesizing across findings from action research studies and self‐studies conducted in methods classrooms begins the process of answering important questions in social studies teacher education, including “What ideas should be replicated and studied?” (Hong & Adler, 2009, p. 373). There also seems to be particularly fruitful opportunities to understand the experiences of beginning social studies teacher educators through their self‐studies (e.g., Bullock & Christou, 2016; Lang, 2010; Logan & Butler, 2013; Ritter, 2010). At the same time, the pursuit of these same studies provides professional development opportunities for the novice

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teacher educators who conduct self‐study, seeking to better understand “oneself; teaching; learning; and the development of knowledge about these” (Loughran, 2004, p. 9). A notable example is Ritter, Powell, and Hawley’s (2007) report of a collaborative self‐study conducted by three beginning teacher educators. As a result of their study, the three researchers found that, through collaboration, they were able to systematically reflect on and improve their “developing rationales for becoming social studies teacher educators” (p. 14). While the focus of their study was inward, their findings also revealed strategies for improving social studies teacher education in general, including supporting student teachers as they develop their rationales for teaching. By engaging in action research and self‐study social studies, teacher educators model reflective practice for their students (see Johnston et al., 2003). “Put simply, teacher educators must identify and enact appropriate methods to make their own teaching a site of inquiry for their students” (Ritter, 2010, p. 547). Butler took this a step further by engaging doctoral students in his teacher education seminar in self‐study. The final report provides insight about the emerging identities of future teacher educators (Butler et al., 2014). At the same time, teacher educators may be interested in engaging student teachers and preservice teachers in action research and self‐study as part of their methods coursework. Barton, McCully, and Marks (2004) suggest providing adequate scaffolding throughout the inquiry process: “This scaffolding requires a delicate balancing act that provides the s­tructure necessary for success but avoids over-determining the process or results of inquiry” (p. 72). They integrated an inquiry task into methods internships in both a U.S. and an Irish university, focused on ­understanding children’s historical thinking. The preservice teachers were assigned to interview children using a predetermined protocol. The methods instructors followed up with class discussion and a reflective writing assignment. As a result of this inquiry project, Barton et al. (2004) concluded that the preservice teachers changed: “In many cases children’s responses had challenged their understanding of what they did and did not know, and this appeared to help teachers recognize more completely their own role in developing children’s ideas” (p. 78). It appeared that as a result of their initial foray into reflective teaching, the preservice teachers were prompted to “reflect on other aspects of teaching and learning” Barton et al., 2004, (pp. 78–79). Similar to Barton et al. (2004), Catapano and Song (2006) engaged preservice teachers in a modified action research study about integrating the Kids Voting curriculum into the elementary classroom. After receiving background professional development about the curriculum, the preservice teachers implemented the curriculum in elementary school classrooms and reflected on student outcomes. Based on evidence collected by the preservice teachers, the authors concluded: “The civic learning activities used in this project indicated that children could learn the democratic process when they had opportunities to make and justify choices, identify leadership traits, and recognize the fact that everyone had different opinions” Catapano & Song, 2006, (p. 64). This example provides an interesting hybrid model for engaging preservice teachers as co‐researchers.

6.4.2  Practitioner Research about Historical Thinking and Social Studies Teacher Education A substantial portion of action research and self‐studies within the social studies teacher education literature has focused on developing strategies to better prepare preservice teachers to integrate historical thinking skills in their future classroom. Collectively, these



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studies point to the challenges social studies teacher educators face as they work with p­reservice teachers to develop their own historical thinking skills and to develop strategies for teaching future K–12 students. The findings from these studies point to opportunities and provide suggestions for other social studies teacher educators to adopt into practice. Perennial in the social studies teacher education literature has been concern about the reluctance of practicing social studies teachers, especially at the elementary level, to engage students in historical thinking. James’ (2008) critical action research study tackled this issue by collecting qualitative data over a three‐semester period. She examined 70 preservice elementary teachers’ perceptions about teaching historical thinking, particularly historical interpretation (Barton & Levstik, 2003). She determined that teachers avoided difficult moral and epistemological topics in the classroom by framing their work as “protection” – “[historical] interpretation in elementary history teaching is 1) developmentally and 2) morally inappropriate for young children” (p. 172). In her action research, James built on the work of other scholars focused on “personal theorizing” (e.g., Cornett, 1990; Clandinin, 1986; Chant, 2002), particularly the manner in which “personal images are reflected in ‘cultural myths’ of teaching” (p. 177, reference to Britzman, 1991, in original). Gerwin (2003) also focused on assessing the pedagogical skills of his preservice teachers by analyzing the lesson plans they submitted in his social studies methods course. His analysis led him to rethink his practice of assigning students to include motivation/aims statements in their lesson plans. He found that the preservice teachers, “did not seem to see a connection between the history and the students” (p. 452) and that the requirement that teachers incorporate a motivation/aim statement in their plans further distorted historical thinking and empathy. Whereas these two studies focus on the pedagogical skills of the preservice teachers regarding history instruction, other practitioner research has examined strategies for improving the historical thinking skills of the teacher candidates themselves. For example, Clark (2014) conducted a critical action research study in his methods classes focused on engaging preservice social studies teachers in historical thinking through the use of graphic novels. Referencing the work of Barton (2012), he examined whether the integration of graphic novels would help his preservice teachers understand how to teach historical agency and “to make connections between historical agency and agency in the present” (p. 77). He defined his study as “critical action research” precisely because he took up the issue of agency and the various sociopolitical and economic constraints that impinge on personal agency. As a result of his action research, Clark found that his use of graphic novels resulted in preservice teachers being able to “imaginatively engage with the historical agents’ decisions and consider how the circumstances of historical situations can lead to unintended consequences, despite historical agents’ well‐reasoned decisions” (p. 77). Similar to Clark’s efforts to better understand how to improve the historical thinking (e.g., Wineberg, 1991; Sexias, 1998) of preservice social studies teachers, Christou and Bullock (2014) assigned students to conduct historical investigations. Their collaborative self‐study focused on collecting data about student outcomes in a course on teaching social studies and science for preservice teachers. As a result of their study, Christou and Bullock (2014) developed new strategies for engaging teacher candidates in disciplinary thinking. They found that by “combining social studies and science, teacher candidates had occasion to form a scholarly community and explore questions about their present context and about past contexts” (p. 89).

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Across these studies, the researchers provide insight into the challenges that teacher e­ducators face regarding preservice teachers’ perceptions, misunderstandings, and lack of knowledge about historical thinking. They extend the previous research on historical thinking to provide suggestions for how that work can be integrated into social studies teacher e­ducation. Importantly, these studies provide incredibly detailed descriptions for other teacher educators to build upon in their own work. For example, James, 2008 includes detailed  records of her class activities in the appendices of her report. Other social studies educators are encouraged to reflect on the strategies used by these action researchers/teacher ­educators and to consider integrating some of their teaching strategies into the methods classroom. At the same time, these studies point to the critical nature of the content that social studies teacher educators and their students grapple with in the methods classroom.

6.4.3  Practitioner Research about Democratic Education and Critical Reflection in Methods The topic of critical reflection is taken up by social studies teacher educators concerned with preparing social studies teachers to advance the aims of democratic education in addition to preparing to teach. According to Adler and Goodman (1986), “perhaps the greatest challenge facing methods courses is to discover ways in which critical perspectives of education can be raised, and at the same time, address students’ desires for practical and meaningful teaching strategies” (p. 4). The challenge is daunting in that most methods classes are short, semester‐long courses and the preparation to teach for democracy is a complex endeavor. Nonetheless, according to Ritter et al. (2007), social studies teacher educators need to create opportunities for critical examination of preservice teacher beliefs and pedagogical rationales, or “[they will] continue to enter student teaching without the ability to make connections between what they are teaching and the contextual issues raised by their student teaching placements” (p. 352). Rising to this challenge Dinkleman (1999, 2000) examined the strategies he used in his social studies methods class. He wanted to determine the extent to which his course supported the development of critical reflection, including considering “broader social, historical, and ethical dimensions of teaching” (1999, p. 335). Referring to the research literature on c­ritical reflection (e.g., van Manen, 1977), Dinkleman first operationalized definitions of ­critical reflection and then sought data over the course of the semester to monitor and understand the thinking of preservice teachers. The results of his action research study “contradict[ed] the notion that secondary preservice teachers are incapable of critical reflection at this stage of their professional development” (1999, p. 353) and provided evidence of practices that  social studies methods professors might undertake to engage preservice teachers in cultivating critical reflection about social studies teaching and learning. Going beyond reflection to encourage preservice teachers to develop political understanding of marginality, Hyland and Noffke (2005) conducted an action research study with 198 preservice teachers enrolled in social studies methods at two universities. Specifically, they focused on “how to better prepare teacher education students to successfully teach ­students from historically marginalized groups” (p. 367) and insisted that their study was “not to find strengths and deficits in the [preservice] students but to inform [their] work as teacher



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educators” (p. 367). Their data collection focused on several course assignments—“community and social inquiry assignments”—designed to help preservice teachers develop culturally ­relevant teaching skills and “a critical multicultural approach to the teaching of social studies” (p. 370). Based on the data collected over two years, the authors concluded that the preservice teachers developed new understanding about marginalized groups through  structured assignments that encouraged them to engage in experiential learning combined with reflection and dialogue. The preservice teachers developed m­ eaningful ­ relationships with community members and made connections to their work as future social studies teachers. Although they uncovered benefits from aspects of the community‐based, inquiry assignments, the authors also struggled with “conundrums.” For example, they wrote: We struggle[d] with the idea that these boundary crossings reify White privilege by signaling that privileged people have the right of voyeurism, the ability to observe and interpret without engagement. In our current efforts we are seeking ways to more fully incorporate sustained and interactive contact across boundaries. (p. 380)

Hyland and Noffke acknowledged that their action research as well as their efforts toward improving their own practice in preparing preservice teachers to teach for social justice “is  ongoing” (p. 380) and continually evolving. Each new finding leads to new questions, which they believe is part of a larger struggle for justice. Much like Dinkleman (1999) and Hyland and Noffke (2005), other social studies researchers have sought strategies to engage preservice teachers in critical reflection, while also navigating student resistance and other factors that delimit democratic education. For example, Reidel and Salinas (2011) were intent on understanding how their teaching strategies impacted democratic education in their methods classes. Specifically, they examined the role of emotion in class discussions and the manner in which instructors can honor and acknowledge student emotional responses, while also pushing students toward more critical reflection. Lang (2010) used the Praxis Inquiry and the Praxis Inquiry Protocol “as part of a self‐study effort designed to hone [his] or [her] skills for bringing issues of diversity and democracy to the forefront in the context of the social studies curriculum methods course” (p. 71). As a result of both studies, the researchers found that preservice teachers needed a great deal of support. These findings corroborate findings from Wade’s (1999) action research study in which she grappled with themes of “voice and choice” and resistance to her approaches of democratic teaching (p. 70). Ultimately, these studies emphasize the importance of teacher educators critically reflecting about their approaches to democratic education. Their reports provide insight about the “practical theories of teaching democratically for higher education settings” (Wade, 1999, p. 70).

6.4.4  Significance of Practitioner Research about Social Studies Teacher Education It becomes immediately clear across the studies that when methods instructors or preservice teachers engage in systematic and intentional study of their practice, the results go beyond merely improving practice in the short term. There are also residual effects that impact the future direction of instruction and shape the scope of the methods course content. At the same time, there are untold consequences and potential benefits for future

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instruction in preservice teachers’ classrooms. Through mindful, systematic reflection on practice, these researchers contribute scholarship to the field of social studies, while also modeling reflective practices for their students/preservice teachers. This work is challenging for social studies teacher educators; they must be willing to approach students from a new position as  co‐constructors of knowledge. Lang (2010) wrote that she was “impressed with their [preservice teachers’] candor” and felt “challenge[d]” to respond to their feedback (p. 85).

6.5  Practitioner Research and Social Studies Teacher Professional Development The challenge is also present in practitioner research in the social studies taken up by practicing teachers enrolled in graduate courses or working on their own (see, for example, Kortecamp & Steeves, 2006; Obenchain et  al., 2007; Pytash, Edmondson, & Tait, 2014). Research conducted by social studies teachers about their practice contributes to “a scholarship of teaching and learning”(Hutchings & Shulman, 1999), which “involves question‐ asking, inquiry, and investigation, particularly around issues of student learning” (p. 13). Proponents of practitioner research argue that conducting teacher action research or self‐ study can be a powerful form of professional development for experienced teachers, much like it is for preservice teacher candidates. According to Zeichner (2009), “When teachers have the experience of action research, the overwhelming majority come to the conclusion that they are on to something that matters, something that is ‘for real’” (p. 74). Action research provides an opportunity for teachers to study issues of personal importance. The finished projects reveal the inquiry stance of the investigator. According to Cochran‐ Smith and Lytle (2009), teacher research projects: … also have to do with how practitioners theorize their own work, the assumptions and decisions they make, and the interpretations they construct. The unique feature of the questions that prompts practitioners’ inquiry is that they emanate from neither theory nor practice alone but from critical reflection on the intersections of the two. (p. 42)

This critical reflection can lead to positive changes in teaching practice and student outcomes. According to van Manen (1990), for action research to be truly meaningful, it must enable the researcher to become more “mindful of children” (p. 156) and, as a result, to develop “pedagogical fitness” (p. 156). Opportunities for teachers to mindfully act as decision‐makers and theorists seems to be an antidote to the deleterious effects accountability measures have had on teacher reflection (Meuwissen, 2005). Within the field of the social studies, there has been continued interest in the best approaches to working with in‐service teachers (e.g., Adler, 2008). Yet the field still seems to be dominated by one‐size‐fits all, top‐down approaches to professional development despite substantial research demonstrating that these approaches have little impact on classroom practice (e.g., Darling‐Hammond, 2006). Research within the social studies has pointed to the ineffectiveness of large‐scale professional development programs that talked to teachers rather than providing opportunities for teacher investigation and leadership (see Rossi, 1992).



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Aimed in a different direction, action research and self‐study provides a systematic approach for teachers to engage in authentic inquiry in their own classrooms. For example, Kortecamp and Steeves (2006) embedded teacher action research in the third year of their evalu­ation plan of a Teaching American History (TAH) grant program in northern Virginia. They supported teachers in the design and implementation of research regarding student learning outcomes (a synthesis of the results of the teachers’ findings has not yet been published.) At the same time, there are examples of individual social studies teachers conducting teacher research and self‐study in their own classrooms. According to Martell (2015), “My teacher research became an outlet for a more systematic questioning of my curriculum decisions and teaching practices” (p. 54). To date, there appears to be a growing body of researchers joining Martell in studying social studies curriculum and instruction from the vantage point of the practitioner as researcher. The extant written and reported research tends to focus on three areas in the social studies: history instruction, critical education in the social studies, and technology integration.

6.5.1  Practitioner Research about History Instruction Practitioner researchers in the social studies have focused on the types of instruction and pedagogical strategies that are best suited to supporting the development of student historical thinking skills. The findings of these studies provide evidence about the connections between historical thinking and classroom practice. Since the teacher was the researcher in these studies, the reader is privy to insider knowledge, detailing the experiences of both the student and the teacher in the history classroom. The findings from these studies extend what we know about historical thinking from more traditional, outside‐in studies. To date, action researchers and self‐study researchers in the social studies have built a fairly extensive body of literature related to student historical thinking. Practitioner research studies on historical “habits of mind” have focused on understanding student outcomes when teachers integrate resources beyond the traditional textbook in the classroom. Martell and Hashimoto‐Martell (2012), for example, described their search for new teaching materials in a teacher action research study about “throwing out the textbook” and replacing the district‐adopted, corporate textbook with “teacher‐created reading packets,” including “primary sources, oral histories, and writings from historians and journalists” (p. 305). Similarly, Kohlmeiher (2004, 2006) engaged her students in analyzing primary sources, making inferences, developing historical empathy, and crafting historical arguments in world history classrooms. Social studies teacher action researchers have also investigated the integration of non‐traditional historical resources (not just text‐based primary and secondary sources), including political cartoons from the past (Bickford, 2010, 2011) and historically accurate literature and poems (Newstreet, 2008). Across these studies, the authors determined that their use of diverse teaching materials tended to motivate ­students toward deeper understanding through critical thinking. They also found evidence that students developed a better understanding of multiple perspectives about the past. History instruction in  the  elementary grades.  In addition to focusing on the variety of h­istorical sources that can be integrated into the classroom at the secondary level, other action researchers focused more explicitly on the thrust of the instruction in elementary

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social studies. VanSledright’s (2002) well‐known text documented his experiences teaching history to fifth graders. In his thorough descriptions of his teaching strategies, he demonstrated his approach to integrating inquiry to engage elementary students in historical investigation. He also explored student learning outcomes, detailing both successes and setbacks. Other practitioner studies have focused on more discrete teaching strategies and have been shorter in duration. For example, Kelley (2006) studied the use of student‐directed questioning strategies with kindergartners engaged in a unit called “Our Town,” and McCormick (2008) examined inquiry‐based teaching on the American Revolution with her fifth‐grade students. Based on evidence collected across both studies, the teacher researchers concluded that engaging students in asking questions about social studies topics positively impacted student motivation, while also positively impacting student achievement. According to McCormick, “Perhaps the most revealing insight gathered from this action research study was that the students became intrigued with ‘wanting to know more’ and initiated their own research and independent reading”—a finding which she felt supported Brophy’s (2004) “belief that when motivation to learn exists, students will learn for the sake  of learning” (p. 127). Kelley’s findings echoed this belief, especially regarding the importance of eliciting student participation by enabling them to ask questions that are important to them. Action researchers have also demonstrated the potential benefits of integrating historical fiction alongside non‐fiction texts in the elementary classroom. Bosma, Rule, and Krueger (2013) conducted a mixed‐methods, action research study of 22 fifth‐grade students who read graphic novels about historical content as part of their learning experiences. They found that students were able to recall roughly the same number of historical ideas from graphic novels as from traditional non‐fiction texts. Since students rated higher levels of reading enjoyment with graphic novels, the authors recommended these texts as suitable alternatives in the classroom, especially to differentiate instruction. Based on evidence they collected, the authors determined that the integration of graphic novels helped students develop historical thinking skills or habits of mind, including the tentative nature of historical understanding, the likelihood of “divergent interpretations of various historical documents,” and the importance of using historical evidence to support interpretations (p. 58). Historical empathy.  There is a notable trend within the social studies action research literature to study historical empathy (Barton & Levsitk, 2004; Davis, 2001; Endacott, 2010; Foster, 1999; Foster & Yeager, 1998; VanSledright, 2002) and the impact of various approaches to instruction on students’ development of empathy. Across the studies, the practitioner researchers engage students in analyzing primary sources and forming historical arguments. They are most concerned with whether students can move beyond mere perspective‐taking: “It [history] can encourage students to consider intimately the thoughts and beliefs of people in the past; to understand and appreciate their circumstances, their predicament, their actions; and ultimately, to reflect on the consequences of those actions” (Foster, 1999, p. 18). These reports provide in‐depth accounts of the teaching and learning strategies used to engage students in developing historical empathy as well as the outcomes for students. They also provide new understandings about how best to elicit and assess student outcomes. Foster (1999) described a series of lessons for high school students focused on Neville Chamberlain and his negotiations with Hitler in the fall of 1938. The lessons required



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students to analyze a set of primary sources and to construct an argument. As a result of the lesson, Foster contended that students “wrestled with the vagaries of historical evidence, and, most important, have thoughtfully understood, appreciated, and evaluated the actions of significant historical characters” (p. 20). He laid out a step-by-step process for other teachers to use with students to enhance their study of history through actively engaging historical empathy. Other authors went further to study not only the outcomes of students analyzing primary sources, but also the most appropriate strategies for supporting students in developing historical arguments. For example, in her study, Brooks (2008) examined differences in student learning outcomes as evidenced by their historical writing. Specifically, she found that when students responded to first person writing prompts, they demonstrated more sophisticated levels of inferential thinking, whereas when addressing third person writing prompts, they tended to focus more on factual information and less on making inferences. Referencing Barton and Levstik’s (2004) understanding of historical empathy as caring, Kohlemeier (2006) set out to understand ways to engage students in historical thinking and meaning‐making. She integrated Socratic seminars to provide students a forum for discussing the lives of historical women, their experiences, and their challenges. When followed up with writing exercises designed to guide students in developing historical interpretation (using graphic organizers, etc.), she found that students did develop more caring attitudes towards historical actors and, in the process, their subjective relationship to the past motivated students to tackle more difficult texts and issues. Data collected in her study provided evidence that students improved their ability to think historically, recognized multiple perspectives, and supported their assertions with examples from the text. Building on the work of Kohlmenier (2006) and VanSledright (2002), Jensen (2008) studied the integration of “structured debates on issues facing historical actors” as “another possible route to developing historical empathy” (p. 57) in her fifth‐grade classroom. She found that developing historical empathy is crucial to students’ abilities to develop historical thinking. Through the use of structured debates, her students appeared to be able to understand historical contexts and different points of view. However, her students had difficulty demonstrating the difference between the past and the present; this was especially true for students with a Specific Learning Disability (SLD). D’Adamo and Fallace (2011) described an action research study conducted with fourth‐ grade students that engaged students in a multigenre, historical research project (see also Suskind, 2007). “Students were required to present at least three genres, in three different historical perspectives on their topic as a way to demonstrate their understanding of h­istorical empathy” (p. 80). They used Jensen’s (2008) rubric to assess the extent to which students “demonstrated the four elements of historical empathy (an understanding that the past is different from the present, that there were various perspectives in the past, the context in which the event took place, and the significance of the use of historical evidence)” (parentheses in original, p. 81; see also Downey’s [1995] characteristics of empathy on which Jensen’s rubric was based). Based on the evidence presented, the authors concluded that “the most significant progress students made in developing historical empathy was in their ability to understand that there were multiple perspectives in the past” (p. 84). Importantly, they determined that “certain genres seemed to be more conducive than others for displaying historical perspective”— specifically, “first‐person student‐authored journal entries, letters, newspaper articles, and poems” (p. 85). D’Adamo and Fallace (2011) point out that

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their findings confirmed Brook’s (2008) conclusions about the use of first person, fictional accounts as a means to help students develop historical empathy. Across these studies, the authors demonstrated the value in explicitly supporting s­tudents in the development of historical empathy. They presented a variety of teaching and learning strategies across a range of grade levels and ability levels. Their studies provided insider knowledge about how best to engage students, and the evidence they presented p­rovides more insights into the complex issues teachers face as they engage students in h­istorical thinking.

6.5.2  Significance of Findings on Historical Thinking Combined, these practitioner research studies contribute a better understanding to our field about ways in which K–12 teachers might elicit the development of historical thinking skills among students. By engaging students through a variety of instructional activities, these teachers and action researchers were able to demonstrate the connection between previous research on historical thinking and classroom practice. Specifically, their findings illustrated that through thoughtful discussion grounded in historical texts, combined with a variety of writing types, teachers could engage students to use more sophisticated ­historical thinking skills, including developing empathy or a caring attitude about historical actors, making inferences, and demonstrating understandings through references to historical evidence and text, either orally or in writing. These studies and their findings appear to largely parallel research studies on historical thinking that were conducted by outside researchers. They also have implications for work in other areas of the social studies. For example, Pytash et al.’s (2014) action research study focused on using mentor texts to support writing in the economics classroom employing methods similar to the research described above. Thomas‐Brown (2010) found that ­students developed empathy towards victims of Hurricane Katrina after investigating the events through the “Teaching the Levees Model.” Perhaps most significantly, the practitioner research studies provide insight into the p­edagogical content knowledge of the teachers, their motivations, and their decision‐­ making strategies, providing a step‐by‐step guide for other practitioners to adopt and enact, as well as direction for future research. At the same time, the authors of these studies reported on the personal and professional benefits of conducting these studies. For example, Newstreet (2008) wrote: As a researcher, I am beginning to see that there are reliable instruments, tools, and resources that can be used to look at every aspect of classroom practice. This reveals the validity of personal action research projects to improve individual practice, objectively looking at our work through the use of video tape technology. (p. 12)

Through the systematic and intentional collection and analysis of data related to their p­ractices, the teacher action researchers referenced here all went deeper into understanding what works for their students and how to bring about change and improvement in their classrooms. This “pedagogical reflection exercises our ability to see or perceive significant moments in children’s lives” (van Manen, 1990).



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6.6  Practitioner Research about Critical Social Studies Education Practitioner research has the potential to encourage mindfulness about children (van Manen, 1990) that leads teachers to view children’s learning and behavior beyond practical, day‐to‐day concerns about practice, towards more critical issues in the classroom. Van Manen asks, “Indeed what would be the point of action research if it did not lead to more appropriate and more sensitive ways of acting pedagogically with children?” (p. 154). This focus on acting more appropriately and sensitively with children appears in the extant practitioner research in the field of the social studies focused on critical educational issues (see Cornbleth, 2016, in this Handbook for a more detailed discussion of these issues). According to Johnston (2006), “Social studies education provides the opportunity and, some would argue, the obligation to address these [social justice] issues in culturally sensitive ways” (p. 74). Action research and self‐study can help practitioners “unmask our prejudices and biases, study our own social justice agendas in practice, and learn from what students can tell us about their points of view and their learning” (p. 75). Within the social studies, there are some examples of teachers researching their own practices integrating social justice and anti‐racist pedagogy in the classroom. These examples include teachers who have studied the integration of specific curriculum, such as NCSS’ “Teaching the Levees” (Thomas‐Brown, 2010) or more general approaches to ­integrating discussions about race and social justice into the classroom (Husband, 2010; Martell, 2013, 2015; Sánchez, 2007). Across these studies, the teacher researchers documented strengths and weaknesses in their approaches. Manfra’s (2009b) study of social studies teachers conducting teacher research in their own classrooms demonstrates that, when teachers engaged in systematic, intentional inquiry about critical issues, including culturally relevant instruction, they developed greater awareness about race and became advocates for their marginalized students. The process of engaging in classroom‐based teacher research was transformative for both the teacher researchers and their students. The studies described below provide representative examples of findings from the extant practitioner research in the social studies focused on social justice. They provide new insight about future directions for this work. For example, Sánchez (2007) took a different approach in her “social justice inquiry” and action research study (p. 647); she integrated music and poetry in her secondary social studies classes to expose students to social justice issues. Because the students were reluctant to engage in discussion regarding discrimination, poverty, racism, sexual orientation, sexism, and even history based on multiple perspectives, I decided to explore additional media forms that would call their attention to such issues and provide a forum for discussion and critical analyses of larger societal issues. (p. 651)

Sánchez began her data collection in a class she taught focused on social justice. She set out to integrate Bell and Griffin’s (1997) strategies to help students “increase personal awareness” and “expand knowledge” (p. 47). As a teacher action researcher, Sánchez aimed to create “an atmosphere of collaboration, discussion, debate, and critical analysis” (p. 655). Based on qualitative data collected over the course of her study, Sánchez concluded that ­students began to identify social justice issues in their expository writing and poetry and experienced “a wide range of emotions and feelings about social justice” as well as “how they

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should act and what they should do about it” (p. 658), including feelings of guilt, anger, and powerlessness. Overall, Sánchez felt that her use of multigenre texts enabled her to create a space in the classroom for “knowledge deconstruction, production, and distribution related to social justice topics” (p. 661). Similar to the above study, Martell (2015) embarked on self‐study to examine his teaching practices with regard to race and culturally relevant instruction. He also referenced the research literature on critical race theory and used white racial identity models to trace the evolution of his understanding about race and culturally relevant instruction. Unlike the previous studies, however, his self‐study is more prolonged; he reports on his development over 15 years, particularly with regard to pivotal moments in his career/ understanding in teacher preparation and as a classroom and methods teacher. He wrote, “By ‘getting personal’ through self‐study research, a teacher can question the racism embedded in their individual teaching practices, but also challenge the racism embedded in the larger social studies curriculum” (Martell, 2015, p. 42). Similar to Sánchez and Martell, Husband’s (2010) critical action research study documented his efforts to “examine [his] teaching experiences as a first-grade teacher, teaching about African American history through the use of critical, anti‐racist pedagogy” (p. 61). He planned and taught a series of nine lessons focused on African American history from slavery through desegregation in his first-grade classroom that included the use of drama as an anti‐racist pedagogy. He assigned his students to pretend to be runaway slaves or slave masters, KKK members, or terrorized families. When he “asked them [students] to ‘act’ out whether they would stay or attempt to escape as slaves” (p. 70), the results surprised Husband. He wrote that “many students responded that it felt good being a slave master due to the fact that they were no longer experiencing the pain of being a slave” (p. 70). Husband was concerned that his mainly African American students (24 of 28) failed to adequately grasp the racial injustice inherent in the dominant perspectives. Although his intention was good—he wanted to use drama to “engage the children in thinking about agency”—his use of role‐play yielded unexpected results (see Anti‐Defamation League, 2007, and Totten, 2000, for a more complete discussion of the alternatives to role-play and simulations about genocide, racial discrimination, etc.). Combined, these action research and self‐studies provide important insight about the experiences of social studies teachers focused on social justice education (Bell, 1997) in the classroom. Their studies, similar to Tyson’s (2002) findings, indicate that using a variety of teaching materials, especially highly engaging resources, such as music, poetry, and children’s literature, that go beyond the textbook in the classroom, can be an effective means for opening up discussion. They also point to the ineffectiveness of other strategies such as drama or role play. Importantly, across the studies, the teachers document their individual growth and developing awareness. The teacher researchers take seriously the call for social studies education to include social justice themes (e.g., Kincheloe, 2001; Wade, 1999) and work to find the best methods for engaging their students in discussing and learning about social justice learning. They document the difficulties teachers face in engaging in critical, social justice pedagogy, both from external factors (e.g., student and parental resistance) as well as internal factors (e.g., becoming an effective facilitator to create a safe space for student discussion of critical issues). Their work also provides suggestions for other teachers to adapt into practice. They demonstrate “the potential for teacher research to lead to critical inquiry, empowerment, and change in social studies classrooms” (Manfra, 2009b, p. 362).



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Contemporary social studies action researchers and those interested in self‐study about issues related to race, racism, and social justice should refer back to the work of Lawrence Stenhouse and the Centre for Applied Research in Education (CARE) at East Anglia University. Stenhouse et al.’s (1982) report details a three‐year, grant‐funded project that built on the Humanities Curriculum Project (HCP) focused on teaching about race relations in the United Kingdom. They collected data across a random sample of 40 schools, each adopting one of three approaches to teaching about race relations—“teaching strategy A:” the HCP approach “in which the teacher plays the role of a neutral chairman” (p. 11), “teaching strategy B”: in which schools “use an approach in which the teacher feels free to express his own or the school’s commitment in the classroom” (p. 12), and “teaching strategy C”: integrating “an approach based on drama.” In each of these schools, the teachers acted as teacher researchers, collecting and analyzing data in their own classrooms. University‐ based researchers also collected qualitative and quantitative data and worked to link teachers into collaborative relationships with teachers in other schools. As a result of the data collected and analyzed, the researchers formed 26 hypotheses. Among these the researchers found: Hypothesis 7: Strategy A and Strategy B are both moderately effective in combating inter‐ethnic prejudice, and the data give no basis for prescriptive discrimination between them. Hypothesis 8: Schools will be wise to adopt whichever strategy accords with the context of teaching and the skill of the teachers involved. Hypothesis 9: Teaching about race relations through improvised drama does not lead to overall deterioration in inter‐ethnic attitudes. Hypothesis 10: Schools would be unwise in general to rely solely on drama as a medium of teaching about race relations if their objective is to maximize improvements in attitudes. (pp. 273–274)

These hypotheses align with the findings of the contemporary action research and self‐ study focused on race relations reviewed here. They reiterate the power of explicit instruction about race to confront prejudice while providing guidance about instructional strategies that are most effective. Stenhouse et  al.’s (1982) model of a large‐scale collaborative action research project p­rovides a good starting point and model for current work in the U.S.. Their project report not only details the curriculum and teaching strategies used in the three datasets, but also the data collection tools, including quantitative measures. The case studies presented across the three teaching strategies (A, B, and C) provide rich descriptions and examples illustrating the manner in which teachers enacted the three approaches and the responses they elicited from students.

6.7  Participatory Action Research in the Social Studies Much like the studies above, participatory action research (Kindon, Pain, & Kresby, 2008) often focuses on critical social justice issues. However, it generally uses a wider lens to engage members of the community beyond the school classroom as co‐researchers or c­ollaborators. This form of practitioner research is often seen to be particularly emancipatory and democratizing (Kinsler, 2010).

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Mitchell and Elwood’s (2012) participatory action research engaged seventh‐grade girls in “counter‐mapping to resist hegemonic ways of representing space” (italics in original, p. 158). The authors aimed toward “enhancing students’ sense of their own knowledge and agency to impact their communities and developing research outputs that foster sustainable benefits for their communities” (p. 143). More specifically, they sought to understand whether students investigating institutions associated with marginalized groups, e.g., women’s centers and immigrant enclaves, would guide the students towards greater levels of  civic engagement. They were “interested in whether learning about these historical processes would seem more immediate and important to the students if they could visualize how and where these things occurred” (p. 158). As such, the seventh graders mapped key historical sites in Seattle using the Google Maps API and created annotations (photos, comments, etc.). They also completed think‐alouds or “guided tours” of maps discussing what was included/excluded and why, as well as responding to a civic engagement worksheet. The adult participants (Mitchell and Elwood) kept field journals of their observations about youth participants and also analyzed samples of students’ work. As a result of their study, the authors concluded: Among the insights that the students derived, a key one was the growing understanding that both discriminatory actions such as redlining, and the creation of affirmative locales such as benevolent societies, are profoundly spatial processes critical in both scope and impact to historically subordinated groups. (p. 157)

6.7.1  Longitudinal and Large Group Practitioner Research in the Social Studies There have been several large‐scale practitioner research collaboratives. In the U.S., the tradi­ tion was prompted by the work of the National Writing Project (MacLean & Mohr, 1999). Over time, there have been successful initiatives to integrate collaborative action research in professional development schools (PDS) (Levin & Rock, 2003). Engaging both student teachers and cooperating teachers in systematic and intentional reflection on p­ractice leads to “collaborative resonance” in which “novice and experienced professionals alike work to learn from, interpret, and ultimately alter day‐to‐day life of schools” (Cochran‐Smith, 1991, p. 284). Social studies educators have documented the outcomes of integrating practitioner research, especially teacher action research, into professional development schools (PDS) that partner preservice teachers with more experienced teachers. Crocco et  al. (2003) describe their experiences taking part in a grant‐funded initiative in which social studies faculty members became “pivotal players” in the PDS. Hawley et al. (2010) describe a large‐ scale self‐study collaborative that engaged new social studies teacher educators in a study of their practice. Similarly, Hyland and Noffke (2005) collected data over two years at two different universities focused on engaging their preservice teachers in developing culturally relevant teaching strategies. Phillips (2001) reports on action research undertaken by teachers in collaboration with university‐based researchers to understand ways to pique student curiosity or “hook” s­tudents at the beginning of a lesson. They focused on the use of Initial Stimulus Material (ISM). As a result of this cumulative action research, the report included lists of common types of ISMs and suggestions for their use. The author concluded these ISMs “can have enormous



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d­ividends, not only for arousing curiosity at the start of the lesson, but for … connecting key questions or lines of enquiry with follow‐up activities, including extended writing” (p. 19). Noffke et al. (1996) describe the grant‐funded African and African American Curriculum Program (AAACP) begun in Buffalo, NY, in 1986. This project developed as a response to perceived issues related to integration of schools in Buffalo and the need to integrate more African and African American content into the curriculum. As a result of the program, an  action research collaborative including university researchers, school administrators, ­preservice teachers, and in‐service teachers evolved into the Multicultural Education Instructional Support Team (MEIST) in 1992. Importantly, this team faced not so much academic questions about types of action research, but more about its “overall usefulness to practitioners engaged in this particular kind of work” (np), time constraints, and university oversight. According to the authors, “No one wanted the university coming in and telling the participants what to do regarding their project proposals” (np). In each of these examples, the teacher plays an important role in guiding the form and function of the action research. “The teacher as internal research worker, and the member of the project team as external research worker, would therefore seem to compensate for each other’s shortcomings and, more important, to deepen understanding of the process being observed. It allows the innovation to be perceived from two standpoints, from within and without” (Stenhouse et al., 1982, p. 25).

Boyle‐Baise, Hsu, Johnson, Serriere, and Stewart (2011) described the resistance they met in their attempts to support action research in a partnering school. In their follow‐up to a previous study, the authors returned to the research sites to share findings from the first study and “to engage teachers in courageous conversations or honest, frank appraisal leading to a consensus that ‘something must be done’ (Graham & Neu, 2014, p. 309)” (r­eference in original, p. 136). As a result, they developed a syllabus for a 10‐week, teacher‐led course that integrated action research. Unfortunately, only one teacher enrolled and they were not able to meet with grade level teams. They concluded, “When teams like ours come into the schools, inviting the teachers to work with us, but not offering any gain other than intrinsic, professional rejuvenation, we are not speaking the language of reality” (p. 143). For collaborative action research or self‐study to be done well, there must be a clear a­rticulation about goals and a great deal of ongoing communication. According to Noffke, et al. (1996): Action research is not a ‘neutral tool’ for any type of change; it is something to be employed within a conscious, deliberate context of common ends, of shared commitments. That sharing must be seen as one that affirms our identity, not only through the connections we feel but also through the distinctions and differences we come to value. Collaboration cannot be considered as an abstract, “one size fits all” issue. What one is collaborating about or researching about matters. (p. 171)

University researchers and educators interested in engaging teachers or professional development schools in action research or self‐study must understand that these projects take a great deal of commitment from all parties involved. These projects must be approached through common vision and “shared commitments.” An important first step is to agree to the methods to pursue as part of the systematic and intentional study.

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6.8  Methodological Considerations of Practitioner Research Similar to other genres of research, across practitioner research studies within the field of the social studies, researchers collected a variety of empirical data from which to analyze and draw claims. Some described their work as both practitioner inquiry and case study (e.g., Dinkleman, 1999, 2000). James (2008) included “critical” as a descriptor for her action research study “because of [her] tendency to pay particular attention to the ways various discourses shape the experiences and understandings of students in [her] classes” (p. 179), and this led her to be more attuned to “issues of power as they constitute the contexts in which knowledge and identity are constructed” (p. 179). Across the studies cited in this review, data collection mainly included qualitative data. This included lesson plans, classroom observation field notes, and class discussions, both from within the author’s classrooms and without (Gerwin, 2003); interviews at three points over the course of the study, class observations and field notes, and samples of student work (Dinkleman, 1999); researcher field journal, history pre‐assessment, weekly reading reactions, and post‐course reflections (James, 2008); and blog posts, journal reflections, collaborative group discussions (Hostetler, 2012). Some of the researchers worked collaboratively with other instructors, while most research reports represented an individual endeavor. All reported engaging in formal and informal conversations with the students in their classrooms, putting themselves in a different position relative to their students.

6.8.1  Researcher as the Intervention This new position resulted from the role of the researcher as the primary stakeholder and participant; the researcher is the intervention. As such, the description of the research setting and context as well as descriptions of what the practitioner researcher did over the course of the study to not only elicit participant data, but to also bring about change in the social studies classroom, are essential components of the final report. Dinkleman (1999) described what he perceived to be important differences between his work and other qualitative research studies: Though this research made use of qualitative methods of investigation, it departs from common forms of qualitative methods of investigation, such as ethnography, in that my objective was to do more than merely understand a complex social phenomenon (preservice teachers learning critically reflective teaching). In this study, I also played an active role in influencing that phenomenon. In a sense, my teaching represented a form of treatment, as I intended to influence the study participants in ways that I hope would encourage their critical reflection. (p. 331)

Good examples of practitioner research reports include extensive discussions about the strategies the researchers used in the classroom to help contextualize the findings. Dinkleman (1999), for example, included the strategies he used to support the development of critical reflection with the preservice teachers enrolled in his course, such as descriptions of course readings and assignments as well as his own philosophy, rationale, and goals for  the course, and Hyland and Noffke (2005) provide detailed descriptions about the community and social inquiry projects they assigned. So, too, James (2008) reported that



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over the course of her three‐semester project, she was able to refine her practice as an instructor. She also includes rich descriptions of her course and a detailed discussion of one unit focused on Christopher Columbus. In describing this unit, she includes her rationale and goals as well as the teaching and learning activities that she and her preservice students followed. A full description of the lesson is included in the appendices of her report. These  rich descriptions become guidebooks for other researchers and teacher educators interested in similar work and invite them to adapt and refine the strategies described in new settings.

6.8.2 Empowerment The opportunity to systematically study one’s practice can feel empowering to practitioners (Martell, 2016). Hostetler (2012) writes, “Within three months of self‐study, a sense of empowerment had developed in me as a teacher” (p. 76). This sense of empowerment may develop from learning more about how to improve practice, while also developing new understandings about ways to improve social studies education and teacher education writ large. For example, referring to the “power of action research”, James (2008) suggests it can “offer deep, contextual examples of the relationships between theory and practice” and that her own work enables her to both study “[her] own practice and the experiences of [her] s­tudents,” while also “offering [her] experience as a point of reference for larger conversations of teacher education” (p. 179). Their new‐found understanding provides practitioner researchers with the language necessary to advocate for change. For example, Martell (2016) reflects, “I took on the dual role of teacher and researcher to challenge the status quo, which perpetuates power structures and continues to maintain inequity” (p. 96). Similarly, Gerwin (2003) contends that his work “attempts to combine both practical inquiry and formal research” and that “[it] is both an effort to improve my own teaching and that of other social studies teacher‐educators—action research—and an effort to expand the knowledge that scholars and educators have about teacher education” (p. 442). Surprisingly, some of the studies included in this review did not include positionality ­statements or background information about the action researcher or self‐study researcher. The inclusion of contextual information, especially about the researcher, seems to be an important criterion for evaluating the trustworthiness of the research.

6.8.3  Significance and Trustworthiness of Practitioner Research Evaluating the role of practitioner research in social studies research leads to larger conversations about the purpose of the social studies and the role of research within the field. Across the studies the authors discuss their efforts towards ensuring the trustworthiness of the findings. Here, “notions about validity and generalizability are quite different from traditional criteria” (Cochran‐Smith & Lytle, 2009, p. 43). Rather than view context‐ dependent findings as limiting or detrimental, practitioner researchers view them as an asset of the work. For example, Wade (1999) writes, “Furthermore, the study considers personal, cultural, situational, and societal factors as major influences on the course events, thus responding to a concern about some existing studies on teacher research

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disregarding context in university settings (Hutchinson, 1996)” (reference in the original, p. 75). The threat of only including information that confirms the perspective of the researcher is offset in action research and self‐study through the systematic and i­ntentional collection of data. Perhaps even more so than in other forms of research, practitioner researchers must attempt to collect evidence of viewpoints other than their own (Altrichter, 1993) in order to capture multiple points of view and to develop new understandings about how to improve their practice. They seek disconfirming evidence and engage students and colleagues as co‐participants in data collection and analysis. For example, Hyland and Noffke (2005) describe working to “distance [themselves] from the data in some way and to check [their] own interpretations” by blinding the data, purposefully looking for contradictions, and seeking out areas of practice in need of improvement (p. 373). Trustworthiness of findings relates less to the number of participants and more to the quality of the evidence presented and the logic of the arguments used to present findings. It is also important to keep in mind that action research and self‐study are conceived as part of a cycle of continual development and improvement. “The end results of action research may inform theory or be applicable to others’ practice, but their most immediate and useful purpose is the contribution they make toward the transformation of one’s own teaching” (Wade, 1999, p. 76).

6.9  Potential Limitations Although diverse perspectives and research methods are welcomed and needed in our field, it is still “important that authors be vigilant about explaining their theoretical perspectives, methodologies, and research tools … The findings and conclusions of research studies should enlighten us, but so too should the ways in which researchers conceptualize and implement their studies” (Avery, 2008, p. 8). Despite the potential of practitioner research, some caution against overstating the actual improvements to teaching and student learning that occur from the process. Zeichner (1994) shies away from the suggestion that simply engaging in the process of action research will improve teaching and learning. He argues, “This view ignores the fact that the greater intentionality and power exerted by teachers may help in some cases to further solidify and justify practices that are harmful to students and may undermine important connections between institutions and their communities” (p. 66). From the perspective of the teacher engaged in the research, the effort and ambiguity required to be truly critical self‐reflection may be overwhelming, causing teachers to elect shallow topics that invite far less cognitive dissonance (e.g., Manfra, 2009b). Accordingly, Zeichner advises taking “teacher research much more seriously,” including defining its purposes and directions (p. 67). Similarly, proponents of self‐study warn that embarking on self‐study will not necessarily lead to change. Powell (2010) notes, “Self‐study can promote reflective practice, but it does so only when those engaged in self‐study do so reflectively; it should go without saying, in other words, that self‐study does not necessarily lead to reflective practice any more than reflective practice leads inevitably to self‐study” (p. 33). Imperative in self‐study is pursuing a systematic approach to reflection and an openness to change. The term “self‐study” might be misleading since good self‐study involves practitioners in sharing their reflection and seeking guidance and feedback from others.



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Finally, it is important to understand that for K–12 social studies teachers to engage in systematic, intentional reflection in their classrooms, they need support and adequate time to carry out the research endeavor. VanSledright (2002) acknowledged that his case was unusual in that he only was in charge of teaching history but “it was daunting nonetheless” (p. xii). He argues for the need to “reconfigure teachers’ daily work lives, enabling them to systematically study and learn from their own practice, write about it, and thus enable other teachers to learn from it as well” (p. xii). Until teachers have more time to embark on prolonged research about their practice, their voice will remain largely muted in the research literature.

6.9.1  Ethical Issues Since action research and self‐study focus on the individual practitioner, it might seem that these forms of research confront fewer ethical issues, yet issues related to power and ­representation (Johnston, 2006) and “coercion, predictability, confidentiality, and risk” (Brydon‐Miller & Greenwood, 2006, p. 117) still exist. In practitioner research, there is still the burden of ensuring that participants are not harmed and most institutional review boards will require action researchers to inform participants of potential risks through informed consent (see Wade, 1999); “there is a particular imperative to ensure that all p­articipants know what is going on, that the processes are inherently transparent to all” (Stringer, 2014, p. 89). While ethical issues in practitioner research are similar to those in other forms of research, there are also unique circumstances of action research and self‐study to consider. For example, Brydon‐Miller (2004) encourages action researchers to remain cognizant of their power and privilege, asking, “How can we distinguish between caring and coercion in the context of close, on‐going, collaborative relationships?” (p. 125). The answer seems to be in maintaining constant communication between researchers and participants (especially students and members of research collaboratives) while constantly reflecting on “the potential for coercion in a critical manner” (p. 125). This is especially true for researchers wishing to engage students in discussion about critical, social justice issues. It seems antithetical to coerce students into conversations about social justice, yet many social studies teachers and teacher educators experience resist­ance from students, especially White students when it comes to topics of race. Wade (1999), for example, found “that voice and choice were the aspects of [his] practice that led to the most struggle and difficulty for [him]” (p. 77). She grapples with unequal power dynamics in her classroom while also encouraging students to participate democratically in the course. Husband (2010) also experienced resistance from a White parent concerned about the content of his lesson, leading him to ask, “Was all of his anxiety over not having the strategies to deal with racism and White privilege appropriately with his daughter? Or, was it more of a lack of a desire to confront?” (p. 72). Illustrating the tension between caring and coercion, Husband concludes, “[A]fter all, he signed the consent form for his daughter to participate in the study” (p. 72). It is important for anyone interested in engaging in practitioner research to understand that this form of research is “risky business” (Lytle, 1993) not only for the action researcher or person engaged in self‐study, but also for their colleagues and students. Dinkleman (2003)

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recounts a particularly painful moment in his self‐study when his student reluctantly divulged during an interview that his “‘what the hell are you talking about look’” (p. 7) s­tifled conversation in his classes. Dinkleman wrote, “I was stunned. This response was truly a revelation to me. Promotion of open discourse was, and is, one of the most value objectives of my teaching, one that I was unknowingly squelching” (p. 7). In addition to opening the researcher up to frank criticism from students and colleagues, action research and self‐study require the researcher to remain open to this criticism and to make public teaching practices that often remain hidden and private (Hawley, 2010b). For colleagues and students, this can also lead to an uncomfortable amount of investigation as well as d­isequilibrium as teachers take on new roles as students of their students. Teacher educators interested in engaging preservice teachers and experienced teachers in collaborative action research or self‐study groups should anticipate the perceived risks. This is particularly the case when asking teachers to share their research findings with an outside group. According to Lytle (1993), “The consequences of ‘telling the truth’—about oneself and one’s students—often become particularly unsettling and even somewhat unsettling when taking the data outside the group” (p. 23). These risks involve not only publicly acknowledging personal assumptions, misconceptions, and areas in need of improvement, but also the risk of not being taken seriously by administrators or university researchers.

6.10  Future Directions Although there are risks associated with engaging in action research and self‐study, there are potential benefits both for the growth of the practitioner researcher and the larger field of the social studies. Researchers in the social studies can build on the findings of action research and self‐study described above to continue to develop a better understanding of what “works” in teacher education and K–12 social studies instruction. The approach to theory generation through action or knowledge in action that is fundamental to action research and self‐study provides an important opportunity for us to gain insider knowledge. According to Cochran‐Smith and Lytle (1993), this leads us toward critically examining schooling practices and challenging prevailing views about education. In other words, p­ractitioner research challenges our conventional wisdom, particularly regarding critical topics related to race, gender, class, or sexuality, and encourages the reexamination of taken‐for‐granted assumptions. It enables us to grow as researchers and educators as we systematically and intentionally reflect on our practice.

References Adelman, C. (1993). Kurt Lewin and the origins of action research. Educational Action Research, 1(1), 7–24. Adler, S. (1991). The education of social studies teachers. In J. Shaver (Ed.), Handbook of research on social studies teaching and learning (pp. 210–221). New York, NY: Macmillan. Adler, S. (1993). The social studies methods course instructor: Practitioner researcher. The International Journal of Social Studies Education, 7(3), 39–47. Adler, S. (2008). The education of social studies teachers. In L. Levstik & C. Tyson (Eds.), Handbook of research in social studies education (pp. 329–350). New York, NY: Routledge.



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7

Exemplars from the Field of Social Studies Education Research Patricia G. Avery and Keith C. Barton

Reviews of social studies education research between 1963 and 2001 characterized the p­ublished research as “sterile” (Metcalf, 1963, p. 929), “trivial” (Shaver & Larkins, 1973, p. 1244), “narrow and unimportant” (Armento, 1986, p. 944), and stagnant, with an “absence of significant advances” (Seixas, 2001, p. 545). To be sure, there are poorly conceptualized studies in the social studies—those beset by trivial research questions, weak questionnaire and interview protocols, insufficient grounding in previous research, grand conclusions that far exceed data, and the like. No field is immune from low quality research, and social studies researchers typically work under greater constraints than do their literacy, math, and science counterparts (e.g., less funding, lower status in the curriculum, more societal conflict around goals, more overtly political in nature). Thus, concerns about the quality of social studies research are not entirely without merit. Yet in our recent review of the research, focusing especially on the period from 2000–2013 (Barton & Avery, 2016), we also found numerous examples of high quality empirical studies. Our purpose in this chapter is to describe and analyze aspects of some of those studies. Just as teachers can learn from case studies of their exemplary peers (e.g., Hess, 2002), we believe researchers can learn from a careful analysis of high quality research conducted by their colleagues. Rather than analyze exemplars of specific types of studies—such as case studies, ethnographies, or design experiments—we have divided this chapter into categories related to aspects of studies we believe are exemplary. Despite differences in design, most empirical researchers are concerned with a similar set of issues: formulating research questions or problems, reviewing relevant literature, designing the research, collecting and analyzing data, and using theory to contextualize findings. By organizing the chapter around these areas, we hope to call attention to issues faced by researchers of various traditions and perspectives and to suggest some ways that attention to each of these elements can lead to better research. Although we focus on specific aspects of studies, we also believe that each of the studies represents high quality research as a whole. Researchers are faced with myriad decisions The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.



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throughout the research process, any one of which may seriously weaken a study in ways unforeseen at the time. In the studies we describe here, we believe the researchers generally made wise decisions throughout their studies. Although there are no “perfect studies,” most of the choices made by the researchers enhanced the quality of their research in terms of trustworthiness, significance to the field and broader public, implications for theory and practice, and the like. As a cohesive whole, each study we describe in this chapter, to varying degrees, has the capacity to change the way people think about a particular problem or issue. Interested readers may want to read these studies in their entirety, consider the array of issues that likely confronted the researchers, and think about how the researchers’ decisions impacted the quality of the study. We acknowledge that our choices are necessarily subjective, and that other scholars would choose a different set of exemplars. In the following sections, we explain the thinking behind our choices and let readers decide if these were wise. Any debate our choices s­timulate will be beneficial to the field.

7.1  Formulating Research Questions A powerful research question usually reflects attention to relevant theory, concepts, and principles; builds on extant research; and has important sociopolitical and/or policy implications. In social studies education, research questions often focus on how key ideas related to civics, historical thinking, or the social sciences are manifested in educational and social practice. The disjunctures revealed when powerful ideas are juxtaposed with practice often suggest nuance to theories, concepts, and principles, and provide alternatives to practice. Kahne and Middaugh’s (2008) research question provides an exemplar: “Are desired school‐based civic learning opportunities equally distributed?” Although not explicitly stated, the question reflects a pluralist theoretical orientation, whereby citizens have equal status in terms of political power and influence. The researchers presented data from several studies indicating the increasingly disproportionate influence of upper-income, highly educated Whites on public policy (e.g., Bartels, 2005), and the disparity in electoral participation by socioeconomic status, education, and race/ethnicity (e.g., Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995). They also cited an accumulation of research identifying specific instructional practices associated with positive civic outcomes, and then examine the degree to which all students had access to these practices. Thus, Kahne and Middaugh’s question, which explores relationships between educational institutions and their consequences for political inequity, has important policy implications within and beyond those institutions. Over the years, scholars have identified some instructional practices (e.g., discussing social issues in an open classroom climate) that are associated with positive citizenship outcomes, such as higher expectations of electoral participation and increased political knowledge (see, for example, Carnegie Corporation of New York, 2003). This accumulation of research allowed Kahne and Middaugh (2008) to operationalize “desired school‐based civic learning opportunities” as nine specific instructional practices (e.g., discussing current events, providing opportunities to interact with civic role models). They then analyzed student reports of such experiences, using data from surveys of California juniors and seniors and a nationally representative sample of ninth graders. Across datasets, they found disparities by socioeconomic status, academic achievement, and race/ethnicity: Low‐income,

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less academically successful students of color received fewer high quality civic opportunities than their counterparts. As such, the very students least likely to be exposed to the type of political talk and models of civic engagement in their homes and communities that would promote engagement in formal democratic institutions (e.g., voting, petitioning, interacting with public officials) were least likely to get those opportunities at school as well. Youth with the least power to effect change in the formal political sphere were not being positioned in school to develop that capacity and become more active in political processes. What makes Kahne and Middaugh’s (2008) research question particularly significant? First, the question relates to one of the most fundamental purposes of education—to prepare students to be enlightened and engaged participants in a pluralistic democracy. Second, it builds on an accumulation of previous work in two areas—political inequities and instructional practices associated with positive civic outcomes—and examines the relationship between them. By doing so, the researchers point to a fertile area for further research. Finally, the research question has implications for educational policy. For example, based on the results of their study, they recommended: (1) teacher professional development that focuses on developing teachers’ skills in implementing research‐based civic learning experiences, and targets teachers in low-income, high minority schools; (2) ongoing assessment of students’ access to civic learning opportunities; and (3) greater attention to civic learning in the curriculum. The specificity of the first and second recommendations, in particular, makes them useful to policymakers. Overall, the study—well conceptualized and executed—makes an important contribution to the research base by exposing the disparity between the democratic ideals espoused in school mission statements across the United States and the inequities in access to a high quality civic education. Abu El‐Haj’s (2007) research question is much narrower in scope, but it also has implications for citizenship education: “In relation to notions of citizenship and national belonging, how are Palestinian American youth from one immigrant community positioned by others, particularly in the school setting, and how do they position themselves?” As part of an ethnographic study initiated in 2004, she found that students viewed their citizenship and national identity as two distinct entities: They were citizens of the United States, but their national identity—their sense of belonging—was decidedly Palestinian. Many of their U.S. teachers and peers did little to cultivate the students’ sense of belongingness; they positioned the Palestinian American youth as the Other, and sometimes, either implicitly or explicitly, viewed them as terrorists and a threat to community safety. Layered upon their daily exposure to post‐9/11 anti‐Muslim sentiment was knowledge of the U.S. refusal to recognize the place of their heritage, Palestine. By focusing on the citizenship and national identity of Palestinian Americans, Abu El‐ Haj (2007) is able to show the intersections between political, social, and cultural tensions and national identity, and illustrate the incapacity of traditional models of citizenship education, particularly in times of heightened fear, to provide a safe space for talking across difference and addressing inequality. The study provides a stark illustration of how legal citizenship and national identity can exist as separate entities, and how some schools play a role in furthering that distinction. Rather than cultivating a sense of belonging, school was a place that often exacerbated the Palestinian American students’ feelings of “otherness.” Abu El‐Haj’s (2007) findings reveal the chasm between conventional ideas about citizenship and national identity and the multifaceted nature of these concepts in a multicultural, pluralistic democracy. The teachers’ and school’s perpetuation of a unidimensional,



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fixed model of citizenship and identity was not only harmful to the Palestinian American students, but also failed to provide opportunities for all of their students to expand their perspectives on citizenship, national identity, and democracy. The study underscores the urgent need for schools to embrace a more critical multicultural citizenship education— one that demands and fosters spaces for marginalized voices, multiple affiliations and l­oyalties, and conflicting perspectives. We identified Abu El‐Haj’s research question as exemplary because it is grounded in theoretical frameworks related to citizenship (see Abowitz & Harnish, 2006) as well as previous research on citizenship, belongingness, and national identity among immigrant youth (e.g., Hall, 2004). Her framing of the research question suggests the complex interrelationships between citizenship, national belongingness, and positioning. Her research question also has implications for educational policy and the social studies curriculum. She calls for much greater emphasis on creating democratic school climates for difficult conversations across difference, and specifically cites some of the work on discussion by Parker (2006) and Parker and Hess (2001). She also advocates for a more critical, social justice orientation to citizenship education that focuses on educating youth about inequities in power and rights, and the societal consequences of positioning some groups as “less than fully American” (Abu El‐Haj, 2007, p. 310). But had Abu El‐Haj’s findings been different, had the Palestinian American students felt embraced by their school and comfortable with a sense of belongingness to Palestine and the United States, the significance of Abu El‐Haj’s research question would not be diminished. Palestinian Americans are marginalized in multiple ways—as immigrants, as p­redominantly Muslim, and as a group from a land actively denied statehood by the United States. Further, since 9/11 they have been positioned as potential terrorists by some Americans. As such, at this particular historical juncture, Abu El‐Haj’s research question holds special significance. Had her findings suggested a more sanguine picture, for example, her description of how a school and Palestinian American youth in one community n­avigated very difficult terrain would have been a major contribution to social studies research and would have had implications for citizenship education and other historically marginalized groups. While the Kahne and Middaugh (2008) and Abu El‐Haj (2007) studies raise questions directly related to intersections of civic learning and teaching, another major area of social studies research is focused on history education, as illustrated in a study conducted by James (2008). James’ research question stemmed from a conundrum she faced teaching an elementary social studies methods class: “Why do elementary preservice teachers resist teaching history as interpretation?” Although previous research had investigated a similar phenomenon among secondary social studies teachers (e.g., Van Hover & Yeager, 2003), elementary teachers’ views of history and history instruction had received less attention at the time James embarked on her study. History instruction at the elementary grades, to the extent that it takes place, has often consisted of reproducing cultural myths through celebrations of holidays and heroes, and the recitation of names, dates, and wars deemed important in U.S. history. Teaching history as interpretation, however, requires a paradigm shift in thinking about teachers’ roles, knowledge, and the capacities of children. Teachers become facilitators or guides instead of knowledge dispensers, history is seen as fluid as opposed to fixed, and students are viewed as capable of constructing knowledge instead of simply receiving knowledge.

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In James’ study, then, we have an important concept in social studies research—teaching history as interpretation—that meets resistance in practice among elementary teachers. In a critical action research study, James (2008) found that one of the primary forms of resistance among her preservice teachers was a “discourse of protection,” whereby they expressed the belief that engaging their young students in historical interpretation was developmentally and morally inappropriate. Beneath this discourse, according to James, were her students’ own views of history as a body of facts and their fears of disrupting the story and privilege that traditional history textbooks embody. The “discourse of protection” thus protected not only young students from complex, challenging knowledge, but shielded the elementary teachers from reckoning with traditional and safe ways of knowing and being. James’ study provides an example of a good research question because it built on related research with secondary teachers and extended it to the elementary level, and because it juxtaposed a core concept in work on history instruction (teaching history as interpretation) with what existed in practice (teacher resistance). This juxtaposition suggested a problem and revealed an area for inquiry. Unlike other studies cited in this section, James’ question did not lend itself well to specific policy recommendations, but appropriate to the nature of the study, she described changes she made to her instruction in an attempt to address the issue. Her research question called for a rich description and analysis of a significant problem area, and indeed, the major contribution of her study is her vivid narrative and thoughtful explanation of the layers of resistance she encountered.

7.2  Reviewing Literature A literature review situates the research study among relevant theory and research and builds a strong case for the author’s investigation. Without a literature review, the rationale for a study frequently is less compelling, and the findings are less likely to make an impact on the field. A well‐developed review, on the other hand, makes a case for the study that is being conducted and establishes why we need to investigate this question, in this way. To make a compelling case, scholars often describe patterns (or lack thereof) across previous studies and draw connections between areas of research. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of social studies, researchers frequently draw on research outside the field. In this section, King (2014) and Halvorsen et  al. (2012) reference an array of empirical and conceptual studies from multiple disciplines to present compelling a­rguments for their research. King (2014) explored the constructions of African American history developed by three preservice secondary social studies teachers. He interviewed one Latino male and two White women before and after they read a collection of key articles, book chapters, and documents related to African American history. The premise for his research study was the belief that an overly simplistic knowledge base about African American history held by social studies teachers often impedes their understanding of the historical roots of racism and its impact on contemporary race relations. This in turn, contributes to a lack of a critical, multicultural perspective in teaching U.S. history. In his literature review, King makes the case that preservice teachers’ knowledge of African American history reflects the traditional U.S. narrative, and he provides evidence suggesting that this narrow construction has deleterious implications for teachers’ pedagogical decisions and for their students.



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In grounding the study in previous work, King (2014) began by citing extensive analyses of U.S. history textbooks, which have indicated that textbooks reflect a Eurocentric perspective and are imbued with individualism, American exceptionalism, and a narrative of freedom and progress. African Americans play an episodic role in most U.S. history textbooks, routinely appearing in chapters on the slave trade, the U.S. Civil War and reconstruction, the Jim Crow era, and the Civil Rights Movement. Aside from notable African American individuals—typically Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King—themes of violence and victimization run through the official story of African American history. The Civil Rights Movement, illustrative of the progressive nature of the American trajectory, is presented as one of the crowning achievements of the United States This narrative is well established in the scholarly literature. King (2014) argues that social studies teachers’ exposure to the narrative in their own schooling explains, in part, research findings on the difficult challenges preservice teachers face in seeing race and racism as integral to U.S. economic, political, and social institutions, from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Further, an uncomplicated African American history supports and sustains the colorblind ideology adopted by many preservice teachers, and accounts for some of the resistance and apathy to discussions about diversity that teacher educators often perceive among their students. King contends, however, that researchers need to move beyond the “narrative of resistance” in explaining why social studies teachers continue to adhere to traditional pedagogy and curriculum. He focuses instead on a lack of knowledge about the complexity of African American history among social studies teachers, and how this makes it difficult for teachers to bring a critical historical perspective to bear on the textbooks they use or the pedagogies they enact. According to King, teachers often draw from a cultural memory that diminishes or omits the role of structural and institutional racism in U.S. history and contemporary society. Through his review of the literature, King (2014) established a strong rationale for his study by further suggesting that a limited sociohistorical knowledge fosters the cultural deficit perspective many teachers bring to their classrooms. This perspective has implications not only for the curriculum teachers construct for all students, but also for their interactions with African American students and communities. Put another way, teachers’ lack of a critical sociohistorical knowledge has real and pernicious effects that devalue, diminish, and marginalize African American students and their experiences. Among the strengths of the literature review is King’s ability to draw clear connections across loosely coupled areas of scholarship. He first established the relationship between representations of African American history in texts and other materials with teachers’ lack of a critical perspective on U.S. history. He then used empirical and conceptual studies to argue that a lack of understanding about African American sociohistorical knowledge has implications for teachers’ understanding of race and racism at the i­nstitutional and individual levels, as well as their pedagogical content knowledge. Importantly, the arguments King presented in his literature review were strengthened by  his integration of relevant scholarship beyond the education literature, including l­inguistics and sociology. Halvorsen et  al. (2012) focused on second‐grade students from low socioeconomic‐ status (SES) schools and the impact of project‐based learning on achievement in social studies and content area literacy. In their literature review, they provided a research‐based

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rationale for working with primary grade children in low‐SES schools and cited conceptual and empirical studies to support their use of project‐based learning methods; they also documented how their study addressed an important gap in the research. Halvorsen and her colleagues (2012) cited research that has long documented the virtual absence of social studies content instruction in the primary grades, and how the standards and accountability movements have further eroded primary grade social studies, particularly in low‐SES, where there is intense pressure to increase reading and math scores. They argued that inattention to primary grade social studies in low‐SES schools likely accounts for students’ significantly lower civics and history scores on fourth grade national assessments (the disparity in national scores is evident in the eighth and twelfth grade assessments as well). Halvorsen et al. contended that failing to develop f­oundational knowledge and skills in the social studies has a cumulative negative effect on “individual students’ development and the civic health of the country” (p. 199). In addition to establishing the need for greater attention to social studies in the p­rimary grades, the researchers made the case for a project‐based learning approach— grounded in a long tradition of conceptual work by scholars such as Dewey and Kirkpatrick—by reviewing research indicating that project‐based approaches have had positive impacts on a range of cognitive and affective outcomes. They reviewed studies in math, science, and social studies classrooms, and noted that the only study of project‐ based approaches at the p­rimary level focused on science learning. This gap in the l­iterature, combined with their review of research on the absence of social studies in the primary grades, provided a strong rationale for research on project‐based approaches in elementary social studies. One of the strengths of their work is that they continued their argument by examining the relationship between the characteristics of project‐based learning and research on instructional experiences that improve young children’s learning. They cited studies indicating that literacy learning experiences have parallels to real life, and experiences that make direct connections to students’ prior knowledge benefit primary grade children. Project‐based learning emphasizes both authentic learning experiences, as well as those that draw connections to students’ lives. Thus, although research on project‐based learning with primary grade students was scant, the researchers were able to make the argument that project‐based learning shares some of the characteristics of learning experiences that benefit young children. This further enhanced their rationale for examining this type of instruction in elementary social studies classrooms.

7.3  Designing Research Experimental design is relatively rare in recent social studies research. For researchers interested in elementary and secondary schooling, this may be due, in part, to the difficulty of securing access to participants. Experiments ideally involve random assignment to d­iffering treatments. Social studies researchers may also be averse to the relatively narrow questions and tightly controlled settings that are necessary in experiments. Many scholars in the field are more interested in how complex and messy issues play out in natural s­ettings. Nonetheless, experiments can yield valuable information on important instructional questions.



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A recent example of such a study is that of Logtenberg, van Boxtel, and van Hout‐Wolters (2011). They were interested in whether three kinds of passages in history texts (narrative, problematizing, and expository) differed in the extent to which they stimulated students’ interest in a specific topic (the Industrial Revolution, in this case), as well as whether these passages led to differences in the number and type of questions that students generated. These issues are grounded in both theoretical and practical considerations: Questioning is at the heart of historical understanding, and students’ interest is an important factor in their engagement in learning and critical to developing authentic and effective instruction. To investigate these questions, the researchers developed three text passages of nearly identical length, each of which provided an introduction to the Industrial Revolution: The narrative text included an emotional situation with vivid details, the problematizing text included contrasting positions by historians, and the expository text presented a detached summary of the kind often found in textbooks. Students in eight classrooms were randomly assigned to read one of the three passages and to generate their own questions afterward. In  order to control for potential influences of prior knowledge and interest in history, s­tudents completed a researcher‐created knowledge test and a standardized test of their interest in history before reading. The same researcher administered these measures for all students. The dependent variables—students’ interest in this topic, and the number and type of questions they generated—were measured through an adaptation of a standardized interest questionnaire and by counting students’ questions and coding each along three dimensions: higher‐order or lower‐order; emotive or non‐emotive; and descriptive, comparative, causal, or evaluative. Results showed that students who read narrative and problematizing texts demonstrated higher levels of interest and generated more comparative and emotive questions, although not a greater number of questions overall. This study provides a good example of experimental design for a number of reasons. First, the overall questions and the specific constructs were grounded in theoretical perspectives on the nature of teaching and learning, rather than on novel ideas or personal hunches. Second, researchers took several steps to control for potential confounding factors: randomly assigning students to the three treatments, administering procedures uniformly, developing text passages that differed only in the variable of interest, and including prior knowledge and prior interest as covariates. Finally, measures were chosen, adapted, or designed to address the specific covariates and dependent variables in this study, and the sources and development of those measures, including their reliability, were explicitly described in the article. The researchers’ questions were narrow in scope, and their study took place outside the context of ongoing classroom instruction, but the carefulness of their design led to greater confidence that their findings have meaningful implications for teaching and learning. A different kind of intervention appeared in a design experiment (Brown, 1992) conducted by Parker et  al. (2011). Design experiments are implemented in complex and authentic contexts—in this case, an advanced government course at two high schools. School and university collaborators redesigned the course to integrate contemporary learning theory, particularly principles of project‐based learning. They compared student achievement in the experimental classroom with that of students at another high school that taught the same course with a more traditional approach. Random assignment of either pupils or classrooms was impossible in such circumstances, because the study involved

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volunteer schools with intact classrooms; in addition, students’ participation in advanced coursework was the result of their self‐selection into those classes. However, hierarchical linear modeling, using several measures of student achievement, allowed for comparison of students’ scores across settings. The complexity of such contexts makes it difficult to isolate variables, as is done in more traditional experiments. This redesigned course, for example, simultaneously involved an overarching question to guide course work, numerous projects, and a “looped” course structure that tied these projects together in a semi‐repetitive cycle. Moreover, elements of curriculum and instruction over the course of the year were continually adapted and modified—through the collaboration of both teachers and researchers—in response to teachers’ increased experience with the course and students’ emerging reaction to the projects. Even more changes, based in part on interviews with students who felt frustrated with the complexity of the projects, were planned for future iterations of the course. As the researchers pointed out, these improvisations and modifications may have “confounded” the experiment, but they were necessary in order to improve students’ learning and care for their well‐being. Findings indicated that students who participated in the redesigned course achieved passing scores on a standardized course assessment that equaled or exceeded those at the comparison school, and that they scored significantly higher on an instrument designed to measure depth of understanding. The goal of a study such as this, however, may not be only to establish that such results are possible, but also to illustrate their scalability through their embeddedness in authentic circumstances. This research aimed for such utility through the selection of intact classrooms, collaboration between teachers and researchers, continual adaptation of curriculum and instruction, and the use of projects for which effectiveness had already been established in similar contexts. What a design experiment such as this lacks in control of variables, it makes up for in its impact on participants and its potential for application in other settings. Case studies, such as Schweber’s (2008) research on Holocaust education in a third‐grade classroom, can also provide information on the relationship between teaching and learning. The term “case study” has such broad application and vague boundaries that it can be used to describe nearly any naturalistic study, but two characteristics constitute core elements of this design: Case studies are bounded yet thorough. They are bounded inasmuch as they only focus on one aspect of a broader system; in this case, Schweber was interested in teaching and learning related to the Holocaust, and not in other aspects of the lives of elementary teachers and students. At the same time, case studies include data from any source that may shed light on the topic. Schweber, for example, conducted classroom observations throughout the unit, interviewed the teacher multiple times, interviewed a sample of students and their parents, and examined all instructional materials and student work related to the unit. The goal of such research is to produce an in‐depth understanding of a single aspect of a given setting. Research in any educational context can lead to this kind of bounded yet thorough understanding, but case study researchers are usually interested in settings that are unusual or interesting in some way, in order to better understand a given phenomenon—hence the term “instrumental case study.” Because Schweber (2008) was interested in how the Holocaust was represented to young children, and how those representations affected students’ understanding and emotions, she had to identify an elementary teacher who devoted systematic attention to the topic and



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had a reputation for doing so thoughtfully and knowledgeably. A “typical” classroom would not afford enough attention to the topic of the Holocaust to produce a meaningful level of data. Meanwhile, if the teacher were not particularly skilled, it would have been easy to d­ismiss the findings as the result of poor teaching. Whereas other research designs— p­articularly experiments—seek to control for the unique features of a given setting or its participants, many case studies seek to use that distinctiveness to gain insight into a phenomenon that would otherwise be difficult to observe. Case studies also frequently differ from other designs in the openness of their aims. Other designs often begin not only with a single focus but also with the aim of investigating a single variable. Case studies such as Schweber’s (2008), on the other hand, often leave open the matter of which questions are worth pursuing; they focus on a single topic, but make few presumptions about what may be worth knowing about that topic. Schweber was interested in how students understood the Holocaust and how it affected them emotionally, but the particular effects of their exposure to the topic arose inductively from her analysis of the data. This openness highlights the differing role of multiple data sources in case studies and some other designs. Multiple sources often are used to provide different ways of measuring the same variable. In Schweber’s study different sources provided insight into different aspects of the Holocaust—how it was represented, why the teacher approached it in this way, how students understood it, how they responded emotionally, and what parents thought was appropriate. The goal in this design is to leave no stone unturned in developing a thorough portrait of the study’s focus. Finally, case studies sometimes aim for curricular or instructional critique in a way not found in other designs, particularly experimental ones. In experiments, the goals of instruction are usually taken for granted, and the purpose of the research is to find out whether an intervention works to meet those goals, or how it compares to other methods. In case studies such as Schweber’s, the researcher is not involved in the design of instruction, and she might not have any a priori commitment to the curricular content or instructional methods being used. Schweber’s ultimate goal was not to establish whether the teacher’s approach achieved a given set of ends, but to evaluate whether those ends were justifiable. She concluded that the Holocaust should not be taught to such young students because of the central tension she uncovered in her study: Students who understood the topic at a meaningful level were traumatized by it, while those who remained unaffected had little comprehension of it. This conclusion was the result of the openness of Schweber’s research design, her inclusion of multiple sources of data, and her evaluative stance toward the focus of the study.

7.4  Collecting and Analyzing Data Triangulation is a hallmark of case studies and other forms of naturalistic research, and Cunningham’s (2006, 2009) study of four British history teachers demonstrates the value of careful attention to multiple forms of data collection. Cunningham was interested in how teachers’ daily practices reflected historical empathy and how they made decisions about these practices. This necessitated conducting both interviews and classroom observations. What is particularly notable about her study is the variety of methods Cunningham used to interview teachers and the insights gained from the analyses of the interviews and observations.

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By examining teachers’ ideas and practices from multiple angles, she gained rich insights into the nuances of their thinking, as well as the importance of practices they rarely talked about explicitly. Rather than relying on a single interview format, Cunningham used multiple types of interviews and multiple formats for eliciting responses. She began and ended her study with extended formal interviews. These consisted of a combination of abstract questions about the nature of historical empathy and its role in teaching (circulated to teachers ahead of time), a card‐sorting exercise in which teachers reflected on their general pedagogical goals, teachers’ responses to theoretical statements from the literature on empathy, a forced‐choice task regarding the view of empathy they most agreed with, member‐checking questions based on Cunningham’s evolving interpretations (in the final interview), and unplanned probing questions that explored participants’ reasoning. The combination of differing response formats provided a more comprehensive view of teachers’ ideas and helped ensure that Cunningham’s interpretations were not overly influenced by the wording or format of any single type of question. Other kinds of interviews provided additional data, particularly with regard to teachers’ implicit ideas. Object‐mediated interviews, in which Cunningham asked teachers to reflect on students’ completed assignments and their own evaluations of that work, helped reveal tacit ideas by uncovering criteria that teachers used in thinking about empathetic understanding but that they had not previously articulated. In addition, interviews that followed lesson observations provided extensive data on teachers’ thinking about micro‐strategies they used to encourage empathy during lessons. By pointing to concrete instances of teaching practices, and doing so while memories were still fresh, Cunningham was able to  stimulate reflections on connections between theory and practice; without teachers’ explanations, the rationales for their practices would not have been clear. Lesson observation which took place in different classes taught by each teacher, and which extended over an entire school year, also contributed to triangulation. First, although the four teachers had very similar definitions of empathy, their teaching practices revealed more specific nuances and differing priorities, as well as inconsistencies between words and  actions. Each of these provided Cunningham with material from which to plan for interviews, during which she asked teachers to reflect on the practices she had observed. Their explanations for inconsistencies were particularly revealing; rather than constituting examples of poor or unreflective practice, such gaps reflected persistent dilemmas in the teaching of empathy and conflicts among multiple goals for instruction—issues of which the teachers themselves were aware, and which they could clearly articulate. In addition, observations revealed a variety of empathetic strategies they had never mentioned and that have not been analyzed in theoretical literature on teaching for historical empathy. These were primarily discursive strategies that included making analogies, providing personal illustrations, using dramatic voices, encouraging differentiation of viewpoints, and other strategies to scaffold students’ understanding. These were critical to teachers’ practice but were not part of their explicit articulation of how they taught for empathy, and they would have gone unnoticed without classroom observations. Wood (2014) faced a somewhat different dilemma in collecting data on participants’ understanding: how to tap into civic practices that occurred as part of young people’s everyday social interactions and experiences. Although research in civics education has often focused on youth participation (or intended participation) in activities derived from



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adult conceptions of citizenship (e.g., voting, volunteering, or direct attempts to influence the political process), recent work has emphasized youth engagement in civic activities that are not clearly associated with these traditional conceptions. Researchers have found that collecting data on such activities is difficult. Theoretical conceptions of young people’s everyday civic lives are still weakly developed, and so it is not always clear exactly what researchers should be looking for; a more inductive approach is needed to identify the contours of routine civic participation. Identifying such activities as they take place requires an intensity of observation that would be beyond the resources of most researchers, yet formal interviews are ill‐suited to revealing “banal, domestic and everyday conceptions and practices of citizenship” (p. 217), particularly since young people may not have the conceptual categories necessary to report on their own civic activities. Wood (2014) addressed this issue by developing data collection methods that aimed to mirror everyday conversations rather than formal interviews, so that her participants’ r­outine experiences would be more likely to surface. This involved “café‐style” focus groups, in which participants selected the peers they wished to work with and facilitated their own discussions in response to a range of research‐created tasks (e.g., filling out posters with open‐ended statements such as “Important issues in our place….”). Although Wood developed these tasks herself, she did not direct the conversations and was not always present during discussion. Instead, she circulated among several different groups and intervened only when necessary to answer questions or keep the group on task, and occasionally to ask probing questions. She also asked groups of students to discuss photographs they had taken of places that were special or important to them, that made them feel like they belonged, or that represented something they would like to change or take action on. The goal of these methods was to include spatial and visual elements of their experiences that might not have arisen through solely verbal means and to enable participants to “shape the direction and flow of conversations with their own peers more than they could in traditional interviews” (Wood, 2014, p. 219). Notably, some of the resulting data initially seemed to Wood to be “rambling, off‐topic, or divergent” (p. 221), but it was precisely in the hesitations, interjections, incomplete sentences, and participant‐generated questions—as well as in the prompts and encouragement that they received from peers—that she was able to identify young people’s complex, dynamic, and contested images and definitions of citizenship. Wood found that these ideas were closely connected to spaces in her participants’ local communities, were frequently grounded in social interaction, and included domestic responsibilities. Wood’s (2014) study of civic participation was an open‐ended and exploratory one that aimed to illustrate the experiences of a small group of students in depth. A very different study is that reported by Zhang, Torney‐Purta, and Barber (2012); they used a standardized instrument, administered to a representative national sample of students, to identify how specific conceptual knowledge and skills in civics are related to each other. Their goal was not to explore students’ meaning‐making, but to examine what factors contribute toward a set of competencies that civic educators deem important: “the knowledge and skills about governmental processes that young people carry into adulthood and then deploy to reach goals, such as electing leaders who will represent them well or acting to change laws they believe unjust” (p. 2). As Zhang et  al. argue, developing more effective civic education requires understanding how this set of competencies is structured and what processes affect students’ learning of them.

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Zhang et al. (2012) addressed these questions using U.S. data from the Civic Education Study (CIVED), administered by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). The cognitive portion of this test consists of 38 multiple‐ choice questions that assess students’ conceptual knowledge and their skills in interpreting civics‐related information. IEA publications typically report overall scores from such tests, and this provides a way of comparing students’ achievement in nations taking the test. A limitation of this practice, however, is its assumption that civic knowledge is unidimensional—that is, that all items measure the same underlying attribute, a kind of “general civic competence.” Previous research using confirmatory factor analysis, however, has shown that at least two latent dimensions underlie CIVED test items (Schulz & Sibberns, 2004). In the first of their two studies, then, Zhang et al. used cognitive diagnostic modeling (CDM) with the U.S. dataset to identify four categorical latent variables and to develop profiles of students based on their mastery of each of these attributes. The process of modeling began by using exploratory factor analysis to examine the test’s attributes, which experts then described in terms of their underlying cognitive dimensions. This resulted in identification of four dimensions necessary for students to successfully answer the test’s questions: basic conceptual knowledge, advanced conceptual knowledge and reasoning, reasoning about and analyzing media, and reasoning about and analyzing opinion and applying principles in synthesizing factual knowledge. It was then possible to categorize students as belonging to one of 16 models, based on their mastery (or lack of mastery) of each of the four attributes. From these 16 models, Zhang et al. (2012) identified four distinct patterns in order to examine relationships among dimensions: students who mastered all attributes, those who mastered none, those who mastered basic conceptual knowledge and at least one other attribute, and those who did not master basic conceptual knowledge but did master one or more of the other attributes. At this point, analysis of the data became relatively straightforward: What portion of students fell into each pattern? About half of students had either mastered all the skills or none of them, a little less than a third had mastered basic conceptual knowledge alone or with one other dimension, and a little over a fifth had mastered another attribute but not basic conceptual knowledge (but this included virtually no students who had mastered advanced but not basic conceptual knowledge). These findings indicate, first, that basic conceptual knowledge is necessary to master advanced conceptual knowledge—an intuitive finding, but one that Zhang et  al. (2012) noted had not been previously demonstrated in the social studies literature. The findings also indicated that it is possible to master skills such as analyzing media and synthesizing factual knowledge without having mastered basic conceptual knowledge in civics—a finding in line with research from other fields that has failed to find clear evidence of a relationship between declarative and procedural knowledge. The value of this study lies in its ability to identify how knowledge within an area such as civics is structured, and this depends on the use of advanced statistical techniques, which can only be accomplished with a large dataset such as that created by IEA or similar assessments; and although the representativeness of the sample is not necessarily a requirement for such analysis, it enhances the study’s generalizability and permits comparison with s­amples from other countries. As with any research, however, there are some questions about civic understanding that a study such as this cannot and does not attempt to answer. Zhang et  al. (2012), for example, noted that while their findings indicate that



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students may be learning civic skills somewhere other than their social studies classes (because many had mastered those skills without basic conceptual knowledge of civics), they could only speculate where that might be, such as in other school courses or outside school altogether. This points to the need for studies such as that of Wood (2014), because students may be learning these skills in their everyday civic practices rather than through formal instruction; if so, in‐depth studies of a small number of participants could help clarify that process. At one time it was fashionable in the educational research community to position quantitative and qualitative research methods as competitors, and to characterize one or the other as having greater scholarly or even moral authority. Such oppositions are fraught with practical, political, and philosophical flaws; most important, they ignore the fact that different methods of data collection and analysis seek to answer different—and often complementary— questions, and that each make important contributions to understanding the nature of teaching and learning.

7.5  Using Theory to Contextualize Findings 7.5.1  Historical Thinking Theoretical explanations enhance a study’s applicability; findings that may seem localized or idiosyncratic become relevant to a wider range of circumstances when they are linked to theory. This is clear in Wills’ (2011) study of elementary children’s historical understanding. When asked to discuss the beginnings of U.S. history, students talked about explorers sailing to the New World, encountering Native Americans, finding golden flakes in the ground, and then forcing Native Americans to mine gold for them; those who found the gold, they said, were called 49ers. These students clearly have mixed up details from their study of European explorers and of the California Gold Rush (both of which they had studied in school), but why have they mixed them up? A naive or atheoretical explanation would suggest that students had simply gotten it wrong; they incorrectly linked two different periods and events. From this perspective, students had either failed to achieve at an appropriate level, or their teachers had failed to deliver effective instruction (or both). Others would suggest that the fault lies not with the students or teachers but with a mismatch between the curriculum and students’ developmental abilities; explaining patterns in students’ historical thinking as evidence of a lack of developmental readiness was once popular among academics (Levstik, 1986), and it c­ontinues to be a popular explanation among teachers (James, 2008). Current theories of thinking and learning, on the other hand, see students (and adults) as drawing from a variety of sources of knowledge as they actively construct their own understanding—of history, mathematics, the natural world, and so on. From this perspective, students had not simply gotten it wrong, but had constructed a plausible yet incorrect understanding. The task for the researcher, then, is to understand how they had constructed their ideas. One way of doing this is by pointing to the narrative structure of students’ ideas. VanSledright and Brophy (1992) suggested that students add “fanciful elaboration” to what they remember from history in order to make it more story‐like; similarly, Barton (1996) argued that students collapse historical details into an account that preserves a simplified

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narrative structure. These theories help to explain the organizational structure of students’ accounts, but the question remains: Why did they tell this particular story instead of some other? To explain this, Wills (2011) turned to Wertsch’s (2004) theory of mediated action, which suggests that people’s activity (including their construction of historical accounts) is mediated by the cultural tools or artifacts available to them. One type of tool is the “schematic narrative template”—story patterns that are prevalent in a cultural setting and that can apply to any number of specific narratives. Wills argued that students assimilated stories of European exploration and the Gold Rush into a common template of greed and exploitation; he suggested that students likely were familiar with this template from their communities and the wider society and noted that it was reinforced in the classroom. Students did not just conflate any two stories, that is, but two stories they perceived as having an underlying—and culturally salient—similarity. Using theory to explain findings such as these elevates them from an interesting but perhaps unique occurrence to an example of a p­otentially prevalent phenomenon with implications for a variety of circumstances. A principal purpose of education, of course, is to expand students’ thinking; in history, this means providing them more ways of making sense of the past so that they are not wedded to a limited number of templates that distort its complexity. Simply exposing students to alternative narratives, however, does not necessarily expand their understanding, particularly with regard to emotionally charged issues. Engaging students in more evidence‐based investigations is also no guarantee of conceptual change, due in part to the prevalence of confirmation bias, whereby people seek out the evidence favorable to their initial stances and discount inconsistent or contradictory arguments and information (Nickerson, 1998). In order to understand how to facilitate a transformation in students’ thinking, Goldberg, Porat, and Schwarz, (2006) used Social Identity Theory to address this question. Specifically, Goldberg et al. (2006) studied Israeli high school students who were asked to evaluate and discuss conflicting accounts of the nation’s 1950s “Melting Pot” policy and to write an argumentative essay on the topic. This policy was seen as seeking to instill the values of Ashkenazi Israeli “pioneers” and has been criticized for causing cultural loss among Mizrahi immigrants from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Because the historical effects of this policy remain an important topic in Israeli society, most students were already aware of the policy and had strong—and almost exclusively negative—opinions about it; these negative evaluations did not differ significantly between students of Mizrahi and Ashkenazi background. Contrary to expectations, though, students’ engagement in the task was not significantly influenced by confirmation bias, and they demonstrated a substantial shift in their evaluations of the policy; the students with the strongest initial opinions shifted the most. However, these changes were not distributed equally: A much higher proportion of Ashkenazi than Mizrahi students changed their position. Social Identity Theory predicts that individuals will make evaluations that enhance the image of the group they identify with (Reynolds, Turner, & Haslam, 2000) and, according to Goldberg et al. (2006), that is what occurred in this study. They concluded that although both groups of students initially held negative perceptions of the Melting Pot policy, Ashkenazi students—whose group has largely been blamed for the negative consequences of the policy—began to see it in more complex, and often more positive, ways. Mizrahi students, on the other hand, had nothing to gain in terms of their social identities by adopting



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a less negative view; those who did change were more likely to view the policy in more n­egative terms than they had originally. (Notably, however, Mizrahi students developed their abilities to provide evidence‐based reasoning for their positions just as well as their Ashkenazi counterparts; the need to convincingly justify their group self‐image as victims in the face of conflicting perspectives motivated them to develop claims that were e­ffectively warranted.) This interpretation is not necessarily an encouraging one, because it suggests that students are only likely to change their perspectives when it benefits their group self‐ image to do so—and that is hardly the purpose of most social studies education. Using a theoretical framework like this to guide research and analysis, however, points to the d­ifficulties involved in changing students’ perspectives, and it cautions against ignoring their social identities in developing instructional practices.

7.5.2  Political Discussions Research on political discussions in the social studies classroom focuses mainly on their frequency and impact on important civic outcomes, such as political tolerance, civic efficacy, political participation, and political interest. Two qualitative studies presented here, however, explored somewhat different terrain: Ho, Alviar‐Martin, and Leviste (2014) focused on how state policies in Singapore influence teachers’ beliefs about classroom political discussions on diversity issues, while Beck (2013) analyzed how U.S. high school students position themselves and others in a classroom discussion of same‐sex marriage. Ho et  al. (2014) examined the role of governmental policies in constructing political discussion and diversity in Singapore, a country with a political system characterized as an “illiberal” or “authoritarian” democracy. In such states, the appearance of a democracy through regular elections masks the high level of control exercised by a small group of powerful elite. In part due to a history of violent ethnic and racial conflict, governmental policies stress social harmony, racial equality, and meritocracy, themes reflected in the mandated national curriculum as well as the broader culture. The government exercises tight control over public speech that might produce conflict. It is in this sociopolitical environment that Ho et  al. (2014) investigated Singaporean social studies humanities teachers’ perception of constraints on their teaching of issues related to diversity. Through several elicitation tasks, teachers selected pictures of what they perceived to be controversial issues, and then identified those they would and would not teach. The teachers labeled issues related to race, politics, religion, and sexual orientation as controversial, and then further classified these issues into two categories: controversial‐ appropriate and controversial‐taboo. As might be expected in an authoritarian‐democratic state, the teachers’ personal beliefs about curricular appropriateness aligned closely with governmental policies. Those issues deemed controversial‐appropriate had all been addressed by governmental policies, with clearly demarcated boundaries for instruction. Issues related to race, politics, and religion were deemed “appropriate,” at least within the boundaries identified by the national curriculum and other government documents and proclamations. For example, the teachers could conduct controversial issues discussions related to race as long as they did not venture into areas that might raise questions about the government’s role in society, such as institutional racism. The unequivocal policies for controversial‐appropriate issues

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essentially gave teachers the freedom to address these issues in their classrooms, and at the same time, served to quell any outside criticism or attempts to censure. Issues associated with the topic of sexual orientation were identified by the teachers as controversial‐taboo; government “guidelines” regarding this topic tended to be ambiguous and contradictory. Teachers might have used this lack of clarity to defend their teaching of some issues related to sexual orientation; instead, the specter of a negative government response created a powerful incentive for teachers to avoid these issues. Drawing on research on teacher uncertainty (see Helsing, 2007), Ho et al. (2014) theorized that the lack of clear guidelines creates uncertainty, which in turn prompts more conservative and conformist decisions. We often think of state policies as significant constraints to teachers’ curricular decision‐making, either in limiting curricular choices or prompting teacher self‐ censorship. In Singapore, however, where political elites set parameters for public discourse, explicit government policies define “in‐bounds” and “out of bounds” classroom talk, thus providing some degree of assurance for teachers who stay in‐bounds. The Ho et  al. (2014) study provides nuance to our thinking about the intersections between political context and state education policies, and how they influence teachers’ beliefs and their curricular choices. While governmental policies have typically been viewed as constraining, their study demonstrates that context matters; indeed, in the illiberal democracy of Singapore, policies provided some degree of safety for teachers. However, when the policies were unclear or contradictory, Ho et  al. suggested that some teachers found themselves in a “Kafkaesque situation in which teachers become even more conservative in their curriculum decision making due to a heightened sense of uncertainty and insecurity” (p. 22). Attention to the theoretical importance of uncertainty helped explain this dynamic in a more robust way than simply pointing to the direct influence of government policy, because it is the uncertainty generated by the lack of a clear policy on discussing issues of sexual orientation that makes the topic problematic. Further, the consequences of teacher uncertainty can be studied in other situations and contexts. In the past decade, issues related to sexual orientation, particularly same‐sex marriage, have been hotly contested in the public sphere in the United States. At the time Beck (2013) conducted a discussion of same‐sex marriage in a high school classroom, the issue had not been settled by the courts, and public attitudes were in the process of shifting from less to more supportive amidst much rancor and divisiveness. He framed the class discussion around support or opposition to the 2009 Respect for Marriage Act, which extended f­ederal benefits to same‐sex couples who were legally married (many states had legalized same‐sex marriages). Beck analyzed students’ discourse in small groups as they prepared for the class discussion, as well as during the whole class discussion when opponents and advocates presented their positions. Unlike Ho et al. (2014), who developed a theoretical explanation based on their findings, Beck applied several existing theories and concepts to explain his findings. Throughout students’ discussion Beck observed that students referenced “we” or “us” with the implicit assumption that those being addressed (either the small group or whole class) were heterosexual (e.g., “Why should we go to the trouble to legalize that?”). In explaining students’ assumptions Beck turned to Queer Theory, which maintains as one of its central tenets that some social identities are normalized, whereas others are perceived as deviations from that which is normal. Additionally, some students, particularly the males, let it be known that they were heterosexual, either by denigrating gay people, or by declaring



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their heterosexual orientation in not‐so‐subtle ways. Beck also applied Butler’s (2008) concept of the “heterosexual matrix” to show how students tended to think in terms of binaries: male/female, masculine/feminine, and heterosexual/homosexual. Importantly, such distinctions were not neutral; students attached power differentials to the binaries, with male, masculine, and heterosexual more powerful than their counterparts. Although Beck framed the classroom discussion as a policy question, it frequently veered into the morality of individual beliefs and behaviors, and this potentially made the one student who volunteered that she was bisexual feel personally attacked (in addition to other students who may have remained silent about their sexual orientation, or were in the p­rocess of questioning their sexuality). This led Beck (2013) to draw on Balkin’s (1997) t­heorization of status competition: People who are in more powerful positions reject the rights of others based on the belief that their own rights will be diminished—the “rights pie,” so to speak, is perceived as fixed. That is, if people have the right to marry someone of their own sex, then heterosexuals’ power status is threatened. A less useful analysis of the discussion might have focused exclusively on the adolescent sexual identity issues at play in the discussion. But then the explanation would have had limited applicability to other types of discussion. While Beck recognized the importance of sexual identity during adolescence, he primarily analyzed students’ discourse through the lens of Queer Theory and the concepts of normalization, binaries, and status competition. These concepts might readily be used in analyzing discussions of rights issues related to immigration, religion, race/ethnicity, language, and the like.

7.6 Conclusion We began this chapter by noting that previous reviews of social studies research often reached negative conclusions about the quality and vitality of the field, in contrast to our own, more positive assessment. One way of explaining this contrast would be to suggest that research has gotten better: Previous reviews accurately reflected the state of the field at the time, but we now can point to more and better work. A different and perhaps more historically nuanced view would be that what is perceived as exemplary research has changed over time, and that the field is now more accepting of a variety of approaches. Both these explanations suggest a progressive development whereby social studies research—or the interpretation of that research—has improved over time. We believe, on the other hand, that the field and its reviewers have always been characterized by a tension between defining the field, on the one hand, and understanding it in a comprehensive way, on the other. Reviewers tend to focus on studies that align with their methodological preferences or, more often, their curricular visions. This means that large bodies of work that do not comport with reviewers’ beliefs about what students should be studying or how to investigate it are often unacknowledged. However, understanding social studies education requires—and has always been characterized by—a variety of conceptual and methodological approaches. Teaching and learning about the social world are a c­omplicated undertaking and vary widely across contexts. We have drawn from the extensive and sometimes unwieldy body of work that we believe characterizes the field. Even so, we have limited ourselves to our own areas of expertise, namely empirical studies of teaching and learning subject matter. We recognize, however, that there

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are other approaches that also constitute meaningful social studies research—historical studies, curricular research, theoretical and conceptual investigations, and so on. The consequence of recognizing this variety, even within our own limited areas, is that we can point to no set of benchmarks or criteria that cuts across studies, other than the commonplace observation that researchers should select their methods carefully in order to achieve their aims and should clearly articulate their justifications and limitations. We have not, therefore, attempted to synthesize studies in search of a common set of characteristics, for much the same reason that we have not identified any as comprehensive exemplars. Seeking to identify criteria that apply across studies or studies that are exemplary in all their particulars, would promote a totalizing and essentializing view of research that would obscure the work done by many of the field’s scholars. Conducting exemplary research does not mean hewing to a narrow set of strictures; it means being familiar with a field whose diversity mirrors its object of study: the hectic and tumultuous world of society itself. Research is a complicated endeavor, and any published study has many different aspects. As researchers, our enthusiasm to convey what we think is most interesting about our work—our findings—often tempts us to overlook or de‐emphasize elements such as data analysis tools or theoretical explanations. But if we hope to make important contributions to the knowledge base for social education, each of these aspects is critical. In this chapter, we have used illustrations from the work of our colleagues to help us think through how to strengthen each of these aspects of a research study.

References Abowitz, K. K., & Harnish, J. (2006). Contemporary discourses of citizenship. Review of Educational Research, 76, 653–690. doi:10.3102/00346543076004653 Abu El‐Haj, T. R. (2007). “I was born here, but my home, it’s not here”: Educating for democratic citizenship in an era of transnational migration and global conflict. Harvard Educational Review, 77, 285–316. Armento, B. J. (1986). Research on teaching social studies. In M. C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed., pp. 942–951). New York, NY: Macmillan. Balkin, J. M. (1997). The constitution of status. The Yale Law Journal, 106, 2313–2374. doi:10.2307/797222 Bartels, L. M. (2009). Economic inequality and political representation. In L. Jacobs & D. King (Eds.), The unsustainable American state (pp. 167–196). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Barton, K. C. (1996). Narrative simplifications in elementary children’s historical understanding. In  J.  Brophy (Ed.), Advances in research on teaching, Vol. 6: Teaching and learning in history (pp. 51–83). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Barton, K. C., & Avery, P. G. (2016). Research on social studies education: Diverse students, settings, and methods. In Bell, C. A., & Gitomer, D., Handbook of research on teaching (5th ed., pp. 985–1038). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association. Beck, T. A. (2013). Identity, discourse, and safety in a high school discussion of same‐sex marriage. Theory & Research in Social Education, 41, 1–32. doi:10.1080/00933104.2013.757759 Brown, A. (1992). Design experiments: Theoretical and methodological challenges in creating complex interventions in classroom settings. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 2, 141–178. doi:10.1207/s15327809jls0202_2 Butler, J. (2008). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.



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Carnegie Corporation of New York. (2003). The civic mission of schools. New York, NY: Author. Retrieved from Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools website: http://civicmission.s3. amazonaws.com/118/f7/1/172/2003_Civic_Mission_of_Schools_Report.pdf Cunningham, D. L. (2006). Professional practice and perspectives in the teaching of historical empathy. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. Cunningham, D. L. (2009). An empirical framework for understanding how teachers conceptualize and cultivate historical empathy in students. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 41, 679–709. doi.org/10.1080/00220270902947376 Goldberg, T., Porat, D., & Schwarz, B. B. (2006). “Here started the rift we see today”: Student and textbook narratives between official and counter memory. Narrative Inquiry, 16, 319–347. doi:10.1075/ni.16.2.06gol Hall, K. D. (2004). The ethnography of imagined communities: The cultural production of Sikh ethnicity in Britain. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 595, 108–121. doi:10.1177/0002716204266950 Halvorsen, A‐L, Duke, N. K., Brugar, K. A., Block, M. K., Strachan, S. L., Berka, M. B., & Brown, J. M. (2012). Narrowing the achievement gap in second‐grade social studies and content area literacy: The promise of a project‐based approach, Theory & Research in Social Education, 40, 198–229. doi:10.1080/00933104.2012.705954 Helsing, D. (2007). Regarding uncertainty in teachers and teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23, 1317–1333. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2006.06.007 Hess, D. E. (2002). Discussing controversial public issues in secondary social studies classrooms: Learning from skilled teachers. Theory & Research in Social Education, 30, 10–41. doi:10.1080/ 00933104.2002.10473177 Ho, L‐C., Alviar‐Martin, T., & Leviste, E. N. P. (2014). “There is space, and there are limits”: The challenge of teaching controversial topics in an illiberal democracy. Teachers College Record, 116(5), 1–28. James, J. H. (2008). Teachers as protectors: Making sense of preservice teachers’ resistance to interpretation in elementary history teaching. Theory & Research in Social Education, 36, 172–205. doi:10.1080/00933104.2008.10473372 Kahne, J., & Middaugh, E. (2008, February). Democracy for some: The civic opportunity gap in high school (CIRCLE Working Paper No. 59). Retrieved from The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE) website: http://www.civicyouth.org/PopUps/ WorkingPapers/WP59Kahne.pdf King, L. J. (2014). Learning other people’s history: Pre‐service teachers’ developing African American historical knowledge. Teaching Education, 25, 427–456. doi:10.1080/10476210. 2014.926881 Levstik, L. S. (1986). Teaching history: A definitional and developmental dilemma. In V. A. Atwood (Ed.), Elementary school social studies: Research as a guide to practice (pp. 68–84). Bulletin no. 79. Washington, DC: National Council for the Social Studies. Logtenberg, A., van Boxtel, C., & van Hout‐Wolters, B. (2011). Stimulating situational interest and student questioning through three types of historical introductory texts. European Journal of Psychology Education, 26, 179–198. doi:10.1007/s10212‐010‐0041‐6 Metcalf, L. E. (1963). Research on teaching the social studies. In N. L. Gage (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (pp. 929–965). Chicago, IL: Rand McNally. Nickerson, R. S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of General Psychology, 2(2), 175–220. doi:10.1037/1089‐2680.2.2.175 Parker, W. C. (2006). Public discourses in schools: Purposes, problems and possibilities. Educational Researcher, 35(8), 11–18. doi:10.3102/0013189X035008011 Parker, W. C., & Hess, D. (2001). Teaching with and for discussion. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17, 273–289. doi:10.1016/S0742‐051X(00)00057‐3

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Parker, W. C., Mosborg, S., Bransford, J., Vye, N., Wilkerson, J., & Abbott, R. (2011). Rethinking advanced high school coursework: Tackling the depth/breadth tension in the AP “US Government and Politics” course. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 43, 533–559. doi:10.1080/00220272. 2011.584561 Reynolds, K. J., Turner, J. C., & Haslam, S. A. (2000). When are we better than them and they worse than us? A closer look at social discrimination in positive and negative domains. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 64–80. doi:10.1037110022‐3514.78.1.64 Schulz, W., & Sibberns, H. (Eds.). (2004). IEA Civic Education Study technical report. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. Schweber, S. (2008). “What happened to their pets?”: Third graders encounter the Holocaust. Teachers College Record, 110, 2073–2115. Seixas, P. (2001). Review of research on social studies. In V. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (4th ed., pp. 545–565). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association. Shaver, J. P., & Larkins, A. G. (1973). Research on teaching social studies. In R. M. W. Travers (Ed.), Second handbook of research on teaching (pp. 1243–1262). Chicago, IL: Rand McNally. Van Hover, S. D., & Yeager, E. A. (2003). “Making students better people?” A case study of a beginning history teacher. International Social Studies Forum, 3(1), 219–232. VanSledright, B., & Brophy. J. (1992). Storytelling, imagination, and fanciful elaboration in c­hildren’s  historical reconstructions. American Educational Research Journal, (29), 837–859. doi:10.2307/1163409 Verba, S., Schlozman, K. L., & Brady, H. E. (1995). Voice and equality: Civic voluntarism in American politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wertsch, J. (2004). Specific narratives and schematic narrative templates. In P. Seixas (Ed.), Theorizing historical consciousness (pp. 49–62). Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press. Wills, J. S. (2001). Missing in interaction: Diversity, narrative, and critical multicultural social studies. Theory & Research in Social Education, 29, 43–64. doi:10.1080/00933104.2001.10505929 Wood, B. E. (2014). Researching the everyday: Young people’s experiences and expressions of citizenship. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 27, 214–232. doi:10.1080/ 09518398.2012.737047 Zhang, T., Torney‐Purta, J., & Barber, C. (2012). Students’ conceptual knowledge and process skills in civic education: Identifying cognitive profiles and classroom correlates. Theory & Research in Social Education, 40, 1–34. doi:10.1080/00933104.2012.649467

Section II

Frameworks Guiding Social Studies Research

8

Critical Theory(s) Catherine Cornbleth

Too many education scholars and researchers—in social studies and other domains—ignore or even avoid theory as unhelpful or irrelevant to their projects. Unfortunately, they do not “see” theory and its impact in everyday life. Although I do not recall theory being an i­ntegral or important part of my doctoral program in curriculum and instruction with a focus on social studies, I encountered and came to appreciate theory, especially critical theory, soon after. It was during the late 1970s and early 1980s as a university faculty member, through my interactions with colleagues, especially Will Korth at the University of Pittsburgh and several at or from the University of Wisconsin‐Madison. I also began reading more widely. An aversion to or neglect of theory persists primarily as a consequence of the long‐time predominance in the U.S. of a single theory or theoretical perspective variously called p­ositivist, empirical‐analytic, or objectivist. Just as fish are unlikely to understand or appreciate water until they’re beached, most people likely do not recognize theory until they’re confronted with more than one, particularly one that challenges their taken‐for‐granted assumptions. I recall, for example, co‐teaching a doctoral seminar at Pitt in 1985 with my science education colleague, Will Korth, using Tom Popkewitz’s Paradigm and Ideology in Educational Research (1984) as a starting point. A few students were outspokenly upset about the possibility that there is more than one way to see how “things are” or to see or make sense of the world. Their implicit empirical‐analytic upbringing, reinforced I suspect by schooling’s preference for one “right” answer, blinded them, at least for a while, from considering alternative perspectives, paradigms, or theories. I would be disappointed but not surprised to encounter similar discomfort with theory today, 30 years later. This chapter is organized in three sections. The first is about theory, particularly critical theory(s), providing brief historical background, and then drawing particularly on the theoretical perspectives of two scholars who began their education careers as social studies teachers and then became university professors representing different generations and critical perspectives. The second section presents three research studies representing or The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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reflecting critical theory(s) in practice. The first two were conducted in the U.S. by the scholars highlighted in the first section while the third, who also began her career as a social studies teacher comes from an Asian culture and relatively new nation‐state. Finally, the third section raises the “so what” question, that is, what difference might critical theory and research make for social education today? Throughout, there is relatively little reference to race and less to gender because other chapters (9, 10) treat these areas and related theory. A caveat: this chapter is intended as a welcoming introduction to critical theory(s), not a comprehensive account or “last word.” As various social theories have been introduced and gained followers in the U.S. education arena, especially since the 1960s—critical and interpretive theories, for example—education scholars and researchers have reconsidered “theory” and its role in our everyday and professional lives. It even might be said that some scholars spend too much time and energy quibbling over theoretical nuances with little constructive result. Their preoccupation and seeming jostling for position or status have contributed to some people’s disdain for theory even though we all hold (and act on) theories about the world and how it does or does not work. Literary theorist Terry Eagleton well noted that hostility to theory “usually means an opposition to other people’s theories and an oblivion to one’s own” (1983, p. vii). Theory is important to social studies and other researchers and educators because it both reflects and shapes our conceptions and ways of reasoning—how we think and talk about, study, and act in matters of research and classroom practice. Some sort of theory is ever present, underlying most conscious behavior even if it is neither recognized nor intended to be “theoretical.” Theory attempts to explain (and perhaps to predict) phenomena, for example, to respond to “what if ” or “why” questions directed to empirical data. Empirical data can challenge and modify as well as support theory. Alone, neither data nor theory offer powerful explanation. For more on theory in education research, see other chapters in Section II in this volume, Anyon (2008), especially her introductory chapter, and Popkewitz (1984).

8.1  Recognizing Critical Theory(s) Critical theory is a particular genre of theories that raises additional questions about assumptions, implications or likely consequences, and who benefits from a situation or course of action. Rather than focus on an individual (e.g., most psychological theories of student learning) or a single event or incident, critical theories and research informed by them encompass longer-term processes and groups of individuals and their social location in time and place (i.e., history and institutional context). Examples include (a) industrialization rather than The Industrial Revolution and (b) the educational and other opportunities made available to non‐English‐speaking, refugee students and their families in a struggling urban economy in the second decade of the 21st-century United States. “Critical” lies in the questions raised and how they are pursued at least as much as in responses obtained. Questions include: What’s happening? How did these circumstances come to be? What assumptions are being made? What are the implications or likely consequences of one or another policy, program, or action? Who benefits or is disadvantaged by a particular choice?1 So what? Note that these questions have normative and interpretive as well as empirical dimensions.



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Critical social theory seeks social justice. It includes scholarship that interrogates and critiques domination and subordination, thus promoting emancipatory change. Socioeconomic, gendered, and racialized domination–subordination (or advantage–disadvantage) are prominent examples in education and education research. Theory has consequences—analytic, empirical, rhetorical, and social. Critical theory and research challenge prevailing practices in and out of school. While contemporary critical theory has less than a hundred‐year history in U.S. education, it emerged in the intellectual turmoil and revolutions of mid‐19th-century Europe, given impetus by the writings of Karl Marx, various socialist movements, and later the Frankfurt School in Germany between the two World Wars. Since the 1960s, and especially during the 1970s–1990s, scholars elsewhere including the U.S. have borrowed, translated, interpreted, and adapted or extended European notions of critical theory and practice often in relation to “reform” efforts toward greater freedom (sometimes referred to as emancipation), equity, and social justice. Although I was tempted to include brief accounts of some of the most influential early work in critical theory relevant to social studies education and research to illustrate the range of critical theories and theorists as well as the impossibility of imposing a single d­efinition without undermining the “critical,” I decided against it. In no way could this chapter be comprehensive without widespread agreement about what counts as critical theory, which does not exist, or resorting to simply name‐dropping or very brief mentions. Instead, I bring a few earlier theorists into this account when their work facilitates and/or deepens understanding of more recent scholars.

8.2  Critical Theory in Social Education since 1985 A particularly concise and lucid introductory account of critical theory for social studies scholars is Stanley’s (1986) chapter on “Critical Research” in the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Bulletin, An Invitation to Research in Social Education (Cornbleth, 1986). For Stanley, critical thinking and research are particularly valuable for their explanatory potential and alternative perspective, reflecting their recognition of and attention to social, historical, and institutional context. Historically, critical theory is a hybrid growing out of both Marxist/neo‐Marxist and Frankfurt School/sociology of knowledge work. (See also, e.g., Anyon’s Marx and Education, 2011, and Ball’s Foucault, Power, and Education, 2013.) Stanley (1986) explains: Researchers influenced by the sociology of knowledge tend to be critical of our dominant culture and social institutions. They seek to expose the social origins of our institutions and behavior and to identify and explore alternatives. They are not in direct opposition to the culture, however, and do not insist on radical social change. Instead they seek to demystify the nature of our social institutions and values. By helping teachers to understand the social origins of their beliefs and practices, they might be in a better position to make changes to help reduce some of the unequal aspects of education, such as ethnic and class bias. (p. 79)

After summarizing key assumptions and questions of critical theory and research, Stanley offers examples of critical research in social studies education, emphasizing the normative themes (e.g., equity) and array of research methods including historical, ethnographic,

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and  survey procedures. Rather than seeing education and schools as natural or normal, critical theory and research probe origins and interests served. Who benefits, for example, from tracking or “gifted and talented” programs? Without critical theory and research, the field of social studies could too easily lose sight of its espoused values and purposes while getting caught up in and focusing energies on trendy issues and proposals (aka “reforms”) such as standardized testing, common core standards, and test‐based teacher accountability without consideration of the implications, consequences, and costs. What, for example, get neglected or lost as social studies chase the latest bandwagon? Importantly, not all studies of social class, gender, or race or other arenas that claim or are assumed to be critical (e.g., critical multiculturalism, postcolonialism and other “posts”) are, upon examination, critical in the sense employed here. When answers seem to predate and take precedence over questions, or are overgeneralized, or context is ignored, the research and its results are unlikely to be critical. A key, “practical” example from the 1980s is Ellsworth’s empirically based critique of the then popular, but now seemingly rather narrow and dogmatic middle‐class, White male versions of critical theory and pedagogy, “Why Doesn’t This Feel Empowering? Working through the Repressive Myths of Critical Pedagogy” (1989). In a graduate university class, “Media and Anti‐Racist Pedagogies,” Ellsworth and her students encountered obstacles to practicing and benefiting from critical pedagogy as espoused in articles in “major educational journals” devoted to critical p­edagogy in the mid‐1980s: When participants in our class attempted to put into practice prescriptions offered in the literature concerning empowerment, student voice, and dialogue, we produced results that were not only unhelpful, but actually exacerbated the very conditions we were trying to work against, including Eurocentrism, racism, sexism, classism, and “banking education.” To the extent that our efforts to put discourses of critical pedagogy into practice led us to reproduce relations of domination in our classroom, these discourses were “working through” us in repressive ways, and had themselves become vehicles of repression. To the extent that we disengaged ourselves from those aspects and moved in another direction, we “worked through” and out of the l­iterature’s highly abstract language (“myths”) of who we “should” be and what “should” be happening in our classroom, and into classroom practices that were context specific and seemed to be much more responsive to our own understandings of our social identities and situations. (pp. 298–299)

The experience “challenges educational scholars who situate themselves within the field of critical pedagogy to come to grips with the fundamental issues this work has raised—especially the question, What diversity do we silence in the name of ‘liberatory’ pedagogy?” (p. 299). Prompted primarily by Ellsworth (1989) and the overwhelming whiteness of critical theory in the United States’ education literature in the 1980s and early 1990s when I was working on a comparative New York–California study of multicultural curriculum politics, policy, and practice (Cornbleth & Waugh, 1995), we offered a conception of critical p­ragmatism that is more inclusive and less doctrinaire (see Chapter  2). Our joining of c­ritical and pragmatic traditions links the contextual emphasis and equity goals of critical theory with the self‐questioning and pluralism of pragmatic philosophy: A critical perspective gives depth and direction to pragmatic inquiry and dialogue while pragmatism reminds us that cultural critique encompasses everyone; none of us or our cherished



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beliefs, individually or collectively as members of one or another group, is above or beyond question. Emergent and oriented toward action, this critical pragmatism eschews materialist and theological determinisms on one side and postmodernist quicksands on the other. Critical pragmatism employs standards or principles of judgment, and it subjects them to ongoing scrutiny and possible modification …. Thus critical pragmatism is neither authoritarian nor anarchist. (p. 33)

Nearly a century and a half ago: William James (1876; cited in Gunn, 1992, p. 36) suggested that pragmatism be considered a habitual way of thinking that continually sees alternatives, imagines other states of mind, r­efuses to take the usual for granted, and makes “conventionalities fluid again.” Pragmatism, as  disciplined skepticism and imagination, is made possible by difference, by the inevitable cracks in dominant social systems, and by democratic political institutions that provide space for alternatives to take hold. (Cornbleth & Waugh, 1995, p. 28)

Nearly 60 years later W. E. B. Du Bois (1935) showed how American democracy was falling far short of its promise. Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction, in Cornel West’s (1989) analysis, “illustrates the blindnesses and silences in American pragmatist reflections on individuality and democracy” (p. 146). Du Bois saw pragmatism as relevant to the predicament of African Americans and provided pragmatism with what was then a radical perspective on racist and capitalist obstacles to the fulfillment of individuality and democracy. James’ pragmatism allowed for but did not elaborate on structuralist issues such as institutionalized racism (West, 1989). Similar concerns about critical theory circa the early 1990s led us to borrow from Du Bois and like‐minded others to incorporate pluralism and fallibility into our conception of c­ritical theory (see Cornbleth & Waugh, 1995, pp. 128–134).

8.2.1  New Criticism and Critical Studies As a group, social studies educators and researchers were not “early adopters” of critical theory. French critical theorist and historian Michel Foucault (1977) offers an account of knowledge and power that enhances understanding of how the roles and relationships we take on (e.g., teacher, scholar) and the associated discourses in which we participate (e.g.,  theory, research, teaching practice) existed before we appeared on the scene and serve to shape but not necessarily determine how we enact those roles and relationships. The roles, relationships, and discourses are socially created and historical, not natural or given, and should not be accepted as such. They should be recognized, questioned, and perhaps challenged or modified. The power of historical artifacts following Marx, Foucault, and others, specifically the preexisting roles, relationships, and discourses (e.g., the status quo, “the way we do things here”) seems evident, for example, in the title and introduction to the special section of the NCSS journal, Social Education, edited by Jack Nelson, “New Criticism and Social Education” (Nelson, 1985). To me, 30 years later, Nelson is cautious, almost apologetic at times, in introducing “new criticism” and offering “divergent views and perspectives not commonly found in standard programs of teacher education, or in school district workshops

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or school professional libraries” (p. 368). I suspect that Nelson’s initiative in presenting critical perspectives and theory confronted opposition from conservative NCSS leaders and concerns about how largely conservative, “practical” social studies teachers would respond. Nevertheless, Nelson tells us: The various forms of new criticism indicate changes in the practice of schooling and teaching. Critical thinking would be a primary pedagogic purpose. The type of critical thinking s­uggested by many writers in this camp, however, differs from that advocated by mainstream writers in social studies. Root criticism, examining underlying structures and dominant cultural ideologies, would be expected. This would involve critical study of gender, race, nationalistic, or social class domination of social structures and knowledge. Thus content and method would be interrelated. (1985, p. 370)

By the 1990s, critical theory seems to have been eclipsed in social studies education by post‐structuralism, postmodernism, postcolonialism, feminism, and globalism among others— as well as a widespread return to “basics” and empirical‐analytic research made more efficient by computerization/digitalization and more feasible by federal grants favoring such research. Whether critical theory fractured to accommodate the “posts,” or  was overwhelmed by them and conservative reaction within and beyond education, we ought not take critical perspectives and theory for granted as noted above. More than 25 years after the special section in Social Education on New Criticism (Nelson, 1985), a special issue of Theory and Research in Social Education, also edited by Jack Nelson with William B. Stanley (2013) addresses “Critical Studies” with more openness but less range of critical perspectives or theory. An exception in this issue, to be considered further below, is Avner Segall’s (2013) “Revitalizing Critical Discourses in Social Education.” It appears that, for the most part, interest in diversity or a previously marginalized group has eclipsed concern for an encompassing critical perspective at least since the 1990s, perhaps reflecting broader social and educational trends. Kincheloe and McLaren (2005), active progressive authors on education, note that c­ritical theory or “criticality” is ever‐evolving, an important observation too often unseen or d­isregarded by those who would have the last word. I turn now to two accounts of critical theory from this century with differing emphases, to illustrate both the scope of contempor­ ary critical theory in social studies education and change over time: Anyon’s “critical social theory” (2008) and Segall’s “critical postmodern discourses” (2013). Reasons for these choices and their juxtaposition become clear in their presentation below. Important as the theoretical ideas are, they cannot do their work if they are merely window dressing, decorating the introduction to a research work but not informing the research process or interpretations. Consequently, conceptual illustrations are followed by empirical cases from studies based on or reflecting critical theory(s).

8.2.2  Critical Social Theory: Jean Anyon Jean Anyon’s more than 35‐year career as an education scholar and researcher (she died in September 2013), based in New Jersey and New York City, well illustrates the richness of interweaving critical theory and empirical data, largely from urban, ethnographic fieldwork, in the interests of social justice. Her work is also noteworthy for the evolution of her



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t­heoretical stance from a focus on structural Marxism to political economy to a broader critical social theory that incorporates concerns associated with gender studies, racism, and postcolonialism as well (Anyon, 2008, see introduction). Rather than fracture critical theory in the name of postmodernism or narrower “posts,” Anyon complicates and enriches critical theory by interweaving multiple strands. Her work challenges us to continue the struggle with theory and its complexity—and to modify theory in light of new data and/or changing conditions. In her introduction to Theory and Educational Research: Toward Critical Social Explanation (2008) Anyon writes that she and her doctoral students “employ the term ‘c­ritical social theory’ to include various types of scholarship and diverse authors that critique domination and subordination, promote emancipatory interests, and combine social and cultural analysis with interpretation, critique, and social explanation” (p. 2). These types of scholarship include, for example, critical race theory, Marxism, and feminism. Importantly, even positions and authors one agrees with are not accepted uncritically. Recognizing that theory carries a point of view, the desirability of social justice, for example, and moves data analysis toward some patterns and interpretations more than others. For Anyon and her doctoral students in New York City, theory and empirical work are  directed toward understanding urban schools, communities, and social change. The schools, their students and staff are situated in the context of their “districts, policies and p­rocedures, institutional forms and processes in the larger social contexts in which they occur, in which they operate and are operated upon” (2008, p. 3). Understanding and explanation derive from the interpretations of individuals, groups, and social (including political and economic) contexts from local and the individual to global. Critical social theory helps to connect past and present as well as in‐ and outside classrooms and schools. As a result, educational research data offer us more than is evident in a moment of local time and particular place. Anyon describes the change in her theoretical perspective over time as her “personal struggle with theory,” specifically, moving from structural Marxism to political economy, both of which focus on the macroeconomic system and education’s relation to it, and from there to a critical social theory that incorporates “cultural meaning making and individual agency” (2008, p. 6) without sacrificing “the insights into an unequal system that I believed a class‐based, macro perspective afforded me” (p. 6). She describes this challenge as linking macro and micro phenomena empirically and theoretically to provide “richer data and fuller explanation” (p. 6). In Radical Possibilities (2005), Anyon employs her critical social theory to better understand social movements. Subsequently, she began to connect Foucault’s conception of social power with her roots in structural Marxism. Her death leaves work unfinished, inviting not only her students but others to pursue the challenges she has raised. Importantly, in most of the chapters in Theory and Educational Research (2008), her students present their experiences, and struggles, with critical theory and research in education.

8.2.3  Critical Discourses: Avner Segall Avner Segall is a generation younger than Jean Anyon. He worked and studied in Israel and  Canada’s west coast before establishing himself at a Midwestern university in the United States. Like Anyon, his early interests and professional work were in social studies.

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Retaining a home base in secondary social studies, his recent work is broader, reaching into literary studies as well as the social sciences. Here, I draw primarily on his Theory and Research in Social Education essay, “Revitalizing Critical Discourses in Social Education: Opportunities for a More Complexified (Un)Knowing” (2013). Employing a wide‐angle lens, Segall begins by envisioning social educators using concepts from “critical postmodern discourses” such as postmodernism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, and feminism to enrich comprehension and pursue research in social education. He then moves to and ends with the discourse of critical theory that helps “foster a space in which existing forms of understanding are critically examined and their habitual nature is exposed and unsettled,” challenges “the obvious and ‘common sense’,” and problematizes “social education as a discursive, political, and cultural apparatus” (2013, pp. 487–488). The postmodern discourses challenge existing understandings, Segall tells us, while s­uggesting “more complex, nuanced, and critical ways with which to conduct research and narrate findings” (p. 276). Of particular interest and concern to Segall are “the role and impact of prevalent grand narratives, myths, discourses, and practices, as well as their underlying power relations” (p. 476). His illustrations draw on gender and racial issues. Perhaps reflecting differences in time and place as well as personal and professional circumstances, Segall’s critical theory, particularly his earlier work, seems more influenced by  linguistic and literary theory than does Anyon’s social science-based critical theory. Moreover, Segall’s is more individual or psychological and reflexive, more inward‐looking compared to Anyon’s outward‐looking micro‐macro linkages. I highlight these differences to indicate that there is no one “correct” conception of critical theory any more than there is one “true” religion. There are, however, “uncritical” approaches deemed “critical” by their advocates that do not survive close scrutiny, reminiscent of fill‐in‐the‐blank “critical thinking” school workbooks and worksheets. Both Anyon and Segall, in Segall’s words, challenge “existing Enlightenment grand narratives and traditional claims to universality, transparency, objectivity, and truth” (2013, p. 478). Grand narratives, myths, and discourses, following Segall and others, are not depoliticized, that is, without ideology or history. Recognizing that they are “highly political and ideologically charged, serving particular interests and perspectives, becomes the first order of business for all critical scholars” (p. 480), one made more difficult by our being immersed in those narratives, myths, and discourses. Beyond awareness, one can recognize how they work, identify underlying assumptions, and expose “the forms of inclusion/exclusion they foster” (p. 480). Segall proposes that we and our students interrogate the social science disciplines, rather than accept them uncritically. Ditto for the categories of race and gender (he does not address class directly), “Inherent in critical discourses is a questioning of the very nature of the categorization of gender and race as a form of difference, as ‘different,’ and as an ‘other’” (pp. 483–484). Segall offers a host of questions that might be put to social science disciplines and to race, gender, and similar categories. Examples include: “In what ways. and how do geography or history education work to inscribe, maintain, and/or challenge existing race  and gender inequalities?” “To what degree and how do heteronormativity, Whiteness, and middle class ideology engender a particular ‘normal’ that compels all to confirm and conform?” (p. 484). He then addresses critical research methodologies, noting that “Seeing both research and researchers as inherently subjective and always political entails attendance to our personal



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subjectivities and politics as researchers and to those underlying our methods” (p. 485). His questions to consider include: “What ideologies, grand narratives, and myths underlie our studies, and in what ways do our studies help perpetuate and reify them?” “What (and who) do our methodologies make significant? What and who do they “invite” us to forget, to  marginalize, to silence?” In summing up his account of critical discourses and social education, Segall states: Rather than unproblematically describe meanings conveyed through traditional social e­ducation – endorsing, legitimating, and reifying them – critical work attempts to challenge confidence in the obvious and “common sense”. (pp. 487–488)

8.3  Research Illustrations Included here are synopses of three studies from social education that reflect or exemplify various aspects of critical theory in order to show critical theory at work or in practice. Space limitations preclude several, perhaps many, worthy examples. The first two studies are exemplars from Segall (2014) and Anyon (1981) which demonstrate that strong scholars do both theory and research and to enable readers to juxtapose the authors’ conceptual and empirical projects. The third study is a contrasting case—from a newer scholar and an Asian cultural setting (Singapore) that does not explicitly acknowledge a critical theoretical stance, possibly for political reasons (Ho, 2010).

8.3.1  Segall’s “Making Difficult History Public” In “Making Difficult History Public: The Pedagogy of Remembering and Forgetting in Two Washington DC Museums,” Segall (2014) provides a critical “reading” and analysis of one exhibit in the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI, established 2004 on the national mall) and the main exhibit hall of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Holocaust Museum, established 1993, near the national mall). His intent is not to criticize them2 but to illustrate different approaches to presenting (or not presenting) “difficult knowledge” that “invite visitors to know some things and avoid others” (p. 57). Difficult knowledge, following Britzman (e.g., 2000), encompasses “war, genocide, and large‐scale death, and forced destruction, famine, confinement, and dislocation” (Segall, 2014, p. 56). With difficult knowledge, which is usually complex and often contradictory, people want both to know and not to know or learn about it, to remember and to forget. Segall states his premise as follows: As informal classrooms, public museums, like classroom teachers, act pedagogically. The stories developing teams and curators choose to tell, as well as those they gloss over and “forget,” form a curriculum that conveys – explicitly, implicitly, and by omission – particular messages about history, power, knowledge, and identity, helping position those who encounter those stories to think about the world in some ways rather than others. (p. 55)

Difficult knowledge can be softened or obscured—made to seem less awful—in various ways such as omitting it; placing it “in less accessible spaces”; incorporating it into a larger,

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more familiar or comfortable story; associating it with the past or another group. The two museums, Segall finds, deal with difficult knowledge in different ways but with similar effects of not seriously challenging contemporary U.S. values, beliefs, and stories about itself. I’m reminded of a dominant theme to emerge from a field study of the perceptions of “America” conveyed in middle and high school U.S. history classes several years ago, “imperfect but best,” referring to the U.S. “as the best country in the world despite past problems, current difficulties, and various complaints” (Cornbleth, 1998, p. 641). Segall’s accounts of the museums’ exhibits are rich with specifics. Only a few, however, can be presented here. For example, in one of the three permanent exhibits at the NMAI, “Our Peoples: Giving Voice to Our Histories,” is set along two parallel curved paths that are differentially lighted, accessible, and visited. The path that addresses genocide, as one example, “is dimly lit, uninviting, and requires visitors to backtrack to it following their completion of the first, main path” (p. 59) that is well lit and “deals with the riches of the continent prior to European contact and the ensuing battle for dominance” (p. 59). Granted, the low lighting and “uninviting” atmosphere may well be considered appropriate to the topic, genocide, but they do not encourage visitors. Curiously, the U.S. government and its European‐heritage citizens are rarely implicated or assigned responsibility for domination, desecration, death, or removal. A multiscreen video display concludes this exhibit at NMAI. [W]hile noting the catastrophic history of Native Americans since the arrival of Europeans in general terms, [it] never places blame for such events or implicates anyone in particular in them. Indeed, by stating that, despite the past, Native American life was able to regenerate itself, to be born again and grow, the display helps convey a message that although the past might have been horrific, it has few ramifications in the present. Rather than implicate the past in the present, such a message invites visitors to put aside any difficult accounts of trauma they might still hold, or cleanse themselves of them before moving on to the museum’s next exhibit hall that focuses on the present. (p. 61)

Thus, “the exhibit helps expunge the United States from complicity in its own difficult past” (p. 61) and encourages forgetting. In contrast to the NMAI, which speaks through the voices of several indigenous groups within and beyond US borders, the Holocaust Museum “mostly assumes a rather ‘traditional,’ didactic, coherent curatorial voice” alongside “a series of chronological/thematic displays” (p. 62). While the U.S. is shown positively as liberator of concentration camps, it is also negatively portrayed, for example, rejecting German Jewish refugees and drastically limiting immigration. The complicity of Christianity in the Holocaust is acknowledged but not treated in depth. For example, the churches’ “role in sanctioning anti‐Semitism during the Holocaust, though clearly present in the museum, is situated exclusively in the past … the prominent display of Christian rescue efforts during the Holocaust is misleading [given the museum exhibit director’s statement that] …‘it was much more likely that [Jews] would be saved by a communist or a socialist [other groups persecuted by the Nazis] than a Christian’” (p. 64). It appears that creators of the exhibit sought to make this aspect of the Holocaust more comfortable for visitors and less troubling to both Christians and Jews in the U.S. today. While openly displaying difficult knowledge about Germany/Europe during the Holocaust, the Holocaust Museum (and the NMAI) are less open to exploring difficult knowledge closer to home and the present time.



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Segall concludes: Whether difficult knowledge is paraded or ignored, both museums tend to convey the notion that difficult knowledge inherent in their respective subject matter is of a far away place and time, had no perpetrators – no sense of responsibility and accountability – and thus little with which to implicate the visitor toward action. The “difficulty” of difficult knowledge, thus, seems to be in the past. (p. 67)

This manner of portrayal is consistent with many if not most school history textbooks, c­urriculum guides, and classroom practices where “things just happen” (e.g., Cornbleth, 1998). In other words, it is familiar and unlikely to be seriously questioned in the absence of a critical lens.

8.3.2  Anyon’s “Social Class and School Knowledge” Jean Anyon’s “Social Class and School Knowledge” (1981) has been widely anthologized and used in a range of graduate education classes. I have used it in masters level social studies curriculum seminars for at least 20 years to illustrate social stratification of social studies knowledge. Acknowledging its age (older than many of my students in recent years), I’ve asked students to identify ways in which it is out‐of‐date. Few have found any other than increases in family income levels since the late 1970s (e.g., $100,000 annual income no  longer marks the top 1%). Interestingly, none commented on Anyon’s study being c­onducted in 1978–1979 before school desegregation was implemented in that area. In a footnote (#8, p. 39), Anyon notes that the city Board of Education denied her request to include the school with most of the city’s Blacks and low‐income Whites. Instead of changes, my students pointed to parallels with schools they knew, and several conducted their own school‐based projects as an alternative to a take‐home final exam. Typically, two students worked together comparing social studies classes in two Western New York schools serving different SES communities. Despite the commonality of New York’s curriculum standards and Regents Exams, classroom knowledge and activities d­iffered in ways that would hardly surprise Anyon or other critical theorists. My focus here is on the selection, nature or treatment, and distribution of social studies curriculum and classroom knowledge in the five schools and fifth grade classes where Anyon conducted multiple classroom observations and individual interviews with students, teachers, and school/school district administrators, and analyzed textbooks and other instructional materials. (Anyon’s study also included math, science, and second grade f­ollowed by attention to reproduction of social class differences, benefits, and disadvantages in her interpretation of findings.) Of the five schools in Anyon’s study, three (two working class and one middle class) were located in a medium‐sized urban district, and two were in a nearby Northern New Jersey suburban district. The three city schools were about 85% White; diversity was largely White ethnic. In the suburban district, 90% of the students in the school characterized as “affluent professional” were White while all the students in the “executive elite” school were White. In the affluent professional school, parents’ (usually fathers’) occupations included medical specialists (e.g., cardiologists) and media executives as well as less affluent university

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professors and the superintendent of schools. In the executive elite school, family incomes were within the top 1% of U.S. families at the time, and most students’ fathers were vice‐ presidents or other high‐ranking corporate executives in multinational corporations or Wall Street financial houses. The five schools selected their own textbooks and used different ones and other materials (with the exception of the two suburban schools that used the same textbooks but apparently used them differently). Anyon found all the textbooks similar in terms of “a positive and overtly stated valuing of American political democracy and freedom, American ‘progess’, industry, and technology” (p. 6). Curriculum‐in‐use in classroom practice, ­ h­owever, differed in significant ways among the schools. Working‐class schools: Basic facts and  simple skills.  Teachers chose textbooks that “contained less information, fewer inquiry or independent research activities, and more of an emphasis on social studies knowledge as facts to be remembered than the texts used in any other school of this study” (p. 8). The knowledge in these two schools “was the least ‘honest’ about U.S. society” (p. 9) with less mention of “potentially controversial topics,” minority [sic] and women’s rights or history and description of the U.S. “free enterprise” economic system. As well, the history of “powerful groups” (e.g., political, military, and big business leaders) is given much more space and positive portrayal than the working class. The knowledge that was offered to students was largely unrelated to their daily lives or experiences and usually was treated as discrete or fragmented facts to be remembered in tasks such as copying “notes” that the teacher wrote on the board (notes are given, not taken) or answering questions from the textbook. Simple skills seemed largely procedural. Significantly, these kinds of knowledge and their treatment were not characteristic of the other three schools. Middle‐class school: Understanding.  The textbooks here put more emphasis on concepts and generalizations, on comprehension more than rote memorization, and on reform including civil rights. Still, content knowledge remained rather traditional and shallow. Classroom activities included “reading the text and listening to the teacher’s explanations, answering the teacher’s questions or those in the text, and occasionally doing a report (e.g., ‘getting information’ on an Indian tribe). Classroom activity rarely involved sustained inquiry into a topic” (p. 15). More so in the middle‐class than in the other schools, there was holiday and patriotic activity, for example, for Columbus Day and Lincoln’s Birthday (Presidents’ Day, combining Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays was established later). Affluent‐professional school: Individual creativity.  At the suburban schools, there are numerous trees and grassy playing fields as well as playgrounds. The buildings are pre‐ World War II, with more modern additions. Both suburban schools used the same textbook series emphasizing “higher concept” learning. Topics such as social class, “the power of dominant ideas,” and “competing world views” received much more space than in the books used at the working- and middle‐class schools (p. 19). Observed activities “involved some discussion of the text” and much more “artistic, graphic, dramatic, and written” work (p. 20). Anyon notes that these students had the least difficulty of students in any of the schools with her questions about what knowledge is,



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where it comes from, and whether they could make knowledge. She reasoned that “perhaps they were most used to questions for which they were supposed to ‘figure things out,’ and to which there was not necessarily one right answer” (p. 21). Executive elite school: Analytic reasoning and problem‐solving.  Looking unlike most public schools, this is a “handsome, Colonial‐style building, with a large white portico on the front.” It sits back from the street on a large lawn. Homes along nearby streets “are large estates, partially hidden by foliage and long driveways” (p. 23). Of the teachers, all but the gym teacher are female, most are from middle or upper middle‐class backgrounds and married to professionals or businessmen. All whom Anyon spoke with say their students are higher social status than themselves. Although using the same textbook as the affluent professional school, observed classes here were “more academically (rigorously) organized … followed more closely the discussion questions posed by the text, and involved large amounts of independent library research but very little creative or artistic project work” (p. 25). Overall, Anyon found that “Social studies knowledge was more sophisticated, complex, and analytical than in the other schools: (p. 26). Both the fifth grade textbook and individual study packets dealing with ancient civilizations explicitly recognized social classes (but the fourth grade text dealing with American history did not). While classroom and social studies knowledge tends to be analytical, neither text nor most social studies discussions were critical of the social class structure or distribution of wealth and power; rather, they gave it high value and a “naturalness,” or “timelessness,” going back, indeed, to ancient Greece. (p. 27)

In sum, Anyon’s data suggest “that knowledge in this executive elite school is academic, intellectual, and rigorous. There is an attempt to teach more, and more difficult, concepts than any other school. Knowledge results not from personal activity or attempts to make sense, but from following rules of good thought, from rationality and reasoning.” (p. 31) Anyon concludes that “despite similarities in some curriculum topics and materials, there are profound differences in the curriculum and the curriculum‐in‐use in the sample of schools in this study” (p. 31). In addition to differences noted above, Anyon states that: knowledge in the executive elite school was the most ‘honest’ about society, U.S. social problems, and social irrationalities. It was sometimes expressive of liberal concerns, as well. Indeed, it came to closest to being socially critical. The children were given analytical and unsentimental insight into the system. Whereas, for example, middle‐class children might see a pluralism of equal or competing ethnic cultures, the children of the executive elite might perceive social class and economic conflict. (p. 37)

Giving theoretical and empirical priority to the U.S. economic system and social stratification, Anyon clearly shows the differences associated with social class in elementary schools located in different social class communities. She does not, as she acknowledges in her later critical theoretical work, pay much attention to other, cultural dimensions such as race and gender. There is scant mention of race here and none of gender. It seems fair to say that critical theory has become and perhaps still needs to become more complex to incorporate various axes of difference and associated inequalities.

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8.3.3  Li‐Ching Ho’s “Education for Citizenship in Singapore” Li‐Ching Ho’s “‘Don’t Worry, I’m Not Going to Report You’: Education for Citizenship in Singapore,” (2010) investigates secondary students’ and teachers’ understanding of national citizenship and their role as citizens of Singapore in relation to their social studies classes, national curriculum, textbooks, and exams. Although Ho does not explicitly present her theoretical perspective, perhaps to avoid antagonizing Singapore’s political leaders, she clearly communicates a critical stance, for example, by questioning received accounts, and by looking to structural/systemic and institutional explanations, not merely individual ones. Ho self‐identifies as a Chinese Singaporean; she earned her doctorate at a U.S. university in New York City. Singapore, a former British colony that received its independence after World War II, is now a centralized, seemingly authoritarian (or, at least, regimented from a U.S. perspective), multi‐ethnic/racial/cultural and SES‐stratified society of about 4.5 million people. Following independence, and racialized riots in the 1950s and 1960s, national unity, l­oyalty, and racial harmony became high priorities for the Singaporean government as a means of achieving order, stability, and prosperity— and major goals of its Ministry of Education (MOE). After independence, the Singapore government simplified the elaborate British racial categorization, creating four groups—Chinese, Malay, Indian, other—with membership ascribed by paternal ancestry and indicated on one’s official identity card. Chinese make up more than 75% of the population. By the 1980s, race was in effect redefined as cultural rather than communal, and racial equality was proclaimed. Singapore was now a meritocracy. Structural or institutional impediments were redefined as individual ones such as lack of effort or ability. This is a clearly uncritical if not anti‐critical stance on the part of the government. As a central component of education in Singapore, citizenship education became a comprehensive and inclusive program, National Education, in 1997 as part of the required social studies program for secondary students. A national curriculum, textbooks, and high‐ stakes exam are all provided by the MOE. As indicated above, racial harmony and social cohesion are key goals. The infusion of the MOE’s citizenship discourse into classroom practice and the national exam serve to make the government’s message pervasive and leave little room for alternatives or dissent. The study schools were selected on the basis of national academic rankings (one from each of the three tiers), their racial composition, gender distribution, and researcher access. The middle tier school was most diverse racially and representative of the Singapore population. The higher tier school had an above average proportion of Chinese students (more than 90%) while the lower tier school had an above average proportion of Malay students (45%). In this context, Ho observed social studies classes of 14–15 year‐olds over a ten‐week term, one in each of the three schools, interviewed 24 students individually and in school focus groups, and reviewed pertinent policies and curriculum materials. Students also c­ompleted an open‐ended questionnaire. From this rich data set, Ho summarized her findings as follows: In general, students from all three schools and across all racial groups shared similar understandings of the historical narrative as depicted in the official social studies textbooks and national curriculum. The students’ responses during the interviews and the social studies



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lessons also demonstrated that most of them had uncritically internalized the state’s values and ideals about citizenship. Three key themes were dominant: the national ideals of progress and consensus, the rigid conception of race, and the lack of countervailing opinions. (p. 228)

Not only were the students’ understandings similar, “they also frequently repeated the same phrasing and perspectives found in the textbooks” (p. 228). And both teachers and students frequently echoed the state’s desire for achieving “consensus and avoiding conflict at all costs” (p. 229). No classroom discussion of sensitive or controversial issues was observed. Given “the state’s emphatic link between an individual citizen’s responsibility and the maintenance of racial harmony, both teachers and students focused on individual acts of racism and appeared to be oblivious to any examples of structural problems” (p. 231). Yet all three teachers spent considerable time on examples of institutional discrimination against Tamils in Sri Lanka and Catholics in Northern Ireland (included in the National Education program apparently to show what happens when religious difference become religious conflict). They did not, however, extend similar critique to Singapore, “Instead, the teachers presented the Singapore system of meritocracy and multi‐racialism as an ideal, just, and color‐blind system for all” (p. 232). Ho appears disappointed with the students’ seemingly uncritical acceptance of the “o­fficial narrative.” She writes: In sum, the data suggest that in most cases, these young Singapore citizens appeared to have internalized the dominant historical narrative vis‐à‐vis race and citizenship. Key problems include their unquestioning acceptance of, and identification with, the official racial categories, the lack of challenge to the state’s dominant positions and perspectives, their inability and/or unwillingness to go beyond the role of the individual citizen and critically assess potential systemic or structural flaws, and finally, their lack of awareness of alternative perspectives. (p. 233)

In the concluding sections of her account, Ho offers two likely explanations for why so few students offered alternative views. One is the “lack of counter‐socialization and the disciplining effects of censorship” (p. 234), including self‐censorship. The second is the pull of high‐stakes testing. A third is that at least some students are engaging in what Lacey (1977) has called “strategic compliance,” that is, seeming to go along with what is expected by teachers or other authority figures in order to gain benefits (e.g., good grades) and/or avoid punishments. From my vantage point, it is important to raise and pursue critical questions as Ho has done, even when one’s findings surprise or disappoint. If such questions are not raised, the practices are left unchallenged and, in effect, condoned. If such questions are not pursued, those who would promote emancipatory change are hampered by ignorance of the situation.

8.4  Concluding Commentary So, what difference might critical theory(s) and research make for social studies education today and into the foreseeable future? Who benefits in one way or another? Critical research studies in or relevant to social studies education are being undertaken and published now, although not in large numbers as others have noted (e.g., Nelson and Stanley, 2013). Some have questioned the readability and usefulness of critical theory and research, at least in

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part for political‐ideological reasons. Neither a blanket dismissal (nor endorsement) is w­arranted, however. Critical theorists and researchers do have an obligation to explain clearly, and preferably concisely, especially for readers who are not already familiar with critical discourse. Critical theory and research could make a substantial difference if they were more widespread and accessible. Critical theorists and researchers also have an obligation to encourage social educators and others to consider broader or alternative conceptions of use and useful research if they want their work to be valued and “used.” Instrumental uses of research and other knowledge are most commonly assumed. For example: What should I do to (or, What is the best way to) teach students how to organize an essay? Treat other students fairly? Both analyze others’ arguments and craft their own? In contrast to the assumption of direct applicability, interpretive uses of research knowledge, following Dewey (see, e.g., Cornbleth, 1982), include testing one’s beliefs (e.g., about teaching refugee students), examining others’ hypotheses or research findings in one’s own situation, and interpreting and evaluating events within and beyond schools through the proposed conceptual framework. It is these kinds of uses for which critical theory and research are particularly well suited. Consider, for example, the interpretive uses that might be made of the three research studies described in the previous section. Another important use of critical research spans conceptions of instrumental and interpretive use. Critical research can surface or point to unrecognized problems or impediments to desired goals. One example is the recognition of a climate of censorship (and high‐stakes testing) in Singapore schools seeming to limit student questioning and consideration of alternatives in the classes Ho studied. Another example is that of a male student in my masters social studies curriculum class several years ago who, after reading a study of social studies teachers’ tendency to give more attention to male students, carried out a simple study of his own high school classroom practice. He was sure that he treated female and male students equitably and was seriously embarrassed to find out that he did not. Then he made some deliberate changes, monitored his practice, and was able to report positive results. This is a small, micro example, but it can be repeated and/or expanded to other student groups and teachers and “used” to spur further change toward gender equity and perhaps also to racial/ethnic equity. Two additional ways in which critical theory and research can make a positive difference for social education were suggested with respect to Ho’s study in the previous section. To raise critical questions, regardless of a study’s results, challenges the practices or conditions in question. It puts a spotlight and attention on problematic situations at least for a while. Not to raise the questions or to publish the results leaves the practices or conditions unchallenged and, thus condone them, well serving the status quo. And, as Ho has shown, critical research can inform change efforts by uncovering impediments that must be reckoned with (e.g., the nature and influence of high‐stakes exams). A final difference that critical theory and research might make to be considered here is that, with it, educators are less likely to be taken in by educational scams. We’ve learned that there is no one best practice or system for all students, kinds of learning, times and places— although we might wish that there was a silver bullet or magic pill. Confronted with the latest practice, product, or program touted to solve whatever problem, we can ask questions. E.g., What are the underlying assumptions on which this rests? With what groups of



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students has it been used or tested? With what results? What are the trade‐offs if we do this? Who benefits most? Who or what suffers? The questions of benefit and the distribution of benefits are a priority not only for critical theorists and researchers but also for schooling in a democratic society. Tax cuts? Charter schools? Culturally relevant teaching? Digital map skill packages? Critical theory(s) and research promise the most educational and perhaps social benefits to those who benefit least from present arrangements—most students, many teachers, some administrators and policymakers, and society generally. And, as critical theory c­ontinues to evolve, it likely will offer additional conceptual and empirical challenges as well as benefits.

Notes 1 My reading of C. Wright Mills’ Sociological Imagination (1959) and Elizabeth Ellsworth’s “Why  doesn’t this feel empowering?” (1989) helped me clarify this insight and how personal b­iographies and circumstances enter into framing both our questions and responses. 2 Both museums, Segall states, are “shining examples of providing visitors with serious, thorough, and thoughtful encounters with knowledge and knowing about their respective topics” (2014, p. 57).

References Anyon, J. (1981). Social class and school knowledge. Curriculum Inquiry, 11(1), 3–41. Anyon, J. (2005). Radical possibilities: Public policy, urban education, and a new social movement. New York, NY and London, UK: Routledge. Anyon, J. (2008). Theory and educational research: Toward critical social explanation. New York, NY and London, UK: Routledge. Anyon, J. (2011). Marx and education. New York, NY: Routledge. Ball, S. J. (2013). Foucault, power, and education. New York, NY: Routledge. Britzman, D. (2000). If the story cannot end: Deferred action, ambivalence, and difficult knowledge. In R. I. Simon, S. Rosenberg, C. Eppert, & R. Baum (Eds.), Between hope and despair: Pedagogy and the remembrance of historical trauma (pp. 27–57). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Cornbleth, C. (1982). On the social study of social studies. Theory & Research in Social Education, 10(4), 1–16. Cornbleth, C. (Ed.). (1986). An invitation of research in social education. Bulletin No. 77. Washington, DC: National Council for the Social Studies. Cornbleth, C. (1998). An America curriculum? Teachers College Record, 99(4), 622–646. Cornbleth, C., & Waugh, D. (1995). The great speckled bird: Multicultural politics and education p­olicymaking. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press. Du Bois, W. E. B. (1935). Black reconstruction. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace. Eagleton, T. (1983). Literary theory: An introduction. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Ellsworth, E. (1989). Why doesn’t this feel empowering? Working through the repressive myths of critical pedagogy. Harvard Educational Review, 59(3), 297–324. Foucault, M. (1977). Language, counter‐memory, practice: Selected essays and interviews. (D. F. Buchard, Ed.). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Gunn, G. (1992). Thinking across the American grain: Ideology, intellect, and the new pragmatism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

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Ho, Li‐Ching. (2010). “Don’t worry, I’m not going to report you”: Education for citizenship in Singapore. Theory and Research in Social Education, 38(2), 217–247. Kincheloe, J. L., & McLaren, P. (2005). Rethinking critical theory and qualitative research. In Norman K. Denzin & Yvonna S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (pp. 303–342). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Lacey, C. (1977). The socialization of teachers. London, UK: Methuen. Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Nelson, J. L. (Ed.). (1985). New criticism and social education, Special Section. Social Education, 45(5), 368–402. Nelson, J. L. & Stanley, W. B. (2013). Critical studies and social education: 40 years of TRSE. Theory & Research in Social Education, 41, 438–456. Popkewitz, T. (1984). Paradigm and ideology in educational research. Philadelphia, PA and London, UK: Falmer. Segall, A. (2013). Revitalizing critical discourses in social education: Opportunities for a more c­omplexified (un)knowing. Theory & Research in Social Education, 41, 476–493. Segall, A. (2014). Making difficult history public: The pedagogy of remembering and forgetting in two Washington DC museums. The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 36, 55–70. Stanley, W. B. (1986). Critical research. In C. Cornbleth (Ed.), An invitation to research in social e­ducation (pp. 78–90). Washington, DC: National Council for the Social Studies. West, C. (1989). The American evasion of philosophy. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press.

9

A Critical Race Theory Analysis of Social Studies Research, Theory and Practice Oscar Navarro and Tyrone C. Howard

Social studies education has long been viewed as a means of civic engagement and participation, the betterment of a democratic society, and a field of study tied to the improvement of social relations amongst is citizens (Barth, 1996; Davis, 1991; Hertzberg, 1981; Saxe, 1992). Over the past eight decades a number of theorists have attempted to bring clarity and relevance to a subject matter that remains in a state of flux. Amidst all of the debates on the purpose and mission of the social studies, one of the central tenets in the field has been to improve human relations and develop civic competence in the pursuit of a more democratic, just, fair, and harmonious society (Banks, 1997; Parker, 1997; Saxe, 1997; Shaver, 1991). The quest for democratic citizenship is tied to the notion that individual differences such as race, culture, language, ethnicity and social class are to be recognized, respected, understood, and embraced in a pluralistic society. Yet, history is replete with widespread accounts of how the “other” has been excluded and marginalized in a pluralistic and increasingly diverse society (Banks, 1997; Crocco & Davis, 2002; Marable, 2002; Parker, 1997). Issues of discrimination, exclusion, prejudice and injustice have been challenged, protested against, and been seen as a black eye in the nation’s pursuit of becoming truly democratic (Marable, 2002). In many ways prekindergarten through 12th grade (PreK–12) schools are the ideal setting to instill the appropriate knowledge, skills, and dispositions for living in a diverse and inclusive democracy. We would argue that one of the issues that has been most difficult for the nation to address is its history around issues tied to race and racism. Consequently, because of the nation’s ambivalence around race, issues tied to race and racism have been largely absent from most of the theory, research, practice, and policies within the social studies education (Howard, 2004a). This chapter conceptualizes social studies education through the lenses of race and r­acism. We delve into the topic of race and racism in the social studies for three primary reasons: (1) The changing ethnic and racial demographics of the nation merit that children develop a comprehensive understanding about the history of race and racism in the United States; (2) Social studies theory and practice should serve as the primary vehicle and subject The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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area in schools to introduce and examine dialogues around race; and (3) A democratic society must be willing to have the uncomfortable, yet needed discussions about various marginalized populations—in this case, non‐White populations, whose experiences have been profoundly influenced by race and racism. Moreover, it is critical to shine the spotlight on racially diverse populations who have been part of the very fabric of the United States since its inception. In this chapter, we will talk about why race still continues to matter in the 21st century in the United States. Second, we will introduce critical race theory as a framework that can be used to delve into and better understand race and racism. Third, we will look at how race and racism have been addressed within social studies theory and p­ractice. Finally, we will offer a curricular example that social studies practitioners and researchers can use in their work. We will conclude the chapter with recommendations moving forward.

9.1  Why Race Still Matters The need to address race in the social studies is obvious on many levels. A look at U.S. schools and society and the changing racial and ethnic demographic trends across the country would be the ideal location to start. The U.S. Census Bureau projections contend that data through 2050 shows an increasingly diverse nation that will look like the following: ●●

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Between 2010 and 2050, the Hispanic1 population will grow from 49.7 million to 132.8 million, an increase of 83 million or 167%. The group’s share of the nation’s population will almost double, from 16% in 2010 to 30% in 2050. The Asian population will grow 213%, or from 14.4 million to 34.4 million. By 2050, Asians’ share of the population will increase from 4.7% to 7.8%. The Black population will grow from 39.9 million to 56.9 million, an increase of 17 million or 46%. The Black share of the population will remain relatively the same at around 13%. The non‐Hispanic White population will increase by only 1%, from 200.9 million to 203.3 million, a gain of 2.5 million. The non‐Hispanic White share of the population will decline from 64.7% in 2010 to 46.3% in 2050 (Zakariya & Jiandani, 2012).

The United States continues to experience its largest influx of immigrants, along with the increasing numbers of African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans. As a result, the nation must be prepared to make the adjustments necessary to deal with the changing racial and ethnic texture of its citizens (Banks, 2004). From a school subject matter standpoint, what discipline is better situated to assist in the process than social studies education? The dramatic shift in ethnic demographics has important implications for schools and, more specifically, classroom teachers, as the changing ethnic and racial makeup of schools will undoubtedly influence the dynamics of teachers and students in classrooms across the entire nation. The increasing racial and ethnic diversity occurring across the nation over the next s­everal decades will be even more recognizable in the nation’s schools, where younger populations are more likely to be non‐White. Consider some of the racial and ethnic data



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from the U.S. Department of Education (2014), which projects the following. They contend that from fall 2001 through fall 2011, the number of White students enrolled in prekindergarten through 12th grade in U.S. public schools decreased from 28.7 million to 25.6 million, and their share of public school enrollment decreased from 60 to 52%. In contrast, the number of Latina and Latino (Latina/o) students enrolled during this period increased from 8.2 million to 11.8 million students, and their share of public school enrollment increased from 17 to 24%. The number of Black students enrolled during this period fluctuated between 7.8 million and 8.4 million, and Black students’ share of public school enrollment decreased from 17% in 2001 to 16% in 2011. In 2002, the Latina/o share of public school enrollment exceeded the Black share, and it has since remained higher than the Black share in each subsequent year through 2011. Hence becoming the largest “minority group.” One of the more prominent themes discussed in social studies education is immigration. The United States has frequently been touted as a country of immigrants, and over the past century, ethnic and racial diversity has been one of the primary hallmarks of the nation. The term e pluribus unum (out of many one) captures one of the defining and unique characteristics of the United States. One of the main tenets of the field of the social studies has been the importance of pluralism (National Council for the Social Studies [NCSS], 2014) and the notion that there is strength in diversity. This is viewed as a strength of our democracy and something that makes the nation unique. While increasing ethnic and racial diversity has been constant since the country’s inception, even more noteworthy is the rapid ethnic and racial transformation that has occurred during the last three decades. To further underscore the unprecedented diversity that the U.S. will experience, the U.S. Census Bureau states that by 2050, nearly one in five Americans (19%) will be an immigrant, compared with one in eight (12%) in 2005. Moreover, by 2025, the immigrant or foreign‐ born share of the population will surpass the peak during the last great wave of immigration over a century ago. In further evidence of the rapid pace of racial and ethnic diversity in the nation’s schools, is the fact that between fall 2012 and fall 2023, the number of White students enrolled in U.S. public schools is projected to continue decreasing from 25.6 million to 23.5 million, and White students’ share of enrollment is expected to decline to 45%. In a symbolic representation of the shift in school demographics, consider that fall 2014 marked the first time in the nation’s history that more non‐White kindergarten students were enrolled in the nation’s public schools than White students (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2014). Moreover, the number of Latina/o public school students is projected to increase to represent 30% of total enrollment in 2023. During this period, the number of Asian/Pacific Islander students is projected to increase from 2.5  million to 2.9 million, and their enrollment share in 2023 is projected to be 5%. Although the number of Black students is projected to fluctuate between around 7.6 million and 7.8 million during this period, their enrollment share is projected to decrease from 16 to 15%. These data continue to remind us that race and culture matter (Howard, 2010) and will continue to matter in U.S. schools and society. It is essential to develop citizens who have a healthy understanding of race and the racial history of groups in the U.S.; the quest for racial equality is pertinent to the future of democracy in the U.S. As we see trends around school choice, charter schools and the privatizing of public education, there are clear racial ramifications associated with such movements. The resegregation of

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many of the nation’s communities and schools threatens long‐held beliefs around racial equity, the value of diversity, and living and learning across differences.

9.1.1  Teacher Racial Diversity One of the obstacles to incorporating greater race and racism-related content into social studies education is the racial makeup of teachers compared to the students they teach. One of the major challenges that social studies educators will encounter amidst these changing student demographics is what Gay and Howard (2001) refer to as the demographic divide, wherein a largely racially homogeneous White teaching population is more likely to face a more racially heterogeneous student population. The reality is that social studies educators are most likely to come into contact with students from cultural, ethnic, linguistic, racial, and social‐class backgrounds different from their own. In short, U.S. schools will continue to become learning spaces where a mostly White, female, monolingual, and middle‐class teaching force will teach a mostly student‐of‐color population. In 2010, approximately 75% of the U.S. public school teachers were female, and 84% were White, and almost exclusively middle‐class (NCES, 2011). Conversely, only 7.8% of teachers were African American, 5.7% were Latino, 1.6% Asian American, and .8% were Native American. Thus, there will also be a need for social studies teacher educators to prepare a largely racially homogeneous group of preservice teachers to delve into topics tied to race. The very makeup of their classrooms and schools will dictate nothing less. To further underscore the dearth of non‐White teachers in U.S. schools, the National Collaborative on Diversity in the Teaching Force (2004) reported that more than 40% of U.S. schools do not employ a single teacher of color. The scarcity of teachers of color has remained largely consistent over the past three decades: In 1971, 88% of public school teachers were White (Snyder, 1998). In all likelihood, the racial homogeneity of the teaching population will continue to be largely White, as evidenced by research done by Zumwalt and Craig (2005), whose meta‐analysis of studies assessing the racial and ethnic makeup of teacher education students revealed that the percentage of students who are White is slightly more than 80%. Most aspiring teachers are native English speakers, and have had little to no contact with non‐English speakers as part of their experience prior to entering preservice teacher programs (Durgunoglu & Hughes, 2010). The NCSS (2014) in its position on powerful social studies education contends that social studies educators should: prepare students to identify, understand, and work to solve the challenges facing our diverse nation in an increasingly interdependent world. Education for citizenship should help students acquire and learn to use the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that will prepare them to be c­ompetent and responsible citizens throughout their lives. Competent and responsible citizens are informed and thoughtful, participate in their communities, are involved politically, and exhibit moral and civic virtues.

The likelihood of identifying teachers to engage in powerful social studies education is lower if there is a teaching force less likely to engage content and conversation that is tied to race and racism, which is one of the “challenges facing our diverse nation.” Milner (2010) has provided evidence about how White teachers are less likely and less equipped to engage



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their students in conversations about race and racism. Sleeter (2008) has also written about the discomfort that many White teachers feel in talking about race and thus frequently avoid the topic altogether, especially when teaching in a majority non‐White classroom. It also should be noted that not all White teachers fall into the category of not being racially aware and culturally competent (Howard, 2010). There are White teachers who are more than adequately equipped to engage their students in powerful social studies that engages discussions around race and racism. In addition, we also acknowledge that not all teachers of color are equipped or are willing to engage in race-related instruction. However, given the overwhelming numbers of White teachers in classrooms, more pointed attention may need to be directed for social studies instruction to reach its full potential. Ladson‐Billings (2003) states, “the social studies profession should be the most overt of the school subjects to insist upon the recruitment, training, and retention of a diverse professional teaching force” (p. 5).

9.2  Critical Race Theory as a Framework Social studies research, theory and practice must be more race‐focused. We offer critical race theory (CRT) as a framework that could be used for social studies research and theory to help practitioners and researchers engage in lessons, inquiry, and work around social education that is focused on understanding race and racism. Specifically, CRT provides a lens to examine issues of racism and educational inequity while also analyzing racism and its intersection with other forms of oppression such as sexism, classism, homophobia, and nativism (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). CRT scholars have developed the following five tenets to guide research and inquiry on educational equity and racial justice: 1. Centrality of race and racism. All CRT research within education must centralize race and racism, including intersections with other forms of subordination such as gender, class, and citizenship. 2. Challenging the dominant perspective. CRT research works to challenge the d­ominant narratives and recenter marginalized perspectives. 3. Commitment to social justice. CRT research must always be motivated by a social justice agenda. 4. Valuing experiential knowledge. CRT builds on the oral traditions of many indigenous communities of color around the world. CRT research centers the narratives of people of color when attempting to understand social inequality. 5. Being interdisciplinary. CRT scholars believe that the world is multidimensional, and similarly, research about the world should reflect multiple perspectives. (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002) As both a theoretical lens to examine race and its complexities as well as a framework to examine the relationship between race and achievement; critical race theory is useful because it places race at the center of the discussion of social studies education. CRT is a movement born out of critical legal studies seeking to address issues of racial inequality, and the overlooked role that race and racism have played in the construction of the legal foundation (Bell, 1992, 2002; Crenshaw, 1997; Harris, 1993; Matsuda, 1993). As critical race theory has emerged in the field of education, it has sought to move the dialogue about race

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and racism from the realm of the ideological to the realm of the experiential. It seeks to make issues of race and racism less abstract, and more tied to people’s everyday realities and experiences (Ladson‐Billings, 2000; Parker & Lynn, 2002; Tate, 1997; Taylor, Ladson‐ Billings, & Gilborn, 2009). Leading critical race theorists have written about the marginalization of race and how racism is consequently interwoven into the historical conscious and ideological framework of the U.S. legal system (Bell, 1992; Delgado, 1995). Consequently, critical race theorists argue that a thorough examination of race within the legal context is desperately needed. CRT in education seeks to give much needed attention to the role of race in educational research, scholarship, and practice (Dixson & Rousseau, 2006; Ladson‐Billings, 2000; Solórzano, 1998; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002). The inclusion of a critical race framework in education is essential when one considers the focus that social studies education often has on African American, Latina/o, Native American, Asian American and European history, culture and experiences. Critical race theory in education is an evolving methodological, conceptual, and theoretical construct that attempts to dismantle racism in education (Solórzano, 1998). It provides practitioners and scholars with unique ways to investigate interconnections between racism and persistent historical inequities, including changes in communities over time, differences in labor opportunities, immigration patterns, and current social relations. By centering the discussion on racism, critical race theorists use a more critical lens than multicultural education educators (Sleeter, 1995). This is done by focusing more explicitly on power race relations (historically and contemporarily) and the role of racism historically in the U.S., and by focusing less on school content and curriculum. Thus, the question from a critical race standpoint is not, “Has racism been a factor in U.S. life, law, policy and relations?” Rather, critical race theory presupposes the historical and contemporary role that race and racism play and asks a more poignant question: “Since racism has played a role in American life, law, policy and relations, how can it be dismantled?” Critical race theorists anchor their interrogation of racism in education in four primary ways: (1) by theorizing about race and the intersectionality of racism, classism, sexism, and other forms of oppression in school curriculum; (2) by challenging dominant ideologies that call for objectivity and neutrality in educational research; (3) by offering counter‐ storytelling as a liberatory and credible methodological tool in examining racial oppression; and (4) by incorporating transdisciplinary knowledge from women’s studies and ethnic studies to better understand various manifestations of discrimination (Solórzano, 1997, 1998; Smith‐Maddox & Solórzano, 2002). Du Bois (1903) prophetically stated at the turn of the 20th century “the problem of the t­wentieth century is the problem of the color line, the relations of the darker to the lighter races of men [and women] in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea” (pp. 15–16). Nearly a century later, West (1993) reminded us that even with high levels of education and increased economic mobility and social status, “race matters” (p. 3). Scholars, philosophers, researchers, and practitioners have continued to lament the way in which we talk (and do not talk) about race, and its manifestations in our everyday lives (e.g., Baldwin, 1988; Bonilla‐Silva, 2003; Dixson & Rousseau, 2006; Marable, 1992, 2002; Solórzano, 1997; Takaki, 1993; Woodson, 1933). It is critical to respond to the calls of these scholars where social studies research is concerned. Their calls seek to push social studies educators in a direction that opens up the traditional historical narrative to include the voices and perspectives of those marginalized populations whose accounts are often excluded or distorted in the American narrative.



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A 21st-century analysis of race would reveal that it remains the elephant in the room, the issue that many do not want to acknowledge, even within a social studies framework. As much as we attempt to ignore race, look around it, over and under it, race remains a constant reality in these United States. A plethora of current events, be they social, economic, or political, continue to occur in U.S. cities with racial overtones that require educators to provide students with the knowledge and skills to productively engage in conversations about race. Given the complexity of race, the challenges it poses, and our historical legacy with race, we cannot leave this topic to chance. Edelman (2008) says that throughout America’s history, race has been a noose choking our capacity to soar. Race is our eternal taboo and as much as we try to rid ourselves of its salience in our collective psyches, it seems to linger in our minds, hearts, and actions. In many ways, it is like the oxygen in our stratosphere—it is always there. Some scholars have asserted that it is time to move beyond race and engage in more cultural, structural, and social‐class-based analyses of schools and society (Darder & Torres, 2004; Wilson, 2009). We would reject such a notion, but still think it is worth mentioning as part of the conversation. The calls to move beyond race have important merit that must continue to inform the racial dialogue. Yet, when it comes to education, and more specifically disparate racial outcomes in schools, investigators should be mindful of the murky terrain that must be traveled in search of better understandings and greater c­larifications about racial outcomes. Only then can we move beyond race.

9.3  Social Studies Theory on Race A decade ago, leading educational scholar Gloria Ladson‐Billings (2003) called for breaking the racial silence in social studies education. In short, her contention was that the social studies could serve as a “curricular home for unlearning the racism that has confounded us as a nation” (p. 63). Her call for a greater race and racism focus on the social studies is tied to the idea that prominent themes that are typically addressed in social studies education such as slavery, genocide of indigenous populations, the conquest of Mexico, the internment of Japanese Americans, the Chinese participation of building the transcontinental railroad all have racial ramifications. The opportunities to address race and racism in the social studies classroom are extensive, and as Ladson‐Billings (2003) states “race is an ever‐present concept in the social studies—in the curriculum, the profession, and its policies and practices” (p. 2). A chorus of other scholars joined Ladson‐Billings’ call for greater attention to race and racism in the social studies, essentially challenging the field to do a better job in addressing one of the nation’s most vexing, yet under-researched and under-theorized topics—race and racism. These scholars acknowledged the glaring absence of race and racism in the field of social studies research, curriculum, and teaching. Investigations regarding issues of race in the curriculum (Brown & Brown, 2010; Cornbleth & Waugh, 1995; Nelson & Pang, 2006; Rains, 2006), students’ and teachers’ perspectives on race (Cornbleth, 2002; Epstein, 2000, 2009; Urietta, 2004), and teaching about race in the social studies classroom (Branch, 2003; Chandler, 2010; Howard, 2003, 2004b; Martell, 2013; Tyson, 2003) all called for greater attention to this most important topic. Tyson (2003) stated, “we cannot overcome the istory of racial oppression rooted in our nationhood without understanding and h­ speaking to the insidious ways race continues to be destructive in our lives” (p. 16). She pointed to a gross need for rethinking civic education within a critical race theory framework,

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wherein the development of a citizen would be incomplete without the development of knowledge and skills about the role of race and racism in the nation’s history. She argued for social studies to “engage in deeper explorations of the relationship of becoming an effective citizen and race” (p. 23). Howard (2003) also pushed the field of the social studies to do more around race. He  asserted, “examinations of race are most critical within the domain of democracy” (p. 32). In short, he argued that, in order for the U.S. to fulfill its quest to be a democratic society to all of its citizens, a full investigation into the sordid history that is race in the U.S. was mandatory. His review of works published in the social studies’ primary research journal, Theory & Research in Social Education, over 24 years revealed a paltry number of works that were focused on race or racism over that period of time. He called on the NCSS and the College University Faculty Assembly to do a better job giving explicit attention to race and racism in social studies research, theory and practice. In another work that addressed the shortage of race in the social studies, Pang and Valle (2004) called for a more nuanced analysis of how social studies educators should engage in teaching and learning about race and racism. They maintained that social studies curricu­ lum, which is concerned with human ideals and practices, should be at the forefront in discussing race as a sociopolitical construct, requiring students to examine the long history and legacy of how race was constructed and who suffered and who benefited. Pang and Valle (2004) asserted that the inaccurate description of race and racism used in many social studies curricula did not identify the essential origins of race and racism. In short, they called for a more interdisciplinary approach to examining race and racism where educators introduced students to a more critical analysis of fields of study such as anthropology, biology, and history to create a paradigm shift in how social studies content around race and racism is discussed. Espiritu Halagao (2004) provided an empirical example of social studies teachers engaging students in critical approaches to understanding race and racism through a m­ulticultural lens. By using document analysis and phenomenological interviewing, she introduced a transformative curriculum called Pinoy Teach to introduce students to Philippine and Filipino American history. Pinoy Teach explored the concepts of colonialism, conquest, and indigenous knowledge for students to develop an analysis of racism internationally and locally. As a result, students gain new narratives that allowed them to contextualize the legacy of racism in their life, language, and culture within the United States. She too made the strong call for social studies as the logical location for educators to introduce students to core issues, themes, and concepts frequently overlooked. What is clear is that even when direct references to race and racism were not present, the conditions informed by racial prejudice and injustice served as a gateway. Urietta (2004) used a postcolonial analysis to describe and document how Chicana/o educators can develop social studies lessons and content about how notions of citizenship get created for people of Mexican descent. By utilizing different texts that depict people of Mexican descent as invisible and hostile, Urietta highlighted the post/neo‐colonial condition of the group. In this work, he unfolds the manner in which colonial schooling was the order of the day for children of Mexican descent and how they continue to be “burdened with a distorted legacy in the U.S. educational system” (p. 439). In a more recent work, King, Davis, & Brown (2012) contended that there is a need to broaden the theoretical and historical context of social studies foundational literature using



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race and racism as an analytical tool to examine longstanding topics and issues in foundational social studies literature. Moreover, they offered CRT and revisionist ontology as t­heoretical tools that can be used to explore race-related topics. They offered the works of Carter G. Woodson and Harold Rugg as scholars whose works sought to push social educators to think more critically and comprehensively about the contributions of African Americans in U.S. history. Chandler and McKnight (2012) in an extensive analysis of race and racism in the social studies made the declaration that “it would seem that the social studies curriculum in the United States is positioned, better than any other subject than we teach in our schools, to begin to explore issues of race and the American experience” (p. 216). They go on to question that if not in the social studies, then where? Moreover, they contend that there is a need to revise the narrative of the U.S. as a “racial state” (p. 217). They also point out that in the Curriculum Guidelines for Multicultural Education, race is intentionally excluded from the framework in the hope that it would “disappear of its own volition” (p. 219). Lastly, Chandler (2010) and Lintner (2004) have extended the conversation of utilizing a critical race theory as a theoretical framework to challenge social studies practitioners, researchers, and theorists to create a more race and racism‐related teaching in the classroom. They both referenced the fall 2004 issue of Theory & Research in Social Education, entitled “Race and the Social Studies,” and Critical Race Theory Perspectives on Social Studies, an edited book by Ladson‐Billings (2003), as providing important insights about uses of race in the social studies. These sources have offered extensive implications for researchers, practitioners, and scholars in the field of socials studies education. However, we believe that the current body of literature on race and racism in social studies is still lacking in a c­omprehensive and thorough manner. While a growing number of scholars are raising important questions about race in social studies education, other queries remain; around the racial makeup of social studies educators at all levels, the manner in which race and racism are addressed in social studies textbooks, or perhaps the need for a greater increase in the number of studies that address, think about or examine race. Finally, scholars who address race-related issues in social studies education should not exclusively be scholars of color. It is essential for White scholars to also problematize race in the social studies, to interrogate whiteness in social studies theory, practice, and research as well, and to engage in larger projects and studies which probe why the topic of race is not more salient in the work being done. In an attempt to clarify for practitioners as well as researchers, we offer an example of a lesson that was used by one of the authors in his high school Modern World History course. We introduce the lesson, in response to the desire of seeing classroom examples that draw from critical race theory, to inform social studies content, instruction, and assessment. At  the conclusion of the lesson, we then provide a few considerations for social studies researchers on how to move the field forward where issues of race and racism are concerned.

9.4  Historical Counternarrative The following curricular unit was taught in a 10th grade Modern World History course at an urban high school in South Central Los Angeles. The student body reflected the local community, low‐income Latina/o and African American. Unfortunately, yet not

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surprising, the world history course’s state content standards, textbook, and supplemental resources excluded the histories, experiences, and narratives of people of color, such as the students’ Latino and African ancestry. To counter the dominant representation and narratives of White European and North Americans, the teacher utilized critical race theory’s tenet: centering the experiential knowledge of people of color to further s­tudents’ understanding of modern world history (Solórzano, 1998). An example of this CRT tenet is a counternarrative, which integrated the voice of people of color toward countering majoritarian stories that reinforce racism (Delgado, 1984). Building on CRT conceptualization of counternarrative, a historical counternarrative incorporates the voice of a non‐White historical figure to tell their story, name their struggle, and work towards combatting oppression. The use of historical counternarrative provides students an opportunity to examine the working of race and racism, and provide examples of resist­ ance and attempts toward liberation in both a historical and contemporary context. The unit described below is an example of a historical counternarrative in a secondary social studies classroom and provides theoretical and p­edagogical implications for PreK–12 educators.

9.4.1  Description of Unit The curricular example is entitled “Third World2 Liberation” and sequentially followed a post‐World War II unit and built off prior course themes, such as, colonialism, race, and power. Moreover, the unit addressed California World History Standard 10.10, which asks students to analyze examples of nation building outside of the United States and Europe (Education, 2000). The teacher also integrated cultural artifacts associated with critical media literacy strategies, such as hip‐hop, film, and art to connect the course content to students’ lived experience in South Central Los Angeles. The focus of the unit was to utilize the counternarratives of people of color in the Third World to investigate examples of anticolonial nation building throughout Africa and Latin America. Three essential questions guided the unit: What is liberation? How should the Third World reach liberation? How do we reach liberation in South Central Los Angeles? The culminating task had students create a life‐size representation with biography and written testimonial, and speak from the p­erspective of their historical counternarrative in a simulated Third World liberation conference. The first weeks of the unit included a counternarrative analysis of the Third World through the lens of Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Students deconstructed the myths of underdevelopment of Africa and Latin America and examined a case study of Cuba, as an example of an anticolonial struggle. Students then implemented and expanded the course content through a Third World liberation conference. Students were asked to transform into a Third World leader,3 tell their story, including background information about their struggle for liberation and their character’s perspective on liberation. In the conference, students introduced their leader, presented the testimonial, and engaged in a Socratic seminar to discuss how the oppressed should strive toward liberation in the Third World from the lens of their leader. Then the students made thematic connections from the content to discuss how they should strive toward liberation in South Central Los Angeles.



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9.5  The Power of Historical Counternarratives Counternarratives provide a broader understanding of historical events that strengthen subject matter content yet also disrupt dominant narratives that are narrow, inaccurate, and harmful to people of color. Historical counternarratives provide an opportunity to integrate valuable perspectives, voices, and stories that are often silenced in the telling of history. The  integration of counternarratives with historical content standards provides a bolder and comprehensive understanding of historical events. At times, these counternarratives contest damaging narratives that perpetuate racism, nativism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression. For example, in the unit, students traced the legacy of colonialism to the current wealth disparity in Latin America and Africa. This resulted in the students rejecting dominant discourse that suggest people of color are poor because they have a culture of poverty. Instead, the counternarratives allowed students to have a fuller understanding of the economic, social, and political impact of colonialism. Moreover, the counternarratives in this unit also provided examples of individuals that ethnically and phenotypically reflected the Latina/o and African American students in the course. The experiences of the historical counternarratives, resisting oppression and working towards liberation led the students to engage in rich conversations about the oppressive conditions that they encountered in and out of school—i.e., not having an English teacher, school truancy tickets, and racial profiling by police. The counternarratives provided multiple examples of leaders and ordinary people seeking to improve their lived conditions despite colossal obstacles. These counternarratives served as models of resistance and provided critical hope (Duncan‐Andrade, 2009) for students navigating oppressive conditions in and out of school. Lastly, historical counternarratives allowed students to internalize a leader’s historical context while also connecting their experience to their lives. For example, during the Socratic seminar, the following question was posed: what should the Third World’s foreign‐trade relationship be with the United States? The following was said: Student A: The Third World is like a wife who’s been beaten by her man … why should she have anything to do with him after what she’s been through! Same with the Third World, there’s no point in doing business with U.S. because it’s only going to lead to exploitation. Student B: If a woman gets beat, that’s her fault for going back to her man.

These comments had the class erupt into an unexpected conversation about domestic ­violence and misogyny. Several students extended the conversation and explained how power and privilege worked to keep people oppressed and led to international and domestic violence. Initiated by the course content, students discussed the misogyny that occurs in their community and its relation to colonialism. The unexpected conversation provided meaningful learning that moved beyond the content and into students’ lives to further disrupt dominant narratives. In the end, the use of historical counternarratives had students embody the lived experiences of a Third World leader while reflecting on their own lives. Students were able to understand the workings of race and racism from the historical perspective of post‐World War II anticolonial movements based on the narratives of people of color in Africa and Latin America, while also drawing connections to the local context.

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In summary, CRT provides the advantage of theoretical and pedagogical insight for teaching social studies. The unit above provides examples of how the counternarratives of people of color expanded students’ learning of social studies and furthers discussions on race and racism. It is important to note that the unit described came at the end of the year, which provided the advantage of building upon the course’s content, learning goals, and themes. Additionally, much time was devoted throughout the year toward developing a classroom community and culture to support students’ use of critical dialogue and reflection. We do not make the claim that one unit or lesson can deconstruct dominant narratives told throughout history. Instead, we argue that curriculum and instruction that integrate race and racism should be intentionally embedded throughout the year, requiring students to engage in a more comprehensive understanding and examination of history. Historical counternarratives provide theoretical and pedagogical insight for the telling and learning of social studies in elementary and secondary classrooms.

9.6 Implications Identifying ways to incorporate more themes associated with race and racism in the social studies is vital given today’s racial demographic. To that end, it is vital for social studies practice, theory and policy to be mindful of the need to serve as a primary curricular vehicle to discuss societal issues, such as power, privilege, and inequity. Yet, it is also important to be mindful of the difficult task of addressing issues of race and racism in the classroom (Howard, 2004a). We offer the following recommendations for social studies practice, research and policy. Teacher preparation.  Teacher education programs must take a much more proactive approach to assisting preservice social studies teachers in understanding why race matters, and providing the necessary supports for novice educators to acquire the resources, approaches, and knowledge to teach in race‐related content. To that end, many teacher educators themselves may be ill‐equipped to provide teacher education students with this knowledge base (Cochran‐Smith, Davis, & Fries, 2004). Thus, we recommend that social studies teacher educators identify mentors and/or experienced teachers who have demonstrated a level of excellence in incorporating social studies curriculum with key race-related themes (Hollins & Guzman, 2005; Milner, 2009). Professional development.  It is essential that professional development for in‐service social studies teachers fosters and supports teachers’ ability to engage in curricular instruction and discussion on race and racism. During professional development meetings educators need time to discuss, plan, and share best practices that would enable them to work toward racial equality. Special attention should be on the histories, perspectives, and experiences of people of color, especially those that are represented in the local community context. Much can be learned from the scholarship on critical professional development, which is teacher‐led, collaborative, and engages in ongoing pedagogical inquiry (Kohli, Picower, Martinez, & Ortiz, 2015). It is necessary to rethink how social studies teachers are trained and supported to effectively integrate race into the social studies curriculum and into their practice.



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Race and  research.  Researchers on social studies education must be willing to develop studies, inquiries, and projects that take a more critical look at issues tied to race, racism, discrimination, colonialism, power, oppression, and conquest of people of color. Issues tied to race have important epistemological and practical implications (Milner, 2007). This type of research often requires an ability to help the field to develop new narratives and think critically about the role of racial justice, discrimination, and how racial equity is seen within the concept of citizenship. As previously noted, social studies is the obvious location for such discussion. It is our contention that many social studies practitioners are doing this work in PreK–12 classrooms, and this work needs to be highlighted and examined. Social studies research must be more focused on finding social studies lessons, plans, and curricula that are addressing race and racism, study them, analyze them, and sharing outcomes in a larger public forum (Ladson‐Billings, 2000). Rethinking the narrative.  Inherent to reframing social studies research, theory, practice, and policy is that a race‐based analysis challenges the traditional narrative of U.S. history. As a result, concepts such as fairness, equality, meritocracy, and justice are reinterpreted and understood in a more critical lens. Some teachers and students may feel uncomfortable with expanding the narrative to include accounts that directly contradict core U.S. values, such as freedom, justice, fairness, and equal protection under the law. Nonetheless, it is important to uncover the histories, stories, and experiences that have been told by countless communities of color about why they often feel like the idea of citizen does not quite aptly fit their experiences in the U.S. (Epstein, 2009). Going beyond the  surface.  Many social studies lessons and units address issues such as diversity, culture, and differences. We would encourage social studies educators to go beyond the surface to engage students in a more critical and probing analysis of differences in U.S. society. Approaches to multicultural education can be a good starting point. Banks (1997) talks about approaches such as content integration, equity pedagogy, prejudice reduction, knowledge construction, and empowering school culture as being significant steps in multicultural education. However, we would contend that a deeper analysis of race and racism opens up a different type of analysis and discussion of events, both historical and contempor­ ary. Thus, studying the Civil Rights Movement, immigration in the U.S., various wars fought by the U.S., or the women’s suffrage movement requires students to ask questions regarding the racial dynamics surrounding historical events and how power, race, access, and discrimination play a role in our historical interpretation of these events and current impact. Reviewing state standards.  An important change would be to reconsider or revise the content required in many social studies state standards. Often issues tied to race are either minimized or completely excluded from the standards and do not require teachers to teach about these topics. Organizations such as the NCSS and the College University Faculty Assembly should push state departments of education to rethink and expand the content standards required for PreK–12 education. This might include statements asking for more racially inclusive state standards or providing research around efforts that have been s­uccessful. For example the Raza studies curriculum in Tucson, Arizona, led to improved student outcomes (Sleeter, 2011). Examples such as this are important for policymakers and curriculum developers to be aware of as they consider essential content for learners to acquire.

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9.7  Conclusion and Call to Action The development of democratic citizens living in a just and equitable society does not occur without struggle, understanding, tension, and dialogue. The courage to have difficult discussions about race and racism and a willingness to hear more narratives pertaining to U.S. history are not always easy or readily available, but necessary. The influence that race and racism have had on U.S. society is unquestioned. Our willingness as social studies researchers and educators to have honest, sustained, and critical dialogues about the role of race and racism is questionable. Perhaps rooted in fear, ignorance, or a desire to move beyond race, many educators still do not think, teach, or talk in thoughtful and critical ways in social studies classrooms about race and racism. We ask social studies educators to take a look at the current racial and ethnic landscape of U.S. schools and society, and to recognize that race still matters.

Notes 1 In this chapter, the term Hispanic will be used only when referring to U.S. Census data. The authors prefer Latina, Latino, or Latina/o when referring to people of Latin American descent. 2 The term Third World technically indicates countries that were not aligned to western or eastern Cold War pacts. The term is also significant to the unit due to its use as a revolutionary call for countries to form a common identity towards decolonization (see Wolf‐Phillips, 1987). 3 Students were arranged in teams of the following leaders: Salvador Allende, Nelson Mandela, Kwame Nkrumah, Frantz Fanon, Rigoberta Menchu, and Monsignor Oscar Romero.

References Baldwin, J. (1988). A talk to teachers. In R. Simonson & S. Walker (Eds.), Multicultural literacy (pp. 3–12). St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press. Banks, J. A. (1997). Educating citizens in a multicultural society. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Banks, J. A. (2004). Diversity and citizenship education: Global perspectives. San Francisco, CA: Jossey‐Bass. Barth, J. J. (1996). NCSS and the nature of the social studies. NCSS in retrospect. Bulletin 92. Washington, DC: National Council for the Social Studies. Bell, D. A. (1992). Faces at the bottom of the well. New York, NY: Basic Books. Bell, D. (2002). Ethical ambition: Living a life of meaning and worth. New York, NY: Bloomsbury. Bonilla‐Silva, E. (2003). Racism without racists: Colorblind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Branch, A. J. (2003). A look at race in the national standards for the social studies: Another bad check. In G. Ladson‐Billings (Ed.), Critical race theory perspectives on social studies: The profession, p­olicies and curriculum (pp. 99–122). Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Brown, A. L., & Brown, K. D. (2010). Strange fruit indeed: Interrogating contemporary textbook representations of racial violence towards African Americans. Teachers College Record, 112(1), 31–67. Chandler, P. T. (2010). Critical race theory and social studies: Centering the native American e­xperience. Journal of Social Studies Research, 34(1), 29–58. Chandler, P. T., & McKnight, D. (2012). Race and social studies. In W.B. Russell III (Ed.), Contemporary social studies: An essential reader (pp. 215–242). Charlotte, NC: Information Age.



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Cochran‐Smith, M., Davis, D., & Fries, K. (2004). Multicultural teacher education. In J.A. & C.A.M. Banks (Eds), Handbook of research on multicultural education (3rd ed., pp. 931–975). New York, NY: Macmillan. Cornbleth, C. (2002). Images of America: What youth DO know about the United States. American Educational Research Journal, 39 (2), 519–552. Cornbleth, C., & Waugh, D. (1995). The great speckled bird: Multicultural politics and education p­olicymaking. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press. Crenshaw, K. W. (1997). Color‐blind dreams and racial nightmares: Reconfiguring racism in the post‐ civil rights era. In T. Morrison & C.B. Lacour (Eds.), Birth of a nation’hood. New York, NY: Pantheon Books. Crocco, M., & Davis, O. L. (2002). Building a legacy: Women in social education 1784–1984. Bulletin 100. Washington, DC: National Council for the Social Studies. Crouch, R., Zakariya, S., & Jiandani, J. (2012). The United States of education: The changing demographics of the United States and their schools. Retrieved from http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/ You‐May‐Also‐Be‐Interested‐In‐landing‐page‐level/Organizing‐a‐School‐YMABI/The‐United‐ States‐of‐education‐The‐changing‐demographics‐of‐the‐United‐States‐and‐their‐schools.html Darder. A., & Torres, R. D. (2004). After race: Racism after multiculturalism: New York, NY: New York University Press. Davis, O. L. (1991). Citizenship as the central purpose of the social studies: The heavy load of a dead metaphor. Social Studies as a discipline. Special Issue of the International Journal of Social Education, 33–36. Delgado, R. (1984). The imperial scholar: Reflections on a review of civil rights literature. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 561–578. Delgado, R. (Ed.). (1995). Critical race theory: The cutting edge. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Delgado, R., & Stefancic (2001). Critical race theory. New York, NY: New York University. Dixson, A.D., & Rousseau, C. K. (2006). Critical race theory in education. New York, NY: Routledge. Du Bois, W. E. (1903) Souls of Black folk: New York: Heron Press. Duncan‐Andrade, J. (2009). Note to educators: Hope required when growing roses in concrete. Harvard Educational Review, 79(2), 181–194. Durgunoglu, A.Y., & Hughes, T. (2010). How prepared are the US preservice teachers to teach English language learners? International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 22(1), 32–41. Edelman, M. W. (2008). The sea is so wide and my boat is so small. New York: Hyperion. Education, C. S. B. o. (2000). History‐Social Science Content Standards for California Public Schools: Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve. Sacramento, CA: California Deparment of Education. Epstein, T. (2000). Adolescents’ perspectives on racial diversity in U.S. history: Case studies from an urban classroom. American Educational Research Journal, 37(1), 185–214. Epstein, T. (2009). Interpreting national history: Race, identity, and pedagogy in classrooms and communities. New York, NY: Routledge. Espiritu Halagao, P. (2004). Holding up the mirror: The complexity of seeing your ethnic self in history. Theory & Research in Social Education, 32(4), 459–483. Gay, G., & Howard, T. C. (2001). Multicultural education for the 21st century. The Teacher Educator, 36(1), 1–16. Harris, C. (1993). Whiteness as property. Harvard Law Review, CVI, 1701–1791. Hertzberg, H. W. (1981). Social studies reform 1880–1980: A project span report. Boulder, CO: Social Studies Consortium. Hollins, E., & Guzman, T. G. (2005). Research on preparing teachers for diverse populations. In M. C. Smith and K. M. Zeichner (Eds.), Studying teacher education: The report of the AERA Panel on Research and Teacher Education (pp. 477–548). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

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Howard, T. C. (2003). The dis(g)race of the social studies: The need for racial dialogue in the Social studies. In G. Ladson‐Billings (Ed.), Critical race theory perspectives on social studies: The profession, policies and curriculum (pp. 27–44). Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Howard, T. C. (2004a). “Does race really matter?” Secondary students’ construction of racial dialogue. Theory & Research in Social Education, 32(4), 484–502. Howard, T. (2004b). Social studies during the civil rights movement. In C. Woyshner, J. Watras & M.  S. Crocco (Eds.), Social education in the twentieth century: Curriculum and context for citizenship (pp. 127–141). New York, NY: Peter Lang. Howard, T. C. (2010). Why race and culture matter in schools: Closing the achievement gap in America’s classrooms. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. King, L. J. Davis, C., & Brown, A. L. (2012). African American history, race and textbooks: An examination of the works of Harold O. Rugg and Carter G. Woodson. The Journal of Social Studies Research. 36(4), 359–386. Kohli, R., Picower, P., Martinez, A., & Ortiz, N. (2015). Critical professional development: Centering the social justice needs of teachers. The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 6(2). Ladson‐Billings, G. (2000). Racialized discourses and ethnic epistemologies. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 257–277). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Ladson‐Billings, G. (2003). Critical race theory perspectives on social studies: The profession, policies and curriculum. Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Lintner, T. (2004). The savage and the slave: Critical race theory, racial stereotyping, and the teaching of American history. Journal of Social Studies Research, 28(1), pp. 27–32. Marable, M. (1992). Black America. Westfield, NJ: Open Media. Marable, M. (2002). The great wells of democracy: The meaning of race in American life. NewYork, NY: BasicCivitas Books. Martell, C. C. (2013). Race and histories: Examining culturally relevant teaching in the US history classroom. Theory & Research in Social Education, 41(1), 65–88. Matsuda, M. J. (1993). Public response to racist speech: Considering the victim’s story. In M. J. Matsuda, C. R. Lawrence III, R. Delgado, & K. Williams Crenshaw (Eds.), Words that wound: Critical race theory, assaultive speech, and the first amendment. (pp. 17–52). San Francisco, CA: Westview Press. Milner, H. R. (2007). Race, culture, and researcher positionality: Working through dangers seen, unseen, and unforeseen. Educational Researcher 36(7), 388–400. Milner, H. R. (Ed.). (2009). Diversity and education: Teachers, teaching, and teacher education. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher. Milner, H. R. (2010). Start where you are, but don’t stay there. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. National Center for Education Statistics (2011). School and Staffing survey: Teacher Questionnaire, 2011–2012. U.S. Department of Education. 2011–2012. National Center for Education Statistics (2014). U.S. Department of Education enrollment and percentage distribution of enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools, by race/ ethnicity and region: Selected years, fall 1995 through fall 2023. Retrieved from http://nces. ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_203.50.asp National collaborative on diversity in the teaching force: A call to action (2004). Retrieved from http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/HE/diversityreport.pdf National Council for the Social Studies (2014). A vision of powerful teaching and learning in the social studies: Building social understanding and civic efficacy. Retrieved from http://www. socialstudies.org/positions/powerful Nelson, J. L., & Pang, V. O. (2006). Racism, prejudice, and the social studies curriculum. In E. W. Ross (Ed.), The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems, and possibilities (pp. 115–135). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.



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Pang, V. O., & Valle, R. (2004). A change in paradigm: Applying contributions of genetic research to teaching about race and racism in the social studies. Theory & Research in Social Education, Vol. 32(4), 503–522. Parker, L., & Lynn, M. (2002). What’s race got to do with it? Critical race theory’s conflicts with and connections to qualitative research methodology and epistemology. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 7–22. Parker, W. C. (1997). Democracy and difference. Theory & Research in Social Educaiton, 25(2), 220–234. Rains, F. (2006). The color of the social studies: A post‐social studies reality check. In E. W. Ross (Ed.), The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems, and possibilities (pp. 137–156). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Saxe, D. S. (1992). A history of the social studies: A prologue to reformation. Inquiry in the social studies curriculum, research, and instruction. Special Issue. The Journal of the North Carolina Council of the Social Studies, 20, 13–25. Saxe, D. S. (1997). The unique mission of the social studies. In E. W. Ross (Ed.), The Social Studies Curriculum (pp. 39–55). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Shaver, J. P. (1991). Handbook of research on social studies teaching and learning. New York, NY: Macmillan. Sleeter, C. E. (1995). An analysis of the critiques of multicultural education. In J. A. & C. A. M. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (pp. 81–94). New York, NY: Macmillan. Sleeter, C. E. (2008). Learning to become a racially and culturally competent ally. In K. M. Teel & J. E. Obidah (Eds.), Building racial and cultural competence in the classroom: Strategies from urban educators. (pp. 82–96). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Sleeter, C. E. (2011). The academic and social value of ethnic studies: A research review. National Education Association Research Department. Smith‐Maddox, R., & Solórzano, D. G. (2002). Using critical race theory, Paulo Freire’s problem‐ posing method, and case study research to confront race and racism in education. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 66–84. Snyder, T. (1998). Digest of educational statistics. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. Solórzano, D. (1997). Images and words that wound: Critical race theory, racial stereotyping, and teacher education. Teacher Education Quarterly, 24, 4–16. Solórzano, D. G. (1998). Critical race theory, race and gender microaggressions, and the experience of Chicana and Chicano scholars. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 11(1), 121–136. Solórzano, D., & Yosso, T. (2002). Critical race methodology: Counterstorytelling as an analytical framework for educational research. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 23–44. Takaki, R. (1993). A different mirror: A history of multicultural America. New York, NY: Little Brown and Company. Tate, W. (1997). Race‐ethnicity, SES, gender, and language proficiency in mathematics achievement: An update. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 28, 652–679. Taylor, E., Ladson‐Billings, G., & Gilborn, D. (2009). Foundations of critical race theory in education. New York, NY: Routledge. Tyson, C. A. (2003). A bridge over troubled water: Social studies, civic education and critical race theory. In G. Ladson‐Billings (Ed.), Critical race theory perspectives on social studies: The profession, policies and curriculum (pp. 15–26). Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Urrieta, L. (2004). Dis‐connections in “American” Citizenship and the Post/neo‐colonial: People of Mexican descent and whitestream pedagogy and curriculum. Theory & Research in Social Education, 32(4), 433–458.

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West, C. (1993). Race matters. Boston: Beacon Press. Wilson, W. J. (2009). More than just race: Being black and poor in the inner city. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company. Wolf‐Phillips, L. (1987). Why “Third World”?: Origin, definition and usage. Third World Quarterly, 9(4), 1311–1327. Woodson, C. G. (1933). The miseducation of the Negro. New York, NY: Arno Press. Zumwalt, K & Craig, E. (2005). Teachers’ characteristics: Research on the indicators of quality. In  M.  Cochran‐Smith & K. M. Zeichner (Eds.), Studying Teacher Education (pp. 157–260). New York, NY: Routledge.

10

Gender and Feminist Scholarship in Social Studies Research

A Dynamic Theoretical Framework Living on the Edges Chara Haeussler Bohan

Malala Yousafzai, a 15-year‐old Pakistani girl who fought for educational opportunities for Muslim girls, was shot by the Taliban for her actions. In recognition of her work, she was co‐awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. Ms. Yousafzai’s book (2013), I am Malala, sheds light on issues of gender and education at a global level. In particular, her book informs readers about the challenges that young women living in patriarchal, traditional, and socially conservative societies face in terms of acquiring education. On the surface, Ms. Yousafzai’s powerful message causes readers to consider the significant discrepancies that exist with respect to gender and education between various societies, whether they are  traditional, repressive, moderate, progressive, enlightened, or a combination of classifications. But appearances can be deceiving. In western societies, where gender issues are ostensibly viewed as having been resolved, the term postfeminist is employed upon occasion to characterize a discourse of “unambiguous female success, where celebrations of ‘presumptive’ gender equity are taken as proof that meritocratic principles for attaining bourgeois success have worked” (Walkerdine & Ringrose, 2006, p. 33). Careful analysis reveals, however, that in most contemporary societies, gender and education discrepancies remain noticeable concerns. In 2005, Harvard University President Larry Summers attributed the under‐representation of female scientists at elite universities to deficiencies in the innate abilities of women (Hemel, 2005). Summers’ remarks drew strong popular criticism and eventually he resigned from his position, but questions raised by his comments remained. How could the head of one of the most elite universities in the world question women’s intellectual abilities in the field of science? Gender disparities of course have not been limited to education. Men continue to dominate the majority of political offices, technology and weaponry, and worldwide men’s earned incomes are approximately 180% of women’s (Connell, 2006, p. 27). In the Fortune 500 companies, just 4.6% of CEOs are women (Catalyst, 2015: Weiler, 2014). Moreover, women comprise only 10% of aerospace engineers (American Federation of Labor, [AFL], 2013). Thus, a gender The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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gap by occupation continues and a wage gap persists that translates into significant d­ifferences in earnings over the course of a lifetime. After the 2014 congressional elections, just 19% of the United States Congress were women (Center for American Women and Politics, 2015; Weiler, 2014). Thus, women remain a minority in the U.S. political process, making women less likely to be depicted in social studies curriculum and instruction.

10.1  Feminist Scholarship and Social Studies Because women often are not at the forefront of the political, military, and business arenas, feminist scholarship in the realm of social studies education is correspondingly paltry. Indeed, research that employs gender and/or feminism as a theoretical framework in social studies education continues to reside on the edges. This phenomenon is evident from my review of recent gender and feminist scholarship in social studies education. In this review a broad definition of “social studies,” including “social education” is employed. Various definitions of social studies education have existed over the course of the past two centuries, but often the term “social studies” is confined to the schoolhouse with antecedents in the curriculum developed by Thomas Jesse Jones at the Hampton Institute (Evans, 2004; Woyshner & Bohan, 2012). This approach to defining social studies, although including the content areas of history, geography, political science, economics, and the behavioral sciences, would omit education about democracy and citizenship in a variety of settings (Crocco, 1999). Furthermore, this definition does not include women who may have been barred from formal schooling for a host of reasons, such as race, socioeconomic status, marriage, pregnancy, or educational opportunity. Thus, I employ a broad definition of social education, but for the purposes of gathering research and keeping within the c­onfines of space limitations, only journals, chapters, and books particular to social studies and social education are examined. For purposes of clarity in writing, only the term “social studies education” is utilized throughout the chapter, but it is intended to encompass a more comprehensive understanding of the field. The recent history of gender and social studies education research warrants a brief description. In 1991, the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) sponsored the Handbook of Research on Social Studies Teaching and Learning (Shaver, 1991). The Handbook comprises 53 chapters, yet the publication does not include a single chapter dedicated to feminist theory, gender or sexuality. At the time, gender was an emerging lens for social studies education research; however, Shaver did not believe it warranted distinct treatment. Five years later, the Handbook of Research on Teacher Education included a chapter on equity challenges and gender was the focus of one of the four equity groups the authors selected for analysis (Kohl & Witty, 1996). When Linda Levstik and Cynthia Tyson edited the Handbook of Research in Social Studies Education in 2008, 17 years after the publication of Shaver’s (1991) Handbook, Margaret Crocco contributed a chapter on gender and s­exuality. In the ensuing years, there has been an expanding body of research on sexuality in social studies education and a separate chapter on sexuality and queer theory is included in the current volume (see Mayo, chapter 11). Thus, Christine Woyshner’s (2012) chapter on gender entitled, “Gender and Social Studies: Are We There Yet?” in William Russell’s Contemporary Social Studies: An Essential Reader and this current chapter on gender and feminist scholarship are among the earliest stand‐alone chapters on gender in handbooks devoted exclusively to social studies education research.



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Despite much popular attention to gender and education on a global level, as Malala Yousafzai’s Nobel Peace Prize signals, gender research in social studies education in particular remains primarily on the margins. Moreover, other topics, such as technology, teacher education, pedagogies, multicultural education, civic education, and historical thinking, tend to garner more research attention in social studies education.

10.2  Terminologies, Methodology and Ideologies While first‐wave feminism awakened an interest in suffrage as well as granting access to women’s and girls’ education, second‐wave feminism of the 1960s broadened the debate to  include sexuality, reproductive rights, and protections in the workplace. Criticism of second‐wave feminism is that the movement tended to create a monolithic single version of the female experience (that tended to reflect the experiences of White, middle‐class women in America). Recognizing that women and men do not all share the same experiences, the new gender research on femininities and masculinities in the plural reflects the shifting discourses around gender as they relate to education, race, class, and ethnicity (Walkerdine & Ringrose, 2006). For detailed essays on terminology with respect to gender studies, Catharine Stimpson and Gilbert Herdt’s (2014) work, Critical Terms for the Study of Gender, includes chapters by pioneers in the field of women and gender. In recent years, the field of women’s studies has experienced a major paradigm shift involving basic definitions of terms. Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963) helped draw popular attention to the modern women’s movement. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin (see United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [USEEOC], 1964, bold added for emphasis). In 1964, the term “sex” was employed rather than “gender.” By the 1970s, challenges to the term “sex” arose to confront implications that sex differences are biologically derived and that such differences are innate and immutable (Francis, 2006, pp. 7–14). Theorists who challenged the terminology of “sex” argued that gender identity is socially constructed, is connected to social learning and perception, and is viewed as s­hifting over time (McDermott & Hatemi, 2011). At the same time criticisms of the term “gender” have arisen. For example, MacInnes (1998) suggests that gender/sex will no longer be relevant categories and Paechter (2006) believes that the terms “gender” and “sex” s­uggest a dualism that does not reflect contemporary lived experience. New terms have been developed to reflect changing conceptions about the social constructions of gender. Thus, new social science research focusing on the terms “masculinities” and “femininities” reflects a growing understanding of the dynamic, diverse, fluid, and complex roles each possess. The methodology employed in this chapter to gather contemporary research on gender and social studies education first focused on searching the main databases for Women’s Studies (such as Women’s Studies International, GenderWatch, LGBT Life). Two broader interdisciplinary databases, JSTOR and Project Muse, were also searched for the topic “social studies education.” Education databases were searched as well, using truncation/ wild card symbols for the terms “femins*” and “gender*.” Using database searches did not yield tremendously fruitful results, as many research articles encompassing gender were not specific to social studies education in particular. However, this database search did assist in yielding updated information on gender and education, in general. The database search

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also revealed that gender is a more prevalent framework in other education arenas such as in the humanities and science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. In order to gather research more specific to social studies education, I commenced a complete search of titles since 2007 in the primary social studies education journals. As the purpose of this chapter is to examine new research in gender and social studies education undertaken since the publication of the previous handbook, a cutoff date of 2007 was selected. These journals include Theory & Research in Social Education, Journal of Social Studies Research, Social Studies Research and Practice, Journal of Social Studies Education Research, Journal of International Social Studies, Journal of Social Science Education, and practitioner journals Social Education, Middle Level Learning, Social Studies and the Young Learner, and The Social Studies. A small selection of statewide journals was reviewed, including the Ohio Social Studies Review, Georgia Social Studies Journal, and California’s Social Studies Review. This selection process then led to a comprehensive review of all titles in the aforementioned journals from 2007 to the present. Findings from the review reveal that feminist theory and gender are not prevalent frameworks for social studies education research. Multiculturalism, civic and democratic education, service‐learning, and ESOL are more popularly researched topics. Second, it became evident that a select few researchers are trailblazers in the field of gender and social studies education research and continue to produce the bulk of the limited scholarship. The experienced scholars who consistently employ gender as a framework in their social studies education research include Jane Bernard‐Powers, Margaret Crocco, Carole Hahn, Linda Levstik, and Christine Woyshner, to name a few. It appears that a new generation of feminist scholars is emerging, as well. Kay Chick, Sandra Schmidt, Mardi Schmeichel, and Kathryn Engebretson have produced recent scholarship with feminism and/or gender as a theoretical lens.

10.3  Dominant Ideologies in Contemporary Gender and Social Studies Education Research Postpositivism, an umbrella term encompassing several theoretical frameworks such as postmodernism, post‐structuralism, and postcolonialism, has become a dominant i­deology in much education research of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Over the course of the latter‐half of the 20th century, social studies education research has transitioned from a field dominated by quantitative analysis with a positivist framework (Shaver, 1991) to a field where qualitative analysis prevails (Levstik & Tyson, 2008). Postpositivists critique traditional positivistic scientific inquiry as value‐laden and inherently subjective, despite the claims of science to objectivity. These critics note that determining “truths” is inherently subjective and influenced by the researchers’ values (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007; Gall, Borg, & Gall, 1996; Silverman, 2010). Because second‐ and third‐wave feminism has influenced research in gender and social studies education, postpositivist critiques tend to prevail in this area of scholarship. Third‐ wave feminism arose in the 1990s in response to the perceived failures of second‐wave feminism. Third‐wave feminism broadened the base, providing recognition that women are of many ethnicities, cultures, nationalities, colors, and religions. Expanding the base of feminist research is essential to criticism of positivist research as widening the lens supports



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an awareness that positivist research is subjective in nature and limited to powerful elite. Michel Foucault (1972), a leading critic of positivism, emphasizes in The Archaeology of Knowledge the relationship between power and knowledge; he challenges historians’ reliance on documentary evidence as a means to seek truth. Foucault suggests that language and discourse are a means to know, describe, and understand the forces that impact knowledge. In other words, language constitutes reality. More recently, feminist Foucauldian scholars Patti Lather (1991) and Betty St. Pierre (2000), emphasize the discursive and challenge hegemonic definitions of clarity. St. Pierre cautions that there are limits to discourse as other means of understanding may not be intelligible within the confines of language. In a recent article in Theory & Research in Social Education on feminism and social studies, Mardi Schmeichel notes, “Discourses are material and productive forces which construct our reality and our conception of what our reality is” (2011, p. 13). The influence of postpositivism and its concomitant emphasis on discourse has unleashed a major paradigm shift in feminist studies; theoretical understandings have moved from essentialist notions based on biological concepts of male and female to more inclusive considerations that examine gender from sociological and cultural perspectives (Weiler, 2014). Essentialism relies on the notion that men and women are born with different traits; these traits are viewed as essential. Lately, changes to the essentialist paradigm have developed. Views of gender have become more fluid and less stagnant. Historical notions of what it means to be male or female demonstrate that views of socially accepted gender behavior have shifted over time. Most recently, the transgender movement has helped to alter the terrain further. To make sense of the recent scholarship in social studies education that employs gender as a theoretical framework, I referenced Margaret Crocco’s (2008) chapter on gender and sexuality and Carole Hahn, Jane Bernard‐Powers, Margaret Crocco and Christine Woyshner’s (2007) chapter on gender equity in the social studies in the Handbook for Achieving Gender Equity through Education to develop categories for understanding contemporary scholarship. Ultimately nine categories emerged to encompass recent research on the intersection of social studies education and gender, including: (1) teachers, social studies teacher education, and preservice teachers, (2) students, (3) curriculum and instruction, (4) textbooks, (5) standards and testing, (6) technology, (7) global studies, (8) contemporary and historic female social studies education leaders, and (9) masculinities. Throughout the chapter, international studies from outside of the U.S. have been included where appropriate.

10.4  Teachers, Social Studies Teacher Education, and Preservice Teachers According to Stephen Thornton (2005) in Teaching Social Studies that Matters, teachers are curricular‐instructional gatekeepers which means that teachers make educational decisions in the place where they count—the classroom. Thus, a study of gender and social studies education research appropriately begins with teachers. Who are the teachers? How do they view gender? As has been the case for the past century, women are more likely than men to teach and are more likely to have been educated to teach (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2005). Today women constitute just under half the general workforce in

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the U.S., yet they comprise approximately 75% of the education workforce (AFL, 2013; National Education Association, 2008). More than 95% of kindergarten teachers are women, and 90% of special education teachers are women. Daniel Lortie’s (1975) classic work Schoolteacher lays the groundwork for a contempor­ ary sociological understanding of teachers. In this text he explains the structure of teaching as an occupation, and finds recurrent themes of conservativism, individualism, and presentism. Lortie also examines teachers’ sense of purpose and endemic uncertainties in their work, and teachers’ attempts to balance these tensions between independence and dependence, autonomy and participation, and control and subordination. Gender differences are a miniscule component of Lortie’s analysis. However, with respect to gender, Lortie find that a majority of teachers, most of whom are women, expect their careers to be interrupted, for several reasons such as childbirth or relocation of a spouse. But career goals differ by gender, as a majority of male teachers have no intention of ending their careers as classroom teachers, while a vast majority of women think of teaching as terminal status. Thus, the men expect to earn a promotion within education or leave the field altogether, whereas the women plan to return to classroom teaching after a break in time and end their careers as teachers. Kathleen Weiler’s (1988) Women Teaching for Change: Gender, Class & Power furthers the dialogue about women teachers by developing a critical theory of schooling that describes how gender is socially constructed. Patricia Carter’s (2002) Everybody’s Paid but the Teacher helps provide a historical analysis of how the teaching profession and the women’s movement have brought about social changes such as suffrage, equal pay for equal work, elimination of marriage restrictions, and the fight for maternity rights. Reports on the gender distribution of Advanced Placement (AP) teachers have produced mixed findings. In one study, Milewski and Gillie (2002) state the distribution by gender among all AP teachers was more or less equivalent. In another study, Paek, Ponte, Sigel, Braun, and Powers (2005) find that 63% of AP U.S. History teachers are males, similar to the ratio for all social studies teachers. A more recent study, however, suggests that the gender ratio of AP U.S. History teachers is essentially balanced with 50.5% female and 49.5% male (Glenn, 2012); implying that a higher percentage of female social studies teachers teach AP classes than males. Glenn’s findings are credible and supported by c­ontemporary research documenting a higher percentage of women in graduate school. Indeed, Milweski and Gillie’s College Board study of the characteristics of AP teachers finds that most AP teachers hold master’s degrees in the discipline in which they teach. In social studies education, men comprise the majority of secondary social studies teachers. This gender imbalance in social studies teachers has resulted to some extent from federal legislation, including Title IX, which is a law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federal-funded education program or activity. The law’s impact with respect to gender and education is significant. Title IX led to an increase in the school-based sports programs offered to women and caused an enlarged need for high school coaches (Conner, 2014; Hahn et al., 2007; Schmeichel, 2011). Indeed, as Table 10.1 indicates, only two fields in 2011–2012 in secondary education had a majority of male teachers; health and physical education teachers (63.5 % male) and social science teachers (63.4%). Ironically, the two fields are often connected (see Conner, 2014 for examination of the social studies teacher–coach phenomenon). Indeed, social studies teachers in comparison to other s­ubject area disciplines, overwhelmingly are represented in the ranks

3 87.3 (4.85)

100.0 43.3 (2.45) 56.7 (2.45)

100.0 41.9 (0.66) 58.1 (0.66)

Arts and Music

2 1,108 (32.76)

Total

Standard Error appears in parentheses

Female

1 Number of teachers (in thousands) Total Male

Selected demographic or educational characteristic

100.0 23.2 (1.73) 76.8 (1.73)

4 166.0 (7.03)

English or Language Arts

100.0 24.5 (2.38) 75.5 (2.38)

5 74.0 (4.18)

Foreign languages

100.0 63.5 (2.62) 36.5 (2.62)

6 65.6 (3.47)

Health and physical education

100.0 42.7 (1.88) 57.3 (1.88)

7 152.8 (6.67)

Mathematics

100.0 46.4 (2.16) 53.6 (2.16)

8 132.9 (5.35)

Natural sciences

Field of main teaching assignment

100.0 63.4 (1.79) 36.6 (1.79)

9 126.2 (5.35)

Social Sciences

100.0 29.0 (2.10) 71.0 (2.10)

10 130.3 (10.33)

Special Education

100.0 48.9 (1.99) 51.1 (1.99)

11 125.6 (5.49)

Vocational

Table 10.1  Percentage of public school teachers of Grades 9–12, by field of main teaching assignment and selected demographic and educational characteristics: 2011–2012 (from NCES, 2013)

100.0 47.4 (3.75) 52.6 (3.75)

12 47.5 (3.92)

All others

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of coaches. As more males coach sports and more social studies teachers are expected to coach, social studies as a field continues to include more men than women. Despite the connection between gender, social studies education, and coaching, few research articles exist on teachers’ opinions about teaching topics related to gender in the social studies classroom. Schafer (2007) conducted an observational study of one teacher’s attempt to deliberately transform the U.S. History curriculum to intentionally include women. Not surprisingly, over the course of the study, the teacher faced many challenges to achieve her goal to show students that women were more than secondary characters in history. Future research might address questions about how men and women social studies teachers approach teaching topics related to gender in their classes. Furthermore, a paucity of research exists on achieving gender equity in the general teaching workforce, much less the social studies teaching workforce. Relevant questions for future research might focus on inducting more men into the general teaching profession and exploring why men continue to hold a disproportionate number of administrative roles in education (principals, superintendents, etc.). In one English study, researchers suggest that “school equal opportunity statements widely ignore the under‐representation of women in school managerial positions” (Moreau, Osgood, & Halsall, 2008, p. 553). Furthermore, researchers realize that administrators’ discourses did not fundamentally challenge the position of women in society, thus school policies and practices could not necessarily advance gender equality. In Monaghan’s (2009) dissertation study of six social studies preservice teachers, she reveals that the participants did not find gender equity to be particularly relevant to their professional or personal lives. Despite such beliefs, the preservice teachers note the importance of gender influences in the social studies classroom as well as the existence of contemporary gender bias. Participants remark that evidence of women’s inferior status includes inequities such as wage gaps, female objectification in the media, and maled­ominated school administrations. Finally, all participants held negative impressions of the word “feminism.” Monaghan completed her research at the University of Connecticut; certainly this study warrants replication in other locations in order to increase sample size and augment findings with respect to gender and social studies teachers.

10.5 Students Certainly, preK–12 students reside at the heart of the social studies curriculum, but only a few studies since 2007 focus on how students are included in research studies exploring social studies education and gender. Carole Hahn and Laura Quaynor (2012) report that no gender differences in student civic knowledge have been found in recent years in the U.S. Before 1995, boys and young men tended to perform better on National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) civics and history tests, but such differences no longer exist (see section on “Standards and Testing” below). However, gender differences appear with respect to some civic attitudes. For example, female students are more likely to report they trust governmental institutions and to support government funding for social services such as education and healthcare (Hahn & Quaynor, 2012). In addition, gender differences exist with respect to civic engagement; a higher percentage of young women report engagement in community service. While researchers identify gender differences with respect to certain



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aspects of civic education, causal explanations for these variances remain unidentified. Outside of the U.S., differences with respect to gender and civic education persist in some countries. In recent decades, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) has conducted several ongoing comprehensive large‐scale studies across 38 countries to investigate how students are prepared to undertake their role as c­itizens. The authors of the research project, the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS), published detailed findings in various stages of the study over time. Eighth grade is the target population in the study. Significant variations exist in s­tudents’ civic knowledge between and within countries. With respect to gender, girls d­emonstrate significantly higher civic knowledge skills than boys (average difference 22 scale points) in most countries (Schulz, Ainley, Fraillon, Kerr, & Losito, 2009). Considerable research has been conducted outside of social studies education in particular, for example, in educational psychology, to understand how gender impacts the performance of girls and boys in schools. Kessels, Heyder, Latsch and Hannover (2014), locate several variables that influence gender differences as they relate to academic engagement. For example, in testing performance, boys tend to outperform girls in mathematics and science yet show weaker competency in reading (p. 221). This body of research on student performance might be repurposed for social studies education research. For example, understanding how student performance in subdisciplines that are more mathematically oriented (e.g., economics) compared to those that are more verbally oriented (e.g., history) may shed light on gendered differences. To date, gendered differences in Advanced Placement testing do illuminate issues related to gender and student performance (see section on “Standards & Testing” below). In countries where students are tracked by ability, Kessels et al. (2014) find that girls tend to be over‐represented in higher tracks and boys tend to be over‐represented in lower tracks. The authors attribute the differences to motivation. These international researchers advise that to alleviate gender differences in educational outcomes, a further understanding of how academic choices are affected by gender is warranted. Several other factors beyond motivation and related to gender have been shown to impact student success in the social studies. In a meta‐analysis of gender differences and school success, Spinath, Eckert and Steinmayr (2014) investigate the roles of students’ intelligence and personality in addition to motivation. Operating from the hypothesis that in countries with equal access to educational opportunities, girls outperform boys, the researchers sought to determine the factors that accounted for such differences. While factors varied from inconsequential to strong Spinath et al. find that girls are moderately better adapted to current school environments. Reasons include stronger verbal intelligence, higher levels of agreeableness, as well as stronger self‐discipline and motivation. The authors argue that verbal intelligence is critical in discussion‐oriented classrooms, and social studies falls within this categorization. Thus, researchers recommend changes to specific aspects of school environments in order to reduce educational inequalities for boys. With respect to gender and competition in educational settings, researchers Booth and Nolen (2012) conducted an experiment of 260 students from both single‐sex and coeducational schools in England. The researchers discovered that girls from the single‐sex schools chose to compete, similarly to the boys, thus suggesting that gender differences with respect to competitive behavior might reflect social learning rather than inherited gender traits (italics added for emphasis). In a study about school delinquency and social bonds,

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researchers found that for males, who are more likely to adopt “jock identities,” a commitment to sports activities tends to increase school delinquency (Hart & Mueller, 2013, p. 128). Therefore, the recommendation is to encourage sports coaches (and social studies teachers rank second to physical education teachers in terms of percentages of coaches) to participate in early intervention programs as part of a strategy to reduce student delinquency. A body of quantitative research studies from international contexts has determined that gender has little impact on student attitudes about multicultural education and other social studies content. For example, Salako, Eze, and Adu (2013) studied the effects of cooperative learning on 126 Nigerian middle school students’ attitudes towards multicultural e­ducation concepts; they report gender has no effect on students’ academic achievement. In a Turkish study of 601 fourth through seventh grade students’ opinions about the content of social studies, gender also has been found to have no significant impact. Rather, other factors, such as grade level, father’s educational status, and a student’s attachment to the importance of social studies do have a marked impact (Sağlam & Malbeleği, 2012). In another Turkish study (Ciftci, 2013) of 665 seventh grade students, a positive relationship exists between students’ attitudes towards social studies and their perceptions of democracy. Yet, no difference has been uncovered in terms of gender. Notably, these studies relied exclusively on quantitative research methodological frameworks, employing t‐tests and null hypotheses; these studies did not have sample sizes large enough to support generalizability.

10.6  Curriculum and Instruction With respect to gender, several factors have impacted curriculum and instruction in social studies education in the U.S. These factors include increased attention to Women’s History Month in March and the concomitant proliferation of lesson ideas in the social studies literature (print and online) as well as greater consideration to diverse and underrepresented groups through both the formal and cultural curriculum (Wineburg & Monte‐Sano, 2008). Since the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2002, standards and assessment have dramatically narrowed the curriculum and created pressure to cover content (Au, 2009; Grant, 2005, 2006; Marshall, Jacot, & Gamble, 2015; Salinas, 2006). Although standards and assessment have dramatically narrowed the content taught, Women’s History Month provides a time in the school calendar where teachers can shift the focus more explicitly to women’s roles and contributions. Certainly, the merits of devoting a single month to women (similar to Black History Month in February) are debatable; critics note that such events signal that women and Blacks are additive (and therefore not as important) and justify devoting the remaining months of the school year to White men’s history. Supporters believe that it is important to focus on groups that would otherwise be left out of the curricu­lum. With respect to Women’s History Month, a significant portion of the research is p­ractitioner‐oriented literature that deals with curriculum and that can be categorized as additive pieces in women’s history (Bennett & Williams, 2014; Cushman, 2014; Montgomery, Christie, & Staudt, 2014). These additive pieces in women’s history largely focus on United States history and on famous American women. Researchers have conducted far fewer studies to measure the impact of a gender-inclusive social studies curriculum on student learning or student affective outcomes.



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Recent literature on incorporating women’s history or gender into the social studies c­urriculum is robust for all grade levels—elementary, middle, and secondary education. But, as Woyshner (2012) notes in her chapter, considerations of gender and the social studies curriculum have endured a bumpy road. Attention to gender diminished overall, in part due to the increased emphasis on standards in the wake of NCLB, to decreased funding for female students’ issues, and to an overall sense that “full attention to gender in the social studies has been achieved” (Woyshner, 2012, p. 262). While print and online resources for teaching about women have flourished in recent times, there is a dearth of research studies that evaluate the impact of these resources.

10.6.1  Gender and Elementary Social Studies Curriculum At the elementary level, considerable research has reported that diminished time is devoted to social studies in general due to the increasing emphasis on reading, writing, and mathematics in the wake of standardized assessments (Bisland, 2012; DeChano‐Cook, 2012; Porter, 2010; Williams & Maloyed, 2013). However, there is a fairly substantial body of practitioner‐oriented work that provides teachers with strategies for incorporating a study of women’s history and gender in the classroom. Most notable is the January/February 2014 issue of Social Studies and the Young Learner which is devoted to Women’s History Month. Five articles feature ideas for incorporating women and gender into the curriculum. The articles provide strategies for teaching about women, including locating resources and developing new approaches to pedagogy. For example, Montgomery, Christie and Staudt (2014) write about using a cooperative biographical approach as a means for student research and civic action. One of the authors, elementary teacher Jessica Staudt, gave s­tudents materials on historically significant change agents Amelia Bloomer, Maya Angelou, Carrie Chapman Catt, Ida B. Wells, and Jane Addams as a starting point for research. These projects segued into an assignment in which students were asked to write letters to local female political leaders. Bennett and Williams (2014) provide a guide and resource list for the use of images of women. The resources include links to the National Women’s History Museum, the Women and Social Movement’s website, the National First Ladies’ Library, and the Library of Congress, Images of Women during the Civil War webpage. Mary Cushman (2014) offers lesson ideas on Juliette Low, founder of the Girls Scouts, using a notable social studies trade book that features Low’s life. Sarah Philpott (2014) discusses a book group research project she conducted where students read the American Girl series, thus learning women’s history through historical fiction. Gilberto Lara and Maria Leija (2014) describe how elementary teachers can discuss gender roles through the story of Max: The Stubborn Little Wolf. Max is an unusual wolf who wants to be a florist rather than a hunter like his father. Collectively, with the exception of the Lara and Leija article, this special issue is representative of the additive approach to incorporating gender in the elementary social studies curriculum.

10.6.2  Gender and the Middle Grades Social Studies Curriculum Middle Level Learning (MLL) also featured a special issue in 2011 to honor Women’s History Month with similar articles advocating for the inclusion of gender in social studies content and curriculum. These articles include background information about the American

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w­omen’s movement as well as strategies for teaching about the topic in the middle grades classroom. Catherine Carter (2011) provides a brief history of the Second Generation of suffragists in “Raise up your cloth!” She also offers an “Objection and Answer to Women’s Voting” activity created by Jenni Wei that teachers could complete quickly in class. Former NCSS President Tedd Levy (2011) contributes a piece on the historical origins of women’s basketball. MLL editor Steven Lapham presents a timeline of educational opportunity brought about by legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of 1972. In a later issue of MLL, Scott Roberts (2013) authors an article on county names and historical women. Roberts finds that only 2% of U.S. counties are named after women, thus he devised a historical inquiry lesson plan for students to explore the 13 U.S. counties that were named in honor of women for their own accomplishments (not simply women who were married to significant males). Again, these articles seem to be fairly representative of the additive approach to gender in the social studies curriculum.

10.6.3  Gender and the High School Social Studies Curriculum In the secondary level, several journals have advocated for the inclusion of women’s history in the classroom and have published lesson plan ideas on how to incorporate women into the social studies curriculum (see, for example, Bair, Williams, & Fralinger, 2008; Monk, 2004; Risinger, 2013). Several recent books including, Clio in the Classroom (Berkin, Crocco,  & Winslow, 2009); Teaching Women’s History Through Literature (Chick, 2008); Through Women’s Eyes (DuBois & Dumenil, 2012); and Gender in the Classroom (Sadker & Silber, 2007), provide resources for teachers who seek to engage students in learning about women’s history and gender.

10.6.4  Research about Social Studies Curriculum and Gender In a special issue of Theory & Research in Social Education, Segall (2013) calls for more critical discourse in social studies education research, especially with respect to gender and race, as these paradigms are performative, socially constructed with respect to power and domination, and often “othered” (e.g., these concepts often occupy the sidebar of the main narrative in social studies textbooks). Schmeichel (2014) answers Segall’s call using discourse analysis methodologies to explore recently published social studies lesson plans. Schmeichel finds problematic discourses about gender norms such as avoidance of power and patriarchy and failure to address inequity issues. Similarly, Schmidt (2012) determines that the presentation of women in history textbooks since Trecker’s (1971) study has substantially improved, yet she discovers the traditional concept of woman had been n­ormalized in the curriculum. Ultimately Schmidt’s research demonstrates that the 19thcentury notion of the “Cult of True Womanhood,” which excludes poor women and women of color, continues to be reified in the history curriculum. According to Schmidt: Feminist writers have proposed changing the lens through which we make determinations about what constitutes history [and the new lens] will change who and what constitute that history. This claim holds great promise for altering the history curriculum and producing a curriculum that not only includes more women but addresses issues that limit her inclusion. (p. 722)



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Wineburg and Monte‐Sano’s (2008) research in the Journal of American History provides empirical evidence about the manner in which the representation of women in American history impacts student understanding of history. They conducted an investigation to a­nalyze whether changes in curriculum materials “made a dent in popular historical c­onsciousness” (p. 2). Approximately 2,000 11th and 12th grade public high school students across the 50 states were asked to nominate 10 figures they believed “mattered most” in American history—the list was to be divided into two sections, A and B. Students could not include U.S. presidents or presidents’ wives and in part B they were required to list famous American women. Wineburg and Monte‐Sano note in the limitations of the study that the instructions “obviously inflated the number of women listed” (p. 6) but nonetheless the authors note surprise that two African American women garnered such a large percentage of students’ votes. Wineburg and Monte‐Sano later repeated the experiment with 2,000 adults age 45 and older. The students’ final lists reveal a “changing pantheon of American heroes” (p. 1). The top 10 for the students are 1. Martin Luther King, Jr. 2. Rosa Parks 3. Harriet Tubman 4. Susan B. Anthony 5. Benjamin Franklin 6. Amelia Earhart 7. Oprah Winfrey 8. Marilyn Monroe 9. Thomas Edison and 10. Albert Einstein. The adult top 10 list includes the same individuals with the exception that Betsy Ross and Henry Ford are named rather than Marilyn Monroe and Albert Einstein. The authors find it notable that the top three famous Americans are African Americans, and second and third place are Black women. Contrary to expected findings, the adults’ final lists did not differ significantly from the students’ lists. These results indicate that the narrative of American history includes a different cast of characters from a similar study conducted in the 1970s and 1980s (Frisch, 1989) in which Betsy Ross and Paul Revere occupy top spots. Wineburg and Monte‐Sano’s study provides some proof that African Americans and women are now more prominent in the national narrative perhaps due to increased attention to issues related to civil rights and gender in the social studies curriculum. Collectively, these studies provide direction for future research with respect to how women are represented in the social studies curriculum. Not only is it important to continue to critically interrogate representations of women in social studies lesson plans and textbooks, social studies researchers need to learn more about how these portrayals delimit student understanding of history.

10.7 Textbooks The social studies textbook has perhaps the greatest impact on the social studies curricu­ lum so it is significant that women historically have been underrepresented in textbooks (see Tetreault, 1986; Trecker, 1971). Today, a small group of famous women are repeatedly referenced in social studies textbooks and trade books (such as Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt, Helen Keller, and Rosa Parks, see Bickford & Rich, 2014). Kay Chick (2006) examined K–12 American history textbooks for gender balance and d­iscovered that significantly more males than females are found in all grade levels, both in content and illustrations. These differences are significant at the .001 level (thus a 99.9% chance the findings are true). While social studies methods texts provide more attention to gender than other content areas, a content analysis of social studies methods books reveals only 2.5% of the content space is devoted to gender (Zittleman & Sadker, 2003).

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When women are included in social studies texts, they may be misrepresented or portrayed as occupying traditionally familiar gender roles. For example, in a study of children’s trade books (Bickford & Rich, 2014) featuring three famous American women, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, and Helen Keller, researchers find various forms of historical misrepresentations and omissions. For instance, Helen Keller’s socioeconomic background, as well as her accomplishments in later life, frequently are omitted. The economic marginalization of African Americans such as Rosa Parks also is left out of most children’s texts. According to Bickford and Rich, the omission causes historic misrepresentation (other African Americans’ contributions to the movement are neglected) which contributes to exceptionalism, heroification, and presentism. A gender‐based analysis of the notable trade books for intermediate grades, also finds many more males than females represented (Chick & Corle, 2012). Schocker and Woyshner (2013) conducted a content analysis of images in an African American history textbook as well as two U.S. history textbooks and report that African American women are significantly underrepresented in both kinds of textbooks. When famous women are depicted in history texts, they are often featured in stereotypical roles related to domesticity. The lives of ordinary women who traditionally occupy a private sphere are conspicuously absent (Noddings, 2001). Brugar, Halvorsen, and Hernandez (2014) leverage textbook analysis as a learning activity in a fourth grade classroom. Working alongside their teacher, the students analyzed the number of women and men in their textbook. The class discovered that men comprised 90% of the entries and women comprised a mere 10% of the entries. After a class discussion, students wrote to the publisher and asked the company to, “put more women in the book” (p. 31). When men are portrayed in social studies textbooks, they are depicted as engaging in physical activity, fighting in battles, leading political office, or demonstrating aggressive behaviors (Chick & Corle, 2012). In a dissertation study that employs an androcentric gauge (which measures masculine interests or masculine points of view) to analyze mandated social studies textbooks in Canada, Bradford (2008) finds that far more men are present in official social studies knowledge. Similarly, in a study of 10th grade textbooks in Pakistan, findings indicate that the textbooks suffer from “gender disparity in presentation, gender role identity and assignment” (Khan & Sultana, 2012). In a Turkish study comparing social studies textbooks and prospective teachers’ choice of heroes or heroines, the researchers determine that 97.4% of the heroes found are male and 2.6% are female (Yazici & Aslan, 2011). These studies suggest the need for comparative studies of gender disparity in international social studies textbooks. This type of research might better enable us to understand the manner in which the larger sociopolitical context impacts the representation of women in social studies textbooks.

10.8  Standards and Testing Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, the field of social studies in the U.S. has had a tenuous relationship with the standards movement. Although all states have adopted social studies curriculum standards, not all states require a high‐stakes social studies exam. In states that do implement an exam, passing it is often not required for promotion to the next grade level. Some states have moved to an end-of-course requirement in specific content



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areas such as U.S. History and Economics, and passing these tests is necessary in some states to earn a high school diploma. The Common Core initiative was launched in 2009 as a means to standardize the curriculum on a national level. Social Studies/History standards are subsumed under the Common Core, English Language Arts/Literacy standards. As a result, social studies is largely marginalized in school curriculum. Despite the lack of attention to the social studies in national standards, NCSS has its own set of standards, the 10 thematic strands (NCSS, 2010). In 2013, NCSS published new stand­ards, called The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K–12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History. The C3 Framework is currently in the process of being rolled out to educators. At the same time, all states have their own social studies standards. While much has been written about social studies standards (e.g., Au, 2009; Grant, 2005, Grant, 2006; Marshall, Jacot & Gamble, 2015; Salinas, 2006), more could be done to conduct gender‐based analyses of these standards to understand the way in which women are depicted. For example, Crocco (2007, 2011) analyzes the treatment of women’s rights as a human right within the 50 state social studies curriculum standards and finds variation across state standards; but in general she discovers that human rights education has been clouded by an emphasis on high‐stakes testing (Crocco, 2007, pp. 260–261). Furthermore, Crocco (2011) finds weak name recognition for female world leaders among preservice social studies teachers. Based upon these findings, Crocco (2011) provides several recommendations for making gender a priority in world history curricula and notes several resources available to educators. Most recently, Engebretson (2014) investigates the revised NCSS standards in terms of gendered discourses. She finds two discourses prevail: first, “gender imbalance” with a narrow view of masculinity and second, “gender‐free.” Perhaps more importantly she uncovers a hidden discourse in which women are not given equitable representation in the curriculum standards, leading to the perception that women are not valued as historical actors. Interestingly, when I explored national assessment data for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the SAT (formerly called the Scholastic Aptitude Test), and the Advanced Placement Exams (AP), I found no major gender differences in student achievement, except in Mathematics and math‐dominant fields such as Economics. For example, the NAEP is currently administered in four social studies content areas: Economics, Civics, Geography, and U.S. History. Of these four content areas, the 2010–2012 data only reveal a gender gap in Economics (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012). There are no statistically significant gender differences in the nation’s report card for Civics, Geography, and U.S. History. Given the fact that women outperform men in reading/language arts, and men outperform women in mathematics/science, the NAEP data for gender and social studies content generally is consistent with prior years of data on gender and testing. SAT scores are relevant in terms of social studies disciplines, as Economics is more mathoriented and the other disciplines in the field are more dependent on reading and writing skills. For the SAT, 2014 scores reveal little difference by gender for critical reading and writing tests, but a 31‐point higher differential in the mean score for males on the math examination. For the AP examination, a 2014 program summary report indicates that significantly more males complete the two economics AP tests, while more females complete the three history, two government/political science and one geography AP examination.

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The  College Board issued many reports with respect to gender‐based performance d­ifferences in the AP examinations in the 1990s and early 2000s. The last report located, however, was conducted in 2002; thus indicating that gender‐based performance differences apparently are no longer a concern for the College Board (Buck, Kostin, & Morgan, 2002). In the 2002 report on gender, the College Board finds that for U.S. History multiple choice items, measures of male and female performance are significantly correlated with item content. In an analysis of five subject areas (including U.S. History, European History, Biology, Microeconomics, and Macroeconomics), on the free‐response questions, the College Board also finds male and female performance differences that are significantly correlated with item content (Buck, Kostin, & Morgan, 2002). For the past 10 years, the College Board has issued an annual report to the nation; the 2014 report provides considerable disaggregated data, particularly with respect to race and ethnicity, as well as data by U.S. state. None of the information, however, in the recent report provides information on AP scores with respect to gender (College Board, 2014a, 2014b). Future research in the social studies might continue this line of inquiry to determine whether there are gender disparities in achievement in the social studies and, if so, determine why.

10.9 Technology 10.9.1 Web‐based Many websites have been developed by well‐known publishers to facilitate teacher knowledge with respect to notable women in American history. Websites are important to understand the larger agenda with respect to gender and social studies education as they have proliferated in the 21st century. Certainly, research with respect to the integration of gender, social studies education and technology is in its infancy. Notable websites include for example: ●●

●● ●● ●●

Education World’s “Women’s History Month Lesson Plans and Activities” www. educationworld.com/a_special/women_history_lesson_plan.shtml; Educating Jane.com’s www.educatingjane.com/Women/womenLP.htm; About Education’s http://womenshistory.about.com/od/essentials; Scholastic’s teacher.scholastic.com/activities/women/notable.htm

Clearly, a need exists for more research on the relationship between technology, social studies, and gender. In 2008, a team of researchers led by Margaret Crocco sought to explore this relationship. The team uncovered more than 50 publications dealing with gender and technology, and more than 80 dealing with social studies and technology; but just five dealing with gender, technology, and social studies in even a cursory manner (Crocco, Cramer, & Meier, 2008). The team sought to reframe the way researchers look at the g­endered technology gap. Rather than viewing female use of technology in social studies as a “gap” or a “problem” to be eliminated, the researchers focus on the different ways that males and females utilize technology in social studies. The current picture is not much different from what Crocco’s team learned. In a 2011 article, researchers explored 100 websites of feminist organizations in Canada (Irving & English, 2011).



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The researchers found innumerable missed opportunities to share knowledge and engage in community‐based learning. In an investigation of teaching materials used in social studies lessons collected from 160 teachers (87 female and 73 male) published in the Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, researchers locate statistically significant differences in the usage of printed materials and methods based upon the teacher’s gender (Sağlam, 2011). Recently, Tina Heafner (2014) presented the results of a research study on gender and technology integration in social studies at the College and University Faculty Assembly of NCSS. From her qualitative study of 12 teachers (7 male and 5 female; all identified as tech‐ savvy), Heafner discovers that the females exhibit lower confidence than the males, despite having similar skill sets. She also determines that male and female teachers have different visions of how to use technology to teach social studies. Clearly, much more research needs to be conducted on the intersection of technology, social studies, and gender. Preliminary research shows a shift from a deficit paradigm to one that celebrates diverse skills.

10.9.2  Feature Films Within the social studies, researchers have explored the impact of the role of film to teach about the women’s movement. Since film can serve as an important means to analyze popular culture and the stereotypical or atypical manners in which women are portrayed, Marcus and Monaghan (2009) conducted a study with 46 students to evaluate how student understanding of the women’s movement is impacted by the film Iron Jawed Angels. The researchers discovered important differences in how male and female students respond to the film. For instance, male students more so than female students, uncover new knowledge about the women’s suffrage movement. This finding corroborates Wineburg’s (2001) assertion that in girls’ minds women in history are blurry figures, but in boys’ minds they are invisible. In addition, Iron Jawed Angels depicts strong female protagonists and provides students with increased awareness of alternative perspectives in historical narratives. In two other studies (Justice, 2014; Scheiner‐Fisher & Russell, 2012) researchers describe how films portray issues of gender equity. Referencing the Bechel Test, an instrument developed to assist educators in determining if a film promotes gender equity (i.e., the presence of a strong female character), Justice evaluates how Disney’s fairytale view of gender has matured over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries.

10.10  Gender and Global Studies World Geography, Global Studies, and/or World History are a part of most U.S. states’ social studies curriculum requirements, so an important avenue of research is to explore the intersection of teaching about issues of women and gender in a global setting. For example, Malala Yousafzai’s book has helped to bring attention to global gender and educational concerns, with a particular focus on the Middle East. Her personal narrative of fighting for young women’s education in Pakistan, and ultimately being shot by Islamic extremists in 2012 on a school bus, speaks to a worldwide audience about the discrimination women face with respect to education in certain societies. In a 2012 issue of Social Education that focuses on human rights, Rina Bousalis writes about the paradox Iranian women confront in their society.

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While Iranian women exceed the number of men graduating from Iranian universities—107 women for every 100 men; a vast improvement from 1991 when 40 women enrolled for every 100 men—these women face repression and marginalization from a traditionalist Islamist dictatorship that restricts women’s rights with respect to inheritance, divorce, dress code, political involvement, and child custody (Bousalis, 2012). Focusing on the three major religions in the Middle East—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—Crocco, Pervez and Katz (2009) provide insight about women in the region and how faith shapes the contours of their lives. In other studies, researchers explore the effects of rapid increases in gender parity in primary schools in Bangladesh and Malawi (Chisamya, Dajaeghere, Kendall, & Khan, 2012). Unfortunately, the increases in educational opportunities for women in these countries did not transform the inequitable gender relations they experience in society, local communities, and homes. In an exploration of gender and the social sciences in Australia, Curthoys (2014) finds a growing alliance of gender studies and cultural studies. She argues it is important to understand why women relate that it remains difficult to achieve parity with men in particular disciplines (e.g. economics) and why strong gender differences remain. Wiesner‐Hanks (2007) discusses that few social studies education journals address the intersection of gender and world history because world history instruction has been traditionally dominated by stories of great states and long‐distance trade that include little room for women. World history has also been dominated by the presumption that women occupy the private sphere of the family and not the public world of politics and the economy. Several recently edited books address gender and education from a global level, and include descriptions from countries across continents (e.g. Fennell & Arnot, 2008; Gross, Davies, & Diab, 2013; Maslak, 2008; Tembon & Fort, 2008). Yet, few of these international compilations focused on gender and education do so from the perspective of social studies education. Carole Hahn’s work on international civic education research stands as a strong counterexample to this assertion. Yet, Hahn (2010) in her recent publication on comparative civic education research states that more research on the relationship of gender and feminism in civic education is needed. The Sage Handbook of Education for Citizenship and Democracy (Arthur, Davies, & Hahn, 2008) is an important resource for educators interested in global civic education, and in this handbook Jane Bernard‐Powers authors a chapter on feminism and gender in education for citizenship and democracy. Bernard‐Powers notes that “the variance between the political, social and economic circumstances of women are vast and significant and they create complexity in the discussion of gender and feminism in relation to democracy, citizenship and education,” (2008, p. 314). Indeed, she states that despite these complexities, the sharing of resources between feminists and citizenship educators has “the potential to move gender and feminism out of the margins and into the ‘texts’ of the field” (italics added for emphasis, 2008, p. 324).

10.11  Contemporary and Historic Female Social Studies Education Leaders Much of the early feminist social studies education work follows a “contributions model” where scholars detail the contributions of little‐known female social educators (e.g., Antler, 1987; Bohan, 2004; Crocco & Davis, 1999; Sadovnik & Semel, 2002; Woyshner & Gelfond, 1998). This approach to researching contemporary and historic female social education



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leaders continues in more recent research, including Bair’s (2008) description of the p­ioneering work of Nannie Helen Burroughs; Rousmaniere’s (2005) detailing of Margaret Haley’s leadership as a citizen educator; Van Ingen’s (2014) focus on Sarah McComb’s efforts to address old‐age income for single women teachers; Durst’s (2010) writing about the women behind Dewey’s laboratory school; Smyth and Bourne’s (2006) edited book on s­everal women educators from a historic perspective; Cusick’s (2005) work on seven eminent American educators featuring Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Dorothy Day; Woyshner’s (2009) scholarship focusing on the PTA, race and civic engagement; and Martin’s (2011) edited work on women educational leaders including chapters on historic women leaders from Radcliffe, feminist classrooms, women leaders as superintendents, and teacher leaders working for social justice. Clearly, research on women social e­ducation leaders has blossomed in the wake of second and third generation feminist scholarship. While many women leaders have been uncovered, more work remains to be done in this  area, especially in light of the fact that women are a majority of the workforce in education.

10.12 Masculinities The shift from the term “sex” to “gender” opened the door for research on masculinity. Nonetheless, a paucity of research on the intersection of masculinities and social studies education exists. In describing the genesis of masculinity, MacInnes (1998) remarks that men have lost a great deal of power over women and, realizes that they, too, constitute a gender. MacInnes rejects the idea that masculinity exists as a character trait of individuals. Offering a different perspective, Mayo (2007) finds that gay male teachers feel compelled by social and political forces to conform to expected norms of “masculine” and “male behaviors” (p. 447). This “hegemonic masculinity” that Mayo (2007, pp. 459–460) describes means that the gay male teachers believe they need to talk with a deep voice, avoid a certain kind of walk, demonstrate aggressive, assertive and competitive behaviors, and certainly check any flamboyant behavior at the schoolhouse door. A small but increasing amount of educational research focuses on males and masculinities. For example, in one article Lundy‐Wagner and Gasman (2011) shift their research focus to men—noting gender issues traditionally center on women—as they reconsider Black male students at historically Black colleges and universities. In another example of masculinities-oriented research and the social perception of what constitutes appropriate male behavior, the International Journal of Inclusive Education features an article, “‘You’re not a teacher, you’re a man’: the need for greater focus on gender studies in teacher education” (Cushman, 2012). Cushman interviewed primary school teachers across three countries: the United Kingdom, Sweden, and New Zealand. He finds that both men and women teacher education students require comprehensive gender studies if they are going to be able to deconstruct traditional stereotypes and contribute to social justice (a prominent theme in social studies education). A 2011 special issue of The Journal of Men’s Studies, features scholarship on men in education and the disproportionate lack of male teachers. In an article in this special issue on a “genderful pedagogy” and the teaching of masculinity, Johnson and Weber (2011) contend that an active construction of masculinity can be integrated through a pedagogy of plurality and inclusiveness. Educator, filmmaker and author Jackson Katz

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centers his work on violence, media, and masculinities. He has created several documentaries on the representations of men and women in popular culture, and his Mentors in Violence Prevention model (MVP) emphasizes changing societal norms of femininity and masculinity as critical to violence prevention. Strikingly, with the exception of Mayo’s (2007) work on gay male teachers, almost none of the research on masculinities in education focuses on social studies education in particular. This lack of research is a truly missed opportunity, as social studies is one of two fields in secondary education where men constitute the majority of teachers. In addition, with a preponderance of male coaches in a majority of American high school social studies departments, the field is ripe for exploration of how masculinities are constructed and realized in the content area.

10.13 Conclusion Gender and feminist scholarship continues to reside on the margins of social studies education research. A small but dedicated group, linked by “bonds of sisterhood,” continues to produce high quality scholarship in this area (Bair, 2008; Bernard‐Powers, 2008; Chick, 2006; Chick & Corle 2012; Crocco, 2007, 2008, 2011; Engebretson, 2014; Hahn, 2010; Hahn & Quaynor, 2012; Levstik & Tyson, 2008; Schmeichel, 2011, 2014; Schmidt, 2012, Schocker, 2014; Weiler, 2014; Woyshner, 2009, 2012). The scholarship is focused in varying degrees on teachers, students, curriculum and instruction, textbooks, standards and testing, t­echnology, global studies, masculinities, and historic and present female social studies education leaders. More research needs to be conducted, however, especially in the area of the intersection of gender, social studies education, and standards and testing, technology, and masculinities. In light of the December 2015 passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) which supplants NCLB, new avenues for research on standards and testing with respect to gender and social studies education exist on the horizon. Perhaps, a special issue of Theory & Research in Social Education should be dedicated to gender and feminist s­cholarship in social studies education, from a ground‐up approach of exploring how these constructs are realized in actual classrooms. Although gender and feminist scholarship may have, “come a long way” the road ahead is rocky and uneven, and, “we  certainly are well on our way, but unfortunately are not close to arriving just yet” (Woyshner, 2012, p. 272). Certainly, the connection between gender and social studies education research should reach a broader audience. A review of Teachers College Record articles from 2008 to 2014 yielded six articles on gender, but none specific to social studies education in particular. Another review focusing on titles from 2008 to 2015 in the Journal of Curriculum Studies (JCS) led to only one article on men’s and women’s work in the role of school principal. None of these recent JCS articles consider gender and social studies education. Such paltry numbers suggest that considerably more research needs to be conducted in the area of gender and social studies education. The field of secondary social studies remains the only academic content area where men constitute the majority of teachers, thus the discipline might produce thought‐provoking perspectives on the role of gender. Undoubtedly, the role of masculinities would play an important avenue for investigation given the fact that social studies teachers represent the second highest percentage of athletic coaches–just behind



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kinesiology and health educators. Surely, increased research in social studies education viewed through the lens of gender would honor Malala Yousafzai and her struggle to gain educational opportunities for women worldwide.

Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Graduate Research Assistant, Rhonda Webb, who provided invaluable help locating, gathering, and compiling the references. Appreciation is also extended to Christopher Moore for reviewing a draft and making the table readable. Thanks are also extended to the anonymous reviewers who offered remarkably helpful editorial suggestions. Finally, gratitude must be extended to my husband who read a draft, offered suggestions, and continued to support me in my questioning of gender norms in society.

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Schafer, C. M. (2007). A deliberate reconstruction and reconfiguring of women in history: One teacher’s attempt at transforming a U.S. history curriculum. Doctoral dissertation. Retrieved from http:// scholarworks.gsu.edu/theses/ Scheiner–Fisher, C., & Russell, W. B. (2012). Using historical films to promote gender equity in the history curriculum. The Social Studies, 103, 221–225. Schmeichel, M. (2011). Feminism, neoliberalism, and social studies. Theory & Research in Social Education, 39(1), 6–30. Schmeichel, M. (2014). Women made it a home: Representations of women in social studies. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 9(3), 233–249. Schmidt, S. J. (2012). Am I a woman? The normalisation of woman in U.S. history. Gender and Education, 24(7), 707–724. Schocker, J. B. (2014). A case for using images to teach women’s history. The History Teacher, 47(3), 421–450. Schocker, J. B., & Woyshner, C. (2013). Representing African American women in U.S. history t­extbooks. The Social Studies, 104, 23–31. Schulz, W., Ainley, J., Fraillon, J., Kerr, D., & Losito, B. (2009). Initial findings from the IEA International Civic and Citizenship Education Study. International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. Retrieved from http://www.iea.nl/iccs_2009.html Segall, A. (2013). Revitalizing critical discourses in social education: Opportunities for a more c­omplexified (un)knowing. Theory & Research in Social Education, 41, 476–493. Shaver, J. (1991). Handbook of research on social studies teaching and learning. New York, NY: Macmillan. Silverman, D. (2010). Doing qualitative research. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE. Smyth, E. M., & Bourne, P. (2006). Women teaching, women learning: Historical perspectives. Toronto, ON: Inanna. Spinath, B., Eckert, C., & Steinmayr, R. (2014). Gender differences in school success: What are the roles of students’ intelligence, personality and motivation? Educational Research, 56(2), 230–243. St. Pierre, E. A. (2000). Poststructural feminism in education: An overview. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 13(5), 477–515. Stimpson, C. R., & Herdt, G. (2014). Critical terms for the study of gender. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Tembon, M., & Fort, L. (2008). Girls’ education in the 21st century: Gender equality, empowerment, and economic growth. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Tetreault, M. T. (1986). Integrating women’s history: The case of United States history high school textbooks. The History Teacher, 19(2), 211–62. Thornton, S. J. (2005). Teaching social studies that matters: Curriculum for active learning. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Trecker, J. L. (1971). Women in US history high school textbooks. Social Education, 35, 249– 260. United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1964). Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Pub. L. 88‐352, U.S. Code, Vol. 42, section 2000e. Retrieved from http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/ statutes/titlevii.cfm Van Ingen, L. (2014). One can’t live on air: Sarah McComb on the problem of old–age income for single women teachers, 1870s–1930s. History of Education Quarterly, 54(2), 172– 196. Walkerdine, V., & Ringrose, J. (2006). Femininities: Reclassifying upward mobility and the neo–liberal subject. In C. Skelton, B. Francis, & L. Smulyan (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of gender and e­ducation (pp. 31–46). London, UK: SAGE. Weiler, K. (1988). Women teaching for change: Gender, class & power. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey. Weiler, K. (2014, November). Gender, social studies, education: In pursuit of intersectionality. Paper presented at the meeting of National Council of the Social Studies, College and University Faculty Assembly, Boston, MA.



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Sexuality and Queer Theory in the Social Studies J. B. Mayo, Jr.

Diversity and inclusiveness, combined, represent one of the core values of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS). According to the NCSS Strategic Plan (2000), “the organization affirms cultural diversity, combats discrimination, and recognizes multiple perspectives.” Further, NCSS recognizes that some of the “emerging new realities” that social studies experts will face include issues such as tolerance, privacy, and diversity (among others), and that these issues will play a prominent role in national news debates, classrooms, and public gatherings (NCSS, 2000). Therefore, these issues have also significantly influenced—and in some cases directly guided—the research agendas of social studies scholars who, like their parent organization, believe in the importance of diversity. It is problematic, however, that some forms of diversity are privileged over others and do not receive widespread recognition within and across the field. Sexuality is most often understood within the social studies as referring to a person’s sexual identity or orientation, rendering the terms interchangeable.1 This theme falls under the diversity umbrella and exemplifies a form of diversity social studies researchers recognize, but only in limited ways. I begin this chapter by defining some key terms found throughout the text that have multiple meanings depending on the context in which they are used or that may be unfamiliar to large numbers of readers. The definitions found here will clarify my specific use of the terms in question. I then offer a rationale for placing sexuality at the center of one’s research agenda within the social studies. Though largely ignored to date, this area of research is uniquely relevant to current, national events and debates. Next, I review the handful of research articles written by scholars who have placed sexuality at the center of their investigations, indicating the trends that have evolved in this research area since the early 1990s. Some researchers place sexuality within larger contexts like social justice, multicultural education, or civic education, while other researchers have (more) explicitly named s­exuality in research projects on classroom teachers, students, student support groups like Genders & Sexualities Alliances (GSAs),2 and the curriculum. I also offer some larger context, which indicates how The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.



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sexuality has become central to ongoing national conversations including marriage equality, lesbians and gay men serving in the military, and bullying practices enacted by students based, in part, upon their victims’ perceived sexual identities. Later, I discuss queer theory, a seldom‐ used theoretical framework in the social studies that may keep our field current, and perhaps more cutting‐edge, by helping social studies researchers ask new questions or approach past issues and challenges in more nuanced ways. In my concluding thoughts, I offer suggestions for future research that may fill some of the existing gaps and encourage new questions and lines of research within the social studies that center on sexuality.

11.1  Key Definitions I begin with a few key definitions that will situate these terms within a broader theoretical context, which may offer clarity and/or nuance to their meanings. Gender. Butler (1988) refers to gender as a social construction, a fiction that is open to change and contestation because “it is real only to the extent that it is performed” (p. 527). Butler explains further, “because gender is not a fact, the various acts of gender create the idea of gender, and without those acts, there would be no gender at all” (p. 522). Heteronormative. This term refers to the idea that being heterosexual, or straight, is the norm against which all other possibilities are compared and judged. It is a taken‐for‐granted way of being that assumes a person is straight unless one is otherwise informed to the contrary. Homophobia. Homophobia is the irrational fear and/or hatred of any non‐normative sexual attractions felt between two individuals. LGBTQ. Individually, these letters stand for lesbian, gay (most often referring to men), bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning. Together, this “term” refers to a collection of communities or it may be used synonymously with gay or queer. Queer. Meyers (2007) refers to queer as “a more inclusive and empowering word for the lesbian, gay, [bisexual, and transgender] experience” (p. 25), and it is often used as an umbrella term for all others who claim a non‐normative, non‐heterosexual identity. “Queer is [also] understood as a challenge to traditional understandings of sexual identity by deconstructing the categories, the binaries, and language that supports them.” It simultaneously “seeks to disrupt traditional modes of thought and, by standing outside them, examine and dismantle them” (pp. 25–26). Sexuality. Sexuality refers to “romantic attractions, sexual behaviors, sexual identity and desires, as well as to the presumed embodied existence of these characteristics” (Linville, 2009, p. 155). Within the social studies, sexuality and sexual orientation are interchangeable terms. Transgender. Transgender means relating to or being a person who identifies with or expresses a gender identity that differs from the one that corresponds to the person’s sex at birth. Some trans* folks choose not to identify as male or female and reject the gender binary entirely.

11.2  Rationale for Sexuality in the Social Studies In print and in online media, on broadcast news, and in any number of blogs, webpages, or social media posts, people are engaged in an ongoing national conversation about issues that center on sexuality and the lives of people who identify as part of the LGBTQ communities.

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At the center of these conversations are issues like marriage equality, the s­ervice of lesbians and gay men in the military, the violence perpetrated against transgender individuals, the coming out stories of well‐known athletes and celebrities, and the bullying, homelessness, and resilience of young people who identify as queer. The social studies are directly related to each of these examples. Whether it is the various responses to Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court’s 5–4 decision calling for nationwide marriage equality, the psychology behind parents’ decisions to reject their queer children rendering them homeless, the dismantling of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policies and the overall history of the Gay Liberation Movement, or the social impact of prominent, well‐known people living openly as LGBTQ adults, young people are aware of these issues and are often touched by them in significant ways. Teachers within each subject area of the social studies can legitimately find curricular connections to the examples listed above. Students may engage in classroom d­iscussions of all varieties and in simulations or other classroom activities that incorporate these issues as current events topics worthy of reflection and thoughtful debate. The social studies are a good fit for these issues in many different formats. The current national conversation, alone, makes it difficult for one to question the appropriateness of bringing sexuality and the lives of LGBTQ people to school as topics of classroom engagement. Indeed, one must consider the fact that sexuality is already a part of students’ everyday existence at school. Students are constantly bombarded by sexual images and themes in the media, both in print and on television, the music that many of them listen to is full of sexual imagery, and many students have open access to sexual materials or themes via the Internet. At any given moment, students’ chatting via text message or real‐ time status updates on social networking sites have the potential to be sexual in nature. But one cannot simply look toward various media or technology as conduits for bringing sexuality to school because it is already located in the hallways, in the classrooms, at the lunch tables, and in the locker rooms at school even without the influence of these media. Though often unspoken, sexuality is found in students’ textbooks and openly displayed in the innocent interactions teachers have with their students daily—all part of the hidden curriculum (Kumashiro, 2009; Renold, 2000). When a teacher mentions how much she, her husband, and the children enjoyed a local concert or sporting event over the weekend, for example, her (hetero) sexuality is part of the unspoken conversation. When students come to school in anticipation of special events like the Valentine’s Day dance or the prom, sexuality is part of the excitement and anxiety they may be feeling as it pertains to potentially being asked to dance by an (un)willing partner. Even our social studies lessons are full of examples of unspoken, but fully realized messages about sexuality. Bickmore (2002) recounts research that included a lecture on South African history, where a teacher said to the class, “Boers took their wives and children with them” (p. 201). Again, sexuality is p­resent in this statement, but “it is easy to overlook the sexuality in [that] image because [students] assume as ‘common sense’ history’s emphasis on male protagonists in heterosexual, married, male‐dominant nuclear families” (Bickmore, 2002, p. 201). Whether it comes in the form of conversations between students and teachers, gossip among students’ peer groups, or seemingly neutral passages of historical prose in a textbook, sexuality exists and thrives at school. The social studies as a field and K–12 teachers, more generally, need to understand the reality that sexuality is present and deeply embedded in multiple ways in school settings. Because it is already present within the school and because many social studies‐appropriate topics are part of a growing national conversation outside of schools,



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a strong rationale sits firmly in place for social studies teachers and other adults in school to address these issues directly and in responsible, age‐appropriate ways.

11.3  Sexuality in the Social Studies—Trends Over Time Given the established presence of sexuality in the social studies classroom, it is important to note what researchers in the field have written about this current and, in some geographic areas, contentious topic. Prior to 2002, there is a virtual dearth of social studies scholarship on sexuality, which may have prompted the creation of a special issue of Theory & Research in Social Education (TRSE) called Special Issue: Social Education and Sexual Identity. What follows is an extended review of the spring 2002 special edition of TRSE with references to the small number of articles centered on LGBTQ topics published in social studies journals prior to the special edition.

11.3.1  Special Edition of Theory and Research in Social Education The introductory article in the 2002 special edition of TRSE asks the reader to consider a simple question: “Does everybody count as human?” Thornton (2002) contends that the social studies curriculum and its objectives, while obviously concerned about human beings, need to expand beyond the academic interests the subject matter generates. In considering the humanity of all, the social studies curriculum should also focus more broadly and include themes like “human rights, tolerance, justice, civic responsibility, and caring” (p. 178). Thornton believes that the social studies curriculum has, in fact, become more inclusive with its consideration of the experiences of ethnic minorities and women, but the silence remains around issues of gays and lesbians. Then like now, however, the silence Thornton references was not the reality of public debate. At the time of Thornton’s writing of a review on social studies curriculum and instruction (1994), he reported that two, hotly‐ contested public debates raged: gays in the military and New York City’s “rainbow curriculum” (Thornton, 2002, p. 179). Both issues had (and have) direct, curricular connections to the social studies, yet little was written within the field to draw out pertinent themes, highlight potential learning opportunities, or help teachers and students engage the ongoing public debate. During Thornton’s “extensive” search for materials that might have informed social studies curriculum around LGBTQ issues, he “failed to find any reference to gays in the social studies literature” (p. 179). Only a reference to homosexual love in ancient Greece (as cited in Noddings, 1992) came up in Thornton’s search. Further, Thornton reports that at the time of the TRSE special edition, only Wade (1995) and Crocco (2001) made any reference to LGBTQ issues in their writing. Similarly, Crocco (2002) noted the lack of materials published about gender, sexuality, and the social studies. She offers a clear rationale for teachers to address these issues and make connections to the social studies curriculum: As the adults in schools, when teachers “ignore their moral responsibility to respond to bullying, threatening, object throwing, and chasing students [perceived] and labeled as gay or lesbian, they countenance a school culture that is sexist and homophobic, tacitly endorsing a worldview that sanctions school violence against those not fully accepted as citizens” (p. 221). Crocco contends that in such

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an environment, clear messages are sent to students about what standard of behavior is allowed toward some groups of people as compared to others. Like Thornton, she conducted a search for publications within the social students that directly addressed LGBTQ persons and issues. Though her ERIC search using key words gender, sexuality, and social studies yielded 10 citations, only one focused explicitly on sexual orientation. As cited in Wade’s (1995) article, sexual orientation is characterized as “diversity taboo” (Crocco, 2002, pp. 221–222). Clearly, both social studies researchers discovered the lack of literature centered on LGBTQ topics, issues, and people in the social studies, and they are highly critical of this finding. It is highly probable, in fact, that the lack of LGBTQ‐centered l­iterature within the social studies prompted conversations that led to the publication of the special edition of TRSE. An overview of the perspectives found in that themed edition is found below.

11.3.2  Political Tolerance as an LGBTQ Space Pat Avery (2002) opens the discussion, making connections between political socialization, political tolerance, and sexual identity. She contends that though it is unrealistic to think that all citizens living in a democratic society will like each other, groups of people must respect the basic civil rights of other groups, even the rights of people with whom they fundamentally disagree. Her findings suggest, however, that young people are not socialized to consider the rights of LGBTQ people because their struggle for rights is not covered within the larger struggle for civil rights among other groups of people. In a social studies classroom that covers the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Movement, for example, it is highly unlikely any mention, and certainly no in‐depth coverage, of the 1969 Stonewall riots or Gay Pride celebrations are included as part of the [Gay] Civil Rights Movement. Therefore, all students are denied viewing the rights of gay citizens within a larger historical and political context. In addition, the “media, school, parents, and friends often convey the message that heterosexuality is socially acceptable, but that homosexuality is aberrant, if not immoral, behavior” (p. 192). Given that adolescents have a strong need to fit in, they are strongly influenced by perceived social norms. If being straight, athletic, and well‐dressed in contemporary attire defines the norm, then adolescents will strive to be viewed as such. Further, Avery (2002) reported that students and adults focus much more on their individual rights, rather than their responsibilities. Most consider voting, serving on a jury, and obeying the law the extent to which their responsibilities lie, while few “demonstrate an understanding of the ways in which diversity of belief might enhance deliberation about public issues, or act to develop a better understanding of the ‘common good’” (p. 193). Given their limited understanding of responsibilities combined with a socialization process that includes viewing homosexuality as outside the norm, it may not be shocking that Avery found a study (see Conover & Searing, 2000), which reported that among young people living in four distinct U.S. communities, student support for the “right to be homosexual” ranked 11th in a set of 12 rights (p. 194). Despite these findings, however, Avery also reports that higher levels of education are positively correlated with tolerance. She stated, “Students who have attended college, in particular, are more likely to recognize the rights of gays and lesbians than those who have not attended college” (p. 195). Whether this phenomenon is caused by exposure to different people, opportunities in college classes to explore different



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perspectives more in‐depth, or students’ enhanced understanding of connections between abstract principles of democracy and their application to concrete situations, Avery concluded “education is one of the best predictors of general social tolerance and of tolerance for homosexuals in particular” (p. 195). When young people more fully understand one of the basic principles of democracy, majority rule with respect for minority rights, they will see that herein resides a voice for LGBTQ youth. “All young people need to recognize that they have a place in our democracy, but they also need to know and appreciate that the ‘other’ has a place as well” (pp. 195–196). Until social studies teachers stress that the “other” also includes LGBT and queer‐identified people, students will have a more difficult time heeding Avery’s call.

11.3.3  LGBTQ People at the Margins Much of the literature in social studies education regarding sexuality centers on the marginalization of LGBTQ people. The attention to marginalization is an effort to address the hostility toward LGBTQ persons in schools, including both teachers and students (Avery, 2002; Bickmore, 2002; Crocco, 2002; Franck, 2002; Marchman, 2002; Mayo, 2007; Oesterreich, 2002). Crocco (2002) speaks directly to the issue in her discussion about homophobia and the potential remedies social studies teachers can offer to this social ill. Because scholarship on masculinity suggests that “modern manhood has become consumed with patrolling the boundaries of sex role behavior and punishing those who deviate from these prescriptions,” Crocco sites this as evidence that society has socially constructed and supports this learned behavior (p. 220). Rather than accepting that constructed gender roles and sexual identities have changed over time and thus have a history that could be engaged in the social studies classroom, the field has turned over the treatment of sexuality to the health curriculum, where “coverage focuses on the medical, psychological, and physiological aspects of this subject matter” (p. 220). So, while the social studies has remained silent on this issue, Crocco sees this as a missed opportunity, particularly since researchers in the humanities and social sciences have weighed in on issues of sexuality over the past several decades. The silence Crocco and other social studies researchers have noted around issues of sexuality in the social studies works directly against an open, tolerant, and equitable form of citizenship education. When students become socialized to accept homophobia as the norm, “social studies teachers can expect such attitudes to color, interfere with, and undermine the teaching they do about democratic citizenship and its obligations” (Crocco, 2002, pp. 220–221). Further, if social studies teachers do nothing to curtail homophobic comments and attitudes in their classes, then students’ “sense of the universal obligations around respect, toleration, and inclusion” is severely undermined. For social studies teachers who believe strongly that citizenship education is a major focus, this set of circumstances necessarily extends social studies teachers’ obligations beyond the classroom. As Crocco (2002) contends, Libraries that carry no books on gender and sexuality, athletic settings where sexist and homophobic comments are ignored, and hallways where young women and those believed to be lesbian or gay are harassed, all create a climate inimical to the support of human rights that

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should infuse the educational enterprise in American society. Social studies courses that avoid discussion of the gay liberation movement as part of the civil rights movement, that overlook gay issues and women’s rights as “controversial” subject matter, and social studies teachers who condone abusive verbal and physical behavior towards gays and women, all contribute to a c­limate of intolerance that is hard to square with the demand of citizenship education in a p­luralistic democracy. (p. 221)

This critique of social studies teachers indicates areas where they can have a direct influence on minimizing the degree to which homophobia is allowed to grow and flourish at school.

11.3.4  LGBTQ Inclusion in the Social Studies Curriculum Directly or indirectly, many social studies researchers have called for a more explicit inclusion of LGBTQ individuals, groups, events, and themes within the disciplines that comprise the field (Crocco, 2002; Franck, 2002; Macintosh & Loutzenheiser, 2006; Marchman, 2002; Mayo, 2007; Mayo & Sheppard, 2012; Thornton, 2002, 2003). Though the subject matter is still considered “controversial” by her students, Crocco (2002) noted “p­edagogies of possibility exist for teaching about sexuality within the social studies. As new teachers gain comfort with their teaching environments and awake to these possibilities, they may discover openings in the curriculum for connecting to gender and sexuality” (p. 229). Franck (2002) lamented that “most teachers and curricula ignore gayness a­ltogether, failing to note the contributions of homosexuals to society or issues specific to sexuality,” but he believes strongly that “the social studies curriculum must be the place where we begin” to undo this shortcoming (pp. 284–285). In fact, he insists that a closer examination of Eleanor Roosevelt, the Harlem Renaissance, the Holocaust, and Walt Whitman’s poetry are clear openings for social studies teachers to explore the impact of sexuality and individual gay people on key events and defined time periods throughout United States history and world history. In all of these examples, sexuality and the impact of LGBTQ people are made more visible and more closely related to events in history that are covered routinely in social studies classrooms. This works against the idea that inclusion of sexuality is somehow peripheral to the larger body of work within the social studies. It is Thornton (2002, 2003), however, who speaks most directly about the possibilities of including LGBTQ‐themed topics in the social studies curriculum. He believes that changes to the social studies curriculum are most effective if they come in the form of modifying existing courses, rather than creating new ones. Therefore, he calls for “incremental changes, which may find readier and broader acceptance than radical ones” (Thornton, 2002, p. 181). He states candidly that this approach “falls short” of what must ultimately be done to affect the kind of transformation that is possible, but his suggestions represent a good start. Indeed, Thornton’s first suggestion is that, at minimum, social studies teachers should say something about the possible sexual identities of various individuals already covered in standard social studies curriculum. Mentioning the sexual identities of people like Jane Addams, Bayard Rustin, or Alexander the Great is irrelevant if this information goes unconnected to larger questions and counterproductive if it only leads to gossip (Thornton, 2002). However, making LGBTQ people visible to students may be the only step possible for



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some  teachers in certain school districts. In other scenarios, this first step could lead to more in‐depth perspective‐taking among students. Another, more effective, approach according to Thornton is for social studies teachers to start with topics where gay and lesbian-related material has substantial relevance to the subject matter. A closer examination of ancient Greece, for example, could certainly include student inquiry into the prevalence of statues prominently depicting the male form. As Thornton suggests, teachers can discuss a number of different topics that are critical to understanding life in ancient Greece without ever mentioning homosexuality. Similarly, there are many topics already included in the standard social studies curriculum that are fertile ground for LGBTQ inclusion. A unit of study on the Civil Rights Movement would certainly be enriched by discussions about the Stonewall riots and an examination of Bayard Rustin, and any number of social studies teachers who cover various aspects of Native American culture would add another layer of depth to their lessons by including the import­ ant roles performed by Two Spirit individuals (Mayo & Sheppard, 2012; Thornton, 2002). And beyond history courses, LGBTQ‐themed topics fit naturally in civics and government courses, particularly around policies concerning gays in the military and gay marriage. The  social studies curriculum offers teachers many opportunities for LGBTQ inclusion “within the confines of courses that already exist” (Thornton, 2002, p. 184). The opportunities presented within social studies curriculum, however, will go unrealized if social studies teachers do not take action. Researchers in the field have provided examples about how to introduce LGBTQ issues in teacher education programs, and they have provided a few examples of what this might look like in K–12 social studies classes. Others have discussed the need to overcome the detrimental homophobia and heterosexism that run rampant in our schools, but questions remain: Will this be enough to goad social studies teachers into action? What other possible barriers exist that keep teachers from presenting LGBTQ materials in class? These are questions that warrant more in‐depth investigation. In the meantime, Thornton’s words remain as a call to action for all teacher‐ educators, curriculum specialists, teachers, and administrators, who wish to see social studies curriculum that includes the voices, experiences, and contributions of LGBTQ p­eople. In his (2003) article in Social Education entitled “Silence on Gays and Lesbians in Social Studies Curriculum,” he stated, Teachers have choices. All teachers are curricular‐instructional gatekeepers—they largely decide the day‐to‐day curriculum and activities [that] students experience. How teachers enact curriculum, even with today’s constraints such as standards and high‐stakes tests, still matters both practically and ethically. Opportunities to incorporate at least some gay material into the standard curriculum exist; in many instances, all that is required is the will to call attention to aspects of standard subject matter that heretofore went unmentioned. (p. 228)

This call to action, what Maguth and Taylor (2014) refer to as a “clarion call,” has been followed by a noticeable increase in the amount of social studies scholarship that centers on sexuality and the lives of LGBTQ people, particularly since 2007. Though social studies researchers still refer to a “paucity of work done on this topic by practitioners and researchers in the field of social studies education” (Maguth & Taylor, p. 24), as compared to the work produced before 2002, LGBTQ scholarship in the social studies increased significantly b­etween 2007 and 2016.

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11.3.5  Recent LGBTQ‐Focused Research in the Social Studies Mayo (2007) investigated the lives of seven gay male teachers who lived in a large southern state where teachers could be fired for living an openly gay identity at school. Each teacher stressed the need to be a proper role model for his students, which meant for most of them that it was imperative to be perceived as a heterosexual male by their students. Not only did these men stress the need to be viewed as straight, but they insisted on acting out a d­ominant, hegemonic form of masculinity characterized by assertiveness, confidence, aggressiveness, and competitiveness (as cited in Connell, 1995). Blount (2004) offers a plausible explanation for these gay male teachers’ belief system: “Schools have provided compelling social education for normative sexuality and gender. Schools have defined and regulated gender identities, and school board members and administrators have attempted to hire school workers who model acceptable sexuality and gender norms for students” (p. 176). The gay teachers in Mayo (2007), four of whom were social studies teachers, therefore felt compelled to enact the dominant form of masculinity, which helped them to most effectively hide their true sexual orientation. Despite the choices made by the majority of the gay teachers in Mayo’s study, there was one teacher who lived openly gay at school and chose a different form of masculinity to perform. Describing his form of teaching as loving and understanding, this individual served as a counterexample to the dominant male performances described by the other teachers. This lone teacher stands as an example for others who endeavor to offer students alternatives to fitting into neatly categorized gender expectations. Mayo (2007) points out that he is not “suggesting that all gender norms be discarded in the hopes of promoting an appreciation for diversity and freedom of expression,” but he certainly believes that there is room for more than one type of masculine performance at school (p. 463). Although never explicitly stated by the author, the lone teacher’s choice to live openly gay also signaled to students and staff that a form of non‐normative sexuality—in this case homosexuality—is also appropriate in school settings. Recent social studies scholarship reveals that researchers have injected sexuality and the lives of LGBTQ people into the social studies by exploring themes that are viewed as stand­ ard within the field. Like Thornton (2003), Maguth and Taylor (2014) suggest that “LGBTQ people and their allies are everywhere in the curriculum” (p. 25) but that teachers simply don’t acknowledge their existence. The authors, therefore, call upon teachers to reveal more comprehensive, personal histories when talking about the worldviews, lifestyles, and advocacy of individuals like Jane Addams, Susan B. Anthony, Harvey Milk, James Baldwin, and others whose sexual orientation remain hidden within the text. They also suggest a­ctivities like the Difference Maker Project, which calls upon students to research a topic relevant to citizenship education and the LGBTQ community. Their specific question c­entered on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and whether or not “the rights of sexual minorities are protected under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause” (Maguth & Taylor, 2014, p. 26). Hess (2009) also addresses DOMA and same‐sex marriage, labeling this issue an “open question” worthy of healthy debate in social studies classrooms, given its unresolved status throughout the United States. Hess (2009) warns “avoiding the issue deprives students of the opportunity to prepare to participate in the national debate over one of the most significant civil rights issues of our time” (p. 344). Rather, she calls for teachers to help



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students “become less afraid of talking about difficult public issues” because “democracies cannot function well if we fear public discourse about our most challenging issues” (p. 349). In another example of the centrality of same‐sex marriage as a topic of interest among social studies researchers, Bailey and Cruz (2013) specifically state that teaching about same‐sex marriage increases critical thinking skills, while deepening students’ understanding of democratic processes and their awareness that they are “participating in history” (p. 298). Meanwhile, Beck (2013) notes the importance of students engaging in discussions about marriage equality, but he shows deep concern for the safety of queer‐identified students who participate in these discussions. Beck notes that it may be time “to consider psychological safety as the primary prerequisite in the controversial public issues (CPI) discussion classroom” (p. 24). He cautions that discussions that challenge dominant discourses (like heterosexuality) leave non‐normative participants at some level of risk. “Whether speaking for or against same‐sex marriage, students tended to talk as if LGBTQ students were not in the room – heterosexuality was assumed” (Beck, 2013, p. 22). Therefore, he reminds teachers to “be careful not to underestimate the pressure on students to enact the formula that males are masculine, females are feminine, and everyone is heterosexual” (p. 22). So, while issues centered on sexuality abound outside of school spaces, which make them highly relevant within the social studies classroom and for social studies research, teachers must remain consciously aware of how their lessons are impacting the diverse range of students in their classrooms. Like any number of classroom activities, there is a chance that unintended consequences may occur. In addition to the recent studies mentioned above, a special issue of the Journal of Social Studies Research (JSSR), guest‐edited by J. B. Mayo, Jr., became available in 2016, while a special issue of Social Education, guest‐edited by Gloria Alter was in press in 2016. These two special issues are entirely devoted to LGBTQ themes within the social studies. In both cases, this marks a first for these journals and represents the first time any social studies journal has produced a special issue with an LGBTQ focus since the spring 2002 issue of Theory & Research in Social Education. In both cases a combination of newer and more established scholars report findings from classroom practice, empirical studies, and conceptual critiques. Some of the new and/or updated topics explored within these special issues include: legal perspectives, curriculum inclusion, the impact of media, the intersection of religion and LGBT lives, GSAs from a Canadian context, transgender‐parent families and the Catholic Church, and concepts from educational theory, including becoming and fabulation.

11.4  Queer Theory—New Possibilities for Social Studies Research and Practice Queer theory offers social studies researchers opportunities to ask new questions and to view existing questions and concepts in nuanced ways because it disrupts the normalcy of education (Britzman, 1995), it aims to undo stability and the normalization of known categories, and because it is characterized by “fluidity, movement, and becoming rather than rigidity and stagnancy” (Mayo, 2013b, p. 359). Renn (2010) posits that queer theory may “shed light on normative constructions of socially constructed binaries such as male/female, teacher/learner, leader/follower, research/practice, and K–12/postsecondary” (p. 132).

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Abes and Kasch (2007) write that queer theory “critically analyzes the meaning of identity, focusing on intersections of identities and resisting oppressive social constructions of sexual orientation and gender” (p. 620). Mayo (2013b) cites this specific form of analysis and credits it in helping him “better comprehend the blurred spaces found between rigid identity categories—between the L, the G, the B, and the T” (p. 360) encountered during GSA meetings. Finally, Cris Mayo (2007) suggests that queer theory “works the verb ‘to queer’ to centralize the constant need for critical attention to the process of subjectification, whereby particular meanings of identity form limiting understandings of practices and communities” (p. 80). Renn (2010) expands this idea by arguing “the insights to be gained from queered analyses of apparently nonqueer organizations have the potential to move discussions of persistent, intractable, problems to new solutions” (p. 137). How the social studies prepares students to consider LGBTQ issues as part of the common good is a recent, yet persistent, question addressed by Schmidt (2010). She offers a queer analysis of the NCSS vision statement (revised in 2008) and the 1994 curriculum standards, Expectations of Excellence, because these two documents most affect curriculum and are considered foundational within the NCSS. In part, Schmidt (2010) concludes that what is “normalized in the field of social studies does not provide optimism about how students might conceive of sexuality through their education” (p. 332). The leading documents do little to disrupt students’ normalized thinking about the common good. Schmidt (2010) also offers a critical view of the discourse of sexuality found within the spring 2002 special edition of TRSE. Using queer theory and critical discourse analysis as analytical tools, Schmidt uncovers how the authors of the spring 2002 edition of TRSE unwittingly “reify [existing] social norms around sexuality and gender” (p. 319). She cites, for example, that several TRSE authors use heteronormativity and homophobia to characterize the hostile environments found in schools (Franck, 2002; Marchman, 2002; Oesterreich, 2002). Using this characterization, however, “perpetuates the association b­etween queer identities and negativity. Gay must be bad if the only images and discussions we can find are negative. Hence, the fear is perpetuated” (Schmidt, 2010, p. 320). Why would any student want to identify as LGBT or Q when these identities are always associated with things unpleasant? When all visible representations are negative, nuanced understandings of gender and sexuality are limited and the status quo remains intact. Schmidt (2010) is also critical about how LGBTQ issues are positioned as controversial and different from the norm. If they are continuously labeled in this way, then social studies teachers will always have to wonder if including LGBTQ issues will be “too controversial” for their particular school community and carry the risk of negative consequences. Further, this characterization keeps open the debate about whether these issues are legitimate additions to various units of study. In addition, Schmidt (2010) highlights that how and when LGBTQ identities are included greatly affects the messages received by students. Several authors in the spring 2002 edition of TRSE “bring voice to sexual identity when it is different from the norm, not when it is part of the norm” (p. 321). As an example, she cites how Whitman’s approach to poetry is raised because he is gay, but the same emphasis is not given to Thomas Paine’s writing of Common Sense. “Whitman, being gay, has sexuality that affects his writing; Paine, being straight, does not. Sexuality in these examples belongs only to the Other—the gay, lesbian, or bisexual person—rather than as a human attribute” (p. 321). While legitimately critical of the articles in the spring 2002 issue of TRSE, Schmidt acknowledged their overall importance to the field. They explicitly bring LGBTQ issues to



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the foreground in the social studies and in ways previously not done. The articles cover a wide range of possible sites where the lack of attention to LGBTQ issues can be addressed: in teacher education programs and in K–12 classrooms. The articles also underscore the possibilities for further LGBTQ inclusion that have, to date, largely remained unexplored. There are certainly spaces available for the future use of queer theory in the social studies and Schmidt, herself, recognizes the redress of homophobia may rest in a reconsideration of political socialization as suggested by Avery (2002). She also noted promise in the ways that Bickmore (2002) challenges heteronormativity “as a power struggle and an attempt to enforce norms of sexuality” (Schmidt, 2010, p. 322). The issues raised in the spring 2002 issue of TRSE have not become outdated in the 14 years that have passed since it was d­istributed. On the contrary, they continue to be issues of great importance for social studies researchers, preservice teachers, K–12 social studies teachers, and the students in our classrooms.

11.5  Concluding Thoughts—Future Research As a field, the social studies have the potential to alter and expand the social learning that goes on in schools, which may empower adults and young people alike to be more thoughtful about their decisions and actions. Though a national discourse centered on sexuality, LGBT lives, and queer ways of living continues predominantly outside of schools, researchers, teachers, and students within the social studies and in classrooms recognize how this discourse is steadily making its way inside schools. Social studies researchers must play a more significant role in helping teachers and students (and fellow scholars) make sense of the ever‐growing narrative and how it impacts people’s lives. While attending to the limitations of the “one hero approach” (Donahue, 2014), researchers must continue giving voice to those queer people who have been silenced over time. Just as Hess (2007) gives voice to gay Civil Rights leader Bayard Rustin in her discussion of Brother Outsider, there are many untold stories still to be written about queer people in history—from the transmen who fought in both the American Revolution and the Civil War, to LGBT people who played leading roles in the Harlem Renaissance. Further, social studies researchers can take closer examinations of well‐known events, like the Women’s Movement or the Stonewall riots, and place them within the larger context of Civil Rights. There is also great potential to draw out conceptual linkages between LGBT themes and difficult histories, which are historical narratives or memories that incorporate painful, violent, and/or traumatic events into regional or national accounts of the past. Teaching and learning difficult histories are among the most sensitive issues in humanities education, but necessary for reconciliation and judicious civic engagement. Finally, social studies researchers can offer critiques of heteronormative narratives found in social studies textbooks (Hickman & Porfilio, 2012; Leno, 2013). There is also a need for longitudinal studies within social studies research that centers LGBTQ lives. Past empirical studies on gay teachers (Mayo, 2007) and on student support groups like the GSA (Mayo, 2013a, 2013b), for example, offer only a limited view of the lives and experiences of the teachers and students involved. More complex questions can be addressed and more nuanced findings could be reported by following students in GSAs over the course of their entire middle or high school experiences or by observing LGBTQ

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teachers as they enter different phases of their careers. Given more time, social studies researchers could also engage in work that embraces intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989); instead of simply focusing on a person’s queer identity, researchers could also take into account the impact of their racial, gendered, and social class identities as well. McCready (2004a, 2004b), for example, examines the lives of gender‐non‐conforming Black boys, some of whom identify as queer. Finally, there are many potential spaces for social studies researchers to use queer theory to expose and disrupt binaries within the field, to complicate normalized ways of teaching and learning social studies, and to potentially work to break down false boundaries that have been created to uphold the disciplines within our field. Just as Schmidt (2010) offers a queered view of the NCSS vision statement and curriculum standards and Beck (2013) makes use of Judith Butler’s heterosexual matrix to unpack discussions of same‐sex marriages, future social studies researchers need to ask new, innovative questions or turn to enduring themes within the social studies using a queer lens. Loutzenheiser and MacIntosh (2004), for example, call for the recognition of a “queer citizenship” that goes beyond “an all‐encompassing inclusivity” that simply “reifies paralytic structures” because it results in “a citizenship discourse that does not address the underlying dominant ideologies” (p. 154). Citizenship that encompasses a more activist stance in the hopes of creating change may also be informed by queer theory (Quinlivan & Town, 1999). In our quest to promote so‐called safe spaces as we unpack the meaning of “controversy” in social studies classrooms, we must ask “for whom might these spaces be safe, and how the intersectionalities of sexual minority [youth] identity might alter the terms of a general heterosexualized notion of safety” (MacIntosh, 2007, p. 35). What other existing categories or bounded understandings might be disrupted by queer theory? How might queer theory challenge existing norms and limits operating within the social studies that might improve the curricu­lum and school environments for LGBTQ students? These are the kinds of questions researchers must engage while simultaneously posing new ones to forge new lines of research using this theory that works at the margins and is known for its “definitional indeterminacy … its elasticity” (Jagose, 1996). Whatever new lines of social studies research that are created using queer theory, they must ultimately impact students’ lives, namely how they interact with their peers, if we hope to witness positive social change. Adolescents have the potential to expand the membership of their “in‐groups” and the capacity to invite diverse people in, rather than push them away. Once accepted, individuals who were once ridiculed and placed on the margins, including sexual minorities and students with alternative expressions of gender, will find a space closer to the center. These outcomes will be possible when all students have engaged in a different form of social learning, one that expands their thinking and understanding of current, more‐rigid social norms. [Straight] students’ engagement with LGBTQ people within social studies lessons and in student groups like the GSA demystifies the lived experiences of queer individuals. They become more familiar, viewed as fellow human beings instead of a “category” or a group stigmatized by specific, discrete acts that can be easily objectified and rejected. The lessons learned from traditional Native understandings of gender, gender expression, and their overall worldview (Mayo & Sheppard, 2012) may help straight‐identified students accept their classmates for who they are, instead of trying to enforce conformity or tormenting their peers who are perceived as “different.” Young people who were once rejected will find acceptance, all students will learn to celebrate



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diversity in its many forms, and schools will move closer to promoting equity and social justice. Though lofty in tone, these are potential outcomes if social studies researchers deepen and expand their work focused on sexuality and LGBTQ lives and make use of queer theory.

Notes 1 Outside of the social studies and in education more generally, sexuality is understood more broadly. See Eric Rofes’ (2005) A Radical Rethinking of Sexuality and Schooling: Status Quo or Status Queer? as an example. 2 In many settings, schools have adopted a more inclusive understanding of GSAs, commonly labelled “Gay‐Straight Alliance” until April 17, 2016 when this student support group changed its name to “Genders & Sexualities Alliance.”

References Abes, E. S., & Kasch, D. (2007). Using queer theory to explore lesbian college students’ multiple dimensions of identity. Journal of College Student Development, 48, 619–636. Alter, G. (Ed.). (in press). Social Education [Special issue]. Avery, P. G. (2002) Political socialization, tolerance, and sexual identity. Theory & Research in Social Education, 30, 190–197. doi:10.1080/00933104.2002.10473190 Bailey, R. W., & Cruz, B. C. (2013). Teaching about gay civil rights: U.S. courts and the law. Social Education, 77(6), 298–303. Beck, T. A. (2013). Identity, discourse, and safety in a high school discussion of same‐sex marriage. Theory & Research in Social Education, 41, 1–32. doi:10.1080/00933104.2013.757759 Bickmore, K. (2002). How might social education resist heterosexism? Facing the impact of gender and sexual identity ideology on citizenship. Theory & Research in Social Education, 30, 198–216. doi:10.1080/00933104.2002.10473191 Blount, J. M. (2004). Same‐sex desire, gender, and social education in the twentieth century. In  C.  Woyshner, J. Watras, & M. S. Crocco (Eds.), Social education in the twentieth century: Curriculum and context for citizenship (pp. 176–191). New York, NY: Peter Lang. Britzman, D. P. (1995). Is there a queer pedagogy? Or, stop reading straight. Educational Theory, 45, 151–165. Butler, J. (1988). Performative acts and gender constitution: An essay in phenomenology and feminist theory. Theatre Journal, 40(4), 519–531. doi:10.2307/3207893 Connell, R. W. (1995). Masculinities. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Conover, P. J., & Searing, D. D. (2000). A political socialization perspective. In L. M. McDonnell, P. M. Timpane, & R. Benjamin (Eds.), Rediscovering the democratic purposes of education ( pp. 91–124). Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press. Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. The University of Chicago Legal Forum, 140, 139–167. Crocco, M. S. (2001). The missing discourse about gender and sexuality in the social studies. Theory Into Practice, 40, 65–71. doi:10.1207/s15430421tip4001_10 Crocco, M. S. (2002). Homophobic hallways: Is anyone listening? Theory & Research in Social Education, 30, 217–232. doi:10.1080/00933104.2002.10473192 Donahue, D. M. (2014). Learning from Harvey Milk: The limits and opportunities of one hero to teach about LGBTQ people and issues. The Social Studies, 105(1), 36–44.

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Franck, K.C. (2002). Rethinking homophobia: Interrogating heteronormativity in an urban school. Theory & Research in Social Education, 30, 274–286. doi:10.1080/00933104.2002.10473195 Hess, D. (2007). From Banished to Brother Outsider, Miss Navajo to An Inconvenient Truth: Documentary films as perspective‐laden narratives. Social Education, 71(4), 194–199. Hess, D. (2009). Teaching about same‐sex marriage as a policy and constitutional issue. Social Education, 73(7), 344–349. Hickman, H., & Porfilio, B. J. (2012). The new politics of the textbook: Problematizing the portrayal of marginalized groups in textbooks. New York, NY: Sense Publishers. doi:10.1007/978‐94‐6091‐912‐1 Jagose, A. (1996). Queer theory: An introduction. New York, NY: New York University Press. Kumashiro, K. K. (2009). Against common sense: Teaching and learning toward social justice. New York, NY: Routledge. Leno, M. (2013). California’s FAIR Education Act: Addressing the bullying epidemic by ending the exclusion of LGBT people and historical events in textbooks and classrooms. QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, 1, 105–110. doi:10.1353/qed.2013.0019 Linville, D. (2009). Queer theory and teen sexuality: Unclear lines. In J. Anyon (Ed.), Theory and educational research: Toward critical social explanation (pp. 153–177). New York, NY: Routledge. Loutzenheiser, L. W., & MacIntosh, L. B. (2004). Citizenships, sexualities, and education. Theory Into Practice, 43(2), 151–158. Macintosh, L. (2007). Does anyone have a Band‐Aid? Anti‐homophobia discourses and pedagogical impossibilities. Educational Studies, 41(1), 33–43. MacIntosh, L. B., & Loutzenheiser, L. W. (2006). Queering citizenship. In G. H. Richardson & D. W. Blades (Eds.), Troubling the canon of citizenship education (pp. 95–102). New York, NY: Peter Lang. Maguth, B. M., & Taylor, N. (2014). Bringing LGBTQ topics into the social studies classroom. The Social Studies, 105, 23–28. doi:10.1080/00377996.2013.788471 Marchman, B. K. (2002). Teaching about homophobia in a high school civics course. Theory and Research in Social Education, 30, 302–305. doi:10.1080/00933104.2002.10473197 Mayo, C. (2007). Queering foundations: Queer and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender educational research. Review of Research in Education, 31, 78–94. doi:10.3102/0091732X06298013 Mayo, C. (2014). LGBTQ youth & education: Policies and practices. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Mayo, Jr. J. B. (2007). Negotiating sexual orientation and classroom practice(s) at school. Theory & Research in Social Education, 35, 447–464. doi:10.1080/00933104.2007.10473344 Mayo, Jr. J. B. (2011). GLBTQ issues in the social studies. In W. B. Russell III (Ed.), Contemporary social studies: An essential reader (pp. 243–260). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Mayo, Jr. J. B. (2013a). Critical pedagogy enacted in the Gay‐Straight Alliance: New possibilities for a third space in teacher development. Educational Researcher, 42, 266–275. doi:10.3102/00131 89X13491977 Mayo, Jr. J. B. (2013b). Expanding the meaning of social education: What the social studies can learn from Gay Straight Alliances. Theory & Research in Social Education, 41, 352–381. doi:10.1080/ 00933104.2013.815489 Mayo, Jr. J. B. (Ed.). (2016). Research on LGBT issues and queer theory in the social studies. Journal of Social Studies Research, 40(3), 169–248. Mayo, Jr. J. B. & Sheppard, M. G. (2012). New social learning from Two Spirit Native Americans. The Journal of Social Studies Research, 36(3), 263–282. McCready, L. T. (2004a). Some challenges facing queer youth programs in urban high schools: Racial segregation and de‐normalizing whiteness. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Issues in Education, 1(3), 37–51. McCready, L. T. (2004b). Understanding the marginalization of gay and gender non‐conforming Black male students. Theory Into Practice, 43(2), 136–143.



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Meyer, E. J. (2007) “But I’m not gay”: What straight teachers need to know about queer theory. In W. F. Pinar & N. Rodriguez (Eds.), Queering straight teachers: Discourse and identity in education (pp. 15–29). New York, NY: Peter Lang. National Council for the Social Studies (2000). NCSS Strategic Plan. Retrieved from http://www. socialstudies.org/about/strategicplan Noddings, N. (1992). Social studies and feminism. Theory & Research in Social Education, 20(3), 230–241. doi:10.1080/00933104.1992.10505667 Oesterreich, H. (2002). “Outing” social justice: Transforming civic education within the challenges of heteronormativity, heterosexism, and homophobia. Theory & Research in Social Education, 30, 287–301. doi:10.1080/00933104.2002.10473196 Quinlivan K., & Town, S. (1999) Queer pedagogy, educational practice, and lesbian and gay youth. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 12(5), 509–524. doi:10.1080/ 095183999235926 Renn, K. A. (2010). LGBT and queer research in higher education: The state and status of the field. Educational Researcher, 39(2), 132–141. Renold, E. (2000). “Coming out”: Gender, (hetero)sexuality, and the primary school. Gender and Education, 12(3), 309–326. Rofes, E. E. (2005). A radical rethinking of sexuality and schooling: Status quo or status queer? Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Schmidt, S. J. (2010). Queering social studies: The role of social studies in normalizing citizens and sexuality in the common good. Theory & Research in Social Education, 38, 314–335. doi:10.1080 /00933104.2010.10473429 Thornton, S. J. (2002). Does everybody count as human? Theory & Research in Social Education, 30, 178–189. doi:10.1080/00933104.2002.10473189 Thornton, S. J. (2003). Silence on gays and lesbians in social studies curriculum. Social Education, 67(4), 226–230. Wade, R. (1995). Diversity taboos: Religion and sexual orientation in the social studies classroom. Social Studies and the Young Learner, 7(4), 19–22.

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Social Constructivism and Student Learning in Social Studies Stephanie van Hover and David Hicks

This chapter examines how the field of social studies has researched and continues to empirically research student learning through the theoretical framework of social constructivism.1 This presents a challenge in that we have to grapple with three “essentially contested c­oncepts” (see Gallie, 1956)—social studies, learning, and constructivism. Both definitionally and operationally “their proper use inevitably involves endless disputes about their proper uses on the part of their users” (Gallie, 1956, p. 169). Our task is made even more complex by the fact that this chapter will turn to the seminal 1991 Handbook of Research on Social Studies Teaching and Learning (Shaver, 1991) as a retrospective point of reference through which to examine how the terrain of theoretically informed constructivist and empirically based research on student learning has emerged and continues to emerge and inform our understanding of how to support the learning of all students. As part of this process, we fully acknowledge that essentially contested concepts will remain contested and that, as with any review of research, key works in the eyes of others will either be absent or missed during the literature gathering process or seen as minimized or overblown as a result of our meaning‐making process in the construction of this chapter. In order to address the complexity of these challenges, we open by articulating our stances and understandings regarding the contested concepts of social studies, learning, and constructivism. Using our definitional perimeters, we briefly provide an overview of the nature and range of empirically based research on student learning over time that shapes and is shaped by key constructivist learning principles. Then, we turn to the seminal works of Jere Brophy, Janet Alleman, and Graham Nuthall in order to wrestle with and further explore the affordances and constraints of grounding research on student learning in social studies within the theoretical framework of social constructivism. Finally, we suggest p­ossible directions to help guide and build stronger theoretical and empirically grounded connections between research and classroom practices to facilitate student learning in the social studies. The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.



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Before we begin, however, we need to recognize that the focus of our chapter is student learning through the theoretical framework of social constructivism. All too often we hear about constructivist teaching—something assumed, accepted and normalized but very rarely unpacked. As Brophy (2002) argues, this can be problematic, especially in social studies. We want to acknowledge up front the possible pitfalls when the focus shifts from social constructivism as a learning theory to social constructivism as a framework for instruction. In the transition to envisioning a social constructivist learning environment, social constructivism is represented as an inquiry-driven, discussion‐based environment with the teacher fostering, facilitating, scaffolding, and guiding discourse (Brophy, 2002). Such a vision of teaching is subsequently positioned at one end of the instructional s­pectrum—the “good end”—while the opposing end of the spectrum, standing in direct opposition, is the specter of direct instruction with the teacher front and center engaging in explicit and rote instruction, with the focus on transmission of content (see Brophy, 2002; Nuthall, 2002; O’Donnell, 2012). The traditional/transmission model versus the social c­onstructivist model of teaching is reductive, however, and leads to a number of false assumptions or oversimplifications that have the potential to hinder both research and practice. Such a binary denies the complexity of teaching and learning in terms of accounting for context, student differences, and curricular goals. Contrasting models of instruction implies that teachers are required to choose one model over the other. Such a false/forced choice fails to recognize the possibility or “need for a judicious blend” of strategies to support an instructional sequence (Brophy, 2002, p. ix), and that this “judicious blend” can still be considered social constructivist if underpinned by the belief that individual knowledge construction and ways of thinking emerge through discourse (Brophy, 2002). We open with this point as our review of the literature indicates that in the field of social studies, research on social constructivist teaching often overshadows a focus on student learning. Additionally, we need to acknowledge that there is a fairly extensive body of social studies research on student thinking, student perceptions (see Hicks, van Hover, Doolittle, & VanFossen, 2012); such research is absolutely vital and necessary for our field, but we argue that research on student thinking is distinct from research that explores student learning in classrooms, in context. We suggest that future directions to advance the field should include a greater focus on student learning and, in this chapter we examine the research and explore how much social studies as a field articulates what we know about s­tudent learning through a social constructivist framework. To begin, however, we discuss the contested concepts—social studies, learning, and constructivism—to provide definitional perimeters to frame this chapter.

12.1  Contested Concepts Social studies as a term or concept has, as Parker argues (2010), multiple meanings and debates about its nature and purpose have raged since its inception in 1916 (Nelson, 1994). Thornton (2008) characterizes these debates as “social studies as social science” (discrete disciplines loosely organized under one umbrella) versus a conception of “social studies as social education” (an integrated approach focused on civic competence). And while it is true, as Grossman, Schoenfeld, and Lee (2005) asserted, “that the competing definitions of ‘social studies’ have made it difficult for the field to develop a commonly embraced set of

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standards” (p. 209), the recently published College, Career & Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies Standards (National Council for the Social Studies, 2013) represents an important attempt by the field (over 20 states and 15 national social studies content organizations participated) to coalesce around a shared set of principles. The C3 Framework (2013) centers on: a set of interlocking and mutually reinforcing ideas that feature the four dimensions of informed inquiry in social studies: (1) developing questions and planning inquiries; (2) applying disciplinary concepts and tools; (3) evaluating sources and using evidence; and (4) communicating conclusions and taking informed action. (p. 17)

While neither universally adopted nor agreed upon by all, the C3 Framework, does, as asserted in its “Scholarly Rationale,” elucidate disciplined ways of thinking that translate into goals for student learning in social studies and that, the document states, “build directly from the findings laid out in research on how students learn” (p. 82). This emphasis on student learning is important because, as Hattie and Yates (2014) assert, learning as a theme is: too often absent from discussions about schooling. Instead the focus of discussion is too often about teaching; this is not to say that teaching is unimportant, but the purpose of teaching surely relates to learning. (p. xii)

They define learning as ‘“developing sufficient surface knowledge (an idea or ideas) to form conceptual understanding (by relating ideas and extending ideas)” (p. xii). And yet, the concept “learning” remains a contested concept in that the literature identifies a number of different learning theories or frameworks: for example, constructivism, behaviorism, c­ ognitivism and, more recently, learning sciences. Each of these offers multifaceted conceptual frameworks or philosophical positions on the nature of knowledge, what it means to know, and how people learn (e.g., Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 2000; Hattie & Yates, 2014; Willingham, 2009). Certain disciplines or fields of study favor particular frameworks over others, and often definitions and understandings are shaped by historical, political, and sociocultural contexts (Sawyer, 2006). Theoretical frameworks of learning are not necessarily mutually exclusive or in direct opposition or tension with each other. As Cobb (1994) suggests, theoretical frameworks such as constructivism and sociocultural theories can be seen as complementary in fleshing out both the psychological and social aspects of the story of learning. Within the social studies the framework “constructivism” has received some attention as a tool to help explain and understand teaching and student learning (e.g., Brophy, 2002; Doolittle & Hicks, 2003). However, even in cognitive psychology and the learning s­ciences— the fields that have dedicated the most attention to studying this theory—constructivism is itself a contested concept. As O’Donnell (2012), writing a chapter for the most recent APA Educational Psychology Handbook, observes, there is “no single constructivist theory,” and that it “is difficult to pin down [as] it is at once a philosophy of education, an orientation toward curricular design, a pedagogical strategy, and a description of how individual psychology operates” (p. 80). The word “constructivism” is used as a keyword for innumerable publications across fields—O’Donnell noted that in 2007, Tobin counted more than 3,000



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since the mid‐1970s—and many of these articles devote their entire word count to exploring the different types of epistemological assumptions of, and multidimensional perspectives on, constructivism and constructivist theories (see, for example, Green & Gredler, 2002; Moshman, 1982; Prawat, 1996). Brophy (2002), however, reminds us that constructivism is “primarily a theory of learning” as opposed to theory of teaching (p. ix). That is, empirically, constructivism focuses on understanding the nature of knowledge and when and how knowledge is constructed. As a theory of learning, constructivism is founded upon four key philosophical tenets: Tenet 1: Knowledge is not passively accumulated, but rather is the result of active cognizing by the individual. Tenet 2: Cognition is an adaptive process that functions to make an individual’s cognition and behavior more viable, given a particular environment or goal. Tenet 3: Cognition organizes and makes sense of one’s experience, and is not a process to render an accurate representation of an external reality. Tenet 4: Knowing has its roots in both biological/neurological construction and in social, cultural, and language‐based interactions (see Doolittle & Hicks, 2003, pp. 76–77). These tenets, however, are emphasized in different ways. Moshman (1982), for example, outlined a model of constructivism that recognized the different emphases of the role of environment (the external nature of knowledge) versus active internal cognizing (the internal nature of knowledge) in the debate over where and how learning occurs. In an effort to clarify this complexity, Moshman’s (1982) framework distinguished between: (1) exogenous constructivism (new knowledge is derived from the environment—social processing); (2) endogenous constructivism (new knowledge is the result of the individual actively constructing, [adapting, assimilating and accommodating] new knowledge from existing knowledge and schemas with little regard for social processing); and, (3) dialectical constructivism (new knowledge construction derives from the ongoing interactions between the environment and the individual). A variation of dialectical constructivism that has arguably gained some traction within the field of social studies is social constructivism. Social constructivism is a “moderate form of constructivism,” one that embraces all four tenets detailed above (Doolittle & Hicks, 2003, p. 79). Social constructivist theory recognizes that learners actively construct their own knowledge and that new learning is a function of an individual’s existing understandings and experiences. Ultimately, social constructivism stresses the primacy of contextually specific social interactions within and through various discourse communities. As Lemke (2001) notes, social interactions are “central and necessary to learning and not merely ancillary” (p. 296). Social constructivism’s emphasis on the dialogic processes inherent in language, culture, context and community as a source of learning has held a great deal of appeal for the social studies field, a field that values authentic intellectual work, perspective taking, collaboration, discussion and disciplined inquiry as emphasized in the C3 Framework (2013). This does not mean that constructivism or social constructivism is consistently or explicitly identified and used as a framework to support empirical research on student learning within the social studies literature. We argue that social constructivism is often the p­enumbra—the shadow—that implicitly frames or undergirds research on student learning

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in social studies but is rarely named, unpacked and explored in an explicit, in‐depth manner. This may well be the result of the contested and complicated nature of constructivism itself, the practical and pragmatic difficulties inherent in studying and making visible student learning, and the ongoing struggles and debates to define and conceptualize the field of social studies in an era of standards and high stakes testing. And yet, while certain concepts and theoretical frameworks continue to be contested—and to evolve—we also recognize that there are key learning principles (synthesized from social (dialectical) constructivism and research in cognitive psychology) that are well supported by research in the field of cognitive psychology. And many of these principles—explicitly and implicitly—are the “shadows” that shape and are shaped by social studies research studies on student learning.

12.2  Social Studies, Student Learning & Social Constructivist Principles Constructivist learning principles fundamentally reflect an understanding that knowledge construction and meaning making are individually and socially active processes. That is, while individuals construct their own meanings within the structures of their prior knowledge and experiences, new knowledge structures emerge within and through an individual’s ongoing socially and culturally mediated activities—their interactions, negotiations, and shared discourse practices—as they negotiate their everyday contexts and communities (see Applefield, Huber, & Moallem, 2001; Moshman, 1982; O’Donnell, 2012; Packer & Goicoechea, 2000; von Glasersfeld, 1995). The core principles include (but are not limited to): (1) the need for authentic learning tasks; (2) providing opportunities to process information into deeper conceptual understandings; (3) constructing and extending a learner’s prior knowledge; (4) the use of strategy instruction, tools, and scaffolds to support complex learning; (5) engaging in social mediation (in the form of collaboration and conversation among learners) to articulate ideas; and (6) using reflection and metacognition to become self‐regulated learners. Best practice research in social studies—as evidenced by the C3 Framework (2013)— elucidates a vision of inquiry‐based discipline‐specific literacy work in which students learn the knowledge, understandings, and tools that allow them make sense of the world, past, present and future. If this is the end goal of social studies instruction and if the key principles listed above are demonstrated to facilitate student learning, to what extent has and does empirical research in our field attended to or explored these principles? It is useful to turn to the 1991 Handbook on Social Studies Teaching and Learning in order to provide insight into how this vein of research has developed over time. The 1991 Handbook is an interesting case in that there was no specific mention of the terms constructivism or social constructivism. Yet, many authors did recognize the impact of work done in the cognitive sciences. In particular, certain chapters reference the work of Piaget and Vygotsky in order to help frame and understand the complex, active and interactional construction of learning and knowledge growth in terms of the impact of students’ prior knowledge, the impact of context, and the importance of interactions and language to support the processing and organization of information (see Cornbleth, 1991; Downey & Levstik 1991; Gay, 1991; Martorella, 1991; Wilen & White, 1991; Wyner & Farquhar, 1991). Importantly, several authors referenced research from outside of the social studies, work that highlighted the need for social studies researchers to pay attention to the emerging



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contributions of cognitive science in order to more fruitfully move the field forward. For example, in discussing adolescent social, moral, and cognitive development, Mackey (1991) suggests: Social studies research will be enhanced if more cognitive science theories and methods are used. Cognitive science models should be used to examine a wide variety of research questions. How do adolescents process textual materials? How do they relate new social information to prior knowledge? And what kinds of misconceptions do adolescents bring to the study of social issues? The most important contribution that cognitive science can make to social studies research is, however, to focus attention on how adolescents perceive the social world and make choices in their own words on their own terms. (p. 142)

Since 1991, researchers on social studies learning have explored many of the research questions raised by Mackey and, in doing so, have implicitly or explicitly grounded their research in constructivist learning principles (see Hicks et al., 2012; VanSledright & Limón, 2006). This work explores the complexity of how students come to acquire and use knowledge and what it means to “know” in social studies within and across the four core disciplines (history, civics, geography, and economics) (see, for example, Bednarz, Heffron, Huynh, 2013; Donovan & Bransford, 2005; Kneppers, Elshout‐Mohr, van Boxtel, van Hout‐ Wolters, 2007; Miller & Vanfossen, 2008; Monte‐Sano & Cochran, 2009; Parker et al., 2011; Reisman, 2012; Shin, 2007; VanSledright & Limón, 2006). As Barton and Avery (2016) observe in an extensive review of the extant literature in the field, research in social studies has generated an “appreciable body of findings” that focus on students’ thinking and the impact of instruction (p. 985). Research across the core disciplines of social studies varies in terms of depth and breadth. The fields of history and civics have a more extensive and robust body of work exploring student learning with a small but growing number in geography and economics (see Anthamatten, 2010; Baiio & Ray, 2011; Barton, 2008; Barton & Avery, 2016; Donovan & Bransford, 2005; Hicks et al., 2012; VanSledright & Limón, 2006). And, an increasing number of studies explore how students’ racial and ethnic identities influence their ideas about social studies—where and how they learn, the role of context in influencing their understandings (see, for example, Epstein, 2009; Levy, 2014). The depth of research across learning principles varies and certain principles have a more extensive empirical research base. A fairly robust body of research, for example, indirectly or directly examines the social contexts of students’ understanding of social studies (e.g., Tyson, 2002; Wineburg, Mosborg, Porat & Duncan, 2007), prior knowledge and s­tudent learning (e.g., Ashby, Lee, & Shemilt, 2005), and social mediation of knowledge construction (Bain, 2005; Epstein, 2000; Saye & Brush, 1999). Less work has been done on fostering the transfer of learning (e.g., Parker et al., 2011), or on scaffolding student learning (Saye & Brush, 2007). Rarely does the research on student learning in social studies fit neatly under one core constructivist principle, but given the complexity of what it means to understand how students learn, this is not a criticism. And, as noted earlier, most of this research does not explicitly identify or unpack the principles but, rather, we contend that the work is shaped by and shapes our understandings of student learning in social studies. For example, in their book, The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education, Hess and McAvoy (2015) describe their findings from a mixed method, longitudinal study of high school social studies courses that include deliberations of controversial issues.

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They investigated two questions: (1) How do high school students experience and learn from participating in social studies courses that emphasize the discussion of controversial international and/or domestic issues? (2) Do such discussions influence students’ political and civic participation after they use high school? If so, what are the pathways to participation? Sources included 1,001 students and 35 teachers from 21 high schools in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. The authors frame their work within the argument that schools are “and ought to be political sites” and that the political classroom is one that “helps students develop their ability to deliberate political questions” (p. 4), and that these questions should have “m­ultiple and competing views” (p. 5). Students should learn to engage in deliberation and discussion in order to construct “knowledge that is predicated on the belief that the most powerful ideas can be produced when people are expressing their ideas on a topic and listening to others expressing theirs” (Hess, 2009, p. 14). Hess and McAvoy (2015) studied classrooms that implemented an authentic learning task—discussion and deliberation of controversial issues—that asks students to weigh e­vidence, consider competing views, form an opinion, articulate that opinion and respond to those who disagree. Discussion is an instructional approach that highlights the role of social mediation in student learning, such that the construction of knowledge is initiated and maintained by verbal, behavioral, and cultural interaction (Hicks et al., 2012, p. 294). How students experienced (and did or did not learn from) this authentic learning task varied, but the findings emphasize the role of situational, verbal, and social contexts in how students make sense of controversial issues. That is, the classroom, school, community, family, political and personal factors interact in complex ways to impact student learning. Similarly, Hess and McAvoy’s (2015) work indicates that students’ prior knowledge influenced how they experienced and what they learned from discussion. As the authors noted, students’ experiences in the classroom “interact in powerful ways with the kinds of civic and political knowledge, attitudes, and experiences that students bring into the classroom” and they also asserted that “social class and other demographic factors … influence student experience and learning in the classrooms” (p. 46). Hess and McAvoy’s (2015) book does not employ a social constructivist framework, nor do (or should) the authors purposefully unpack or mention the core constructivist principles. Yet this work offers significant findings for the research base on student learning in social studies and touches on (to varying degrees of depth) all of the core principles. Hess and McAvoy’s (2015) study finds that an authentic learning task (discussion) can impact student learning; that discussion can provide students meaningful opportunities to process information into deeper conceptual understandings about citizenship and active participation in democracy; that a learners’ prior knowledge directly influences how they experience and make sense of discussing controversial issues; that (in certain classrooms/cases described in the book) the use of strategy instruction, scaffolds, and reflection can help all learners engage in and learn from discussion; and that positive learning can take place from engaging in social mediation (in the form of discussion among students). Most empirical research on student learning in social studies is similar to Hess and McAvoy’s and falls under what we, after an extensive review of the literature, argue is the “shadow effect” of social constructivism. The study implicitly attends to the core constructivist principles, and adds to our research on student learning, but does not employ social constructivism as an explicit framework. This raises a question—should landmark work



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like this book explicitly trace the provenance of its theoretical underpinnings? Or is the “shadow effect” enough? We argue that this is a question the field should reflect on. Beyond the shadow, there is work within social studies that explicitly employs the framework of social constructivism, but it is limited in number. We conducted an exhaustive search using multiple education databases (EBSCO, Education Full Text, PsychInfo, Google Scholar, Dissertations & Thesis Full Text, Education Research Complete, ERIC) using the key words constructivism, learning, social constructivism, social studies, classrooms, and all of the disciplines under the umbrella of social studies. We also drew on recent handbooks (e.g., Levstik & Tyson, 2008) and handbook chapters (e.g., VanSledright & Limón, 2006), including our chapter for the APA Educational Psychology Handbook (Hicks et al., 2012). These searches revealed very few empirical research studies on student learning in social studies that were explicitly grounded in a theoretical framework of social constructivism (see Karaduman & Gultekin, 2007). There are studies, however, that explore social constructivist teaching (see, for example, Blaik‐Hourani, 2011; Doolittle & Hicks, 2003; Jadallah, 2000; Molebash, 2002; Obenchain, Pennington, & Orr, 2010; Okolo, Ferretti, & MacArthur, 2002; VanSledright & James, 2002). And, social constructivism is referenced in a number of  research studies that examined the integration of technology into the social studies (e.g., Ayas, 2006). However, much of the focus in those articles is using digital technologies to shift from transmission models to more constructivist models of teaching; the emphasis is on the shift in teaching and not about the nature of learning across contexts. There were rare examples of research that explicitly employed social constructivism as a theoretical framework to study student learning in classroom contexts. As an illustrative example, a search of the flagship journal in the social studies Theory & Research in Social Education (1973–2014) using the key word constructivism through EBSCO Host located only 33 articles. A closer read of the 33 articles revealed that only two specifically used social constructivism as a theoretical framework for examining some aspect of student learning (see Journell, 2008; Zhang, Torney‐Purta, & Barber, 2012). The first study, by Wayne Journell (2008), employed a social constructivist framework in order to study the effectiveness and quality of asynchronous communications between secondary level students taking an online U.S. History course. He argues that within the teaching of history, a social constructivist framework stresses interpretation, perspective, and evidentiary warrant over finding truths. He references early psychological research on the learning of history that found “students approach history with preconceived notions of historical reality” and argues that a “social constructivist framework would emphasize the need to clarify these preconceived notions through social interaction, exploration, and negotiation” (p. 319). Discussions, Journell asserts, “are a powerful tool for constructivist pedagogy in social studies” because they “reinforce the teacher’s role as a knowledge facilitator rather than a knowledge giver.” Journell studied a virtual five‐week U.S. History course, focusing on the following research questions: (1) How effective is asynchronous discussion in facilitating substan­ tive historical discussion among adolescents? (2) What factors appear to affect the quality of historical discussions within an asynchronous format? And (3) What is the role of the teacher with respect to these factors? (p. 325). Journell (2008) found that the discussion board interactions lacked depth and substance, included many unsubstantiated claims, and were characterized by passive agreement, brief responses and unequal levels of participation across students. This social component of the course did not achieve the learning goals of

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discussion, to allow students to explore multiple perspectives, weigh evidence, or compare claims. Journell argues that “from a social constructivist standpoint, [the discussion] component of the courses must be considered a disappointment” (p. 343) and notes that the teacher (Mr. Harding) could have done more to facilitate and encourage rich discussion. The second paper, by Zhang et al. (2012), utilized a social constructivism framework to frame their analysis of the International Association for the Evaluation of Education Achievement Civic Education study data (IEA CIVED). The authors reported on two studies in which they examined the development of young people’s civic conceptual knowledge and skills attainment in relation to their classroom experiences and their teachers’ qualifications. They chose social constructivism to frame their studies as they contend there is limited theory to help illuminate “how procedural knowledge is represented and related to declarative knowledge” and that while social constructivist theory does not delineate between procedural and declarative knowledge, it does “view the acquisition of knowledge as a higher order psychological process mediated by social interaction and embedded in contexts” (Zhang et al., p. 3). This framework, they argue, offered a valuable lens through which to consider the role of context and the impact of educational environments (including interactions with teachers, peers, parents, etc.) in students’ acquisition of civic conceptual knowledge and process skills (p. 4). Their first study examined responses to the IEA CIVED survey results from a total of 2,811 ninth graders from the United States. From this, the researchers identified four cognitive attributes underlying the test items: basic conceptual knowledge; advanced conceptual knowledge and reasoning; reasoning about and analyzing media graphics and materials about issues in the media; and reasoning about and analyzing opinion and applying principles in synthesizing factual knowledge (p. 10). The second study, examining 1,322 U.S. students from 68 schools, used a four‐category system of cognitive profiles; this four pattern classification served as the dependent variable, while the predictors of achievement were the characteristics of teachers in terms of participation in civic based in‐service training and teacher confidence in teaching political topics. To control for individual differences, the authors included in their analyses students’ reports of their classroom experiences and activities (open classroom climate and activities and traditional classroom climate and activities), and a composite measure of students’ socioeconomic status. The findings indicate that exposure to content is a key to developing basic conceptual knowledge, and that students with limitations in basic conceptual knowledge were more likely to have experienced a “conceptually thin curriculum” (p. 22). The authors asserted that “as suggested by social constructivism theory, students construct their knowledge by meaningful participation in learning‐rich environments and interactions in discussions with others” and that “students’ classroom interactive engagement appears to be vital for conceptual knowledge acquisition” (p. 22). Traditional classroom activities (e.g., lecture and the use of textbooks), the authors reported, were important for skill mastery and suggested that certain skills can be developed and reinforced by traditional teaching practices. As a result of this and other  findings, Zhang et al. suggested that further research should be conducted on the “interplay” between discussion‐based activities and more traditional forms of instruction. In summary, our review of the literature yielded very few examples of empirical research studies that explicitly utilized social constructivism as a framework for investigating student learning in the social studies. And, our work reviewing this body of literature prompted us to consider the problems, potential and pitfalls of utilizing social constructivism as a



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theoretical framework for student learning in social studies. We began to view “social c­onstructivism as a theoretical framework” as a contested idea in and of itself. To unpack this issue further, we turn to work by Jere Brophy, Janet Alleman and Graham Nuthall, researchers whom we argue purposely ground their work, explore, and problematize the f­easibility of social constructivism as a framework for teaching and student learning in social studies.

12.3  Brophy, Alleman, Nuthall & Social Constructivism In a 2001 speech (the Jean Herbison Lecture in New Zealand) entitled “The Cultural Myths and Realities of Teaching and Learning,” Graham Nuthall described his journey from a researcher of teachers’ teaching experiences, to a researcher of students’ learning experiences, to a researcher of the interactions between teaching and learning. Responding, in part, to debates “within social constructivist and sociocultural literature about how to describe and resolve the relation between the individual and the social during the learning process” (Nuthall, 1996, p. 210), Nuthall produced a seminal line of systematic and sophisticated research focused on elementary and middle school students’ learning in science and social studies units that mapped out the processes (and outcomes) of how learning occurs and is shaped within and through social contexts. As Brophy (2002), notes, Nuthall’s work— though not without a critical eye—“gravitated toward social constructivist theories” (p. 530) and sought to make explicit “the cognitive processes that underlie the acquisition and construction of new knowledge, and to describe, through an analysis of individual students’ classroom experiences, how these processes arise from, and are shaped by, the social processes and cultural structures of the classroom” (Nuthall, 1999, p. 142; see also, Nuthall, 2000, 2005). In order to explore the highly layered and complex interactional relationship between social experience and cognition, Nuthall and his colleagues designed a detailed methodological protocol that included: (1) the development of an assessment directly aligned to learning outcomes of a unit of study; (2) pretesting students 2–3 weeks prior to the teaching of that unit; (c) detailed observations, as well as video‐ and audio‐recordings of students during the teaching of the unit (all students were individually mic’ed, with 4–6 students in each class to be continuously observed and recorded through the unit); (3) short‐term posttests and interviews of students 2–3 weeks after the unit; (4) long‐term posttests and interviews 8–12 months after the unit; and (5) creation of a concept file for each student (see Nuthall, 2000). The concept files detailed experiences by an individual student related to a particular concept, proposition or principle and were analyzed to identify the “information/content, sequence, timing, and other significant characteristics of the relevant experiences” (Nuthall, 2000, p. 255). Using this protocol over a series of studies, Nuthall’s work indicated that students’ understandings of key social studies concepts, principles, and prepositions were shaped through sequences of classroom activities and within/through the formal, informal (and even surreptitious and private) patterns of discourse between teachers and students and students themselves. Nuthall’s research captured the interactional complexity of learning and illustrated how knowledge construction through classroom activities is “a function of processes that take place in working memory … [that] these processes are the product of internalizing

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the behaviors that constitute classroom activities, and … differences in what students learnt are a function of the different ways in which they experience and participate in classroom activities” (Nuthall, 1999, p. 242; see Nuthall, 2000). Importantly, based on his data collection protocols, Nuthall and his colleagues were able to predict with 80–85% accuracy the particular concepts, propositions and principles individual students would learn and recall as demonstrated on the short‐term and long‐term outcome test and associated interviews. Key characteristics of social constructivist learning theory also informed Jere Brophy and Janet Alleman’s research trajectory, which examined how elementary students develop an understanding of cultural universals such as shelter, food, clothing, and transportation (e.g., Brophy & Alleman, 2000, 2005). As Brophy (2002) articulated, “like most contempor­ ary educators, I find much that is attractive in social constructivist approaches to learning and teaching” (p. xii). Evidence of the influence of social constructivism can be found in their focus on how children use “situational schemas built up through prior experiences as templates for understanding information about how people in other terms and places have responded to parallel situations” (see Brophy and Alleman, 2006, p. 44). Their research highlights the extent of young children’s limited prior knowledge regarding cultural universals and that young children acquire very little understanding of them through their everyday experiences across various contexts. This finding, they argued, highlighted the need to design effective instruction to support the teaching of cultural universals at the elementary level. And, in response to this finding, Brophy and Alleman developed a research trajectory— based in the classroom of Barbara Knighton, an elementary teacher—to explore the effective implementation of instructional sequences around cultural universals and big ideas (Brophy, Alleman & Knighton, 2009). In doing so, Brophy (2002) recognized the inherently difficult transition from social constructivism as a framework for understanding learning to a framework for approaching teaching. This transition was hindered, he noted, by the fact that social constructivism is primarily a theory of learning focusing on the nature of knowledge and knowledge construction. When offered up as a framework for teaching, it  is  typically presented as a reified model that can be implemented universally across varying contexts (see Brophy, 2002, pp. xv–xvi). As Brophy (2002) reflected: romantic or otherwise misguided interpretations of social constructivism have led to questionable practice in teaching and teacher education. Some teachers are being led to believe that frontal teaching, skills practice, and independent work on assignments are simply inappropriate and should not occur in their classroom (which should focus instead on whole‐class discussions and small group cooperative learning activities). Other teachers are getting the impression that anything that involves discussion or hands‐on activity serves worthwhile curricular purposes and will induce students to construct significant understandings. Concerns about such problems have caused leading social constructivist spokespersons to criticize much of what has been advocated in the name of social constructivism and to clarify that a complete instructional program will include transmission as well as constructivist aspects … and that its constructivist aspects embody principles that are much more complex and sophisticated than a simple admonition not to equate teaching with telling. (p. xiv)

Brophy and Alleman’s research articulated the necessity of a more flexible, sophisticated and balanced approach in the transition from social constructivism as a framework for learning to a framework for practice. And, in this transition, they stressed the importance



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of establishing a firm base of content understanding through transmission and adapting discourse models to allow elementary students to express themselves in ways that allowed them to personalize their understanding through real-world connections and experiences while avoiding the sharing of student misconceptions and irrelevant tangential noise that distort big picture ideas and deviate from key learning objectives. The work by Jere Brophy, Janet Alleman, and Graham Nuthall highlights the possibility of social constructivism as a framework for deep, longitudinal research on student learning in the social studies. They all recognized and puzzled through the difficult shift required in implementing social constructivist learning principles into actual social constructivist teaching. And, the significance of their work also lies in their attempts to make the “invisible visible” (student learning), to consider implications for social studies instructional practice, and to explore the role of social constructivism as theory (and/or framework) for learning and teaching.

12.4  Social Constructivism as a Framework for Research This chapter opened by exploring three essentially contested concepts—social studies, s­tudent learning, and social constructivism—and closes by recognizing that perhaps the beauty (and potential) of utilizing social constructivism as a framework for empirically investigating student learning lie in its complexity, its potential for contestation, and its c­ompatibility with other theoretical frameworks for learning. We argue that social constructivism as a theoretical framework can serve as a generator of opportunity to make sense of student learning in and across complex contexts. That said, there are limitations and strengths to all theoretical frameworks; while we are ourselves not theorists, we suggest that it is important for the field to have a strong, working knowledge of theories of learning—their strengths, limitations, myths, provenance, points of connection. Hattie and Yates (2014) go so far as to argue that many involved in the education profession writ large “would struggle to name two competing learning theories, let alone defend a notion of learning,” and suggest that “the analysis of learning lies at the heart of [education]” (p. xii). Our review suggests that the “analysis of learning” is a challenging, complex task—to make the invisible visible. Yet, work by Brophy, Alleman, and Nuthall indicates that purposeful, rich, multilayered longitudinal studies of student experiences can offer invaluable insight into what it means to know, understand—and learn—in social studies classrooms. Their work, and the work of Journell, Zhang et al., and others also highlight the complexity inherent in teasing apart learning and teaching. Teaching is a visible activity and in an inquiry‐driven field like social studies, social constructivism as a theory of teaching has a great deal of explanatory power in thinking about learning and the design of learning environments. In fact, most books that describe and address principles of learning do so through a discussion of implications of principles of learning for the classroom, for instruction (e.g., Donovan & Bransford, 2005; Hattie & Yates, 2014; Willingham, 2009). The danger, as Brophy rightly points out, is to keep an eye out for avoiding the “myths” of social constructivist teaching and to maintain a focus on student learning. Exploring learning within a framework of social constructivism is challenging but, we argue, a worthwhile endeavor for the field.

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We suggest that moving forward, the field should continue to grapple with the contested concepts of social constructivism as a framework for empirical research on student learning in social studies classrooms. Additionally, we contend that it would be helpful to disentangle research on student thinking from classroom‐based research on student learning. Viewing these as two distinct veins of research activities—both requiring a clear and explicit theoretical framework—will provide a more refined understanding about how students learn and how students think. And the field should continue to conduct research on student learning that is shaped by and shapes the “shadow” of the constructivist principles of learning. Paying attention to principles of learning as gleaned from such frameworks as social constructivism aids in the production of more nuanced and focused research and subsequent theory generation and refinement. Such understandings can then provide a baseline from which researchers can push, stretch and poach to explain what has been observed, and what can move the field forward.

Note 1 The editorial board recommended this focus in an effort to allow for a clear and specific focus on student learning within the theoretical framework section.

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Democratic Citizenship Education Research Across Multiple Landscapes and Contexts Antonio J. Castro and Ryan T. Knowles

The 2008 Handbook of Research in Social Studies Education (Levstik & Tyson, 2008) c­aptured the changing milieu of the public school classroom and tackled issues of citizenship, diversity, social justice, and global education. Amid these chapters, its authors addressed the enduring question: How ought educators to prepare future citizens for an ever‐changing, culturally complex, globally connected democratic society? Other volumes published in 2008 and since also furthered our understandings of democratic citizenship education. For example, Arthur, Davies, and Hahn (2008) edited The Sage Handbook of Education for Citizenship and Democracy, a text featuring reviews of citizenship education and related issues occurring across a variety of different global c­ontexts. In her Foreword, Judith Torney‐Purta (2008) suggested that this handbook offered a “unique” contribution because it invited scholars from diverse disciplines and fields. “Its authors are specialists in political studies, sociologists, philosophers, and curriculum specialists,” she wrote, “as well as individuals familiar with learning and psychological processes and with the preparation of teachers” (p. xx). Likewise, in the publication of the  2010 Handbook of Research in Civic Engagement in Youth, its editors purported that “the field of youth civic engagement has come of age” (Sherrod, Torney‐Purta, & Flanagan, 2010, p. 1). This volume presented chapters on issues of political socialization research, theories of civic development, reviews of citizenship in various countries, and discussions of m­ethodological issues related to research in youth civic engagement. Hence from 2008 to 2010, these three handbooks (Research in Social Studies Education, Education for Citizenship and Democracy, and Research in Civic Engagement in Youth) collectively provide researchers rich and deep insights about democratic citizenship education. As a collection, these chapters remind scholars that democratic citizenship education represents a complex phenomenon that has been studied from a variety of disciplinary approaches, theoretical perspectives, philosophical positions, and methodological tools.

The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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This chapter attempts to integrate the perspectives of various scholars to investigate the question we mentioned at the beginning of this chapter—how educators might prepare future citizens for an ever‐changing, culturally complex, globally connected democratic society. We explore tensions surrounding citizenship and issues of race, culture, gender, class and equity identified by Parker (2008), Banks and Nguyen (2008), Bickmore (2008), Crocco (2008) and others in the earlier Handbook of Research in Social Studies Education. These tensions, we argue, trouble any generic understanding of democratic citizenship e­ducation, civic identities, or how teachers ought to teach for citizenship. Thus, our review of the research literature seeks to question what researchers know from scholarship, how scholars approach the varied contexts that influence citizenship, and which teaching practices support which vision of citizenship and for whom in the classroom. First, we briefly define democratic citizenship education. Political scientist Robert Dahl (1972, 1999) distinguished between ideal democracy and real democracy. Ideal democracy envisions democracy as both a social good and a goal for civic interaction in people’s daily lives (Dewey, 1916/2007). According to Walter Parker (2003), this concept of democracy asserts that citizens create a democratic way of life in how they engage others within their larger political sphere and also their smaller civic spaces and/or voluntary associations. Citizens participate in democratic ways to improve their society, beyond mere voting, and therefore “take popular sovereignty seriously” (p. 24). Dahl (1999) argued that societies that support ideal democracy must exhibit principles of equal participation in civic life by actively promoting access to a variety of interests during political deliberation and ensuring that all views are given equal consideration. On the other hand, Dahl (1999) defined real democracy as the actual political structures and practices occurring within a society. Hence, a gap might exist between ideal and real democracy within a political sphere. For example, a recent study by Gilens and Page (2014) reported that the interests of economic elites and organized business groups, not the p­references of the average citizen, heavily influenced government policy in the United States. Their study points to the inability of common citizens to control the policy decision‐making agenda, especially when the citizens’ interests do not align with business interests. Ultimately, Gilens and Page’s analysis illuminates shortcomings regarding the realization of ideal democracy. Democratic citizenship education prepares youth to address the complex aspects of democratic life as exemplified in the tensions of ideal and real democracy. Hess (2009) explains “democratic education both honestly addresses the political work outside of school and represents that political realm as dynamic, thereby, emphasizing the ongoing transformation of society [towards more ideal democracy]” (p. 15). Parker (2003) defines democratic citizens as “people who are capable of democratic living, who want it, and who are determined to achieve it—to work toward the fuller realization of democratic ideals” (p. 1). Likewise, Banks and Nguyen (2008) argue that in multicultural societies democratic citizens “endorse the overarching ideals of the nation‐state, such as justice and equality, are committed to the maintenance and perpetuation of these ideals, and are willing and able to take action to help close the gap between their nation’s democratic ideals and practices that violate those ideals” (p. 142). These definitions of democratic citizenship encompass both a  reverence for ideal democracy and the recognition that societies struggle towards its r­ealization. We find that most of the research in citizenship education evokes these twin tenets (the ideal and its realization) when describing democratic citizenship education. In this chapter, we explore the tensions that still persist in how scholars, teacher educators, and teachers define citizenship and envision and implement its practices.



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13.1  Landscapes in the Research on Democratic Citizenship Education Here, we present a broad overview of research trends in democratic citizenship education across the areas of political socialization, psychological, and sociological views of citizenship, and curricular and instructional issues of citizenship education. Much of the early work on citizenship education was conducted by political scientists. Political socialization research, a subfield of political science, largely conceptualized the development of political knowledge and attitudes as products of environmental influences. In the 1960s and 1970s, political socialization scholars “sought to identity the links between particular inputs (messages from family, school, and media) and outputs (student knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors) in the belief that these would predict adult orientations [for civic participation]” (Hahn & Alviar‐Martin, 2008, p. 81). Criticized for its deterministic nature, political socialization research now addresses the ways in which young people engage in and experience civic life. Scholars expanded upon the perceived limitations of political socialization research, which often positioned the developing citizen as passive, molded in a top‐down fashion (Haste, 2010). This newer approach to research in civic engagement increasingly utilized constructivist theories in portraying youth as active constructors of meaning (Torney‐Purta, Lehmann, Oswald & Schulz, 2001; Torney‐Purta, Schwille, & Amadeo, 1999). Wilkenfeld, Lauckhardt, and Torney‐Purta (2010), for example, identified four key principles in the role of developmental theories as they relate to the civic formation. These include that (a) youth are active participants in their development, (b) development occurs in a bidirectional relationship between the youth and her/his environment, (c) civic formation continues/discontinues in a variety of settings, and (d) opportunities for civic development differ based on contexts. They analyzed civic development through the lens of various theories: social cognitive theory, moral development theories, role‐taking theories, psychological theories, and ecological theories. Furthermore, these authors described two theories specifically related to civic development: motivational change (Pearce & Larson, 2006), which identifies a three‐step engagement process for youth and their commitment to civic action, and sociopolitical development theory (Watts, Griffith, & Abdul‐Adil, 1999; Watts, Williams, & Jagers, 2003), which focuses on the development of critical consciousness in youth and how this may lead to activism. This attention to youth as active participants in the civic formation process—a result of the shift towards more constructivist orientations—can also be noted within the literature on political efficacy. Defined as an individual’s confidence to exercise deliberate actions in order to contribute to social and/or political change (Beaumont, 2010), political efficacy research demonstrates a strong connection between political efficacy and later political participation (see Becker, 2004; Cohen, Vogoda & Samorly, 2001; Guyton, 1988; Paulsen, 1991). However, several factors influence how youth choose to engage or disengage with political processes. Bennett, Wells, and Rank (2009) found that the very nature of political participation itself changes over time across different generations, with some generations valuing voting as a form of political involvement and others seeing local activism as more influential. Indeed, reports such as Diverse, Disillusioned and Divided: Millennial Values and Voter Engagement in the 2012 Election (Jones, Cox, Navarro‐Rivera, 2012) speak to a growing distrust of the political process among millennial youth. Scholars have yet to determine how this mistrust might influence civic participation in youth today.

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Overall, according to Brooks and Holford (2009), current research in citizenship development grapples with questions of how youth develop as citizens, what role schools play in this development, what ought to be the content of civic education, how education should respond to social divisions and societal diversity, and how education should address national and postnational citizenship (e.g., global citizenship). Research studies document the influence of school classroom climate on students’ commitment to democratic ideals (e.g., Flanagan, 2013; Flanagan, Cumsille, Gill, & Gallay, 2007; Torney‐Purta, Richardson, & Barber, 2004), students’ later participation in political and community engagement (e.g., Duke, Skay, Pettingell, & Borowsky, 2008; Smith, 1999), and students’ political efficacy (e.g., Levy, 2011, 2013).Clearly, schools and civic education influence the civic development of youth. Indeed, Torney‐Purta (2002) asserted that from a pragmatic perspective, “schools are the public setting in which young people spend the largest amount of time from ages 6 until 17, and teachers are uniquely positioned to influence civic knowledge, attitudes, and behavior across socioeconomic groups” (p. 203). These trends emerging from more recent studies challenged what used to be the “conventional wisdom” (Galston, 2004, p. 265) among researchers that civic education made little difference to youth civic development. Galston (2001) summarized the sentiments of this early criticism of civic education courses in public schools. He wrote: [I]t does not follow that civic education is the key mechanism [for civic development]. To begin with, all education is civic education in the sense that individuals’ level of general educational attainment significantly affects their level of political knowledge as well as the quantity and  character of their political participation. In addition, noneducational institutions and processes—families, ethnic groups, voluntary associations and concrete political events, among others—are crucial influences on civic formation. (p. 219)

Again, current research efforts have demonstrated that civic education programs and schooling practices do make significant contributions to the civic development of youth (e.g., Flanagan, Stoppa, Syvertsen, & Stout, 2010; McLeod, Shan, Hess, & Lee, 2010). However, early criticism points out limitations in the research and challenges assumptions about civic education and schooling in general. For example, while some scholars might view schools as democratic spaces, Biesta, Lawy, and Kelly (2009) concluded that “many young people continue to regard school as a non‐democratic institution suffused with rules and regulations” (p. 21). We address the research surrounding the extent to which schools can be viewed as democratic spaces later in this chapter. Finally, questions of what to teach in citizenship education and how to teach for citizenship education have dominated much of the research in the social studies. For example, Knight Abowitz and Harnish (2006) reviewed citizenship education materials and identified three citizenship discourses: civic republicanism, liberal citizenship, and critical citizenship. Evans (2008) distinguished between three pedagogical orientations to civic education: transmission (the teaching of basic civic knowledge), transactional (the learning of civic skills and competencies to participate in democracy), and transformative (the preparation of citizens who will transform society through activism). These orientations roughly align with three types of citizenship identified by Westheimer and Kahne (2004; see also Kahne & Sporte, 2008; Patterson, Doppen, & Misco, 2012): personally‐responsible citizens, participatory citizens, and social justice‐oriented citizens. Most scholars lament the persistence



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of transmission‐oriented teaching and personally‐responsible citizenship because such teaching presents a “thin” conception of democracy rather than a “thick” conception of democracy (Kennedy, Hahn, & Lee, 2008), which aligns more with democratic citizenship education as defined earlier. As a result, scholars have explored varied aspects of democratic citizenship and utilized a variety of frameworks, such as multicultural/cultural citizenship (Banks, 2008; Castro, 2010, 2013; Dilworth, 2004, 2008; Marri, 2005; Rosaldo, 1999), active and participatory citizenship (Hess & Avery, 2008; Parker, 2008; A. Ross, 2008), and social justice forms of citizenship (Bickmore, 2008; Papastephanou, 2008; Zipin & Reid, 2008). These represent only a few of the various and often‐times overlapping perspectives toward democratic citizenship education. Yet, all of these approaches adopt Dahl’s (1999) notion of ideal democracy and work towards its realization by educating youth with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that might bring about that realization.

13.2  Civic Communities of Practice: A Conceptual Framework for Investigating Dilemmas in Democratic Citizenship Education In building a framework to explore enduring tensions and dilemmas in democratic citizenship, we borrow heavily from the work of Torney‐Purta, Amadeo, and Andolina (2010), who argue for an overriding conceptual model that would guide both quantitative and qualitative research around a common vision for civic engagement. Such conceptual consistency allows researchers to focus efforts towards common goals, using similar c­oncepts and measurements that would facilitate greater synthesis across the research l­iterature. These scholars advocate using a Communities of Practice model for civic engagement (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Lave and Wenger (1991) studied learning as it occurs in informal settings, such as in f­amilies, apprenticeships, or communal groups. For youth, learning progresses in stages as the young person first observes the practice of community from the periphery, what Lave and Wenger referred to as legitimate peripheral participation. Later, the youth acquires novice skills through the guidance of a community member and then gains acceptance into the community of practice as she or he is socialized into that community and acts in ways consistent with community standards. This movement from the periphery of the community and then to acceptance into the community by first learning and then demonstrating its practices explains how youth are influenced by families and other socializing agents. For example, parents who discuss political issues and events with children, participate in the political process, and engage in an activism model for their children evidence particular civic actions which influence their future civic development (McIntosh & Youniss, 2010). Torney‐Purta et al. (2010), McIntosh and Youniss (2010), and Levinson and Brantmeier (2006) all view this situated learning as a fundamental aspect for the development of citizenship. Indeed, the very notion of a community of practice mirrors much of the idea that citizenship occurs within socially‐constructed spaces— what Dewey (1916/2007) called mini polities. As Levinson and Brantmeier (2006) suggest, “Communities of practice are seen as social sites for the most powerful and lasting kinds of learning. Because they involve the co‐production of identity, communities of practice anchor learning in enduring structures of the self ” (p. 325). Hence, in youth civic

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Table 13.1  A framework for generating research questions and appropriate methods of assessing civic engagement (from Torney‐Purta, Amadeo, & Andolina, 2010) Independent variables: Aspect of Dependent variables

The person

The context

The socialization process

Meaning Identity Agency/Efficacy Practice/Action

development a community of practice represents a civic sphere from which youth garner a sense of identity. Youniss, McLellan, and Yates (1997) propose that civic identities are formed as youth acquire a disposition towards citizenship and civic character that becomes embedded in how they see themselves. Indeed, all civic learning entails some aspect of identity formation. Drawing on the communities of practice model, Torney‐Purta et al. (2010) propose that researchers consider a specific set of dependent variables (or civic outcomes) and independent variables (or influencing factors) that would guide both quantitative and qualitative research (see Table 13.1). These dependent variables include: meaning (the civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions of a person), civic identity (identification with voting group or civic self‐image), agency/efficacy (external/internal, contextualized, other motives), and practice/action (e.g., voting, volunteering). They present these three independent variables: person (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity, immigrant status, family background), context (e.g., country, region/city, neighborhood, economic situation, curriculum climate), and socialization process (e.g., observational learning, apprenticeship, scaffolding by adults, socialization factors). In this way, research can be categorized based on which combinations of factors are part of the research design. Sample research questions might include: What are the differences by age or gender with regard to political efficacy (person variables, civic identity)? How does living in one neighborhood influence the civic actions taken by citizens as compared with those in another neighborhood (contexts, practice/agency)? What kinds of schooling atmosphere best promotes civic efficacy (process, civic identity)? This model allows scholars to determine the kinds of questions that are being explored f­requently in the research literature and to identify those which beckon more attention. For us, this model offers both insights and dilemmas. First, we recognize that citizenship, like any cultural phenomenon, is bounded by the contexts and civic spaces in which it is enacted. Civic communities of practice refer to everyday spaces where youth have differential experiences and outcomes. Biesta et al. (2009) assert, “Different contexts provide different opportunities for acting and being, and thus different opportunities for citizenship learning” (p. 17). They describe four types of spaces: unavoidable (situations like family that individuals must interact with), compulsory (like schooling), voluntary (associations, clubs), and ambiguous (like work environments that include more than one of these descriptions). Across these contexts, Biesta (2010) establishes that youth already have a form of political existence in their everyday civic spaces and that their experiences and preferences for civic actions might differ dramatically from the kinds of democratic



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activities imposed in schools; this disjuncture is particularly evident in marginalized c­ommunities, where certain actions, such as voting, may be seen as having little utility. Noting typical school‐constructed democratic activities such as student government and classroom deliberation, Biesta (2007) remarks, “deliberation is, after all, only one of the ways in which individuals can act, can be a subject, and can come into the world—and it is not necessarily the way that fits everyone” (p. 762). Indeed, Biesta et al. (2009) found that many students felt constrained by the regulations imposed by teachers and schools. Hence, the first dilemma arising from this civic communities of practice framework as identified by Biesta involves questioning if schools actually represent democratic spaces, and if so, for whom? At the heart of this dilemma is the recognition that marginalized youth may often experience a civic reality in their community life and socialization that is misaligned with the spaces constructed within schools and corresponding cultural assumptions taken for granted by teachers, administrators, and curriculum developers. Despite endeavors to construct schools as laboratories for democracy (Flanagan, 2013; Flanagan et al., 2010), scholars have long criticized public schools as promoting a middle‐ class, Anglo‐American bias (Anyon, 1979, Apple, 2006). The common assumption is that “it is the task of schools to ‘create’ and ‘produce’ such individuals [citizens]” (Biesta, 2007, p. 742). This instrumentalist view of citizenship education purports a very specific kind of democratic engagement and mandates an assumption about what a civic space ought to be, regardless of whether or not students exist in this imagined civic space. Instrumentalist views of citizenship education can impose a dangerous deficit‐oriented, top‐down vision of middle‐class citizenry on marginalized communities. Consider the assumption embedded in the work of many scholars that political engagement (voting, petitioning, protesting) can actually bring about change in governmental policies. While this may be true for some communities whose civic spheres carry tremendous influence and power in the political arena, civic spheres for low‐income and marginalized individuals may be more concerned with the daily tasks of survival and lack the necessary social, economic, and cultural capital to play politics in the middle‐class White world (see Schutz, 2008). Indeed, Rubin (2007) explains why certain low‐income, marginalized students saw little value in political engagement: “What has previously been described as ‘disengagement’ in the civic education literature may actually, for marginalized students, be a rational response to the disjunctures [between ideal and real democracy] they experience in society that purports equality but delivers injustice” (p. 474). Hence, not voting can be a rational reaction from marginalized communities to a political system the offers little, if any, opportunities for empowerment. Unexamined instrumentalist views of citizenship education ignore the daily political existence of youth and their lived and real civic spaces that influence their civic identities. Research in democratic citizenship education ought to attend to the varied civic contexts represented by students in today’s classrooms. A second dilemma posed by using the civic communities of practice framework centers on the role of one’s sociocultural identity as a critical component for citizenship education. We cite Rubin’s (2007) concern here: As youth develop, they create meaning, identity, and a sense of themselves in the world by using a variety of sources, including existing constructions of ethnicity, race, gender, and social class. Yet studies of young people’s development of civic identity frequently overlook the meaning youth, and urban youth in particular, make of their daily experiences with civic

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i­nstitutions and their agents (e.g., teachers, police, social workers) amid the cultural practices and structural inequalities that surround them. (p. 450)

Banks and Nguyen (2010) noted that traditional Western views of citizenship founded on liberalism privilege individual rights and individual identity over group identity. However, they argued that cultural identities are essential aspects of civic identity and ought to be fostered in citizenship education. Other identities, such as gender and sexual orientations, also influence how a person engages as a citizen within her or his varied civic spaces. Consider Crocco’s (2008) call for a “newer consideration of citizenship” (p. 177). She identified three types of analysis for social studies researchers: an analysis of differences based on gender, race, class, and sexual orientation; an analysis of how social studies theories and practices address these differences; and an analysis of the attention being afforded to gender and sexuality in the priorities of scholars and teacher educators. These approaches to analysis can help scholars unpack some of the complexity related to civic identity development. In doing so, scholars ought to explore citizenship and civic ideas across multiple identities, acknowledging that identities are fluid and varied by contexts. Hence, from our discussion of using a civic communities of practice framework as conceptual tool for understanding the research literature, we are left with two overarching dilemmas: 1. How might researchers explore citizenship across variations of space and contexts? 2. How might researchers interrogate the role of identity (race, class, gender, sexuality, etc.) on formation of civic identity? These suggest a series of sub‐questions that we also bring to bear upon the research: To what extent do schools serve as democratic spaces? To what extent does citizenship education impose predetermined assumptions of citizenship on students? To what extent do ideas about citizenship acknowledge the fluidity, diversity, and multiplicity of identity and its interactions across different civic spaces?

13.3  Research in Democratic Citizenship Education In this review of the empirical literature on democratic citizenship education, we present findings from a mixture of synthesis chapters found in the various handbooks identified earlier. We also review specific research studies that illuminate unique aspects of democratic citizenship education. This review is not exhaustive; instead we delimited our review to research articles published usually within the last 15 years in peer‐reviewed journals in social studies, citizenship education, political science, and education. Furthermore, we focused mainly on research related to citizenship education and development occurring in the United States. At times, we relied heavily on summaries about the research reported by one or more chapters in the handbooks mentioned earlier. Specifically, for this chapter we investigated the research on youth understanding of democratic citizenship, research on the influence of various identities on citizenship learning and education, and research on schools as democratic spaces.



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13.3.1  Research on Youth Understanding of Democratic Citizenship We identified three trends that summarize scholarship about youth understanding citizenship in the United States: a gap in civic knowledge and political efficacy across race, class, and gender; a generational mistrust of political institutions and of the efficacy of typical types of political engagement (e.g., voting); and a dominant individualistic conception of democracy. We discuss each of these trends and refer to the relevant research literature. Gaps in civic knowledge.  According to Hahn (2010), research studies reveal that certain groups of students tend to score lower than others on tests of civic and political knowledge. Specifically, “students from low‐income families, students whose parents had little education, and students who are African American or Hispanic” (Hahn, 2010, p. 7) score lower than their middle‐class, Anglo‐American peers. Hahn (2003), furthermore, reported from her analysis of the International Association for the Evaluation of Education Achievement in Civic Education (IEA CIVED) study that gaps in civic‐political knowledge were also related to the socioeconomic makeup of the schools; students in low‐incomes schools, where more than 25% of the school received free and reduced lunch, performed significantly lower than their more affluent peers. Hahn (2003) identified other factors associated with this gap, including lower levels of parental education, fewer literacy and civic resources in the home, and limited opportunities to engage in democratic discussions or democratic classroom practices in the school. In their analysis of the Citizenship Participation Study, Verba, Schlozman, and Burns (2003) demonstrated that inequality in political participation, like generational poverty, can be traced across generations with socioeconomic status and rates of education being the primary determinants of political activity; the authors acknowledged the relationship ­between class and race. Verba et al. recognized that class privilege and parents’ educational attainment strongly influenced the educational attainment and civic‐political knowledge of children. Likewise, Hart and Atkins (2002) indicated that many minorities who live in poverty may lack civic role models. In terms of gender, Avery, Levy, and Simmons (2012), Crocco (2008) and Hahn, Bernard‐ Powers, Crocco and Woyshner (2007) cited an array of studies that indicate female adolescent students generally scored higher than their male counterparts on National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) civic tests and similar tests of civic skills and exhibit no significant differences as compared to males on measures of civic‐political knowledge. In addition, as compared to males, female students demonstrated higher levels of trust in governmental institutions, greater support for gender equity and women’s rights, and more support for political parties; females were also more likely to report that they expected to vote as adults, participate in civic activism for a cause, and support environmental protection (Crocco, 2008; Hahn et al., 2007; Hahn & Quaynor, 2012). Generational shift away from  traditional political engagement.  For the past two decades, scholars have observed that youth are less likely than previous generations to embrace traditional political engagement. As Youniss, Bales, Diversi, McLaughlin, and Silbereisen (2002) commented, “The general picture that emerges is one of apathy toward traditional politics, but interest in a range of nonmainstream forms of civil involvement that can become mobilized” (p. 128). Thus, many youth prefer civic engagement

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(e.g., volunteering in communities) as opposed to political engagement (e.g., voting, joining a political party). In the United States, youth service learning marks a “cohort‐defining phenomenon” (Youniss et al., 2002, p. 128), with 65% of youth claiming to have performed service in the last year. Chiodo and Martin (2007) found that rural students’ conceptions of citizenship were far more attentive to the social as opposed to the political aspects of citizenship. They concluded, “In students’ minds, social responsibilities supersede political responsibilities” (p. 27), especially since most adolescents do not vote or participate in other forms of political engagement. Zukin, Keeter, Andolina, Jenkins, and Delli Carpini (2006) suggested that younger generations are participating in civic life differently, rather than less, in comparison to older cohorts. Dalton (2008) echoed this finding by demonstrating a shift in citizenship norms away from traditional duty‐based citizenship to more engaged notions of citizenship among younger cohorts. Although scholars are unclear about the degree to which the current generation will be involved in the more formal political sphere, Wray‐Lake and Flanagan (2012) suspected that this generation of youth will indeed participate in more traditional political activities as they get older. Individualistic notions of  democracy.  Research studies consistently report that youth hold individualistic views about citizenship and democracy, viewing democracy as securing individual rights and freedoms, and viewing civic duties as encompassing individual actions rather than group actions. In their secondary analysis of the IEA CIVED study, Kennedy, Hahn and Lee (2008) found 14‐year‐old students in the United States generally “associate ‘good’ citizenship’ less with following and discussing political affairs than with voting and more passive and complaint behaviors such as respecting leaders and knowing the country’s history” (p. 65). Indeed, while U.S. students favored volunteerism and assisting in their communities, they primarily connected actions such as voting and respecting governmental leaders as important to citizenship. When asked to define democracy on an open‐ ended question of the NAEP test in civics, only 53% of U.S. students provided an acceptable answer. Themes in the student responses included answers on individual freedom and rights, representative democracy and majority rule, and civic equality (Flanagan, Gallay, Gill, Gallay, & Nti, 2005). In another study of how students define democracy, U.S. youth were found to emphasize individual freedoms as a central feature of a democracy (Avery et al., 2012). Across two additional studies, involving a survey of 509 eighth and eleventh grade students (Chiodo & Martin, 2005) and interviews of 46 middle school (grades 6–8) students (Hickey, 2002), researchers found similar results. Students described good citizens as “helping others; obeying rules and laws; patriotism/loyalty; and respect for others” (Chiodo & Martin, 2005, p. 25). These definitions suggested that U.S. youth hold thin conceptions of democracy and citizenship. In their analysis of the IEA CIVED Study, Torney‐Purta and Barber (2011) identified five clusters to describe attitudes that youth from across four Western European countries and the U.S. hold with regards to politics and human rights. The social justice cluster represented youth who support minority rights, immigrant rights, and women’s rights. The conventionally oriented cluster characterized adolescents who support active involvement through voting and volunteering in community (similar to participatory citizens described by Westerheimer and Kahne, 2004). The conventional/inclusive cluster captured students who both support the status quo, but also support minority and immigrant rights. The indifferent cluster described students who only seek to do the minimum as a citizen. Those in the



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disaffected cluster, like the indifferent, sought only minimal involvement in civic communities, but seemed less interested in political engagement. Finally, the alienated cluster described youth who express negative attitudes toward the rights of immigrants and minorities. In the study, the largest category consisted of students in the disaffected cluster, indicating that most youth felt distant from political processes and involvement. In the United States, the disaffected included 35.4% of the sample of 2,811 14‐year‐old students; however, the second largest category of conventional/inclusive (32.9%) indicated that a third of U.S. youth generally favor equality of opportunity and individual effort. Likewise, Williamson et al. (2003) noted that American “society places strong emphasis on self‐reliance, independence, competition, and freedom of expression” (p. 204). Their survey of 121 ninth and twelfth grade civics students in the upper Midwest identified 22 statements that describe a civic activity. When worded in the survey item as something that should be a “duty” of a citizen (e.g., learning about other cultures is a duty of a citizen), participants felt reluctant to agree with such statements; however, when worded as something that was “important” for good citizenship (e.g., learning about other cultures is important for good citizenship), respondents were more likely to rate these items favorably. These findings illuminated how U.S. youth defined civic participation as voluntary and individual, rather than as a duty. Of course, variations in the way youth envision citizenship and democracy exist across contexts and identities. For example, Chiodo and Martin (2007) surveyed 695 eighth and eleventh grade students living in five rural school districts and interviewed 54 of these students about their conceptions of citizenship. They found that rural students identified good citizenship as helping others, obeying rules and laws, being patriotic and loyal, and respecting others. These students supported community service as a way to enact good citizenship. Native Americans students in the study spoke of citizenship primarily in terms of supporting the tribal community and volunteering within the reservation. Overall, Chiodo and Martin suggested that rural students viewed citizenship as communal, noting that community‐school ties are stronger in smaller towns where schools serve also as community meeting places. Likewise, differences in contexts also influence how students think about democracy and American society. Cornbleth (2002) asked 25 students in three different high schools (two urban, one suburban) how they define what it means to be American. Lincoln Magnet School catered to working-class families, of which 60% were African American. Johnson High School absorbed a large immigrant population of Hispanic‐Puerto Rican students. Eisenhower High, the only suburban school, had an upper middle-class student body, 92% of whom were of European descent. In this school, one group of students had just completed a two‐week civil rights unit taught by an African American teacher. Overall, students equated the meaning of America to: the presence of inequity in America; freedom of rights and opportunities; and diversity based on race, ethnicity, culture and geography. While most students in the three schools (over 70% in each school) cited issues of inequity, specifically based on racism and discrimination, only students from the urban schools referred to their personal experiences. At Eisenhower, the students who had just completed the civil rights unit agreed more with their urban peers than those inside their own school that in­equity was a problem in America. These students, however, could only provide examples from the unit they had recently studied and not from personal experiences of racial discrimination. Cornbleth’s study points out that contexts involve much more than the demographics of a school, but also include the types of learning and culture within its classrooms.

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13.3.2  Research on Influence of Class, Race, Ethnic, LBGTQ, and Global Identities on Citizenship Much of the research literature related to identity and citizenship focuses on the democratic divide (McLeod et  al., 2010), or the gap between democratic participation based on educational attainment, the civic empowerment gap (Levinson, 2010), or the unequal d­istribution of political power in the United States oftentimes based on race and class. Few studies have looked at the influences of gender and sexuality with regards to citizenship education (Hahn et al., 2007). Across the three handbooks published from 2008 to 2010, only Crocco (2008) offered a review of literature indicating gender differences with regards to conceptions of citizenship (also see Hahn et al., 2007). Furthermore, the research literature mostly attends to African American and Latino ethnic communities and severely neglects the views of indigenous populations in the U.S. and the relationship between tribal identification and U.S. civic identification. In the literature, the intersectionality of race/ethnicity and class is often assumed (e.g., low‐income, high minority context), which make it difficult to distinguish between class and/or racial/ethnic influences. The role of  class, educational attainment, and  privilege.  Much of the research on the influence of socioeconomic status on citizenship also incorporates issues of race and e­thnicity. Sherrod (2003) reported that overall, poor and marginalized youth experience different opportunities to engage in civic‐related activities, such as extracurricular activities, community service, and other forms of civic engagement (see Hart & Atkins, 2002; Hart, Atkins, & Ford, 1998). This limited exposure decreases the ability of poor youth to increase their civic and political knowledge and to hone specific civic resources (Levinson, 2010; Verba et al., 2003). Perhaps the most pressing concern in the literature with regards to poverty involves the limited rate of educational attainment across multiple generations in poor families. McLeod et al. (2010) related how the level of educational attainment most significantly predicted greater civic and political engagement. The research literature also points out specific differences between low‐income minorities and middle‐class minorities. First, low‐income minorities interact less with members of the majority culture (Flanagan, Syvertsen, Gill, & Gallay, 2009), perceived less discrimination and, thereby, did less to prepare youth for coping with bias (Hughes et al., 2006), and adopted views that support the current status quo (Jost, Pelham, Sheldon, & Sullivan, 2003). For example, Flanagan and Tucker (1999) demonstrated that poor minorities attributed poverty to individual and meritocratic factors, rather than to structural factors. Part of the reason, they inferred, involved youth not wanting to feel being trapped into a cycle of poverty and unable to affect social change. On the other hand, minorities who gained social mobility and who interacted more with the majority culture reported encountering prejudice and often advocated for their group rights (Flanagan et al., 2009; Hughes et al., 2006). While both groups experienced discrimination, they differed in their perspective and response to these issues. Most of the research literature on class refers to low‐income populations; we found one study that addresses the ways in which privileged students conceptualize citizenship. Swalwell (2013) reported findings from a case study of 11 juniors enrolled in an American History class within an elite private school, which held social justice as one of its core principles. Based on her analysis, most participants equated citizenship with being a benevolent



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benefactor and saw injustice as a misfortune for others. They did not view something inherently wrong with the institutional status quo. These individuals felt that privileged persons should be grateful for their fortune and be charitable. Swalwell noted that students who identified with being privileged were less likely to hold a social justice orientation to citizenship, suggesting that participants were unwilling to fully acknowledge the roots of their privilege. This finding echoes other research that indicates that privileged youth often rationalize their positions of privilege (see Gaztambide‐Fernandez & Howard, 2011; Howard, 2008). Clearly, more research is needed to distinguish these facets of social class and their influence on citizenship education for youth. The influences of  ethnicity and  race on  citizenship.  Generally, unlike their European American counterparts, individuals from ethnically diverse backgrounds associate allegiances to ethnic identities as positive for democracy (Huo & Molina, 2006), with minority youth asserting strong allegiances to their perceived community (Bogard & Sherrod, 2008). Flanagan, Cumsille, Gill, and Gallay (2007) traced findings across the research literature about the influence of ethnicity on citizenship and concluded that minority youth tend to be more cynical and less trusting about government, tend to doubt the American dream of social mobility, and tend to rely on personal experiences with discrimination when considering democratic issues and citizenship. Fine, Burns, Payne, and Torre (2004) conducted 11 focus groups of 101 minority youth attending schools in California. They determined that minority students in low‐income, urban schools reported feeling suspicious about the government and the economy, felt let down by their school systems, and had little faith in schooling to obtain personal goals. However, some studies have shown that minority youth responded positively to respectful classroom environments and schools build on models of discussion (Flanagan et al., 2007; Torney‐Purta, Barber, & Wilkenfeld, 2007). A few studies investigated how experiences with discrimination might influence minority youth civic commitments and views of citizenship. First, Flanagan et al. (2009) explored the relationship between experiences of prejudice, levels of civic commitment, and identifications with beliefs of the tenets of American society. They found that participants who experienced discrimination exhibited less beliefs in ideal American tenets. They explained: The fact that reports of discrimination were significantly and inversely related to beliefs in the American promise points to the political implications of these experiences insofar as they undermine adolescents’ general beliefs that the United States is a land of equal opportunity. If you do not believe that the system is fair, why would they want to be stakeholders in that system? (Flanagan et al., 2009, p. 514)

Rubin (2006, 2007) discovered similar results from her focus group data of roughly 80 students from low‐income schools. Participants evaluated the degree to which traditional American values expressed in America’s founding documents were still relevant to their daily lives and their experiences. Rubin (2007) constructed a typology for citizenship identity that incorporates the influence of race and ethnicity. In her typology, citizenship was divided into active and passive forms. When a person’s lived experiences mirror the values and tenets of American society, that person may express an aware citizenship (active), where she or he recognizes privilege and instances of injustice occurring in everyday life, but not be strongly affected by discrimination. That same person may also exhibit complacent

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citizenship (passive form), where she or he supports the preservation of the status quo. On the other hand, when a minority youth reports a disjunction between her or his life experiences and the qualities of transformative citizenship, that person may possess an active form of empowered citizenship, whereby she or he acts towards social change through activism, or a passive form of discouraged citizenship, where she or he becomes cynical of the political process and may be unwilling to participate in voting or other forms of political engagement. Overall, the nature of a person’s civic identity will heavily influence how that person expresses her or his civic commitments throughout their life. Influence of LGBTQ identities on citizenship.  Russell, Toomey, Crockett, and Laub (2010) present a thorough review of the research literature on LGBTQ youth and civic engagement in the Handbook of Research on Civic Engagement in Youth. They assert that LGBTQ and questioning youth experience a double‐bind, whereby not only do they lack full citizenship rights as minors, but they question whether or not they will be able to fully participate in civic life as non‐heterosexuals. These authors define sexual citizenship as “sexual rights that can be conceptualized in three dimensions: rights to sexual practice, rights to self‐identification, and rights within social institutions and validations of those rights” (p. 473). Simply put, can LGBTQ youth expect to be free to disclose their sexual identity, marry the person they choose to marry, and experience civic and legal protections afforded to their heterosexual peers? The research regarding activism of LGBTQ students suggests that youth who maintain a strong collectivist identity and are nurtured to feel validated and legitimized in that identity do participate successfully in civic action. Current research centers on the use of Gay– Straight Alliances (GSA, renamed Genders & Sexualities Alliance, April 17, 2016) and the Queer Youth Advocacy Day (QYAD) activities as models to engage youth in civic dialogue and advocacy around rights to sexual citizenship (Russell et al., 2010). These forums allow “youth the right to formulate a viewpoint, express it to those with power, and have the viewpoint be taken seriously by those with power” (Russell et al., 2010, p. 489). In social studies education, a few scholars, such as J. B. Mayo (2013a) and Sandra Schmidt (2010), challenge the field of social studies to consider LGBTQ concerns within conceptions of citizenship (Crocco, 2008). Few empirical studies have explored LGBTQ youth and their civic concerns within the social studies research tradition (e.g., Beck, 2013; Mayo, 2013a, 2013b, 2013c). For example, Beck (2013), in a classroom study of discussion on same‐sex marriage, discovered that for students to truly engage in a controversial dialogue about these issues it would require “students to simultaneously address the policy question and manage how others perceived their identities” (p. 22). Hence, those speaking in favor of same‐sex marriage may have attempted to speak in neutral, heteronormative terms—silencing homosexual classmates or discouraging disclosure for fear of how others might judge LGBTQ students. Within the very act of dialogue, LGBTQ students grappled with multiple issues of identity, legitimization, and safety. While themes related to holding a collectivistic identity and experiencing legitimization appear important in scholarship, additional research must explore the varying natures of sexual citizenship, civic and political life of LGBTQ youth, and how youth manage multiple civic and personal identities. Influence of global and immigrant identities on citizenship.  Few research studies have explored the role of having an immigrant or global identity on views of citizenship. Banks and Nguyen (2008) suggested that cultural and global identities complement national‐civic identities.



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Likewise, despite arguments that holding ethnic and global identities would lead to the erosion of citizenship purported by Schlesinger (1992) and later Huntington (2004), Jenson’s (2010) review of the research literature indicates that adopting such cultural and global identities actually fosters deeper civic engagement among immigrant youth. For example, in a qualitative study of Asian Indian and Salvadoran immigrant adolescents and their parents, Jensen (2008) found that youth participated in civic engagement to bridge their home culture and American society. Jensen (2010) summarized that “in some cases immigrant youth and their parents spoke not only of acting upon American ideals in the United States, but also of exporting those ideals back to their country of origin” (p. 431). Here, these immigrant families built ties and associations with their new American context and maintained their ties with their culture of origin. Jenson (2010) also noted that immigrant youth with strong cultural identities oftentimes were compelled to civic action as a way to preserve their cultural heritage, “push back” against negative media portrayals, and to support community members. While research about global education and the broadening of teachers’ preparation to teach immigrants has been conducted (Zong, Wilson, & Quashiga, 2008), much more research is needed about first‐ and second‐generation immigrant youth and how their civic identities might develop. Given our attention to the construction of civic communities of practices, we discuss three qualitative studies that illustrate varied influences of global identities on how youth identity affects their citizenship. First Abu El‐Haj (2007) investigated the experiences, beliefs, and civic identities of Palestinian American high school students living in a large U.S. city. These students, many of them having been born in the U.S., had been raised within a close‐ knit, Palestinian community, where they adopted Arabic identities and sought to support Palestinians in the West Bank. As first and second generation Americans, these students grappled with tensions between being a citizen of the U.S., being Americanized, and holding onto Arab cultural identities and traits. In their afterschool club, these students debated the tensions of being American in their daily lives versus being Arab. Drawing on Ong’s (1999) notion of “flexible citizenship,” Abu El‐Haj demonstrated how these students as members of a transnational community envisioned themselves within a larger global community, using their status of U.S. citizens to “mobilize social, political, and economic resources across national borders to respond to shifting political and economic conditions” (p. 298). Likewise, Knight (2011) described Kwame, an African immigrant who attended high school in the United States. Like the participants in Abu El‐Haj’s study, Kwame adopted a sense of global citizenry. According to Knight, “His notions of civic engagement reveal m­ultiple forms and allegiances that are flexible and relational” (p. 1278). For example, at the age of 23, Kwame obtained U.S. citizenship while maintaining his cultural and familial ties to Ghana—practicing both American mores and Ghanaian traditions in his everyday life. Like the Palestinian youth, he constructed citizenship within global terms. Thus, as an American citizen, he saw “his vote as a vote for the world” (p. 1291) and defined his civic involvement in response “to human rights in local, national, and global contexts” (p. 1291). The influence of these global identities documented in these two studies, according to Abu El‐Haj, “requires that we redefine citizenship in ways that acknowledge that people increasingly hold multilayered affiliations across the borders of this nation” (p. 311). Finally, Alviar‐Martin (2010) conducted a case study of two teachers working within an international academy who facilitated citizenship education for immigrant students. Acknowledging the diverse identities of their students and their local and global affiliations,

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these teachers recognized the “fluid and evolving nature of civic identity, rights, and obligations” (p. 42). Findings indicated that both teachers enacted teaching strategies that “regarded the intersection of their students’ backgrounds and the school’s curricular programs as a rich environment for cultivating student reflection of overlapping, at times, contradictory civic affiliations, and encouraging civic action in multiple spheres” (p. 42). They accomplished this by first having students define varying conceptions of citizenship, consider multiple civic identities that exist, and reconcile differences through discursive practices to create a more just and equitable society. As these studies demonstrate, citizenship inevitably entails a sense of identity; however, the civic identities held by youth can be multifaceted and at times contradictory across instances of class, ethnicity, race, gender, global affiliations, and other aspects from which individuals conceive of the self. As we argued above, youth engage in multiple civic spaces, places where they exist as political beings either inside or outside school contexts. Within these spaces, civic identities are formed and reformed, always fluid and ever‐shifting. Research in democratic citizenship education must attend to the nature of citizenship, belonging, and identity.

13.3.3  Research on Schools as Democratic Spaces Trafford (2008) described three key features of a democratic school. First, a democratic school fosters a democratic ethos that creates a climate for self‐expression and the exploration of different viewpoints. Secondly, a democratic school has structures, like a student council, that allow students opportunities to voice their opinions. Finally, a democratic school encourages student leadership. Flanagan et  al. (2010) dubbed such schools “civic c­limates for learning,” where students develop civic dispositions. Generally, research studies demonstrate that these climates contribute to students’ sense of social trust necessary for a democratic society (See Cohen, McCabe, Michelli, & Pickeral, 2009; Flanagan et al., 2010). For example, such climates are positively related to encouraging students to express their views, developing students’ tolerance and open‐mindedness (Berman, 1997; Torney‐Purta, 2002), promoting a sense of social responsibility (Flanagan, Bowes, Jonsson, Csapo, & Sheblanova, 1998; Torney‐Purta, 2002), contributing to greater appreciation of political conflict (Campbell, 2008), increasing civic knowledge (Knowles & McCafferty‐Wright, 2015; Zhang, Torney‐Purta, & Barber, 2012), and leading to commitments to patriotism, tolerance and helping others in need (Flanagan et al., 2007; Torney‐ Purta et  al., 2004). For example, national longitudinal studies have found that students’ sense of institutional connectedness in high school significantly predicts various forms of political and community engagement in young adulthood (Duke et al., 2008; Smith, 1999). Moreover, identification with a school organization or youth group can foster in students a sense of cooperation and group responsibility (Pearce & Larson, 2006; Rutkowski, Gruder, & Romer, 1983; Ryan & Deci, 2000) and a willingness to undergo a personal sacrifice for the good of the whole (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Brewer & Gardner, 1996; Dawes, van de Kragt, & Orbell, 1990). These studies demonstrate the potential impact that a democratic school environment can have on students’ civic development. However, we noted that youth develop civic identities in various civic spaces, many of which are outside of traditional civics classrooms. As such, we also investigated the



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degree to which schools can serve as democratic spaces. We center this section on three overarching questions: 1. Are schools really democratic spaces? 2. Is there a middle‐class bias in citizenship education? 3. What does the literature reveal about democratic civic practices? These questions bring us back to our conceptual model that civic identities emerge across multiple civic communities of practice and are influenced by individual contexts and identities. We explore schools as a democratic space, the influence of predominant middle‐class identity, and the various practices found within the school community. Are schools really democratic spaces?  Despite the research cited above about the import­ ance of a democratic school environment for civic development, several studies have confirmed the conclusions of Biesta et al. (2009) that “many young people regard school as a non‐democratic institution suffused with rules and regulations” (p. 21). First, Schmidt (2013) argued that schools have many characteristics of public spaces, which can be largely controlled and highly regulated by administrators and increasingly by corporations and other external entities. Schmidt surveyed over 200 students across two schools and asked participants to draw maps of their own school. Participants mapped certain classrooms and areas of the school as non‐student‐friendly spaces; they characterized these locations as places of hierarchy and control. For many participants, classrooms were labeled as sites of control and regulation. Indeed, much of the research on the teaching of social studies illustrates an over‐reliance on teacher‐centered instruction, which is antithetical to democratic schooling (Barton & Levstik, 2003; Cuban, 1991; Henke, Chen, & Goldman, 1999; Levstik, 2008; W. Ross, 2000; Russell, 2010; Russell & Pellegrino, 2008). Democratic spaces do exist in public schools as evidenced by the research on democratic schools cited earlier; however, research studies demonstrate that some groups of students experience more opportunity to engage in democratic citizenship than others. For example, Kahne, Rodriguez, Smith and Thiede (2000) examined opportunities to learn related to democratic purposes of schooling within 135 social studies classrooms in Chicago and found an alarming lack of such opportunities, especially in classrooms where teachers were preparing students for state‐mandated constitution tests. Knowles and Theobald (2012) found that opportunities to engage in discussion‐oriented and collaborative learning occurred more for students in advanced placement or elective courses than peers in the typical classroom, where lecture‐based and textbook‐dominated instruction was the norm. Therefore, democratic spaces happen within school, but not necessarily evenly for all students. Research also documents a civic gap for students from low‐income and minority backgrounds as compared to their more affluent counterparts. Kahne and Middaugh (2009) documented a disparity between the number and quality of civics classes for students of varying socioeconomic statuses; they found that civic opportunities are consistently afforded to wealthier and White students. In her handbook chapter entitled, “The Civic Empowerment Gap: Defining the Problem and Locating Solutions,” Levinson (2010) traced research documenting this civic gap, specifically across the areas of civic knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors. She argued that as schools become increasingly s­egregated,

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the civic empowerment gap will persist for low‐income, minority and immigrant students. These research findings encourage scholars to reconsider schools as democratic spaces and  question which experiences, civic identities, and civic spheres are privileged and which are not. Is there a middle‐class bias in citizenship education?  As alluded to earlier, Schutz (2008) proposed that a middle‐class bias toward citizenship dominates in the public schools. Drawing on the work of Lareau (2002, 2003), Rose (2000), and Lichterman (1996), Schutz traced differences in the middle‐class and working‐class orientations to citizenship. Middle‐ class citizenship rests on the ideal that citizens are entitled to express their opinions and have their voices heard, believing that a rational, well‐supported argument can affect g­overnmental decisions. Schutz labeled this form of citizenship as discursive democracy; whereas, he referred to working‐class citizenship as democratic solidarity. While middle‐ class orientations might involve discursive appeals to lofty democratic values, working‐ class citizens focus on the pragmatic needs of their close‐knit community. Working‐class citizenship relies on a collective identity as a means for survival and self‐preservation among the cultural or family group. We refer back to work of Rubin (2007), who asked urban high school students to reflect on the democratic values frequently cited in documents like the Declaration of Independence and their own experiences. She noted that these students disregarded the idealistic goals as unrealistic and did not see a need to participate in the political process. However, such lofty ideals often form the basis for civic education in today’s public schools. We identified a few studies within our review that document this middle‐class bias in civic education. Reay (2008) asserted that White, middle‐class, and male‐centric versions of citizenship have become the norm for citizenship education. Such a view of civic space embodies particular assumptions which are taken for granted “truths” about civic life. Junn (2004) listed these assumptions as a belief in “individual agency, a faith in the causal link between citizen behavior and political outcomes, and a democratic creed that are problematic when viewed in the light of increasing ethnic and racial diversity in the United States” (p. 253). Basically two assumptions stand out in this biased approach: the assumption of equality of agency that holds that all citizens can act towards their interest in the current political sphere and the assumption of political efficacy that suggests that these actions actually have the power to affect change through the political process (Junn, 2004). Teaching citizenship towards a discursive democracy described by Schutz (2008) can present a “romanticized” version of civic and public life (Apple, 2008). This instrumentalist view of citizenship education imposes a discursive‐oriented version of citizenship and its assumptions about the civic sphere. Teaching discursive practices with these unexamined assumptions leads to what we call idealized civic practices, or the preparation of youth for an imagined civic space where all are afforded equal access to political participation and all have economic, cultural, social, and political capital necessary to affect change in their political arenas. These practices include the teaching of communicative civic skills, such as discussion, deliberations, and debates, in isolation of any critique of the shortcomings of the current democratic structures and without attention to the lived experiences and political existence of students (Biesta, 2007). Of course, the concept of idealized civic practices will complicate any review of democratic civic practices occurring in public schools.



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What does the  research literature reveal about democratic civic practices?  We identified three trends in the research on classroom civic practices. These include an efficacy of an open classroom climate; the use of discussion and deliberation; and the use of technology to teach citizenship skills. First, research demonstrates the importance of an open classroom climate for discussion. Hess and Avery (2008) described such classrooms as having a “democratic ethos” where students feel comfortable engaging sharing and contrasting ideas. Large‐scale international and comparative studies identify such climates with items measuring classroom emphasis on encouraging students to make up their own minds, expressing opinions, bringing up current political events for discussion in class, expressing and discussing differing opinions, and presenting several sides of an issue (Schulz, Ainley, Fraillon, Keer, & Losito, 2010; Torney‐Purta et al., 2001). Using this measure, empirical studies have found that an open classroom climate is positively associated with support for human rights education and increased civic knowledge, political self‐efficacy, and increased political participation (Campbell, 2008; Knowles & McCafferty‐Wright, 2015; Torney‐Purta & Barber, 2004; Torney‐Purta et  al., 2001, 2008; Torney‐Purta, Wilkenfeld, & Barber, 2008; Zhang et  al., 2012). For example, Campbell (2008) found that, particularly among lower socioeconomic students, an open classroom climate has a strong relationship with students’ appreciation of political conflict and expressed likelihood for voting. Knowles and McCafferty‐Wright (2015) demonstrated that the presence of an open classroom climate strengthened the r­elationships between both political efficacy and civic knowledge. Such a climate creates a  platform necessary for vibrant critical discussions around important issues within a democracy. Second, research consistently cites the utility of involving students in classroom discussions and deliberations (Flynn, 2009; Hahn, 1998; Hess & Avery, 2008; Hess & Parker, 2001; Levy, 2011, 2013; Parker, 2006; Pasek, Feldman, Romer, & Jamieson, 2008; Rubin, 2006; Theiss‐Morse & Hibbing, 2005). Parker (2010) asserted that listening and speaking to “strangers” about powerful ideas and problems are crucial for democratic education. Teachers can cultivate democratic attitudes among students through methods that enlarge understanding of issues, such as seminars, and methods to solve problems, such as deliberations, can cultivate democratic orientations (Parker, 2006, 2008). Levy (2011) studied a course on civic advocacy where the teacher assisted students with building their knowledge base and skills in communicating, evaluating sources, vision‐building, and reflecting. These students reported increased levels of political efficacy and persistence as compared to students in a regular government course. Moreover, Flynn’s (2009) action research study demonstrated how teachers can scaffold discussion to create a democratic classroom allowing for active and engaged students. Finally, Mitchell and Elwood (2012) led middle school female students through a counter‐mapping project, where the students engaged as equals to the teacher and challenged the geopolitical makeup of their city. All of these studies point to the use of discussion‐focused and inquiry‐oriented teaching strategies as significant for civic education. Finally, research studies describe the role of technology and media in regards to citizenship orientations. Within the classroom space, Blevins, LeCompte and Wells (2014) explored online learning through iCivics among 250 students in 13 classrooms and found positive gains in student content knowledge. Studying third graders, Montgomery (2014) explored how creating and disseminating podcasts about issues of historical injustice

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fostered critical literacy and critical democracy among elementary students. Finally, through the examination of the Citizens United Ruling, which opened campaign spending to for‐profit corporations, labor unions and other associations, Stoddard (2013) demonstrated the power of documentary film analysis to support core tenets of democratic education. These studies highlight the increasing presence of technology into everyday classroom experiences. Thus, future research should work to effectively incorporate technology and understand its implications for democratic education. While this shift towards inquiry, technology, and discussion‐based social studies teaching is promising, Apple (2008) points out that schools often echo the power structure of society by privileging certain ideas and values within the classroom space. As we discussed above, instrumentalist approaches to citizenship education and the use of idealized civic practices can legitimatize the experiences and communities of some students while marginalizing those of other students. Cary (2001) urged educators to interrogate classroom curriculum and instructional practices that may support the continuation of inequity in modern life. Authentic, democratic citizenship education must begin first with the lived experiences and political existence of students in the classroom (Biesta, 2007).

13.4 Discussion In this chapter, we have addressed the question: How ought educators to prepare future citizens for an ever‐changing, culturally complex, globally connected democratic society? First, we sought to integrate a variety of disciplinary perspectives towards our investigation of democratic citizenship education. Then, we defined democratic citizenship education as an approach to preparing youth to critically assess the barriers and challenges that impede the realization of greater democratic living within a person’s civic communities. Democratic citizenship education champions the citizen as an instrument for improving society and making the world a better place to live. Third, we discussed the possibility of using civic communities of practice as a conceptual lens from which to guide future research in democratic citizenship education. However, we acknowledged two unique dilemmas from using this framework that trouble our current research efforts to define citizenship: the acceptance that citizenship is bounded by various contexts and civic spaces that individuals live in on a daily basis and that a person’s identity heavily influences how she or he both experiences citizenship and enacts civic ways of being within her or his unique civic communities. These dilemmas suggest that scholars consider the extent to which schools serve as democratic spaces; the extent to which citizenship education imposes predetermined assumptions of citizenship on students; and the extent to which ideas about citizenship acknowledge the fluidity, diversity, and multiplicity of identity and its influence on civic spaces. As a result of this review, we acknowledge some fundamental understandings about citizenship and civic identity. First, people might hold different orientations to citizenship based on which civic space they interact with and which identities they identify as significant in that space. Consider an African American student who attends a community rally at the local NAACP chapter hall. This student may distrust the political government, find voting a complete waste of time as many politicians fail to deliver upon promises to support his community, and seek out activism as the only means of advocating for issues that he perceives as important. This same student might also participate in an online forum in support



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of the Black Lives Matter movement. In this online community, people interact with each other using avatars which may not reveal aspects of their physical identity. In this space, outward appearances carry less influence on the development of that culture, and civic practices in this community differ based on this context. Finally, this same student might feel bored and disconnected from the poor quality of civic education occurring in his school, where he is forced to memorize long lists of Supreme Court cases, recite the Bill of Rights, and engage in idealized civic practices that assume that society is fair and just for all citizens—something that he knows from experience is not true. How this student envisions and enacts citizenship will differ greatly based on these contexts. A sad irony might be that his civics teacher, unaware of his activist activities, might dub him unengaged and lacking important civic skills. Second, while all citizens participate in different kinds of civic spaces or spheres, not all citizens have the resources, social and cultural capital, or legitimacy to pursue their interests in broader civic communities and/or political life. Whereas the privileged youth interviewed by Swalwell (2013) at a prestigious private school might feel confident that they can impact political decision‐making, students in an inner-city, high poverty, immigrant community may belong to civic spheres that lack the resources to dictate political opinion. Moreover, given the demographic distribution of schools based on class and race, these students are less likely to interact with communities who hold these resources (Darling‐ Hammond, 2007). Finally, our review notes that students from marginalized communities often lack education that affords them opportunities to inquire into their civic identities and investigate issues such as the distribution of power affecting their civic spheres or how marginalization exists within their daily life (Kahne & Middaugh, 2009; Levinson, 2010). Thus, civic spheres vary in their influences of and access to real political power. Third, how educators think about and teach for citizenship often assumes a normative middle‐class orientation and fails to acknowledge differences in identity and variations of power across civic spheres. We have already identified how schools might instill civic education based on the assumption that all citizens have equal access to participate in government and that through civic discourse (e.g., deliberation, debate, dialogue) citizens can advocate for their personal interests. However, these assumptions do not reflect the experiences of some marginalized communities. Instead, in their quest for daily survival these communities develop civic skills related to collaboration, sharing of resources, n­etworking, and group cohesion (Schutz, 2008). Such civic practices may not even be recognized as a form of citizenship within a normative, middle‐class version of civic education. Indeed, some scholars argue that civic education in public schools functions to mask the stark inconsistencies between the image of democracy portrayed by government officials and in media and the actual practice of democracy. For example, while Vinson (2006) acknowledged that “‘citizenship education’ means different things to different people” (p. 59), he also asserted that civic education in schools might serve more to justify the dominant power structures and assimilate students into the already‐established pattern of community and civic life. Given the findings of Gilens and Page (2014), some may conclude that the U.S. falls vastly short of the democratic ideal. Chomsky (2013) argued that governmental officials and business leaders, as well as the media, promote an “illusion” of democracy in lieu of recognizing the dominance of the wealthy elite. Indeed, both Vinson (2006) and Ross and Vinson (2014), take seriously the shortcomings of citizenship education to promote democracy. Thus, teaching idealized civic practices in today’s classroom may simply be a mechanism for maintaining the current socioeconomic inequality that already exists.

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These three basic understandings of citizenship and civic identity complicate any attempt to seek a generalized model for citizenship and democratic citizenship education. While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to review the nuances of various approaches to democratic citizenship education, we believe that teaching for democracy must start first by attending to the lived experiences of students and their current political existence (Beista, 2007). Drawing on the findings of Alviar‐Martin’s (2010) study, more authentic democratic citizenship education can begin by having teachers engage students in a review of varying conceptions of citizenship, and discussions about m­ultiple civic identities that exist across varied communities and the development of deliberate pathways to promote a more just and equitable society. Given the disparities in resources and power within civic spheres, teachers will also need to interrogate the ways in which schools legitimize some civic identities and civic practices while m­arginalizing others.

13.5  Directions for Future Research Carole Hahn (2008) articulated that “Many scholars recommend that citizenship education in the twenty‐first century should address the reality that citizenship is complex, multi‐ leveled, flexible, and fluid. However, there is to date little empirical research in that vein” (p. 273). Our review of the literature confirms Hahn’s assessment of the state of research in citizenship education. Research on democratic citizenship education must now attend to the influences of various spaces/contexts and civic identities on how youth develop and enact citizenship. This scholarship ought to ask questions that attend to a variety of contexts and factors. Campbell‐Patton and Patton (2010) presented a multifaceted model of youth engagement that identifies six elements that foster civic outcomes; likewise, as discussed earlier Torney‐Purta, Amadeo and Andolina (2010) offered a theoretical model based on a communities of practice framework that enabled researchers to choose specific independent and dependent variables to unpack aspects of youth civic development. Regardless of the kind of model or theoretical lens being employed by the researcher, attention to varied influences on citizenship development ought to be a focus of the research. We have identified specific gaps in the l­iterature that delimit a more complex understanding of citizenship. These include: ●●

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Research that traces the influences of identity on citizenship, especially for marginalized communities (e.g., gender, race, class, sexuality, immigrant‐status); Research that uncovers civic attitudes and their origins across various contexts and civic identities; Research on orientations to citizenship among privileged youth; Research on indigenous populations, their dual civic‐identities, and national and tribal civic spaces; Research on how teachers’ orientation to citizenship influences their classroom practices; Research that interrogates class and racial biases in citizenship education within schools; Research on authentic democratic instruction, which begins first from the lived e­xperiences and political existence of youth; and Research on instructional tools, such as technology, that may work within different c­ontexts and with different student demographics.



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We feel that research in these areas is especially lacking across the literature base. We hope to see more studies that investigate differences across contexts and identities and that employ a variety of research methodologies. In addition to investigating these gaps listed above, we encourage researchers to become more nuanced and sophisticated in their research on democratic citizenship education. Scholars might consider the following four recommendations. First, researchers ought to consider an interdisciplinary approach when conducting research on democratic citizenship. The research presented in this chapter represents work from fields including social studies, political science, political psychology, educational psychology, sociology and more. Each discipline makes important contributions to our understandings of democracy, civic development, and democratic citizenship education from different perspectives. Future scholarship should develop a conversation across disciplinary divisions necessary to enhance knowledge on the complexities of democratic education identified in this chapter. Indeed, with this in mind any study or theoretical work exploring democratic citizenship within the field of social studies education should be regarded as incomplete if it fails to incorporate theories and empirical findings from other fields. Such inclusion of diverse perspectives can only serve to strengthen understandings of democratic citizenship education. Second, researchers should clarify their own assumptions or stances relevant to citizenship education prior to publishing about civic communities and practices. As discussed earlier, scholars must consider their assumptions regarding the level of ideal democracy within the country or community being studied. It is likely that researchers who view democracy as a goal already accomplished will also assume there exists relatively equal access to civic spheres with resources necessary to influence political decision‐making. However, when researchers do not assume an ideal democracy exists, they are likely to ask very different questions, including how marginalized communities adapt to their inequitable access to political power (Schutz, 2008). Thus, the research questions and subsequent recommendations for democratic citizenship education will vary tremendously depending on how a scholar views the current state of democracy in society. Third, researchers should ask deeper questions about how civic views are formed across varied contexts and spaces. Cornbleth’s (2002) study of high school students and their visions about America and the American dream from three different school campuses (a  low‐income, predominantly African American school; a low‐income, predominantly Latino school; and an Anglo‐American, suburban, middle‐ to high‐class school) illustrates the kinds of diversity across civic spaces and identities that would add much needed insight into the research field. In particular, Cornbleth’s study demonstrated that White students in an affluent school can express views similar to their minority student counterparts. Findings suggest that the educational program and the influence of teachers can broaden youths’ understanding of political issues across race, class, and gender. Research designs that tackle more nuanced understandings about the ways young people envision themselves can assist in unpacking some of the complex nature of citizenship and the formation of civic identities at home, in school, and within the students’ community. Finally, scholars should enact a form of theoretical sensitivity when working with others across disciplinary lines. Researchers in different disciplines often employ a variety of theories when conducting research on citizenship. Some of these draw heavily on particular models for youth development, psychological growth, sociocultural theories, and political socialization.

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For example, Torney‐Purta and colleagues (2010) offered a model that clearly defined potential factors that might be explored when investigating civic youth engagement. Such a model, they argued, would provide greater coherence across the research being conducted and allow scholars to make stronger connections across different studies. We began this chapter with the question of how ought educators to prepare future citizens for an ever‐changing, culturally complex, globally connected democratic society. While we offer no answer to this question, we hope that we have troubled some of the ways that scholars and researchers think about democratic citizenship education.

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Section III

Teaching and Learning Social Studies

14

Teaching and Learning about Controversial Issues and Topics in the Social Studies A Review of the Research

Li‐Ching Ho, Paula McAvoy, Diana Hess, and Brian Gibbs This chapter builds on several comprehensive and wide‐ranging research reviews of teaching controversial issues, including chapters by Hahn (1996), Hess (2008), and Hess and Avery (2008). Focusing on studies published in the past 10 years, we begin by addressing the definition of controversial issues and topics used by researchers across time and in different contexts. We then critically examine two main lines of research: (1) contextual factors affecting the teaching of controversial topics; and (2) instructional practices involved in teaching controversial issues. We conceptualize the field as consisting of these two main areas largely because the majority of the studies we reviewed addressed one or both of these questions. In each section, we select representative studies from a wide range of national, political, and cultural contexts to illustrate the kinds of studies that have been done, and we reflect on the significance of these approaches. This review has three significant features. First, it is international in focus and draws on numerous studies conducted in Asia, Africa, and other regions. As the studies in this chapter show, debates and disagreements about the place of controversial issues, “taboo” topics (Evans, Avery, & Pederson, 2000), “closed areas,” or “problematic areas of culture” (Hunt & Metcalf, 1968) in education exist in every society. A closer examination of these “international” studies (international only from the U.S. perspective) allows researchers from different national contexts to be more reflexive and to interrogate previously unexamined beliefs and assumptions. Second, this review foregrounds the diverse array of national, institutional, cultural, and historical contexts that influence the teaching of controversial issues and topics; we believe that not doing so would impoverish the field by ignoring important variations across settings. For instance, studies in divided societies such as Cyprus, Chile, and Northern Ireland raise important questions about the impact of emotional histories on both teachers and students. Finally, this review seeks to ­critically evaluate the assumed relationship between teaching controversial issues and pedagogical strategies centered on discussion or deliberation—a relationship that privileges a particular The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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political ideology. Even though a significant proportion of the studies that we reviewed concentrate on discussion strategies, we have ­intentionally highlighted other studies that examine different approaches to teaching controversial issues.

14.1  Definition of Controversial issues One challenge of studying “controversial issues” is that the meaning of the term is seldom examined. Consider, for example, a study by Byford, Lennon, and Russell (2009), who surveyed 67 social studies teachers from high schools in Indiana and Oklahoma. They found that the teachers were overwhelmingly supportive of the idea that students should encounter controversial issues: 72% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the question, “Do you believe students need to study controversial issues?” However, the term “controversial issue” was not defined for the participants, so it is not clear that the respondents were imagining the same construct. Consider two ways in which the study participants might have interpreted the question. In one understanding, a teacher might think “study controversial issues” refers to introducing topics into the curriculum that could be seen as inappropriate or objectionable by parents, administrators, or the larger public. That is, a teacher might believe that a topic of study, such as the history of systemic racism, is important to include in a U.S. History class even though she believes this could invite scrutiny from adults outside of the classroom. Some research about controversial issues focuses on these controversies associated with particular topics. Zimmerman (2005) has looked at the history of how topics associated with the “culture wars” (e.g., race, ethnicity, immigration, religion, patriotism) have played out in public school debates. Some research using this definition looks at whether and how teachers include potentially controversial topics. For example, Misco and Patterson (2007) found that a set of 40 preservice teachers were most comfortable including politics and race in the curriculum and least comfortable including content about sexual orientation, sexual harassment, and religion. In a second understanding, someone might think that “study controversial issues” refers to a variety of pedagogical strategies designed to help students investigate, evaluate, or deliberate issues that have multiple and competing views. These strategies require students to make a judgment about what should be done or which interpretation among many is correct. Once a controversial issue is identified, the teacher will design activities that help students learn about the competing views and then decide for themselves what they think. Issues within social studies can take many forms, including: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Historical: Why did the United States use atomic bombs to end the war with Japan? Constitutional: Was Roe v. Wade correctly decided? Political: Should the minimum wage in the United States be increased? Personal/moral: Should I vote?

Research into the pedagogical practice of engaging students in discussions and other activities that help them to think through controversial issues leads one to a different set of research questions from research about the inclusion of controversial topics. Some of



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these studies look at effect. For example: What do students learn from these discussions? How does discussion affect political participation? Other studies look at professional judgment associated with discussion: Do teachers disclose their views to their students? How do teachers structure discussion to be inclusive? Still others look at issues of access: Which students are most likely to be given the opportunity to investigate controversial issues? How often do teachers use discussion of controversial issues in the classroom? Further complicating the terrain is that the same subject matter can sometimes be framed as either a controversial topic (one that some adults may find objectionable but that does not necessarily have more than one side) or as controversial issue (one that deserves debate). An example of this is found in Camicia’s (2008) study of a dispute over one school district’s curriculum for teaching Japanese Internment. The district may have recognized that this was a controversial topic, but they had no intention of framing it as a controversial issue. The curriculum represented Japanese internment as a civil rights violation, and students were not asked to decide whether internment was justified; instead, the curriculum was designed to lead students toward the conclusion that the United States had committed an injustice against Japanese Americans. Members of the community, however, objected to this framing of internment; they wanted it to be treated as a controversial issue, and they wanted students to consider whether interning Japanese Americans was justified on the basis of national security. Hess (2009) and Hess and McAvoy (2015) discuss the ethical challenges of framing issues for classroom discussion. In this chapter we try to make clear the distinction between research into potentially c­ontroversial topics and research into the pedagogical practice of engaging students in investigations of controversial issues, while also recognizing that the lines are often blurred, particularly because controversial issues often involve controversial topics.

14.2  Contextual Factors that Influence the Teaching of Controversial Topics Pedagogical decisions about teaching controversial issues or topics (e.g., choosing a particular instructional approach or selecting the range of perspectives to be represented) are influenced in myriad ways by the sociopolitical milieu within which teacher and school are situated. Even within democratic societies, “climates of censorship and restraint” (Cornbleth, 2001, p. 83) exist, and these can take different forms depending on the political, social, and historical context. In addition to, or instead of, the official and explicit censorship teachers may face, there are more subtle external and internal pressures from the school or from public organizations. These pressures include the threat of external challenges, a fear of sanctions, and a desire to avoid censure from superiors or peers. In this section, we have selected several representative studies of the teaching of controversial topics that show how teachers and students navigate a complex terrain of institutional and curricular constraints; societal discourse and expectations; national, group, and individual histories; local, state, and national policies; personal beliefs; and multiple and overlapping identities involving e­t hnicity and religion.

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14.2.1  Political, Institutional, and Curricular Contexts Numerous studies report that national or state educational policies (or at least teachers’ perceptions of these policies) have significant and direct influence on whether and how  teachers address controversial topics. Most of these studies describe how perceived political, institutional, and curricular constraints may limit teachers’ academic freedom and ­contribute to teacher self‐censorship. These political, institutional, and curricular constraints can operate formally and informally. Studies conducted in contexts with more centralized and authoritarian political systems reveal that teachers are particularly concerned about the impact of breaking laws, breaching political norms, and deviating from the prescriptive official curriculum (Ersoy, 2010; Ho, 2010; Misco, 2011). For instance, researchers in Singapore have noted how social studies teachers and students are wary of addressing controversial topics such as race and religion in class because of the fear of violating laws such as the Sedition Act and the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act (Ho, 2010; Ho, Alviar‐ Martin, Sim & Yap, 2011). Similarly, educators in Beijing were reluctant to explore controversial topics related to politics and the Communist Party—particularly those that questioned the Communist Party’s legitimacy—because they were not part of the official curriculum (Misco, 2011). Turkish preservice teachers in Ersoy’s (2010) study shared similar apprehensions. One teacher, for example, expressed his concerns about contradicting state ideology: “I am confused about teaching some subjects in classes because my opinions on some issues contradict with the state’s ideology. The state gives me the responsibility to represent its ideology. I do not know what I would do when my ideas contradict with the state. I am afraid” (p. 330). Other teachers from the same study were afraid of the reactions from their superiors and from powerful political groups. Studies conducted in contexts with less centralized or less authoritarian systems indicate that teachers, although not subject to the same restrictive laws and political norms, also express concerns about political, institutional, and curricular constraints on their decisionmaking. Numerous studies, for instance, highlight the impact of accountability measures such as high‐stakes examinations and curriculum standards on teachers’ willingness to teach controversial topics (Pace, 2011; Wills, 2007). Other studies within the U.S. context indicate that teachers’ decision‐making about controversial issues is greatly influenced by their perception of political views held by the larger community (Miller‐Lane, Denton, & May, 2006; Misco & Patterson, 2007; Washington & Humphries, 2011). Those in Miller‐ Lane, Denton, and May’s (2006) study, for example, concluded that the 2004 U.S. election was “off limits” because of its volatility, and they feared community reprisal if they addressed this controversial topic in class (p. 34). While a majority of studies conclude that governmental and institutional controls limit teachers’ freedom when teaching controversial issues, Ho, Alviar‐Martin, and Leviste (2014) argue that under some circumstances, state controls can result in teachers having more freedom to discuss controversial topics. Drawing on a study involving 35 Singapore social studies teachers, the authors contend that the government’s explicitly stated public positions on potentially controversial topics can free schools and teachers from external pressure. If the state’s position is ambiguous, on the other hand, this may increase self‐ censorship, due to a heightened sense of uncertainty and insecurity. The authors make the



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case that the state can serve as a disciplining agent, or as a moderating agent that guards against extreme views from both conservative and liberal ends of the spectrum.

14.2.2  Emotional Histories The studies described in this section investigate the implications of teaching controversial issues in divided societies. Studies situated in Cyprus, Northern Ireland, and Chile illustrate the challenges teachers and students face when navigating contested historical and present‐day societal narratives. In contrast to teachers in other political contexts, teachers from societies ­characterized by long‐standing and recent conflict need to contend with particularly emotionally charged, contested narratives, often ones in which one community understands itself as a victim and the other as a perpetrator (Zembylas & Kambani, 2012). In a study of 18 Greek‐Cypriot elementary history teachers, Zembylas and Kambani (2012) highlighted teachers’ emotional discomfort in using controversial issues in the classroom, because of the relatively recent and fresh memories of the unresolved Cyprus conflict and the reactions that they might receive from parents and the community. Similarly, Magendzo and Toledo (2009) described the challenges faced by Chilean teachers when teaching about the military regime, its violation of human rights, and the transition to democracy. The authors argued that teaching controversial issues was particularly emotional and difficult because of the contested interpretations of recent history and the widespread involvement of teachers, students, and their families. For instance, teachers were challenged in framing and discussing victimhood in history because some students, who were related to soldiers charged with committing human rights violations, felt that they themselves were victims. The teacher thus had to manage the emotions of these students together with others, who felt that they were victims because their families had been subjected to military abuses. Notably, some teachers were themselves victims of political repression during the same era. The authors’ survey of 241 teachers showed the diversity of emotions they felt: Approximately 39% felt grief when working with curriculum content that referred to the military regime, 29% felt powerless, 17% felt anger, and 15% felt fear. Likewise, the survey revealed that 29% of students felt powerless, 20% felt grief, and 19% felt anger. Notably, in spite of the prevalence of such strong sentiments about contested history, Chilean teachers and students rarely explicitly addressed these emotions in the classroom. Magendzo and Toledo (2009) write, “Emotion comes into the classroom but it is not talked about. The teachers and students neither recognize it explicitly nor elaborate on it” (p. 462). Relatively few studies, however, attempt to provide pedagogical solutions to the challenges of addressing emotional controversial issues in divided societies. One exception is Barton and McCully’s (2012) study that sought to address the problem of teaching controversial issues in Northern Ireland by focusing on the lack of emotional engagement on the part of the students, which was due in large part to deep commitment to their community narratives. Drawing on Halpern’s (2001, cited in Barton & McCully, 2012, p. 398) model of empathetic engagement, the authors argue that students need to be genuinely curious about the deep emotional attachments that members of the other political community in their context have to their own interpretations of history. Accordingly, the authors suggest paying greater attention to the power of stories and encouraging students to engage deeply with stories of others.

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14.2.3  Teachers’ Identities, Beliefs, and Sense of Purpose Teachers’ identities and beliefs greatly influence their sense of purpose, and this then intersects with their pedagogical decision-making in powerful, complex, and complicated ways. In certain circumstances, these identities and beliefs may play a more significant role in shaping teachers’ actions than institutional factors. An examination of a teacher’s sense of purpose (Barton & Levstik, 2004), grounded in either intellectual or societal goals, can therefore provide a useful lens through which to examine the implications of different political, cultural, national, or historical contexts for the teaching of controversial issues. In both Cotton’s (2006) and Ho and Seow’s (2015) studies, teachers’ understanding of their roles as educators and their understanding of the purpose of the subject, geography, greatly influenced their teaching decisions. In Cotton’s UK study, three geography teachers chose to advocate a balanced or neutral position on controversial environmental topics in spite of the socially critical environment education agenda explicitly articulated in the national curriculum. Their motivations for adopting a “balanced” approach, however, differed. One teacher, Mary, felt that she needed to adopt a “devil’s advocate” strategy in order to counter her students’ existing views about the environment. Sam and Chris, on the other hand, were very much influenced by the threat of pressure from parents or school authorities and the requirements of national examinations, respectively. Similarly, the Singaporean teachers in Ho and Seow’s (2015) study approached the teaching of a controversial environmental issue—climate change—very differently, in spite of operating in a national context in which the official position on climate change was unambiguous and was clearly presented in the national geography curriculum and textbooks. All of the teachers drew on their understandings of the purpose of climate change education in order to justify their different pedagogical approaches. Three teachers, for example, felt that the purpose of the subject was to advocate for the environment and consequently framed their practice in terms of advocating for the development of appropriate environmental values in their students. The other three, however, conceptualized the purpose of climate change education as critical thinking and subsequently chose to include a diverse range of perspectives and primary and secondary sources, so that their students would be able to think critically about the issue and draw their own conclusions. Religious or cultural beliefs can also have a significant influence on teachers’ understanding of the purpose of teaching controversial topics, and this in turn affects the kinds of controversial topics they consider appropriate for the classroom. In the United States, James’ (2014) study revealed that some primary teachers thought that discussion of controversial topics was an opportunity to advocate for and impart particular values that aligned with their own personal religious beliefs. To others, the purpose of discussing controversial topics was to teach students how to consider differing perspectives and arrive at their own conclusions. Finally, a small group of preservice teachers, who self‐identified as fundamentalist Christians, believed that controversial issues discussions privileged liberal agendas and threatened their faith, and consequently they felt that they had no place in the curricu­ lum. Similarly, in Botswana, Mhlauli (2011) describes how teachers were particularly c­onflicted when discussing the controversial topic of HIV/AIDS. The teachers were faced with a dilemma because within Tswana cultures, discussion of sexual matters is taboo. Yet teachers in the study felt compelled to discuss the problem of HIV/AIDS and related sexual matters because it was a major problem in Botswana society and they wanted to



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equip students with the necessary knowledge. These teachers, consequently, had to ­negotiate between traditional cultural beliefs and their own sense of social purpose when making the decision to teach or avoid the controversial issue. Notably, a teacher’s beliefs and sense of purpose can potentially be more influential than other more “objective” constraints in teacher decision-making. In their case study of a teacher in Florida, Washington and Humphries (2011) suggest that the teacher’s personal teaching philosophy and educational experiences were more significant influences than local context on her decision to disclose her personal viewpoint on a controversial issue. In spite of working in a setting that was largely White, rural, and ideologically conservative, the teacher drew on her personal experiences as a student in college and high school and developed her own teaching philosophy about the disclosure of personal views on controversial issues. Part of her confidence also stemmed from her belief in the importance of building strong relationships with her students and her role as a “fair and supportive” teacher (p. 104).

14.3  Approaches to Teaching Controversial Issues Teaching controversial issues has historically been central to social studies education, but this has been realized through different pedagogical approaches that have dominated the field at different points in time. Within the United States, the teaching of controversy has been historically framed as issues‐centered social studies, which has included the teaching of “Problems of Democracy” (Thornton, 2005), “closed areas” or “problematic areas of culture” (Hunt & Metcalf, 1968), “perennial issues of public policy” (Oliver & Shaver, 1966), “public controversies” (Newmann & Oliver, 1970; Shaver & Larkins, 1973), and “taboo topics” (Evans, Avery & Pederson). Most recent pedagogical approaches focus on the use of discussion to teach controversial issues, and these are premised on particular understandings of an ideal democracy and the role of citizens in the political process. In this section, we highlight studies that address different discussion‐based approaches to teaching controversial issues, as well as other pedagogical approaches, such as the online collaborative learning model and conflict dialogue approaches.

14.3.1  Discussion‐Based Approaches While there is considerable breadth and depth of research focused on discussion in social studies classrooms, discussion—especially the sustained and substantive exchange of p­erspectives about significant social, political, or historical issues—rarely occurs in U.S. classrooms (Barton & Avery, 2016; McAvoy & Hess, 2013). Advocates of discussion‐based approaches draw on theories of deliberative democracy and favor a particular model of “strong democracy” that seeks to maximize public discussion and deliberation of policies (Barber, 2003). In so doing, they emphasize the social and public nature of decision‐making in a democracy and aim to advance the goal of “enlightened political engagement” for ­citizenship education (Parker, 2003). Advocates of argumentative design such as the Structured Academic Controversy model also draw on the theory of constructive controversy. This theory suggests that exposure to alternative views contributes to conceptual conflict and, consequently,

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to epistemic curiosity and the desire to seek out more information or experiences in order to resolve uncertainty (Avery, Levy, & Stimmons, 2014). Discussion‐based pedagogical approaches have been shown to be effective in different national and social contexts (Avery, Levy, & Simmons, 2014; Beck, 2013, Bickmore & Parker, 2014; Hess, 2009). For example, research on high‐quality classroom discussion of controversial issues, also called Best Practice Discussion by Hess and McAvoy (2015), indicates that U.S. students were more engaged and felt more responsibility in the classroom when compared to students in other discussion or lecture classes. Notably, students in the Best Practice Discussion classes felt that they were learning from both their peers and their teachers. The authors characterized Best Practice Discussions in the following way: (1) students discuss and deliberate controversial political issues; (2) students read, watch a video, or do a writing assignment in advance of the discussion; (3) a majority of students participate during the discussion; and (4) the teacher encourages students to talk to each other (McAvoy & Hess, 2013). Similarly, in a study of the impact of the Kids Voting USA curriculum (which included discussion of controversial issues), researchers found that students participating in the program were more likely to pay attention to news, conduct discussions with parents or friends, and disagree with and listen to opponents (McDevitt & Kiousis, 2006). Remarkably, the findings of the study also offered support for a contingent model of deliberative learning, whereby political communication in the school setting could contribute to political conversations in students’ homes. The findings indicated that there was a “trickle‐up influence” of students initiating political conversations with parents, who subsequently paid more attention to news about politics and supported greater political activism on the part of the students. Notably, this influence was more pronounced in minority families and families of  low socioeconomic status (McDevitt & Caton‐Rosser, 2009). Implementing a quasi‐ experimental research design, Avery, Levy and Simmons (2014) found that U.S. students in classes using the Structured Academic Controversy model of deliberation demonstrated greater perspective‐taking abilities and had a significant decrease in variance in opinion compared to students in comparison classes. Over a period of six months, students in the deliberation classes participated in three deliberations focused on current public issues such as compulsory voting and doctor‐assisted suicide. Data from the questionnaires revealed that students in the deliberation classes were more likely to agree with a position after the deliberation, and this suggests some level of shared understanding. Students from these classes were also significantly more likely to identify more arguments for the position they supported and also for the position that they did not support. Studies of the use of discussion to teach controversial issues have also highlighted affordances and constraints of this pedagogical approach. For example, Beck (2013) drew on the work of Hess (2009) and Kuhn (2005) to design a discussion for U.S. secondary students around consideration of same‐sex marriage. The teacher started with an introduction of relevant U.S. Supreme Court cases, and students were allowed to privately indicate their position on the issue. They were then assigned to a like‐minded group, generated initial arguments supporting their group’s position, and were then provided with a range of sources supporting their argument. The students exchanged their notes with the opposing group, considered their response to the opposing arguments, and finally presented their positions in a formal discussion and posed questions to each other. Beck observed that the way the discussion was structured—sorting students into like‐minded groups—resulted in the students holding



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more polarized and extreme views, and the discussion therefore seemed more like a debate. On the other hand, the presence of a like‐minded group supporting same‐sex marriage could also have played a part in encouraging one of the students to share her sexuality with the class by providing a safe space for students to explore potentially sensitive opinions. Several research studies have also examined the role of teacher disclosure during discussion of controversial issues. In her study, Hess (2009) characterized the range of teacher positions as a continuum with firmly neutral non‐disclosers and explicit disclosers at either end, and occasional disclosers in the middle. Of the 518 U.S. students participating in Hess’ study, almost 80% believed that it was acceptable for a teacher to share her views, provided she was not “preaching” or “forcing” her opinion on the students. However, 23% of students felt that they were susceptible to teacher influence and thought that they would be likely to adopt the teacher’s opinions. Notably, these students were more likely to be from less wealthy backgrounds and to have low levels of political knowledge. Other studies suggest that there is a need to clarify the role of the teacher during the discussion of c­ontroversial issues, particularly with regard to what constitutes teacher disclosure. Niemi and Niemi (2007) studied six 11th‐ and 12th‐grade history and government classrooms in the United States and observed how teachers, while believing that they were being neutral and not disclosing their political opinions, actually conveyed partisan and ideological messages during their classes. More tellingly, even though the authors noted numerous instances of name‐calling of politicians, the teachers themselves had little recollection of these events. Similarly, Stoddard’s (2009) U.S.‐based study highlighted the importance of reflexivity on the part of teachers when selecting curricula or media for a particular controversial issue. Based on the findings of his study, Stoddard argued that teachers’ pedagogical decisions, such as the selection of a particular film, the positioning of students’ interaction with the film, and the facilitation of class discussion, were influenced by the teachers’ own  political views. These views, however, remained hidden, because teachers were not c­onscious of the influence of particular ideologies and beliefs on their pedagogical decision‐ making. These studies therefore speak to the importance of clarifying and expanding the idea of teacher disclosure when teaching controversial issues.

14.3.2  Alternatives to Discussion‐Based Approaches Critics of theories of democratic deliberation contend that democratic deliberation is too individualistic and rationalistic. They argue that insufficient attention has been paid to the influence of traditional rules and unspoken norms, and, as a result, the range of worthwhile ends or courses of actions to be deliberated over may be restricted (O’Dwyer, 2003). Similarly, others argue that democratic deliberation is exclusionary, because it presumes that all citizens are political equals, and it privileges particular rational and dispassionate forms of communication (Young, 2002). The studies presented in this section draw directly or indirectly from a range of alternative theories that emphasize positive interdependence (Johnson & Johnson, 2010), harmony and social cohesion (see, e.g., Beauvais & Jenson, 2002; Green, Preston & Sabates, 2003; Ho, 2016), and political friendships (Allen, 2009). These studies focus their attention on developing programs that stress collaboration, building relationships, and developing feelings of mutual respect and trust, particularly within ethnically, religiously, and economically diverse classrooms in divided societies.

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Conflict dialogue pedagogy.  Several studies from Northern Ireland and Canada highlight an area that has been relatively underresearched in the controversial issues literature—facilitating and addressing the “strong emotional element” (McCully, 2006) that accompanies the teaching of particular controversial issues in deeply divided societies. Taken together, these studies suggest that discussion‐based instructional approaches emphasizing rational, constructive, and objective reasoning processes do not adequately address the emotional elements that profoundly impact a student’s ethnic, religious, or sexual identities. For example, within the fraught political landscape of Northern Ireland, McCully (2006) and King (2009) offer two models of instruction that explicitly seek to address and incorporate these deep‐seated emotions—Speak Your Piece and Close Encounters. Both programs have, as their core, trust‐building practices, because this is seen to be a first step in building friendships and enabling dialogue across religious and political divides. For instance, the practitioners (teachers and youth workers) in the Speak Your Piece program adopted teaching strategies such as self‐disclosure, sharing personal biographies, modeling acceptance of alternative viewpoints, and admitting to uncertainty and doubt (McCully, 2006). Importantly, these strategies differed significantly from the concept of the teacher as a neutral arbiter in controversial issues discussions described in the work of Hess (2009), Cotton (2006), and others. The Close Encounters program sought to build a climate of mutual trust and respect within a group of 22 Protestant and Catholic teenagers. The students spent over 60 hours participating in a series of team‐building exercises and had numerous opportunities for informal conversation and sharing of personal information such as hobbies (King, 2009). For many of the participants, this was their first opportunity to form relationships with members of the “other community,” and this helped challenge their stereotyped perceptions of the other group. Notably, the Close Encounters program also afforded students the opportunity to learn about controversial issues such as sectarianism by examining geographically, historically, or culturally distant events as well as more proximal events. For example, students in the program investigated discrimination against Travelers—an issue that was less personal to the students. This examination of controversial subject matter within different contexts provided students with a safe space within which they could dispassionately interrogate important societal issues without publicly revealing their personal beliefs. Bickmore and Parker (2014) offered another approach to the teaching of controversial issues. In order to facilitate what they term “constructive conflict talk,” the researchers suggested explicitly teaching constructive conflict norms and skills, and creating inclusive cooperative environments such as dramatic role‐play and peacemaking circles. The study described the different ways two primary and two middle school teachers in Canadian public schools used conflict dialogue pedagogies. One of the teachers, Ms. Walker, implemented numerous pedagogies that sought to create equitable dialogue opportunities for students with different backgrounds and statuses. Her unit was based on a fictitious conflict, and students adopted fictitious roles and were assigned different viewpoints in the dramatic role‐play. She also used processes that consciously addressed power differences, such as  talking‐piece circles and equal speaking turns. Notably, the researchers found that, c­ompared to students from other classes, students from Ms. Walker’s class were better at providing examples or explanations that demonstrated their understanding of conflicting perspectives and power imbalances.



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Online collaborative learning model.  Pollack and Kolikant (2012) proposed an alternative to classroom discussion instructional approaches for controversial issues teaching. Their instructional model used a computer‐supported collaborative learning environment involving triadic interactions among groups with opposing views and historical texts. The main goal of this instructional approach was to provide students with opportunities to examine their ideas, viewpoints, and beliefs through participation in “internally persuasive discourse” (Bahktin, 1991, cited in Pollack and Kolikant, p. 110). Notably, this concept emphasizes the importance of collaboration and the subjectivity of knowledge but does not require the participants to reach agreement. In their study, two Israeli Jewish and two Israeli Arab students were tasked with examining a controversial historical event using a range of sources. Each student read the sources and wrote an essay responding to the assignment questions. The students then formed an inter‐ethnic group of four and read the other three individual essays. The group was then given an option of collaborating on and writing a Wiki presenting the group’s interpretation or jointly writing an essay explaining their d­isagreements. Interestingly, the students in the study felt that the online communication was helpful in reducing tensions and increasing a sense of security because it enabled the participants who were of the same ethnicity to privately communicate with each other before responding to the other group. The data also revealed that the students’ postactivity answers were more complicated and reflected more diverse perspectives compared to their pre‐activity answers. Finally, the authors also noted that the task of writing a joint essay served to promote social interaction because it required students to listen to other viewpoints. Even if the group did not agree on a final product, the process of writing an essay that summarized the areas of disagreement also helped legitimize each student’s perspective.

14.4  Recommendations for Future Research In her 1996 review of research on teaching controversial issues, Hahn suggested several future lines of inquiry. She called for studies that would demonstrate the effects of particular aspects of issues‐centered instruction (e.g., issues content, conflictual pedagogy, and supportive classroom climate) on student thinking; studies that explored the impact of issues‐ centered instruction on diverse learners; and studies that investigated the long‐term effects of issues‐centered teaching. Two other reviews, by Hess (2008) and Hess and Avery (2008), shared this concern for more studies that examined the impact of teachers’ pedagogy, as well as the relative quantity and quality of issues discussion. The authors also called for additional investigation into the causal pathways that link controversial issues discussion and democratic outcomes; the disparity in access to controversial issues discussion in schools; and the influence of national, school, and classroom contexts on teaching and learning. The studies featured in this review indicate that while progress has been made in some of these areas, additional research is needed in others. For example, as highlighted in Hess and Avery’s (2008) review, we currently know very little about the impact of issues discussions on political and civic engagement. There is also still very little research about the long‐term impact of different approaches to controversial issues instruction of the sort that Hahn advocated in her 1996 review. We feel that research on assessment in controversial issues instruction is a particularly important area that warrants further investigation. In one of the few studies that explicitly

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addressed teachers’ decision‐making about whether and how to assess students’ participation in controversial public issues discussions, Hess (2002) argued that there was a tension between authenticity and accountability. One teacher in her study felt that it was inauthentic to reward students for participating in the seminar because real‐world discussions include varying modes and rates of participation. On the other hand, the other two teachers chose to emphasize accountability, because they felt that it gave them the opportunity to provide specific feedback through the use of rubrics and grades, and they felt that it communicated to students the importance of participation. More recently, Parker and others (2013) offered a tantalizing glimpse of what such assessment could look like in their problem‐based learning study. Even though the teaching of controversial issues was not the explicit focus of the study, the researchers designed a Complex Scenario Test focusing on students’ ability to analyze different aspects of a controversial issue. This test aimed to assess how well students could apply knowledge of a scenario centered on a controversial issue (e.g., an indigent person’s right to a fair trial) and formulate a plan for political action. Students assumed the role of adviser to a congressperson or interest group, and their task was to prepare an action plan and justify their recommendations. Students’ written answers were scored on four dimensions (overall quality; directing appropriate advice to the client; using political process concepts and vocabulary; and ability to analyze the controversial aspects of the public policy). Intriguingly, the study found that students in the problem‐based learning class performed better on three of the four dimensions than their counterparts in the traditional courses. More research, h­owever, needs to be conducted to determine the validity and reliability of this particular test as well as other forms of formal and informal assessment relevant to the teaching of controversial issues. In the two decades since Hahn’s (1996) review, the number of robust and high‐quality research studies conducted in different national contexts has increased significantly. The international studies included in this review provide important new insights and offer researchers an opportunity to ask novel questions and examine assumptions that have hitherto been unquestioned. Unfortunately, most research studies on the teaching of controversial issues focus narrowly on a particular national context or setting and privilege a particular conception of democracy, thus limiting their potential significance. We argue that social studies scholars, especially, should seek out and draw on research conducted in different national, historical, and intellectual contexts in order to increase the international relevance and impact of their work. For example, studies of the teaching of controversial issues in deeply divided societies, including Northern Ireland, Cyprus, and Chile, can help shed light on critical problems such as the importance of focusing on and addressing the emotional aspect of controversial issues instruction. We therefore echo Hess and Avery’s (2008) call for more cross‐national comparisons and cross‐disciplinary investigations in order to gain a fuller understanding of how these different contexts matter.

Acknowledgments The authors are deeply grateful to Keith Barton for his unwavering support and for his c­ritical and constructive comments and suggestions. The authors would also like to thank Colin Ong‐Dean for helping to proofread the manuscript.



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Ho, L. C. (2010). “Don’t worry, I’m not going to report you”: Education for citizenship in Singapore. Theory & Research in Social Education, 38(2), 217–247. Ho, L. C. (2016). “Freedom can only exist in an ordered state”: Harmony and civic education in Singapore. Journal of Curriculum Studies. doi:10.1080/00220272.2016.1155648 Ho, L. C., Alviar‐Martin, T., & Leviste, E. (2014). “There is space, and there are limits”: The challenge of teaching controversial topics in an illiberal democracy. Teachers College Record, 116, 1–28. Ho, L. C., Alviar‐Martin, T., Sim, J. B.‐Y., & Yap, P. S. (2011). Civic disparities: Exploring students’ perceptions of citizenship within Singapore’s academic tracks. Theory & Research in Social Education, 39(1), 298–316. Ho, L. C., & Seow, T. (2015). Teaching controversial issues in geography: Climate change education in Singapore schools. Theory & Research in Social Education, 43(4), 314–344. Hunt, M. P., & Metcalf, L. E. (1968). Teaching high school social studies. New York, NY: Harper & Row. James, J. H. (2014). Religious belief and the framing of teachers’ approaches to controversy in the classroom in the United States. In T. Misco & J. de Groof (Eds.), Cross‐cultural case studies of teaching controversial issues (pp. 221–236). The Netherlands: Wolf Legal Publishers. Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (2010). Peace education in the classroom: Creating effective peace education programs. In G. Salomon & E. Cairns (Eds.), Handbook on peace education (pp. 223–240). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis. King, J. T. (2009). Teaching and learning about controversial issues: Lessons from Northern Ireland. Theory & Research in Social Education, 37(2), 215–246. Kuhn, D. (2005). Education for thinking. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Magendzo, A., & Toledo, M. I. (2009). Moral dilemmas in teaching recent history related to the v­iolation of human rights in Chile. Journal of Moral Education, 38(4), 445–465. McAvoy, P., & Hess, D. (2013). Classroom deliberation in an era of political polarization. Curriculum Inquiry, 43(1), 14–47. McCully, A. (2006). Practitioner perceptions of their role in facilitating the handling of controversial issues in contested societies: a Northern Irish experience. Educational Review, 58(1), 51–65. McDevitt, M. J., & Caton‐Rosser, M. S. (2009). Deliberative barbarians: Reconciling the civic and the agonistic in democratic education. InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies, 5(2). McDevitt, M., & Kiousis, S. (2006). Deliberative learning: An evaluative approach to interactive civic education. Communication Education, 55(3), 247–264. Mhlauli, M. B. (2011). Teaching controversial issues in primary schools in Botswana: Reality or illusion. British Journal of Art and Social Sciences, 2, 143–156. Miller‐Lane, J., Denton, E., & May, A. (2006). Social studies teachers’ views on committed impartiality and discussion. Social Studies Research and Practice, 1(1), 30–44. Misco, T. (2011). Deontological reconceptualization: A study of moral education in Beijing. Theory and Research in Social Education, 39(4), 464–493. Misco, T., & de Groof, J. (Eds.). (2014). Cross‐cultural case studies of teaching controversial issues. The Netherlands: Wolf Legal Publishers. Misco, T., & Patterson, N. C. (2007). A study of pre‐service teachers’ conceptualizations of academic freedom and controversial issues. Theory & Research in Social Education, 35(4), 520–550. Newmann, F. M., & Oliver, D. W. (1970). Clarifying public controversy: An approach to teaching social studies. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company. Niemi, N. S., & Niemi, R. G. (2007). Partisanship, participation, and political trust as taught (or not) in high school history and government classes. Theory & Research in Social Education, 35(1), 32–61. O’Dwyer, S. (2003). Democracy and Confucian values. Philosophy East and West, 53(1), 39–63. Oliver, D. W., & Shaver, J. P. (1966). Teaching public issues in the high school. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.



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Pace, J. L. (2011). The complex and unequal impact of high stakes accountability on untested social studies. Theory and Research in Social Education, 39(1), 32–60. Parker, W. C. (2003). Teaching democracy: Unity and diversity in public life. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Parker, W. C., Lo, J., Yeo, A. J., Valencia, S. W., Ngyuyen, D., Abbott, R. D.,…Vye, N. J. (2013). Beyond breadth‐speed‐test: Toward deeper knowing and engagement in an Advanced Placement course. American Educational Research Journal, 50(6), 1424–1459. Pollack, S., & Kolikant, Y. B.‐D. (2012). Collaboration amidst disagreement and moral judgment: The dynamics of Jewish and Arab students’ collaborative inquiry of their joint past. Computer‐ Supported Collaborative Learning, 7, 109–128. Shaver, J. P., & Larkins, A. G. (1973). Decision‐making in a democracy. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Stoddard, J. D. (2009). The ideological implication of using “educational” film to teach controversial events. Curriculum Inquiry, 39(3), 407–433. Thornton, S. J. (2005). Teaching social studies that matters: Curriculum for active learning. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Washington, E. Y., & Humphries, E. K. (2011). A social studies teacher’s sense making of controversial issues discussions of race in a predominantly white, rural high school classroom. Theory and Research in Social Education, 39(1), 92–114. Wills, J. (2007). Putting the squeeze on social studies: Managing teaching dilemmas in subject areas excluded from state testing. The Teachers College Record, 109(8), 1980–2046. Young, I. M. (2002). Inclusion and democracy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Zembylas, M., & Kambani, F. (2012). The teaching of controversial issues during elementary‐level history instruction: Greek‐Cypriot teachers’ perceptions and emotions. Theory and Research in Social Education, 40(2), 107–133. Zimmerman, J. (2005). Whose America?: Culture wars in the public schools. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

15

Disciplined Inquiry in Social Studies Classrooms John W. Saye

The practice of inquiry holds a central role in conceptions of the social studies. However, inquiry has been much more commonly advocated than realized in classrooms. Social studies instruction has most often been characterized by broad surveys of content that require students to absorb and apply superficial knowledge to lower order thinking tasks (Evans, 2004; Newmann, 1991; Saye & Social Studies Inquiry Research Collaborative [SSIRC], 2013). The emphasis in such instruction is on the transmission of received knowledge from teacher to student with little expectation that students will engage actively in interpretation, analysis, or evaluation of information to draw original conclusions (Cuban, 1991; Newmann, 1991). Inquiry, on the other hand, places the focus on the learner as a central constructor of new knowledge. Inquiry involves students in deeper, more active exploration of questions and topics as they seek their own understandings and problem solutions (Vygotsky, 1978). The act of inquiry, however, is no guarantee of more substantive learning. Ungoverned explorations are likely to result in the construction of shallow, naive understandings (Airasian & Walsh, 1997; Dewey, 1938). To construct sound understanding, inquiry must be disciplined. Disciplined inquiry is systematic, rigorous, and public. Claims are substan­ tiated and critiqued using rules of evidence and reasoning recognized by the community of practice within which the inquiry findings would apply (National Council for the Social Studies [NCSS], 2013; Newmann & Associates, 1996). To gain proficiency in disciplined inquiry, novices must be mentored and guided by those who have more expertise in the inquiry conventions that novices are being asked to master. In the social studies as in other fields, disciplined inquiry has certainly included princi­ pled reasoning about factual claims. More contested have been questions such as the degree to which social inquiries should include reasoning about ethical claims or incorporate reasoning from multiple disciplines. Although research in cognitive science has refined thinking about enacting and supporting disciplined inquiry, some differences remain in how the practice of disciplined inquiry is conceptualized for social studies subjects. The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.



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In this chapter I summarize the history of inquiry advocacy in the social studies. I then review findings from cognitive science that have informed current conceptions of disciplined inquiry and the design of supportive inquiry learning environments, and subse­ quently focus specifically on how disciplined inquiry has been conceptualized in contem­ porary social studies. Next, I examine studies that have applied these principles and ideas to investigate disciplined inquiry in social studies classrooms. Finally, I make recommendations for future research. I focus this review on classroom‐based cognitive research done in the last two decades with an emphasis on work done since the 2008 research handbook (Levstik & Tyson, 2008).1 I sought to treat the disciplinary areas of history, civics/government, geography, and eco­ nomics evenhandedly. I examined journals specific to each of those content areas as well as  major social studies and general education journals and books relevant to the topic. In the end, this review leans heavily on cognitive studies in history because that is where the majority of work has been done. Even with fewer studies available outside of history, space limitations make it impossible to discuss all significant research. I focus on studies that illustrate the central themes of this review: how successful disciplined inquiry looks in practice, what evidence exists for student learning, and what continuing challenges disciplined inquiry presents for students and teachers.

15.1  Historical Foundations of Inquiry in the Social Studies The birth of social studies as a field is often traced to the 1916 Social Studies Committee report. Rooted in Progressive Era ideas, this report set the preparation of democratic citi­ zens as the key mission of the social studies. Although not totally abandoning a curriculum organized around the disciplines (principally history), the report insisted on a more con­ temporary emphasis to fit the immediate interests and needs of students and the community and advocated a more integrated use of disciplinary knowledge. Emphasizing the need for citizens to organize, test, and apply their knowledge to address civic issues, the report gave a prominent role to inquiry throughout the curriculum. Teachers were urged to guide their students in using the scientific method to investigate relevant social problems by gathering and testing data, forming conclusions, and submitting conclusions for review and criticism (Saxe, 1991). The report had a mixed reception, with some historians objecting to the diminished focus on traditional history and an ahistorical emphasis on the present. The integrative aspects of the curriculum aroused broader scrutiny. However, progressive elements in the academic disciplines had begun to emphasize social utility among other purposes for school study of their subjects prior to 1916, and this group was more receptive. The key difference between this group and the 1916 committee was whether citizenship education should play a primary or secondary role in organizing the curriculum (Saxe, 1991; Thornton, 2005). The effects of the 1916 report on classroom practice were limited, but innovative m­aterials emerged that reflected the report’s priorities. The most influential was the Rugg curriculum promoting fully integrated social studies organized around inquiry into contemporary societal problems (Evans, 2004).

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Although there were certainly inquiry projects in the intervening years (e.g., Hunt & Metcalf, 1955; Massialas, 1963; Quillen & Hanna, 1948), the 1960s New Social Studies (NSS) Movement represented a second major period of focus on inquiry. Arising in part from fears that progressive methods lacked rigor and placed the nation at a disadvantage in the Cold War, this wave of reform focused on inquiry as practiced by disciplinary scholars. Social scientists and historians took the lead in developing curriculum projects that used inquiry methods to promote discovery of the key concepts and practices of the disciplines. Over 50 national projects were developed by 1967, with most centered firmly on discipline‐based inquiry. A few projects deviated from this pattern, most notably the Harvard Project that promoted an integrated use of disciplinary knowledge and an emphasis on ethical reasoning to analyze persistent societal issues (Evans, 2011). Like the earlier reforms, the NSS drew scholarly criticism, this time principally from social studies educators who criticized the emphasis on the structures of the academic d­isciplines, particularly on single disciplines, as well as the lack of an explicit citizenship education rationale and a lack of relevance for students or society. In the end, the NSS failed to have a great impact on classroom instruction (Evans, 2011). The reforms represented by these two periods and the critiques made of them illustrate competing conceptions of inquiry and its purposes in social studies that continue into the present. The progressives in the earlier period and some critics of the NSS conceptualized the purpose of social studies as social education for citizenship with rigorous, and often interdisciplinary, inquiry serving as a means for civic decision‐making. Operating from a view of social studies as social science, most creators of NSS projects and some disciplinary scholars from the Progressive period conceptualized disciplinary inquiry as a valued end in itself with the assumption that developing disciplinary understandings would implicitly cultivate informed citizens (Thornton, 2005). In the years between the waning of the NSS projects and the contemporary period addressed in this review, a great deal of reform energy was directed toward a renewed focus on the disciplines of history and geography, often emphasizing content knowledge over student inquiry (e.g., Ravitch, 1989). However, advocacy for inquiry with a social education focus persisted (e.g. Engle & Ochoa, 1988), while at the same time reform d­ocuments such as the National Standards for U.S. History (National Center for History in the Schools, 1994) emphasized an inquiry‐based approach to disciplinary subjects from the social science perspective. Like past inquiry proposals, there was little evidence that the ideas proposed by either camp had a major impact on classrooms in the United States (Evans, 2004).

15.2  The Cognitive Revolution: Impact on Contemporary Conceptions of Inquiry and Expertise Thirty years of research in learning and cognition have fundamentally altered concep­ tions about the development of understanding and expertise and have shaped current conceptions of what is required for effective disciplined inquiry. This research addresses not only learning in general, but also in individual disciplines (e.g., Darling‐Hammond, et  al., 2008; Hicks, van Hover, Doolittle, & VanFossen, 2012; National Research Council, 2000).



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15.2.1  Expert‐Novice Research A substantial portion of the research exploring disciplinary thinking has been through l­aboratory studies rather than studies of classroom instruction. Studies of the differences between the way that experts and novices approach problems represent a foundational aspect of this work. Research across varied domains has drawn similar conclusions that have implications for classroom instruction and the scaffolding support that teachers might provide to assist students in developing greater levels of expertise and investigating p­roblems with the rigor required for disciplined inquiry. Experts have deep domain knowledge that is organized around key ideas in their d­isciplines. They recognize problem types that allow them to apply appropriate knowledge and problem‐solving strategies to a particular case. Novices, on the other hand, lack deep, connected domain knowledge and often focus on the surface features of a problem rather than recognizing the abstract conceptual elements that link a specific case to broader knowledge. They lack the procedural, schematic, and metacognitive knowledge that would allow them to engage effectively in disciplined inquiry (Chi, Glaser, & Farr, 1988; National Research Council, 2000). Expert‐novice studies in history (e.g., Lee & Shemilt, 2009; van Boxtel & van Drie, 2004; Wineburg, 1991) geography (e.g. Anderson & Leinhardt, 2002; Huynh, 2009), economics (e.g., Miller & VanFossen, 1994), and political science (e.g., Budano, 2012; Shreiner, 2014) support these general findings. However, only in history has expertise been extensively mapped, and much of the work outside of history has compared expert thinking to the thinking of college undergraduates rather than to that of K–12 grade novices. Expert‐novice studies have revealed cross‐disciplinary similarities but also modes of thinking that distinguish expertise in particular disciplines. For instance, in the domain of history those with greater expertise may employ sourcing, contextualization, and corrobo­ ration heuristics to weigh historical accounts and construct narratives (Wineburg, 1991) while experts in geography rely on nuanced understandings of projection to use maps as tools for reasoning about spatial phenomena (Anderson & Leinhardt, 2002).

15.2.2  Laboratory Studies of Student Disciplinary Thinking Beyond expert‐novice comparisons, laboratory studies have explored the disciplinary thinking of K–12 grade students. Often these studies have investigated specific disciplinary constructs rather than the integrated use of multiple constructs applied to authentic inquiry projects. This laboratory work informs the design of supportive learning environments for disciplined inquiry by revealing how understandings of disciplinary concepts and practices develop and identifying misconceptions that may block the development of substantive and strategic disciplined inquiry practices. Findings from these studies provide essential insights into where and how scaffolding support may have the most impact in overcoming impasses to inquiry and encouraging more rigorous investigations. Mathematics and science education researchers have led in this area, but substantial progress has been made in recent decades in history education investigating student thinking about issues such as the relationship between evidence and sources, determina­ tion of historical significance, and the concept of change over time (Barton, 2008;

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VanSledright & Limon, 2006). Of particular importance for disciplined inquiry has been work investigating the development of student thinking about historical evidence and how students develop strategic knowledge to construct understandings of the past. British researchers have used this work to propose a progression model for the development of historical reasoning (Lee & Ashby, 2000). Their findings are supported by work done in the United States and elsewhere. Laboratory studies related to disciplined inquiry in other content areas have not been as extensive. In geography, research on spatial thinking has investigated the development of students’ ability to interpret maps and has identified student misconceptions about such concepts as projection and the meanings of map symbols that might inform instruction promoting geographical reasoning (e.g., Bausmith & Leinhardt, 1998; Liben & Downs, 1989; Wiegand, 2003). However, a recent review of geography research observed that little work has been done on student ability to use maps for analysis and concluded more broadly that research on geographical practices has been insufficient (Bednarz, Heffron, & Huynh, 2013). The authors called for a research agenda that builds a learning progression for the development of geographical reasoning. Responding to that call, planning for progression research is underway (Solem, Huynh & Boehm, 2014). In economics, foundational work has been done by Berti and associates (e.g., Berti & Bombi, 1988) and by Brophy and Alleman (2006) on the development over time of chil­ dren’s economic understandings; particularly about money, banking, and production and distribution, but little work has been done exploring the development of adolescents’ economic reasoning (Miller & VanFossen, 2008). In the political science domain, much of the research has been in political socialization rather than political reasoning, and has featured surveys and interviews investigating students’ political knowledge and attitudes and how those may affect adult political behaviors (Hahn, 2008). Zhang, Torney‐Purta, and Barber (2012) used survey and testing data to explore adolescent conceptual and p­rocedural reasoning in civics, but noted that research using methods such as think‐ aloud protocols was needed to understand student civic understanding and reasoning more fully. Similar to their work in economics, Berti and associates (e.g. Berti, 2004) and Brophy and Alleman (2006) have done research with children up to grade 8 that lays the groundwork for understanding how children’s understanding of the political world develops over time.

15.2.3  Applying Cognitive Research to the Design of Inquiry Learning Environments The National Research Council (2000) has distilled cognitive research findings into three principles of learning that apply across domains: (1) Learners’ preconceptions about the world must be addressed if they are to grasp new concepts; (2) Competence in an area of inquiry demands deep content knowledge organized in conceptual frameworks that allow application and transfer to new situations; (3) Learners need strategic and meta­ cognitive strategies to evaluate and guide their own learning. These principles underlie three complementary areas of emphasis for the design of supportive inquiry learning environments: engaging learners, attending to the role of social mediation, and scaffolding expertise.



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Engaging learners.  Disciplined inquiry is demanding work. Engaging learners requires motivating sustained intellectual effort by posing tasks that students see as meaningful and authentic. Problem or project-based learning approaches that immerse students in investi­ gating problems and producing products that resemble those encountered by people in the world beyond school have shown promise for increasing motivation, reaching a variety of learners who do not all succeed in more traditional settings, and promoting deep learning and transfer (Bransford & Swartz, 2000; Darling‐Hammond et  al., 2008; Newmann & Associates, 1996). Social mediation.  A primary assumption of sociocultural theory is that individuals con­ struct knowledge as members of social groups situated in specific contexts (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Vygotsky, 1978). Innate cognitive limitations impede individuals’ abilities to access and process available data and lead them to construct simplified models of the world (Simon, 1982). These limitations are likely to be more pronounced for novices attempting to build models of ill‐structured social problems. Collaborative activities may allow groups to coordinate individual capabilities and build shared models that capture more of the complexity of real‐world situations (Shulman & Carey, 1984). However, without more expert support, novices’ thinking about social problems is likely to remain naive and undisciplined. Classroom discourse, guided by an expert teacher, is a key element in helping novices discover key ideas in a domain and develop the types of knowledge necessary for disciplined inquiry and effective model‐building (Brown & Campione, 1994; Parker & Hess, 2001). Scaffolding expertise.  Guided discourse is but one element in a set of cognitive strategies for scaffolding the gradual development of the expertise required for disciplined inquiry. Cognitive apprenticeship provides guidance through modeling problem solving in an authentic activity and supporting students’ developing understandings through coaching and scaffolding (Brown et al., 1989). At least three types of scaffolding may support nov­ ices in thinking more expertly about problems under investigation: (1) conceptual (guidance about how knowledge is connected into larger conceptual frameworks); (2) pro­ cedural/strategic (guidance about how to use disciplinary tools in decision‐making); and (3) metacognitive (guidance about how to manage thinking and apply prior knowledge) (Hannafin, Land, & Oliver, 1998; Saye & Brush, 2007). In designing inquiry learning envi­ ronments, Saye and Brush (2002) differentiate between hard scaffolds that may be planned in advance of instruction based on common learner difficulties, and soft scaffolds which are dynamic, situational supports provided in real‐time based on teacher diagnosis of learner needs. Scaffolding support can assist learners in building more robust schema of connected knowledge that allow them to recognize problem types and flexibly employ disciplinary problem‐solving strategies to new situations. Such rich, flexible representations of knowledge must be built gradually over a long period of time through encounters with con­ cepts in multiple contexts under the tutelage of more expert teachers. These carefully planned and supported explorations allow learners to revisit and elaborate key ideas and understandings as they gain greater expertise in the process of disciplined inquiry (Bransford et al., 2006; Gick & Holyoak, 1983).

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15.3  Conceptualizing Disciplined Inquiry in Contemporary Social Studies Changes in our understanding of learning are reflected in contemporary conceptions of disciplined inquiry. Some authors have proposed general criteria for inquiry that apply across disciplines while others have developed criteria specific to content areas. In a framework that draws explicitly from cognitive research and the kind of cognitive work done by successful adults in a variety of roles and fields, Newmann and associates (1996) created a set of authentic intellectual work (AIW) standards for assessing intellectual challenge in classrooms across grade levels and content areas. Authentic intellectual work asks students to construct knowledge using disciplined inquiry to produce work that has value and impact beyond school. In the AIW conceptualization, disciplined inquiry requires that appropriate disciplinary knowledge and practices be used to develop deep, articulated representations of problems (Deep Knowledge), that substantive dialogue be  used to expand understanding (Substantive Conversation) and that conclusions be  defended through evidence‐based argumentation (Elaborated Communication). Consistent with findings from the learning sciences, the concept of AIW recognizes that disciplined inquiry is nested in a holistic learning environment promoting intellectual achievement with value in the real world.

15.3.1  Criteria for Disciplined Inquiry in Social Studies The Powerful and Authentic Social Studies (PASS) framework (Harris & Yocum, 2000) integrated the AIW standards with the NCSS standards for powerful teaching and learning (1994) to create a conception of inquiry specific to social studies. In doing so, PASS added to the AIW conception of intellectual work two elements that have been important to social education from the inception of the field: consideration of ethical reasoning and the need for integrative learning across disciplines to address the complexity of social problems. The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework (NCSS, 2013) represents the most recent application of cognitive science research to disciplined inquiry in the social studies. The C3 framework organizes social studies practice around an Inquiry Arc: (1) Developing questions and planning inquiries; (2) Applying disciplinary concepts and tools; (3) Evaluating sources and using evidence; and (4) Communicating conclusions and taking informed action. The Framework delineates two categories of literacy: inquiry literacies that apply across the social studies disciplines (1, 3, & 4 above) and literacies tied to particular d­isciplines. Although emphasizing the importance of disciplinary concepts and practices, the framework acknowledges that many questions are best addressed through interdisciplinary inquiry. Conceptions of successful inquiry practice in the social studies hinge on the model of expertise that serves as a learning target. Perennial tensions between social science and social education constructions of the field lead advocates to somewhat different targets. The key questions remain: For what purpose should students engage in inquiry and by what standards should the quality of their inquiry be assessed? As in earlier eras, the debate over purpose is not whether education for citizenship is a valued goal; rather it is what goal should be the primary focus in organizing inquiry‐based curriculum and instruction.



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The first position, drawing from the social science tradition and looking to expertise as practiced by those in the academic disciplines for its learning target, might be characterized as Disciplinary Inquiry (DI). The notion of disciplinary literacy, grounded in research on domain‐specific cognition, is often used to describe goals for student expertise (Bain, 2005; De La Paz et al., 2014). Mastery of disciplinary concepts and practices is a valued end in itself; with the expectation that such mastery will implicitly provide the tools citizens need to address the challenges of contemporary life. Some adherents to this position are cautious about the inclusion of ethical reasoning in the inquiry process, and, in the case of history, with connections of the past to the present, because they believe those elements misrepre­ sent how academic practitioners understand the field and the practices in which they engage (e.g., Fogo, 2014; Reisman, 2011). The second position, based in the social education tradition, might be called Disciplined Civic Inquiry (DCI). Rather than establishing a learning target by asking what do expert academics do, proponents of this position might ask what do expert citizens do. For instance, observing that expert models assume levels of complexity and competence that exceed rea­ sonable expectations for lay people, Parker and Zumeta (1999) modified practices used by public policy experts to build a simpler citizen model for policy deliberation. The DCI posi­ tion considers the academic disciplines as resources for making curriculum decisions about the school subjects, but takes into account as well other resources such as the needs of society (Hess & McAvoy, 2014; Parker & Lo, 2016; Thornton, 2005). In this construction, disciplined inquiry is a means that explicitly serves the end of civic decision‐making. Although recognizing the value of disciplinary practices, advocates of this position are more likely to integrate into inquiry multiple disciplines and explicit consideration of e­thical issues. A DCI emphasis is most commonly found in civics/government. The field of history, because it has been the area most active in cognitively based research and most concerned with distinctions between the past and present, has been the arena where the differences between these two positions have been most explicitly considered. Although the DI per­ spective has been prominent here, some history educators have insisted that the past must be directly related to the present if we expect students to be able to apply disciplinary tools to contemporary problems, and some have suggested that one selection criteria for inquiry topics should be the extent to which the topic offers the opportunity for considering peren­ nial issues of the common good (Barton & Levstik, 2004; Fogo, 2014; Saye & Brush, 2004). The AIW, PASS, and C3 frameworks contain elements that might support either DI or DCI. PASS, with its emphasis on ethical reasoning and integrated learning, perhaps most explicitly reflects the DCI conception.

15.4  Research on Disciplined Inquiry in K–12 Social Studies Classrooms The C3 initiative is too recent for classroom‐based studies referencing its framework, and little empirical research has explicitly utilized the PASS framework. The AIW framework has been foundational to some current research programs (e.g., Saye & SSIRC, 2013). AIW criteria have been used to assess the quality of student thinking in individual units (e.g., Manfra & Lee, 2012; Swann & Hofer, 2013), and several studies have found positive

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correlations between AIW pedagogy and the intellectual quality of student work in single units (Avery, 1999) or in data drawn from discrete lessons (Avery, Freeman, & Carmichael‐ Tanaka, 2002; Newmann & Associates, 1996).2 Missing at this point are long‐term field  residencies that examine this relationship across multiple units or with detailed descriptions of practice. Cognitive research suggests that it is unrealistic to expect substantial growth in exper­ tise over short interventions. Accordingly, I focus here on disciplined inquiry studies with long time horizons that report detailed evidence of impact. This group of studies features ideas consistent with elements of the AIW, PASS, and C3 conceptions of inquiry and includes work framed from DI and DCI perspectives. I begin with three exemplar studies at varying grade levels that illustrate major research designs: a high school project in which researchers and teachers collaborate in designing the intervention, a middle school project in which researchers design the intervention and provide professional development (PD), and an elementary school project in which the researcher also serves as teacher. I then look more briefly at outcomes reported in other long‐term studies. Finally, I discuss longand short‐term studies that provide rich portraits of practice, and summarize what that work reveals about enacting successful inquiry instruction as well as the challenges to achieving success.

15.4.1  DCI in High School AP U.S. Government In an ongoing project begun in 2007, Parker and associates (2011, 2013) are engaged in design‐based research investigating disciplined inquiry in the AP (Advanced Placement) U.S. Government course. Researchers have collaborated with teachers to design and contin­ uously refine a project‐based learning (PBL) course anchored by a master course question: What is the proper role of government in a democracy? The course is built around quasi‐ repetitive learning cycles designed to deepen student understanding and ability to use core disciplinary concepts and practices. The design team adapted five existing projects that place students in authentic roles (e.g., legislators, justices) and require them to address real problems of governance across a variety of political settings. Background information and readings are introduced only after initial engagement with problems creates a need to know. After each project, students revisit the master question. Support for the inquiry process is provided by a collaborative task structure that requires public discourse to address problems, formative assessments inside each project, and a recurring problem‐cycles structure that invites testing, revising, and extending understandings of core ideas and processes as the course progresses. The project uses a control group design to investigate whether, when compared to classes experiencing traditional coverage‐based instruction, classes in the intervention group will (a) perform as well or better on the AP U.S. Government exam; (b) demonstrate deeper conceptual understanding and transfer on a new end‐of‐course inquiry problem, the Complex Scenario Test (CST); and (c) exhibit deeper engagement and success for a wider range of students. In the first two project years the PBL course was implemented in one high achieving and one moderate achieving school. In Year 1, the control was another high achieving school; in Year 2, the control was two moderate achieving schools. In both years students in the PBL



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group performed as well or better on the AP U.S. Government test. In Year 1 students in the PBL classes at both schools performed significantly better on the CST. In Year 2 students at the high achieving school performed better, but at the moderate achieving schools both PBL and control groups performed poorly. In Year 2, the top scorers on the CST demon­ strated moderate levels of complex, connected understanding of issues relevant to the problem, but even they constructed thinly elaborated policy arguments with few supporting details and little nuance. Some students reported frustration with the unfamiliar PBL course structure and ques­ tioned its efficiency in AP test preparation. In response to student frustration, the design team added additional scaffolding in the form of advanced conceptual organizers that preview each project and the standard project phases and clarify how projects connect to one another to address the master course question. After observing in Year 2 the strug­ gles of some students with lower literacy levels, the team developed explicit reading and writing scaffolds.

15.4.2  DI in Middle School U.S. History In a three‐year project, researchers designed a curriculum to assist 8th graders in reading and analyzing historical sources and crafting disciplinary written arguments, as well as a professional development (PD) program to prepare teachers for implementing the curricu­ lum (De La Paz et al., 2014; Monte‐Sano, De La Paz & Felton, 2014). The curriculum and PD were modified each year based on results from the previous implementation. The cur­ riculum consisted of six three‐day units spread throughout the school year. Each unit was built around a controversial historical question and two historical documents that presented divergent arguments on the question. Each unit followed a similar sequence: Students read and annotated the sources; deliberated together about the documents and the question; and planned and composed individual essays. Unlike the Parker initiative, the six questions were not situated within a larger course question; however, the intent was that students’ dis­ ciplinary argumentation would grow through repeated engagement with work that was situ­ ated in the meaningful context of investigating questions open to different interpretations. The project used a cognitive apprenticeship model that encouraged teachers to model, guide, and gradually fade their support as the year progressed. A series of hard scaffolds explicitly supported disciplinary reading and writing. Student deliberation was supported using a graphic organizer and a Structured Academic Controversy format in which stu­ dents prepared and presented an argument for one side of the argument and then reversed roles to present the opposing view (Johnson & Johnson, 1988). Researchers found that more expert history teachers adapted the curriculum to promote student success through careful attention to authentic purpose and historical context. They used discussions about documents and their relationship to the scaffolds to make the process of historical inquiry visible to their students and closely monitored student work to provide feedback that pushed students toward more disciplined thinking. The project used a pre/posttest design with a control group to examine the effects of the intervention on the disciplinary writing of students. Results reported for the first year of the project found statistically significant effects on the ability of culturally and academically diverse learners to use evidence to craft disciplinary arguments. Even students whose

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teachers implemented the project with less fidelity outscored students in the control group, and gains were found for all learners regardless of their entering levels of literacy.

15.4.3  DI in Elementary School U.S.History In a researcher‐as‐teacher study, VanSledright (2002) investigated how intensive instruction in historical thinking might affect 5th graders’ ability to engage in disciplinary inquiry practices. Over the course of four months, VanSledright engaged learners in three inquiry units spanning the colonial and revolutionary periods. Each unit featured small group work with documents to construct historical interpretations that were discussed and debated in whole class sessions. The activities of successive units evolved based upon the researcher’s assessment of student thinking and needs with the explicit goal of developing student abilities to become more disciplined in their inquiries about the past. Students created research booklets based on team investigations of colonial life, constructed Revolutionary‐ era newspapers reflecting different historical perspectives, and wrote and critiqued essays on the causes of and justification for the Revolution. VanSledright supported student thinking with guided readings and hard scaffolds that introduced disciplinary heuristics for working with accounts and evidence. He orchestrated class discussions that elicited students’ reasoning, challenged absolutist assumptions about knowledge of the past that can impede growth in disciplinary reasoning, and pushed them to apply disciplinary rules and vocabulary to their interpretations and arguments. Students were partners in collaborative inquiry as they challenged each other’s arguments. Formative writing assessments provided feedback on student thinking and shaped the design of future lesson activities. VanSledright selected a representative group of eight students from the class of 23 for a formal assessment of intervention effects. He used a pre/posttest design with inquiry performance tasks and student interviews. In the performance task, students engaged in think‐alouds as they read, interpreted, and drew inferences from a set of documents and images on a historical event for which there was inconclusive evidence (pretest: Boston Massacre; posttest: Lexington Green). Students demonstrated substantial growth in their abilities to think and reason historically, especially in reading and evaluating sources of his­ torical evidence. VanSledright constructed a continuum assessing student progression in reading and analyzing historical texts, moving from strategically general and analytically intratextual reading to disciplinary, critical, and intertextual reading. Instances of critical intertextual reading, essential for advanced historical inquiry, rose from 17% to 41%. Gains varied among students, with entering reading levels one factor affecting student growth. Despite efforts to challenge absolutist epistemological assumptions, some students continued to reflect aspects of this stance in the posttest assessment.

15.4.4  Other Long‐Term Studies Other projects with long time horizons suggest similar promise for a sustained, scaffolded focus on disciplined inquiry. Some also reinforce the incremental nature of developing expertise. In a year‐long teacher‐researcher collaboration with a gifted class of 3rd graders,



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Levstik and Smith (1996) found that strategies such as modeling investigative procedures and guided discussions that introduced and tested different types and sources of evidence encouraged a community of historical inquiry in which students became more skilled at generating worthy questions and developing defensible interpretations of the past. However, their growth in interpretation was more evident in discussion than in writing where their accounts often lacked causative links or supporting details. In a similar year‐long collabo­ ration with two fourth/fifth grade teachers, Barton (1997) found that repeated experiences in scaffolded, collaborative historical investigations led to substantial growth in some areas of students’ disciplinary thinking: Students understood how a range of sources may provide historical information, and they were able to apply common-sense ideas to a disciplinary process of critically evaluating sources. However, students had difficulty using evidence to support historical arguments. Reisman (2012) engaged in a researcher‐designed/PD study that used a pre/posttest con­ trol design to examine the classes of ten 11th grade U.S. History teachers in five high schools. Following four days of PD (with two school year follow‐ups), the five treatment group teachers implemented 36–50 stand‐alone document‐based lessons over a six‐month period. Lessons emphasized disciplinary reading strategies to address interpretive or, in a few cases, evaluative central questions. All lessons included explicit strategy instruction, scaffolded source work in small groups, and whole‐class discussion that used evidence from the sources to address the lesson central question. Although implementation fidelity varied widely, study measures revealed statistically significant treatment effects for factual knowledge, reading comprehension, historical thinking, and the ability to transfer discipline‐specific reading strategies to address contemporary topics. However, a closer analysis revealed significant effects for only two of the four historical thinking constructs, sourcing and close reading. Students did not demonstrate similar gains for contextualiza­ tion and corroboration. In another study from the researcher‐designed/PD paradigm, 64 teachers and 4,350 11th and 12th‐grade students participated in an assessment of a five‐unit, problem‐based e­conomics curriculum developed by the Buck Institute (Finkelstein, Hanson, Huang, Hirschman & Huang, 2010). In each unit students confronted a real‐world economic dilemma and developed problem solutions through analysis, investigation, and discussion. Prior to the school year, teachers participated in 40 hours of PD with ongoing support in five phone conferences. The study used a pre/posttest randomized control group design with both a content knowledge test and a performance assessment that included such disci­ plinary dimensions as use of disciplinary concepts, argumentation, and use of evidence. The intervention group scored significantly higher than the control group on both content knowledge and performance measures. In a teacher‐as‐researcher study in a 9th grade World History class, Kohlmeier (2005, 2006) engaged her students in three cycles of scaffolded work with historical sources over the course of a semester. Each investigation was built around an interpretive question and focused on one lengthy document. Students completed reading webs, engaged in Socratic seminars, and wrote interpretive essays. Discussions and essays demonstrated growth over time in the disciplinary practices of evaluating and contextualizing sources, perspective recognition, and defending interpretations with evidence. It is less common to find long‐term non‐intervention studies that report precisely measured inquiry learning outcomes.3 In an example of such work Hess and Posselt (2002)

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engaged in a naturalistic semester‐long study of two sections of an existing 10th grade course focused on disciplined discussion of controversial public issues. Students spent two weeks learning a model for disciplined discussion developed by the Harvard Project (Oliver & Shaver, 1966) and then participated in scored discussions as the central element of units studying five public issues. A scaffold supported discussion preparation, and each discussion was scored using disciplined discussion criteria (e.g., using evidence to support a claim). Researchers found that students’ abilities to engage in disciplined discussions grew with practice and feedback, even for those who were not naturally disposed to such activities. Finally, work by Saye and Brush (1999, 2002, 2007) represents a different sort of long‐ term, designed‐based research. Like the Parker and Monte‐Sano groups, these researchers tracked refinements in instructional design over time; however, they did not examine the long‐term development of particular groups of students. The researchers engaged in a series of studies over four years, continuously modifying a single 11th grade problem‐based U.S. History unit to explore the potential of hard and soft scaffolding for supporting disciplined inquiry. To prepare for representing assigned stakeholder groups at a 1968 civil rights conference deliberating what should be done to continue the struggle for social j­ustice, investigative teams engaged in scaffolded work with accounts reflecting diverse p­erspectives from the Civil Rights Movement. Following the conference, students wrote dialectical essays addressing the question. In the first iteration, researchers used a control group design, and in succeeding iterations, compared performance results to previous years. The investigators found that scaffolding assisted students in data gathering and c­onstructing more integrated argument narratives, but the constructed narratives did not demonstrate nuanced understandings of the problem landscape. Students struggled to s­ynthesize evidence, find patterns in the data, corroborate accounts, and note discrepancies in evidence. Scaffolding modifications encouraged stronger perspective recognition for assigned stakeholder groups, but students struggled to account for competing perspectives and to make connections to broader events and more abstract concepts. The long‐term studies discussed in this section feature elements that cognitive science research suggests are critical to the development of expertise: an emphasis on meaningful questions, prominent roles for collaboration and discourse, and hard and soft scaffolding to support student appropriation of disciplinary tools and practices. The studies differ in the size of the problem landscapes, with some studies engaging students in expansive problems while others present more constrained problems with more limited data for processing. They also demonstrate differences in motivating rationale. Notably, all history studies, with the exception of Saye and Brush (1999, 2002, 2007), proceed principally from a DI stance, while the three studies in other subject areas reflect more the DCI perspective. However, DI/DCI distinctions range along a continuum. Most of the history studies include some evaluative questions that offer the potential for civic reasoning. The distinction lies in the central purpose for inquiry. For instance, Monte‐Sano et al. (2014) included as one of their six central questions: “Was the Mexican‐American war a just or unjust war?” However, the authors’ primary rationale for using controversial issues was to model and elicit interpretive disciplinary arguments rather than engage students in ethical reasoning about just war. Reflecting a more middle ground position, Barton hypothesized that students in his study might have made better use of evidence if inquiry had focused on topics that have signifi­ cance for contemporary society, and in later writing he and Levstik argue for more emphasis on such issues (Barton & Levstik, 2004).



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15.4.5  Incorporating Findings from Short‐Term Studies Although most evidence suggests that building adaptive expertise requires extended time frames, some studies have found evidence of transfer of disciplinary thinking after a single unit of instruction (e.g., Bodzin & Cirucci, 2009; Leinhardt, Stainton, & Bausmith, 1998). In  a large randomized control study of the effects of the Facing History and Ourselves c­urriculum, investigators found that students who experienced a six‐week Holocaust unit with teachers who had participated in PD were able to transfer disciplinary skills to a new historical case. Statistically significant effects were found for all subscales of a historical understanding measure: interpreting evidence, analyzing what leads people to make ethical choices, and thinking critically about cause and effect (Barr, 2010). It remains an open question how durable and robust such transfer is without sustained efforts to consolidate and elaborate disciplinary schema in continuing instruction. The advantages of long‐term studies notwithstanding, shorter studies that explore c­lassroom interactions provide a valuable complement to classroom descriptions included in some longer studies. Together these rich accounts test the design propositions of cognitive science in social studies contexts and elaborate our understanding of what is necessary for disciplined inquiry to succeed in the ill‐structured problem spaces that are characteristic of our subject domains. Specifically, this body of work illuminates promising practices for engaging learners and supporting learner success in the inquiry process while also revealing the logistical, physical, and cognitive challenges that an inquiry practice poses for teachers themselves. Motivation: Engaging learners.  Inquiry requires substantial investment from students. Students may resist taking on the demands of disciplined inquiry if they perceive it as an academic exercise without relevance for contemporary society or their own lives (Barton, 1997). A number of studies demonstrate success in establishing an authentic purpose for inquiry that students recognize as valuable and relevant (Levstik & Smith, 1996; Libresco, 2005; Saye & Brush, 2002). For instance, Keiper (1999) found high levels of motivation and substantial use of geographic thinking among 5th graders when he framed a geography inquiry project in the context of a local problem relevant to his students’ interests (the location of a new city park), supported student use of geographic information system tools to gather and analyze community data and generate problem solutions, and planned for students to present their solutions to an authentic audience (a city official). Teachers have skillfully used analogies to make more remote times or abstract processes relevant to student experiences and lead them to disciplinary thinking. For instance, to help students recognize diverse perspectives in Federalist and Antifederalist newspapers, a teacher used the analogy of the differences in the ways news stations in different cities might report on the hometown football team (Monte‐Sano et  al., 2014). However, researchers have noted that devices such as analogies may work against disciplinary understanding without close attention to the fit between the two instances (Brooks, 2014; Monte‐Sano et al., 2014). Motivating questions are essential to engaging learners in disciplined investigations. Van Drie, van Boxtel, and van der Linden (2006) found that evaluative questions elicited deeper historical reasoning among students than explanatory questions. Other researchers have noted that students are engaged by the opportunity to decide controversial questions

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(Goldberg, 2013; MacArthur, Ferretti & Okolo, 2002). Researchers operating from a DCI rationale have argued for an emphasis on controversial ethical questions to develop under­ standings of perennial societal issues that can be applied to new instances (Barton & Levstik, 2004; Saye & Brush, 2004). Examining how two middle school history teachers made con­ nections between the past and present, Brooks (2014) concluded that success in such endeavors depends on careful selection of questions used as curricular foci, citing the example of a teacher’s choice to focus the study of Hammurabi’s Code on the issue of fairness of laws rather than whether the laws were too harsh. This focus on perennial issues of fairness and equity opened the opportunity for connection to those issues in the present. Whether engaged in ethical questions or in the task of understanding the perspective of a figure faced with difficult decisions, researchers have found that the affective dimension of empathy may engage students more deeply with the inquiry process (Endacott, 2014; Kohlmeier, 2006). However, whether reasoning about past or contemporary issues, stu­ dents can become too emotionally invested to employ disciplinary reasoning effectively (Endacott, 2014; Grant & Gradwell, 2010; Parker & Lo, 2016). Furthermore, students may evade engagement with controversial issues that directly impact them (King, 2009). On the other hand, Goldberg (2013) has suggested that encountering challenges to dearly held commitments may motivate a deeper use of disciplinary practices to mount a principled defense. Supporting success.  Reading complex texts, developing deep knowledge, and reasoning about problems place a substantial cognitive load on students. For students to undertake such demanding practices, they must not only perceive the work as worthy of their effort, but must also feel safe to take risks (Brown & Campione, 1994). Comparing the practices of a more traditional teacher with two inquiry‐oriented peers, Saye and Brush (2006) found a key difference was not only the academic challenge and risk that the inquiry teachers posed for learners, but also their care to establish an environment where ideas were freely exchanged and differences were respected. The collaborative nature of inquiry exposes students to new levels of risk as they make their knowledge and reasoning public (Beck, 2003; Hess & Posselt, 2002). While difficult for less confident or struggling students (Rossi & Pace 1998), those who have had past academic success may also resist practices that challenge epistemological assumptions and deviate from established norms of schooling (Grant & Gradwell, 2010; Levstik & Smith, 1996; Parker et al., 2013). Skillful instructional designs for collaborative work allow students to use peers for support and may spread risk and produce more robust problem solutions (Libresco, 2005). For instance, Leinhardt et al. (1998) found that groups engaged in dialogue during a map‐making task demonstrated statistically significant gains in knowledge and geographic reasoning compared to students who completed the task independently and that gains were even more impressive on a transfer task. Numerous studies demonstrate the facilitative power of discussion for scaffolding inquiry. Kohlmeier (2006) found that dialogue allowed her students to construct more complex representations of historical events. Several investigators have provided examples of how an expert teacher may use discussion to diagnose understanding and extend stu­ dent disciplinary thinking (Ashby, Lee, & Shelmit, 2005; Bain, 2005; Libresco, 2005; Saye & Brush, 2006; VanSledright, 2002). Others have illustrated how a teacher may use templates or rubrics to guide students towards more rigorous discussion (Hess & Posselt, 2002;



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Levstik & Smith, 1996) or use defined discussion roles to scaffold disciplinary thinking (Bain, 2005; Beck, 2003; Ferretti, MacArthur & Okolo, 2001). The challenges of inquiry are particularly acute for struggling or developing readers (Rossi & Pace, 1998; VanSledright, 2002) or those with learning disabilities (Ferretti et al., 2001). Developmentally appropriate hard scaffolds such as disciplinary heuristics for reading, argumentation, and communication can help diverse learners surmount typical obstacles to disciplined thinking (e.g., De La Paz et al., 2014; Ferretti et al., 2001). However, students often underestimate the rigor required to successfully address tasks (e.g., Parker et al. 2013) and may not utilize available scaffolding because they do not perceive the need for support (Girard & Harris, 2012; Saye & Brush, 2002). Explicit instruction in using disciplinary tools with modeling by teachers may make the usefulness of scaffolds more apparent and allow novices to engage in more productive investigations that move them more quickly towards expertise (Bain, 2005; Beck, 2003; Keiper, 1999; Levstik & Smith, 1996). However, research also suggests the limits of s­caffolding in addressing ill‐structured social problems. The greatest successes thus far in scaffolding robust disciplined inquiry have been reported for small problem landscapes with limited document sets (De La Paz et al., 2014; Kohlmeier, 2005), and even then stu­ dents may struggle with some aspects of disciplinary thinking (Reisman, 2012). Scaffolding has been less successful in helping students to develop elaborated evidentiary arguments in large problem landscapes that reflect more closely the complexity of the social world (Barton, 1997; Parker et  al., 2013; Saye & Brush, 2007). This finding raises important c­oncerns if inquiry learning is to prepare students to address the actual challenges of democratic living. This difficulty goes to the issue of building elaborated models of ill‐structured social problems that more closely resemble those employed by experts. Theory and evidence point to the need for lengthy experiences with multiple dimensions of a problem in varying contexts (Ashby, Lee, & Shelmit, 2005; Bain, 2005; Kohlmeier, 2006). Unifying problems that connect ideas across units and even courses may hold promise for addressing the c­omplex set of challenges posed by this issue (Parker et. al. 2013; Saye & Brush 2004). Teacher challenges.  The time, energy, and cognitive demands of disciplined inquiry pose challenges to teachers as well as students. To effectively monitor, challenge, and assist stu­ dent investigations, teachers need not only disciplinary expertise, but also knowledge of how to support literacy and make adaptations for the needs of diverse learners (Monte‐ Sano et  al., 2014; Rossi & Pace, 1998). The socioconstructivist assumptions underlying inquiry may not match teacher beliefs about knowledge, teaching, and learning, and beliefs coupled with lack of experience in inquiry may cause teachers to underestimate the cognitive challenge of inquiry activities and the support that novices require (Monte‐Sano et al., 2014; Saye & Brush, 1999). The ambiguity and uncertainty associated with investiga­ tion of ill‐structured social problems and the increased dependence on students to generate knowledge require great cognitive flexibility and a high tolerance for risk‐taking from teachers (Levstik & Smith, 1996; Rossi, 1995). These considerations may explain why, despite the importance of discourse for promoting expertise, researchers have consistently reported that substantive classroom discussion is rare (Hess, 2008; Journell, 2011; Saye & SSIRC, 2013). In fact, when students resist, or struggle to develop deep knowledge necessary for substantive discussion and other forms of collaborative inquiry, teachers may damp

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down the inquiry process by taking more ownership for generating the knowledge necessary for moving the activity forward or by lowering the rigor required (Rossi, 1995; Saye & Brush, 2006). Factors such as large class sizes, expectations for coverage, and high‐stakes accountability exacerbate these challenges (Grant & Gradwell, 2010; Grant & Salinas, 2008). However, recent research reporting that experiences with disciplined inquiry do not harm, and may advantage, students on high‐stakes tests could help assuage accountability c­oncerns (Parker et al., 2013; Saye & SSIRC, 2013).

15.5  Recommendations for Future Research A research agenda for the future should begin with a central cognitive research finding: Powerful learning requires a long time horizon. Investigations most likely to advance the field require deep, coordinated investments of effort based on carefully articulated goals. Three questions provide guidance: What are the learning targets? What practices are most likely to achieve the targeted goals? How do students grow in expertise? In setting learning targets, we need more rationale‐building linking theory to practice. We need to be clearer about what constitutes expertise for K–12 students and citizens in comparison to disciplinary experts. How do we bound and constrain the inquiry that we ask of students while building toward understandings that are useable in the world beyond school? Core ideas in a field—those most worthy of inquiry—require continuous revisiting to develop elaborated understandings that are available for transfer. What few core ideas should focus our time in a given subject area and in and across particular courses? The C3 framework provides valuable guidance in identifying key disciplinary concepts and practices, but many of the identified concepts remain broad. That work might be extended by asking which more specific substantive concepts within these broader conceptual areas deserve the most emphasis and development because of their centrality in connecting to other ideas and because their complexity raises the greatest challenges to deep under­ standing. Parker and Lo (2016) provide a model for such selection work, focusing the AP U.S. Government curriculum around six substantive concepts (e.g., separation of powers) that are revisited throughout the course. The research base connecting specific inquiry teaching practices with high quality learning outcomes remains sparse. Research on core teaching practices has advanced more in subject areas outside of social studies. History educators have recently proposed core practices (Fogo, 2014) and geography educators have launched similar work (Bednarz et al., 2013). But core practices must be grounded in the realities of teaching. We need classroom‐ based work that investigates where teachers struggle in implementing core practices, how we might encourage and support core practices, and what we can learn from exemplary teachers that might expand the number of teachers who successfully enact disciplined inquiry. Linked to teaching practices, we need to examine more closely how students’ expertise develops in classroom contexts in order to build grounded progressions of learning that align curriculum, instruction, and assessment. As Barton (2008) has noted, such work must be intensive and extensive in scope to reveal where students struggle and what expectations for expertise are reasonable as we discover what intermediate steps in under­ standing most students pass through on the way to expertise targets. Related to this, we  need more work examining how to best delimit the size of problem landscapes to



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promote growth and what are the limits of scaffolding for extending student competence when investigating ill‐structured social problems. Given the current scarcity of classroom inquiry, finding classroom settings for produc­ tive investigations into these questions will be challenging. We need longitudinal studies that follow student progression across courses and across years, but nested within those larger investigations we also need rich case studies that reveal how efforts succeed and falter. Design‐based research within collaborative teams of researchers and teachers offers perhaps the best setting for pursuing this work in a manner that is rigorous and ecologically valid.4 But to be most effective, the field needs to coordinate larger agendas across projects in order to systematically map how powerful teaching and learning can be most effectively realized. Such broad coordination of research has been rare in the social studies. However, recent work such as the C3 initiative demonstrates that large‐scale collaboration is possible and that, when well framed, support communities exist to fund such endeavors.

Notes 1 Although certainly related to what happens in classrooms, a discussion of teacher education and  the preparation of teachers for disciplined inquiry is beyond the scope of this chapter. For  discussion of the challenges of preparing teachers to engage their students in disciplined inquiry, see chapter 16 in this handbook. See also, Adler, 2008. 2 Positive correlations have also been found between AIW pedagogy in social studies and student performance on standardized tests (Newmann & Associates, 1996; Saye & SSIRC, 2013). 3 This is likely due in part to the rarity of inquiry‐based classrooms, even when researchers deliber­ ately search for them (Evans, 2004; Saye & SSIRC, 2013). In addition, Barton (2008) has noted that without a focused intervention, teachers may engage in a diverse range of practices that make it difficult to measure with precision the effect of particular elements of interest. 4 A number of factors make establishing and maintaining long‐term researcher‐practitioner inquiry partnerships challenging. For instance, a well‐documented divide between the assumptions of a craft knowledge culture valued by many teachers and a theory‐based knowledge culture valued by researchers complicates efforts at collaboration (e.g. Hiebert, Gallimore, & Stigler, 2002). High‐ stakes accountability and community skepticism of instruction that deviates from a traditional emphasis on direct instruction and a narrative of progress work against an inquiry teaching p­ractice (e.g., Craig, 2006, Grant & Salinas, 2008;). For university researchers the intensive time investments, longer time horizons for generating results and publications, and challenges of a­ttracting long‐term funding for design‐based social studies projects can act as disincentives for pursing such work (e.g., Penuel, Fishman, Haugan, & Sabelli, 2011). However, evidence that a­mbitious teachers (Grant & Gradwell, 2010) work around obstacles to inquiry, and the success of projects such as Parker’s AP initiative (2013) provide some optimism that barriers to collaborative p­artnerships can be overcome.

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Ravitch, D. (1989). The plight of history in America’s schools. In P. Gagnon (Ed.), Historical literacy: The case for history in American education (pp. 51–68). New York, NY: Macmillan. Reisman, A. (2011). Beyond the binary: Entering the historical problem space in whole‐class text‐based discussion. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA. Reisman, A. (2012). Reading like a historian: A document‐based history curriculum intervention in urban high schools. Cognition and Instruction, 30(1), 86–112. doi:10.1080/07370008.2011.634081 Rossi, J. A. (1995). In‐depth study in an issues‐centered social studies classroom. Theory & Research in Social Education, 23(2), 87–120. doi:10.1080/00933104.1995.10505747 Rossi, J. A., & Pace, C. M. (1998). Issues‐centered instruction with low achieving high school students: The dilemmas of two teachers. Theory & Research in Social Education, 26(3), 380–409. doi:10.1080/ 00933104.1998.10505856 Saxe, D. W. (1991). Social studies in the schools: A history of the early years. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Saye, J. W., & Brush, T. (1999). Student engagement with social issues in a multimedia‐supported learning environment. Theory & Research in Social Education, 27(4), 472–504. doi:10.1080/ 00933104.1999.10505891 Saye, J. W., & Brush, T. (2002). Scaffolding critical reasoning about history and social issues in ultimedia‐supported learning environments. Educational Technology Research and m­ Development, 50(3), 77–96. doi:10.1007/BF02505026 Saye, J. W., & Brush, T. A. (2004). Promoting civic competence through problem‐based history learning environments. In R. S. Leming (Ed.), Civic learning in teacher education: International perspectives on education for democracy in the preparation of teachers (Vol. 3, pp. 123–145). Bloomington, Indiana: ERIC Clearinghouse for Social Studies/Social Science Education. Saye, J. W., & Brush, T.A. (2006). Comparing teachers’ strategies for supporting student inquiry in a problem‐based multimedia‐enhanced learning environment. Theory & Research in Social Education, 34(2), 183–212. doi:10.1080/00933104.2006.10473304 Saye, J. W., & Brush, T. A. (2007). Using technology‐enhanced learning environments to support problem‐based historical inquiry in secondary school classrooms. Theory & Research in Social Education, 35(2), 196–230. doi:10.1080/00933104.2007.10473333 Saye, J., & Social Studies Inquiry Research Collaborative. (2013). Authentic pedagogy: Its presence in social studies classrooms and relationship to student performance on state‐mandated tests. Theory & Research in Social Education, 41(1), 89–132. doi:10.1080/00933104.2013.756785 Shreiner, T. L. (2014). Using historical knowledge to reason about contemporary political issues: An expert–novice study. Cognition and Instruction, 32(4), 313–352, doi:10.1080/07370008.2014.948680 Shulman, L. S., & Carey, N. B. (1984). Psychology and the limitations of individual rationality: Implications for the study of reasoning and civility. Review of Educational Research, 54(4), 501–524. doi:10.3102/00346543054004501 Simon, H. (1982). Models of bounded rationality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Solem, M., Huynh, N. T., & Boehm, R. (2014). Learning progressions for maps, geospatial technology, and spatial thinking: A research handbook. Washington, DC: Association of American Geographers. Swan, K., & Hofer, M. (2013). Examining student‐created documentaries as a mechanism for engaging students in authentic intellectual work. Theory & Research in Social Education, 41(1), 133–175. doi:10.1080/00933104.2013.758018 Thornton, S. J. (2005). Teaching social studies that matters: Curriculum for active learning. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. van Boxtel, C., & van Drie, J. (2004). Historical reasoning: a comparison of how experts and novices contextualise historical sources. International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research 4(2). Retrieved from http://centres.exeter.ac.uk/historyresource/journal8/8contents.htm



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Becoming an “Expert” Social Studies Teacher

What We Know about Teacher Education and Professional Development Margaret Smith Crocco and Ellen Livingston

16.1  The New Landscape of Educational Policy Teacher education in general rests on a thin research base (Boyd, Grossman, Lankford, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2008; Labaree, 2000, 2004; Lagemann, 2002), and teacher education in social studies, on an even thinner one (Adler, 2008). In the last Handbook of Research in Social Studies Education, Susan Adler (2008) draws attention to the paucity of studies dealing with teachers in the classroom, their impact on student learning, and the relationship between those practices and teacher education or professional development. She concludes her chapter by citing calls from Kenneth Zeichner (2005; see also his 2012 article on a related topic) and James Shaver (2001) encouraging educational researchers to pay more attention to practice. In this chapter, we build on Adler’s review of the literature but focus more prominently than she did on where we believe research on social studies teacher education might go in order to meet the challenges presented by the changing contexts of national policies related to teacher education, including licensure and accreditation. As Adler’s review indicates, research on social studies teacher education has focused largely on self‐studies of methods classes, the “inner lives of teachers,” and other worthwhile, but small‐scale, studies of aspects of teacher preparation such as technology use and diversity. Taken together, this research provides a limited view of social studies teacher education with little generalizability beyond the particular contexts in which the research was conducted. Moreover, few publications represent the results of investigations done over a period of years in diverse settings or systematic examinations of a set of interrelated research questions that might provide research‐based warrants for social studies teacher education practices. Writing in 2008, Adler reminds us that she is far from the first to raise these concerns and that previous l­iterature reviews before hers had also characterized social studies teacher education research as of “limited scope or potential impact” (p. 330). Although she raises several important issues in her chapter, among them social studies teachers’ beliefs and attitudes; practices in The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.



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social studies teacher education and their impact; and the effects of policy initiatives and politics on teacher education (p. 330), she concludes by citing Shaver (2001), who says that “the major goal in educational research is, or ought to be improved practice in education” (p. 347). Likewise, in a more recent review of teacher education research, including that in social studies, Sleeter (2014) notes a lack of “evidence of an emerging, shared research program designed to inform policy” (p. 151). We echo Shaver’s, Adler’s, and Sleeter’s calls for more focused and programmatic research on social studies teacher education, in particular, studies investigating the practices of teacher education to help teachers meet their “instructional challenges,” as Shaver puts it (2001, p. 247). Such research would bring social studies into alignment with research being done on teacher education for other school subjects, in particular, science and math, where there has been greater attention to policy trends, organizational contexts, and effective teaching practices as shaping factors for teacher education in those fields (Forzani, 2014; Grossman & McDonald, 2008; Janssen, Westbroek, & Doyle, 2014). The need for research taking policy and organizational contexts into account has become not merely important, but vital, in the new climate of educational reform. Policymakers and teacher educators agree that the teacher is the single most important in‐school factor in student achievement. The Council of Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) has made it clear that research warrants for the practices of teacher education found within teacher preparation programs will be necessary for justifying the choices made about how future practitioners are prepared. Likewise, many states have changed their policies around professional development over the last five years. The emphasis now is on linking teaching, teacher preparation, and professional development to student learning outcomes. CAEP has aligned its accreditation platform to the inTASC standards (2013) promulgated by the Council of Chief State School Officers, which are billed as a set of learning progressions for teachers. We wonder how these standards will be applied to the preparation of social studies teachers in the future. At the same time, performance assessments such as edTPA and the Praxis Performance Assessment Test are also aligned with the inTASC standards. These tests differ from older teacher certification tests because they represent an effort to operationalize teacher content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), the distinctions in teaching expertise that Lee Shulman put forward over 30 years ago, in subject‐ specific domains of practice. They also attempt to discriminate between novice‐level competency and a lack of adequate preparedness for teaching, and represent efforts by many researchers to capture the elusive notion of teacher quality. (For more on this effort, see the Educational Testing Service (ETS) website associated with this project: Center for Teaching Quality, (n.d.)). These tests present challenges for the social studies, particularly in terms of their likely limitations in allowing a broad enough scope for an approach that enacts the citizenship education and social justice aims of the subject (discussed further below). Still, whatever these limitations may ultimately be, it seems clear that the field will need to consider the implications of new teacher and teacher education assessments, the CAEP accreditation process, and the National Council for the Studies C3 Framework (National Council for the Social Studies [NCSS], 2013) for the shape and scope of the future enterprise. Establishing research warrants for the responses made to these contextual factors can only strengthen the field at a time when its utility is being questioned, at least implicitly, through declining curricular space, especially at the elementary level (Fitchett & Heafner, 2010).

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For a variety of reasons, other subject matters—particularly math and science education— appear on sounder footing than social studies when it comes to research about how best to prepare teachers in their disciplines. We propose that the work of Shulman and scholars whose research has followed in his footsteps provide a knowledge base for teacher e­ ducation that might be better developed in social studies, especially the concept of PCK, pedagogical content knowledge, which Adler (2008) devotes attention to in her chapter in the Handbook of Research in Social Studies Education. Given the marginalization of social studies at the K–12 level for more than a decade, and the possibility of even greater marginalization as a result of the Common Core curriculum framework, it seems imperative that researchers in social studies attend more systematically to lines of inquiry focused on teacher education. This will mean that new and creative ways to secure external funding for such research will be necessary if these scholarly efforts are to be as sustained, cumulative, and significant in scope as they have been in fields that are better supported by foundations and government agencies. In this chapter we pick up where Adler left off in 2008 in reviewing the literature in social studies teacher education, with the majority of our cited works having been published since that date. In so doing, we argue for the necessity of establishing a research agenda that hews more closely to the notion of PCK advanced by Shulman than is discussed by Adler in her 2008 Handbook chapter. We start with a brief, perhaps unnecessary for many readers, review of PCK and disciplinary literacy and then consider the ways in which they have been taken up in social studies. We also consider a few studies of teaching emanating from the Shulman tradition that are pertinent to the novice‐expert framework of this chapter. We  conclude by pointing to several models of effective social studies teaching practice that  could serve as the basis for a future analysis of teacher education based on these exemplars. Adler (2008) calls upon researchers to investigate the question: “What do social studies teachers need to know and be able to do in order to teach social studies?” (p. 342). This remains a compelling question, one that is particularly challenging given the interdisciplinary nature of the field. We revisit the emphasis in Shulman’s writings on the differences between “novices” and “experts” in teacher preparation as it relates to “disciplinary literacy” (Moje, 2009), a topic of significant interest these days given the nature of the Common Core State Standards. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of social studies at the elementary level and the multidisciplinary nature of social studies at the secondary level, considering the application of PCK, novice‐expert, and disciplinary literacy to the field is a challenging venture. Most of the work that has been done in this vein has taken up these concepts within the framework of one of the four major constituent disciplines of the social studies— history, geography, economics and civics, the subject matter areas focused upon within the C3 Framework. Since the publication of the Handbook of Research in Social Studies Education (2008) several lines of inquiry have explored questions related to teacher knowledge, teacher thinking, and teacher practice within each of these four disciplines, although to varying degrees. Today’s emphasis on teacher practices can be traced to work done in the 1980s and 1990s on the “cognitive apprenticeship” model of teacher preparation, much of which was rooted in learning theory in psychology (e.g., Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch‐Romer, 1993), and the emergent novice‐expert studies of these decades. In this chapter, we have two goals: first, to do an intellectual genealogy of concepts that inform current thinking about social studies standards and teacher performance



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assessments, and second, to consider models of research in other subject areas that may provide insights into shaping future research on social studies teacher education that will advance the field. We give some attention here to prominent ideas in math and science education, such as learning progressions, which are beginning to have an impact on teacher preparation in several fields. In light of these goals, this chapter’s review of the social studies teacher education literature does not aim to provide a comprehensive overview of everything published on this subject since 2008, but instead is selective. Our focus is on research that advances readers’ understandings of how social studies teacher education research is situated within the broader context of research related to teacher education policy and practice that has developed from Shulman’s work on PCK, the novice‐expert paradigm, and disciplinary literacy.

16.2  Shulman’s Legacy and Shulman’s Heirs In 1986 and 1987, Shulman published two highly influential articles on the knowledge demands of teaching. The 1987 article, “Knowledge and Teaching: Foundations of the New Reform,” begins with a prologue called “A Portrait of Expertise.” This portrait provides an overview of the forms of expertise distinctive to teaching. Calls for educational reform, then and now, rest on a felt need to improve the quality of teaching by expanding the knowledge base for teacher education. In subsequent years, Shulman’s work, and that of his students, have provided models of expertise and training in other professional fields to serve as models for consideration of teacher preparation (Grossman et al., 2009). Shulman studied the transition of beginning teachers from their teacher preparation p­rograms into their early years of teaching. At the same time, he and other researchers investigated the work of highly skilled veterans whose expertise could inform what neophytes should emulate. Shulman (1987) lays out three domains of teacher knowledge that comprise the essential components for success: strong content knowledge, knowledge of general pedagogical approaches essential for teaching, and PCK, which he defines as: that special amalgam of content and pedagogy that is uniquely the province of the teacher … It represents the blending of content and pedagogy into an understanding of how particular topics, problems or issues are organized, represented or adapted to the diverse interests and abilities of learners, and presented for instruction. (p. 8)

In considering content knowledge, Shulman (1987) emphasizes the structure and syntax of the discipline along with the ways of thinking and acquiring essential knowledge and understandings central to a discipline. In considering the general contours of teacher preparation, Shulman advocates a broad liberal education along with deep disciplinary knowledge, study of pertinent educational research of both an empirical and philosophical type, familiarity with curriculum approaches and instructional materials, understanding of student learning, youth development, and the sociocultural structures and contexts of schooling. He warns against the notion that generic pedagogical practices will be useful to the content‐specific aspects of teaching; he also decries oversimplification of notions of practice that do a disservice to the complexity of the profession. According to his model of successful teaching, the expert teacher is one who can transform content knowledge into

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representations and adaptations of concepts and processes that maximize student learning. Instructional effectiveness in this model rests on a solid repertoire of strategies, practices, and responses that can support the success of students with differential abilities, interests, and levels of motivation. In making the connection from teaching to teacher education, Shulman concludes by arguing that the pedagogical reasoning required by high‐quality teaching demands that liberal arts units on campus collaborate closely with educational schools or departments in preparing teachers. As teacher educators working in higher education know well, this remains an elusive goal. Nevertheless, teacher preparation depends upon the integration of content knowledge with pedagogical knowledge to nurture PCK that enhances and improves pedagogical reasoning. Finally, Shulman asserts that standards for practice can improve teaching but should not impose standardization of practice that would be inimical to the demands associated with the complex nature of the enterprise. The question of how much variability or constancy should exist in teaching practice across disciplinary domains, grades, and other school contexts remains an area of considerable disagreement among teacher educators and educational policymakers. Around the same time as Shulman’s article appeared, influential work by Clark and Lampert (1986; see also Lampert & Clark, 1990) and Sternberg and Horvath (1995) contributed to heightened awareness of the knowledge demands of teaching. Researchers turned attention to the processes of teacher thinking, teacher cognition, and teacher decision‐making. In social studies, research on teacher education developed along two parallel lines: investigations into expertise in teaching and investigations into expertise in subject matter. Although both aspects of expertise apply to all social studies teachers, differences between elementary and secondary teachers generally produce greater emphasis on one of these over the other. In general, elementary teachers emphasize skills while secondary teachers emphasize subject matter. Research in elementary education has, concomitantly, tended to focus on the former and secondary on the latter. As the novice‐expert paradigm gained prominence in subsequent decades, researchers such as David Berliner (e.g., 1988, 1991, 2004) advanced the project of using this f­ ramework as a foundation for reconstructing teacher preparation programs. Among the emerging scholars who took up Shulman’s ideas in social studies were Sam Wineburg and Suzanne Wilson, whose early work focused on “models of wisdom” in teaching history (Wilson & Wineburg, 1988; Wineburg & Wilson, 1991). Defining expertise in a field whose core values revolve around the creation of democratic citizens rather than budding scholars in one of the constituent disciplines of social studies presents several challenges (for more on this debate, see Thornton & Barton, 2010). As we consider the notion of expertise as it applies broadly within social studies, a few caveats are in order. First, expertise is often considered in terms of credentials, which are sometimes taken, as is experience, as a proxy for expertise, which may or may not be the case. Expertise can, however, also be understood in terms of performance, and assuredly it is not necessarily linked to a set number of years of practice. To take one contemporary example: Competencybased forms of education now being introduced by several U.S. university systems build upon the notion of using performance as a measure of expertise rather than the credentials of course credits. In teaching, expert performance contrasts with novice performance along several distinct dimensions: for example, classroom management, lesson planning, and



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content knowledge. Providing research warrants for the core practices associated with expert‐level performance in social studies in its four major disciplinary domains might be a research agenda shaped in alignment with the new CAEP accreditation standards, the C3 Framework in social studies, and performance assessments such as edTPA and other emergent approaches. Second, how are we to measure expert performance in teaching? Can we consider expert teaching without linking it to student learning? It seems logical and valuable to yoke teaching with student learning, but measuring teaching’s effects in terms of student learning is fraught with a variety of methodological and conceptual problems that current debates about value‐added measures have highlighted. How do we define what an expert performance looks like in social studies? How would we design assessments that help measure the pathways by which novices become experts? How do we define an expert performance that takes into account the goals of social studies as citizenship education? Finally, quoting Tony Whitson (2004), Adler asserts that: “Teaching the academic disciplines is not the same as teaching social studies for civic competence” (2008, p. 344). Arguably, this proposition depends on how one interprets the notion of teaching the disciplines (see Journell, Beeson, & Ayers, 2015, for a recent contribution to this debate). One could teach history for citizenship just as one could teach social studies for citizenship. Indeed, the new C3 Framework in social studies promulgated by the National Council for the Social Studies makes the same argument, and other school subjects such as science and English sometimes frame their mission as teaching for citizenship. (This proposition reminds us that these discussions do not take place in a vacuum, and reflect back on fundamental questions about the broad nature and purposes of the entire educational enterprise. In science education, for example, Rudolph (2014) recently called for a reframing of efforts away from knowledge retention toward an emphasis on method and “the civic goals of science education” first promulgated by Dewey more than a century ago (p. 1076).) The harder problem in considering expertise and PCK within social studies teacher education relates to longstanding debates over the definition of the field, that is, the fusionist versus federationist model. Should social studies be the integrated study of the social sciences (the fusionist model), in which case tackling the concept of expertise will, indeed, be tough, as all interdisciplinary enterprise tends to be? Or can social studies be viewed as an umbrella term for four major constituent disciplines (the federationist model), each typically taught in separate school courses? In the latter case, expertise can be investigated through research into the four discrete disciplines as they manifest themselves in teaching and assessing appropriate subject matter at the elementary and secondary levels. Widespread agreement exists that definitional issues have had an impact on social studies teacher education research and on teaching and learning more generally within social studies (Grossman & Schoenfeld, 2005; Hicks, van Hover, Doolittle, & Van Fossen, 2012; see also van Hover, Hicks, & Cotton, 2012). However, this debate need not necessarily derail the entire enterprise. If even a broad set of defining characteristics of a high quality social studies teacher can be drawn and validated through research related to producing certain student outcomes, then we can work backwards towards planning a social studies teacher education program with a stronger research warrant than exists today. In Bransford, Brown, and Cocking’s (1999) highly influential work How People Learn, the authors adopt the novice‐expert paradigm, distinguishing between performances at different levels along a variety of dimensions. The book provides a foundation for a subsequent

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influential text edited by Linda Darling‐Hammond and John Bransford (2005) called Preparing Teachers for a Changing World. Chapters in this book address teaching and learning, teacher cognition, disciplinary literacy, and professional development. The editors concur with Shulman’s judgment that a stronger knowledge base on teaching and learning is much needed for teacher education. The book tackles topics such as developmental progressions in learning to teach, diversity issues, the challenges of “enactment” (Kennedy, 2006) and “adaptive expertise” (Hammerness & Darling‐Hammond, 2005), among others. The book also highlights the complex challenge of translating this paradigm into the social studies realm. In their chapter on “Teaching Subject Matter,” Pam Grossman and Alan Schoenfeld (2005) (in one of only two references to social studies in the 500+ page book) note: There are many competing definitions of social studies, some of which feature the importance of history, whereas others stress the centrality of civics. These competing definitions of the s­ubject matter have made it difficult for the field to develop a commonly embraced set of s­tandards. (p. 209)

Grossman and Schoenfeld lay out six sets of questions that address what they believe should form the essential underpinnings for teacher education courses focused on content‐ specific pedagogy in any subject. These questions emphasize the traditional foci of methods courses: subject matter definitions, purposes, state standards, curriculum, and assessment. The sixth set of questions relates most closely to the focus of this chapter: What are the practices that characterize the teaching of particular content? What practices and approaches have been shown to be effective in promoting student learning? Are there practices that are particularly effective with specific groups of learners? What presentations, examples, analogies are particularly useful in helping students grasp particular concepts or ideas? (p. 208)

In‐depth exploration of these questions from a discipline‐specific standpoint through a systematic program of research would provide social studies teacher education with a more solid and comprehensive foundation for its efforts. Broader research on teaching and teacher education within the novice‐expert tradition may also have potential application to social studies. For example, Grossman’s (2011; Grossman, Hammerness, & McDonald, 2008) emphasis on teacher practices and three key concepts for thinking about teacher practice—representations, decomposition, and approximations— might be useful for considering teacher education in social studies and how novices, through either preservice teacher education (Moss, 2011) or in‐service experiences within a professional learning community, might foster development along the learning trajectories associated with becoming an expert social studies educator, however that is ultimately defined. As it stands, many ideas that could be tested within social studies can be harvested from the numerous related publications that have emerged over the last 20 years (e.g., Cochran‐ Smith & Zeichner, 2005; Darling‐Hammond, 2006; Darling‐Hammond & Bransford, 2005; Darling‐Hammond & Sykes, 1999) and in the pages of journals such as Teaching and Teacher Education, Teachers and Teaching, and the Journal of Teacher Education, among others. Likewise, cognitive science has contributed its own understandings about the mind and how it learns. In a popular recapitulation of these ideas, Dan Willingham (2009) offers “nine principles of the mind,” some of which focus on the importance of practice—for



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example, “Proficiency requires practice,” and “Teaching, like any complex cognitive skill, must be practiced to be improved” (p. 210–211). Such ideas have become axiomatic in the rhetoric around teaching and teacher education. Although these themes hardly seem novel, their research warrant is more firmly established today than several decades ago. As a result of the accumulation of knowledge about the cognitive demands of teaching, a proliferation of publications with titles such as Cognitive Capital: Investing in Teacher Quality (Costa, Garmston, & Zimmerman, 2014) signal the adoption of an orientation to teaching that frames it as a cognitive enterprise informing teacher practices and teacher decision‐making within the complex daily life of the school classroom. Take, for example, the Teaching Works project (n.d.) at the University of Michigan, which stems from a body of research in math education by Deborah Loewenberg Ball and her colleagues. This project has developed a set of “high leverage teaching practices,” based in an effort both to improve teaching and learning and reduce the cognitive load for novice teachers in contemporary classrooms. Following Shulman’s prescription for broad standards that do not impose standardization, these high leverage teaching practices include such techniques as “setting up and managing small group work” and “identifying and implementing an instructional strategy or intervention in response to common patterns of student thinking”—approaches that can be adapted to any subject matter or teaching context. Although not necessarily aligned with Shulman’s framework, Stephen J. Thornton’s (1991) notion of curricular‐instructional gatekeeping in social studies and his book building on this idea, Teaching social studies that matters (2004), represent parallel efforts to emphasize teacher agency and decision‐making in social studies classrooms. Satisfactory gatekeeping, by which we mean gatekeeping for effective student learning focused on citizenship education, depends on the elements Shulman identifies in his original work on PCK, that is, understanding of content, pedagogy, and PCK. Thornton, along the lines of his 2010 article with Barton, might argue that the content knowledge needed for teaching social studies for citizenship aims is not isomorphic with that for producing a historian or political scientist. In a similar vein, many teacher education textbooks in social studies (e.g., Brophy, Alleman, & Halvorsen, 2012; Larson & Keiper, 2011; Parker, 2011; Zevin, 2015) rest on notions of teacher decision‐making, the importance of practice, and citizenship education as the fundamental aim for social studies education. Despite these compatibilities, the body of research that could serve as warrant for many aspects of social studies teacher education—including attention to practices effective in creating student learning along the lines of citizenship education—remains underdeveloped. Undoubtedly, some of this difficulty stems from disagreement around the question of “What kind of citizen?” (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004), which has divided the field for a long time. In the absence of agreement over this fundamental question, along with definitional disputes about the nature of the field, disciplinary literacy often serves as the default option.

16.3  Novice‐Expert Research in Social Studies and its Implications for Teacher Education This section draws upon work done within the novice‐expert paradigm in social studies that may not make an explicit connection to teacher education. In most cases, the research findings gesture towards activities or understanding necessary for social studies teacher preparation that could support development of novice teachers in these practices.

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Wineburg has been a prominent proponent for investigating what he calls “historical thinking” as part of a novice‐expert line of inquiry. One of his (1998) most famous articles is a novice‐expert study on “reading Abraham Lincoln,” in which the research involves two historians—only one of whom has deep content knowledge about Lincoln and American history—in a series of “think‐aloud protocols.” In this study and others like it, Wineburg considers the role of content knowledge, historical thinking skills, and context in making sense of primary sources. In recent years, Wineburg has translated his research into more teacher‐friendly form, including a popular book called Reading Like a Historian (2012, with Monte‐Sano & Martin), designed for use in secondary classrooms. Although not without controversy, Wineburg’s work has had an enormous influence in the teaching of history and has been disseminated via websites (e.g., Library of Congress (n.d.), Teaching history (n.d.)) that have systematized and applied the set of teaching practices he has developed through his research: sourcing, contextualizing, close reading, using background knowledge, reading the silences, and corroborating. Two of Wineburg’s students, Chauncey Monte‐Sano and Avishag Reisman, have also contributed to advancing the project of defining practices now associated with the concept of “historical literacy.” Their work is closely aligned with the direction of the Common Core framework, which, like recent work in science and English Language Arts, focuses on disciplinary literacy and argumentation as a pathway to critical thinking. Monte‐Sano (2008, 2009, 2011a, 2011b; Monte‐Sano & Harris 2012) deploys the novice‐expert paradigm for research on writing, reasoning, and argumentation by students and preservice teachers. Reisman (2012a) investigates the reading of historical documents in large urban school districts. In a coauthored piece, Reisman and Wineburg (2008) address the question of how to teach the practice of contextualizing in history. In this article, the authors address the problem of misconceptions about the past that students bring into the classroom. As with science education investigations of a decade ago, their work highlights the need for teachers to be aware of and teach against those misconceptions, in this case, notions drawn from popular culture or presentist views about human societies. They advocate three practices that beginning teachers can employ to deal with such problems in the classroom (providing background knowledge, asking guiding questions, and explicitly modeling contextualized thinking). Like Wineburg’s work, Canadian researcher Peter Seixas (2012, with Morton) has also found significant external funding support, in this case from the Canadian government, for his “Historical Thinking Project.” Projects such as these, which have p­roduced popular websites and a host of instructional resources for teachers and teacher educators, have succeeded because they rest on solid research, which in turn brings in further support upon which to build both research and outreach platforms. Closely connected to Wineburg’s work, which has focused on teaching U.S. history, is Bob Bain’s research and writing on world history, along with that of Bain’s former student, Lauren McArthur Harris (2014), also on world history. Bain has been associated with the Gates Foundation‐supported “Big History” project (n.d). In Theory & Research in Social Education, Harris has published research into teachers’ organization of the world history course and their ability to make connections through “colligatory concepts” (such as the sort of periodization found in the label “industrial revolution”) that help scaffold these connections for students. In 2010, Harris and Bain published an article entitled “Pedagogical Content Knowledge for World History Teachers: What Is It? How Might Prospective Teachers Develop It?” This article considers the “pedagogical moves” made by world history



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instructors as a way of surfacing both the requisite content knowledge and PCK for teaching world history. Throughout these articles, we see language contrasting novice and expert performances, deconstruction of teacher moves in classrooms for purposes of considering their application to teacher education and, at least implicitly, the need to find ways of assessing such performances at the appropriate novice level. Bain, writing with literacy scholar Elizabeth Moje (2012), has also written about a new approach to teacher education introduced at the University of Michigan, which they call “The Rounds Project.” This project focuses on bridging the “fault lines” between what happens in colleges of education and liberal arts, and those between college campus and secondary schools. Among the steps Bain and Moje recommend to help bridge these gaps are revising the teacher education course sequence, developing disciplinary cohorts, assessing and tracking interns’ development, focusing on coherence, focusing on graduate students as prospective teacher educators, applying rotations and rounds to the program, and changing the discourse from talking about “preservice teachers” to “teaching interns” based on the medical school model (p. 64). Although not specifically focused on social studies teacher preparation, much of what they advise is pertinent to teacher education in this field. They conclude: “We cannot leave the work of learning to navigate the multiple contexts of teaching and learning to the novices” (p. 65). Although many social studies teacher education programs no doubt already do some of what Bain and Moje suggest, this comprehensive prescription requires systematic consideration of critical issues that are too often ignored in efforts to re‐invent teacher preparation in the social studies, particularly the institutional divides between partners in this project and the nagging problem of coherence. Following a somewhat different orientation, work on project‐based learning (Parker et al., 2011, 2013), like earlier research on ambitious teaching (Grant & Gradwell, 2009), concerns itself with the interplay of components of teacher preparation: content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and PCK in pursuit of improved student understanding of social studies. Parker’s research, with John Bransford and others at the University of Washington, focuses on comparison of student outcomes in Advanced Placement courses between classes in which teachers employ conventional teaching methods and those employing project‐based learning (Parker et al., 2011, 2013). Halvorsen et al.’s research (2012) examines project‐based learning approaches within the context of a second‐grade classroom with a significant achievement gap. In both cases researchers found that project‐based learning improved student performance. If these results can be replicated, then project‐ based learning should be considered a form of ambitious teaching (Grant & Gradwell, 2009) or “high leverage practice” with consideration of how to introduce it to novices within social studies teacher education. Novice‐expert studies have also been conducted in economics education (Voss, Blais, Means, Greene, & Ahwesh, 1986) and in civics (Shreiner, 2014). Many novice‐expert studies on social studies teaching and learning can be found in the pages of Cognition and Instruction rather than in traditional social studies research journals, presumably as an effort to speak to broader audiences. Over the last 20 or more years, historical thinking researchers such as Van Sledright (2000, with Franke) and social studies researchers such as Brophy and Alleman (2003) have published in this journal, as have numerous scholars investigating practices in math and science instruction. The journal is a rich source for work in the novice‐expert framework although most of it does not deal explicitly with teacher preparation.

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One exception to this lacuna is a study analyzing beginning teachers’ understandings and uses of assessments from the context of a teacher education program (Nolen, Horn, Ward, & Childers, 2011). Arguably, social studies and science have affinities as school subjects in that both contain high‐level conceptual complexity and abstraction along with subsidiary disciplinary fields demanding separate forms of expertise. A significant difference between the two domains, however, is the external funding available for research. The National Science Foundation underwrites math, science, and engineering research to a degree that has allowed researchers the opportunity to pursue decades‐long systematic programs of research that social studies scholars can only imagine. As a result, science education researchers have differentiated, for example, between novice‐expert approaches to numerous aspects of problem solving, a­rgumentation, and scientific reasoning. Based on this research they have developed varied curricular frameworks and instructional materials for teaching science at a variety of educational levels. One contemporary area of inquiry with significant research support in  science education is work on learning progressions, the increasingly sophisticated understandings by students of complex concepts in math and science. Learning progressions have emerged in recent standards‐based reform efforts linked to the introduction of the Common Core (Mosher, 2011), and they are “crucially dependent on instructional practices if they are to occur” (National Research Council [NRC], 2007). National Science Foundation (NSF) funded research on validating learning progressions through empirical work, and developing curriculum and instruction to support those learning progressions, has contributed significantly to advancement toward a strong knowledge base within math and science teacher education. Over the last several years, geography education, emphasizing its scientific ties, has secured funding for research into learning progressions. The National Geographic Society, the Association of American Geographers, and the National Council for Geographic Education collaborated on a “road map” project to improve teaching and learning in g­eography (National Geographic Society, 2013). Based on these efforts, the same organizations received additional NSF funding to produce a research handbook, Learning Progressions for  Maps, Geospatial Technology and Spatial Thinking (Solem, Huynh, & Boehm, 2014). The purpose of the handbook project is to stimulate a targeted and systematic program of research that, over time, will provide a stronger empirical foundation for teaching, learning, and teacher education in these particular topics within geography. Following this model, systematic research into learning domains in other social studies subjects might also be able to attract external funding. In a somewhat related vein within the social studies teacher education enterprise, Hilary Conklin’s (2012) article on “divergent pathways” into teaching social studies at the middle school level is a reminder that Shulman was concerned not only with content, pedagogy, and their integration, but also with the social structures of schooling. Conklin’s “divergent pathways” reflect the varied emphases of teacher preparation for middle schools, with differential emphases in terms of knowledge of students and subject matter depending on the structure of the program. Her article reminds us of Kennedy’s (2006) problem of “­enactment” as novice teachers implement what they have learned in teacher education in unique sociocultural contexts. This enactment is, unsurprisingly, mediated by teachers’ own senses of purpose and vision for their teaching and learning for their students as well as the emphases of their teacher preparation programs. As Conklin finds, discernible differences



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emerge, but unfortunately in neither case did she find what Grant and Gradwell (2009) would call ambitious social studies teaching in her two subjects. Finally, this section closes with a brief note from an older article that provides a pair of  bookends to this overview of the novice‐expert framework in social studies teacher e­ducation. Niemi (1997) starts his article by commenting that “one of the pivotal insights of cognitive science” is that “real knowledge, the kind of knowledge that makes sense and can be used by its knower, is organized” (p. 239). He goes on to say: The cognitive revolution has refocused the attention of psychologists and educators on the nature of learning and knowledge in particular subject areas, and even in particular situations. We have moved well beyond the time when most psychologists believed it was possible to come up with absolute laws of learning that would apply in all situations for all learners. (p. 244)

The legacy of this cognitive revolution in social studies has been the work of Shulman’s heirs described here. What perhaps could not have been predicted at the onset of this revolution was the degree to which notions of disciplinary literacy (e.g., Shanahan, Shanahan, & Misischia, 2011) would go so far in marginalizing social studies as a result of recent federal policy initiatives such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and the Common Core State Standards.

16.4  Professional Development in Social Studies If social studies educators are to move along the spectrum from novice to expert teachers, surely the bulk of that transformation will occur during their professional lives, that is, after their initial teacher education has been completed. Thus, in‐service teacher Professional Development (PD) and research related to it take on fundamental importance. And yet, as thin as the research base is for teacher education in the field, the record is even less satisfying in the domain of PD. To be sure, this is not only true within social studies. PD overall has long been the neglected stepchild of teacher education: While reviews of the literature routinely proclaim the vital importance of ongoing in‐service teacher education to both teachers and students, they generally end up lamenting the inefficacy of existing offerings. As Valli and Stout (2004) have noted, “despite widespread agreement that ongoing opportunity for teacher learning is a key element in educational reform, professional development is often inconsistent and inadequate” (p. 166). Borko (2004) goes a step further, noting, “despite recognition of its importance, the professional development currently available to  teachers is woefully inadequate” (p. 3). A recent (2013) report from the Center for Public  Education confirms the perennial refrain that “Most professional development today  is ineffective. It neither changes teacher practice nor improves student learning” (Gulamhussein, 2013, p. 3). This confounding situation persists even though there has been general consensus for some time on the elements that make for effective PD. More than a decade ago, Hawley and Valli (1999) “identified eight characteristics of professional development that cut across and embody the research syntheses and … recent calls for action,” beginning with a call for a new student‐centered focus on PD that makes explicit the connection between PD and student achievement, the importance of which at the time of their writing “seems self‐evident,

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but it has not been standard practice.” The authors identified the further essential elements of effective PD as direct teacher involvement and input in design and execution; basing efforts at the school level, where they might best be tied to specific teaching contexts and issues; emphasizing collaborative problem solving; ensuring that programs are continuous and supported, as opposed to the all‐too‐common stand‐alone workshop; ensuring that efforts are “information rich” and include multiple sources of evaluation; providing teachers with “opportunities to engage in developing a theoretical understanding of the knowledge and skills to be learned”; and, finally, incorporating efforts into a comprehensive process of reform rather than a series of isolated efforts (pp. 137–144). Yet despite the general consensus about what makes for productive PD, research in the social studies context of professional development remains rather disparate. Writing in the Handbook of Research in Social Studies Education, van Hover (2008) refers back to the ­earlier Handbook of Research on Social Studies Teaching and Learning (1991) in which Adler had “characterized the extant literature on the professional development of in‐service social studies teachers as ‘­particularistic and unsystematic’” (p. 352). Van Hover unhappily concludes that while considerable research on PD had been conducted in the years since Adler’s writing, the field “remains idiosyncratic and specific to particular cases. There still exists no big picture of social studies professional development, nor any sense of how work in this area is connected” (p. 366). She then issued a clarion call for PD research in the social studies to respond more directly to fundamental questions that had as yet to be answered—questions about the basic goals of PD, how as a field social studies PD affects change in classrooms, and how PD affects student achievement and understanding. She warned that the field might invite unwelcome intrusion “unless social studies researchers determine, based on empirical research, what an effective teacher looks like and can document how social studies professional development contributes to that” (pp. 366–367). As with preservice teacher education, at least some of the confusion and lack of coherence stems from debate and disagreement over the larger goals of social studies. And in some respects, the problem is even more pronounced in PD: while preservice education is bound to some degree to the demands of accreditation, state licensing and scholarship in a given field, PD is offered by a much wider range of organizations and individuals. As Valli and Stout (2004) note, “competing visions and interests within the field place professional development in the hands of a diverse array of subgroups” (p. 173). But it also is a product of research that has a tendency to look at PD in isolation from the classroom context; the considerable body of work on teacher learning communities, for example, focuses on the internal dynamics and psychological impact of teacher participation in larger communities, but rarely makes an explicit link to how these communities impact what happens to students in the classroom. Sykes (1999) emphasizes the need to “strengthen the relationship between teacher and student learning,” yet that relationship still has not been fully established in the academic research on PD. One rare exception to this general sad state of affairs came in a randomized control trial of 113 teachers and 1,371 high school students in 60 schools analyzing the impact of a PD program conducted by the non‐profit organization Facing History and Ourselves (Barr et al., 2015). For one thing, the study simultaneously addresses both teacher self‐efficacy/ engagement in the PD offerings and their impacts on student learning and skills. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, its findings suggest an inherent link between the two. As the authors note, “the fact that intervention students outperformed control students in some of the



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domains in which teachers also reported greater self‐efficacy … is suggestive of possible links between increased teacher self‐efficacy and student learning, which should be explored in future research.” The nexus between teaching environment and teacher effectiveness (as measured at least in part by student achievement) was further substantiated by a recent study (Kraft & Papay, 2014) that identifies an increased rate of improved effectiveness among teachers at schools with a more supportive teaching environment (evidenced by such factors as a positive school culture, support of peer collaboration, offering of effective PD, and administrative support). Given the many assaults on the teaching profession in public discourse of late, a research agenda that further demonstrates the benefits to student achievement of direct support of teachers and promotion of teachers’ feelings of self‐ efficacy could be of enormous value both to teachers and students alike. Indeed, a recent report from the Center for American Progress (DeMonte, 2013) strongly supports the use of teacher evaluation schemes not merely to classify teachers but to pinpoint areas of strength and weakness and design meaningful PD programs to help teachers improve professional practice and develop greater expertise. In simplest terms, research that further documents the benefits of this alignment might help create an environment in which real world PD offerings could become something done with and for teachers, as opposed to something (as so often happens in practice) done to teachers. The Barr study is also a very rare case in the social studies PD literature of an ­investigation that breaks the boundaries of traditional disciplinary inquiry and addresses the broad academic, civic, social and ethical competencies that lie at the heart of the social studies enterprise, including not only historical thinking skills, but social and ethical awareness as well. And what is most intriguing here is the suggestion that disciplinary literacy (in this case, measured as “historical understanding”) may well be promoted through the fostering of  interpersonal connections, and the possibility that these two approaches need not be seen as conflicting pedagogical choices but may actually be mutually reinforcing. As the authors note: This finding informs debates about whether rigorous high school history education should involve personal, ethical, and emotional engagement and have civic purposes or whether it should focus solely on fostering intellectual skills necessary for analyzing the past …. Some scholars argue that personal, emotional, and ethical engagement with history often leads to distorted (e.g., presentist and anachronistic) and incomplete historical understanding and superficial past‐present connections. In this study, intervention students exposed to an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to analyzing history and civic engagement using s­tudent‐centered methods outperformed control students on a measure of historical understanding; this finding raises questions about the complex relationship that may exist b­etween adolescents’ development of historical understanding skills and social, ethical, and civic awareness.

Put another way, the study raises fundamental questions about the nature of expertise in social studies teaching that call out for further exploration, questions about how teachers should approach historical content in their classrooms, and even hints at the need to consider how disciplinary and citizenship approaches to teaching history as enacted in classrooms reinforce one another or pull in different directions. Regrettably, as the authors note, “no large body of research yet exists to which we can compare the current results.”

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Hess and Zola (2012) provide another recent study that focuses specifically on the civic aims of social studies education in a piece on “Professional Development as a Tool for Improving Civic Education.” The authors analyze three case studies of exemplary professional development, and then identify a set of core teaching practices used in these programs. Further research might build on this type of study by not only analyzing the implementation of these practices in other case studies, but by further documenting their effect on student learning and attitudes. Sustained research along this path might then be used to help those who design and deliver professional development programs. Other ideas for professional development in social studies come from studies of classroom teaching such as Judith L. Pace’s (2015) book on The Charged Classroom, in which the concluding chapter outlines suggestions for both teacher education and teacher inquiry to support democratic education within the current standards and accountability context. Much of the PD literature in social studies focuses specifically on instruction in history classes, although even this body of literature is not as robust as it might be. One productive model for more clearly linking PD to student learning may lie in research that takes a much broader view of PD than has been done traditionally, and incorporates it into larger investigations of developing teacher expertise that guides student achievement. Reisman’s (2012b) ground‐breaking study on teaching and learning with historical documents through the “Reading Like a Historian” program, for example, focuses on promoting high school history students’ mastery of disciplinary reading with primary sources. The study identifies the “explicit strategy” of historical reading (as opposed to the more general, non‐disciplinary, skill of reading comprehension), breaking it down into components such as sourcing, contextualization, corroboration and close reading. The overall goal of the “classroom intervention”—perhaps itself a more purposeful term than “professional development”—in which teachers implement lesson plans focusing on these skills, is to gradually reposition students from novices to experts in historical reading through the processes of explicit instruction, guided practice, and ultimately independent practice. In  effect, both teachers and students traverse this path together: as Reisman notes, “by providing teachers with classroom ready materials, the study tackled the challenge of teacher knowledge by embedding explicit strategy instruction in the lessons, effectively teaching both students and teachers the disciplinary reading strategies used in historical inquiry” (p. 90). Teachers did attend a four‐day training program prior to the study, as well as two three‐hour follow‐up workshops during the course of the study itself. But these are not the central focus of the research, which instead emphasizes classroom observations of the enacted lessons and measurement of student achievement on indices of historical thinking, transfer of historical thinking, factual knowledge, and reading comprehension. While Reisman’s study is particular to disciplinary history, and not necessarily to the social studies more broadly construed, it does highlight the centrality of teaching practices and student skills in literacy in today’s classrooms, which have become increasingly influenced by the requirements of the Common Core. In an article aptly titled “‘I’m No Longer Just Teaching History,’” Gilles, Wang, Smith, and Johnson (2013) emphasize the need for professional development that incorporates disciplinary practices specific to social studies, arguing, “simply borrowing strategies from ELA [English Language Arts] is not going to work.” Indeed, in a study of eight high school history teachers, Nokes (2010) identifies a problematic pattern of teachers relying heavily on generic literacy strategies rather than literacy practices specifically geared toward historical understanding, concluding that



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traditional models of teacher education “may not adequately prepare history teachers to meet the complex literacy demands of helping adolescents learn historical literacy processes” (p. 535). Without extensive research on professional development practices that can foster this kind of discipline‐specific literacy, the danger is that Common Core will have the same chilling effect on secondary social studies as No Child Left Behind has had on elementary social studies. Boyle‐Baise, Hsu, Johnson, Serriere, and Stewart, (2008) note in a study of the ostensible integration of social studies into reading instruction at the elementary level that schools are “being transformed into reading academies,” (p. 248) leaving little room for meaningful integration of the social studies and its specific themes and concerns. Teachers “claimed to integrate social studies with reading,” the study concludes, “but integration was opportunistic, as happenstance, rather than systematic” (p. 233). Research that encourages an emerging consensus of identifiable “core practices” of the constituent domains of social studies—such as Fogo’s (2014) recent discussion of core practices in teaching history—may help alleviate this troubling tendency toward embracing generic practices in the guise of teaching social studies. Monte‐Sano’s (2011b) study of the discipline‐specific writing instruction in one history classroom, incorporating such teaching strategies as annotating primary source readings, regular informal writing prompts focused on historical perspectives and followed by writing prompts calling for synthesis of major issues, along with feedback focused on evidence use and accuracy of interpretation, suggests possibilities for further research into PD. Likewise, her study (2013, with Budano) on the development of pedagogical content knowledge with two novice teachers also points to practices that might be developed through teacher education and/or PD. Such core practices need not, of course, be limited to a set of prescriptive practices that leave little room for the kind of curricular‐instructional gatekeeping described by Thornton (1991). Hartzler‐Miller’s (2001) study of a third‐year history teacher, for example, describes a “learning from practice” model of the development of expertise that allows for differing interpretations of “best practice” in history teaching. It is highly unlikely that teachers who have already completed their preservice teacher education will be able to respond meaningfully to the perennial challenges of new reform efforts and the imposition of new standards without quality, research‐based in‐service PD. Given high rates of attrition in the profession, and the multiple external assaults on social studies education, research on PD, as elsewhere in the social studies, can no longer afford to ignore the central realities of teaching in today’s environment. For in the real world of educational policy, the connection between PD and student learning is no longer up for grabs. The leading PD professional association, Learning Forward (formerly the National Staff Development Council), describes itself as a: nonprofit, international association of learning educators focused on increasing student achievement through more effective professional learning. Our community of educational leaders is committed to professional learning that is standards‐based, sustained, job‐embedded, practical, and linked directly to student achievement.

Policymakers and administrators have been heavily influenced by the work of Guskey (2000), who has promoted evaluation based not only on the traditional measures of p­articipant reaction and learning (“Levels 1 and 2”), but also on further evaluation that measures organizational support and change, participants’ use of new knowledge and

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schools, and, ultimately, student learning outcomes (“Level 5”). Titles such as Transforming Professional Development into Student Results (Reeves, 2010) have become commonplace in the administrative literature. A research agenda that does not address this reality runs the risk of ceding even greater control of PD—and the definition of both “student learning outcomes” and teacher expertise—to these outside forces.

16.5  Looking Beyond the Traditional Boundaries of Teacher Education Literature Before concluding this chapter, we briefly note a number of high quality studies of social studies teaching that might be analyzed in the future to consider what would need to h­appen in social studies teacher education in order to produce the forms of expert teaching practice witnessed by these researchers in the classroom. Although these studies are by no means exhaustive of all the fine work on teaching being done in the field, they are suggestive of recent work that might serve as a model for the kind of “product” we wish our teacher e­ducation programs to yield. We have selected these studies with an eye toward diversity in the aspect of teaching being featured in the study and its attention to student learning, which suggests the efficacy of the teaching practice being observed. We also do not discuss here studies previously reviewed in this chapter, although many of these fit the criteria for this section. In each of these different studies, the researchers focus on some aspect of teaching p­ractice that provides approaches to teaching that they believe worthy of emulation. Although these studies do not directly address the implications for teacher education and/ or professional development, their research highlights an aspect of 21st-century teaching practice in social studies that these scholars implicitly regard as authentic to citizenship education, along the lines of the work of Fred Newmann and his colleagues (Newmann & Wehlage, 1993; King, Newmann, & Carmichael, 2009). One such piece is Kathy Bickmore’s 1999 study in Theory & Research in Social Education in which she spends the year as a participant observer in “Ms. Alison’s” grade four and grade five classroom. Ms. Alison’s curriculum deals with conflict, conflict resolution, and global politics, delving into such challenging geopolitical material as the Rwandan conflict between the Hutu and the Tutsi, and extrapolating from this conflict to playground bullying of fellow students. The subtitle of the article: “Can children handle global politics?” registers the skepticism that many teachers might bring to the interface of such young children with such a difficult topic. Yet, in the hands of a skillful teacher, these students learn much about conflict and conflict resolution through a curriculum that has the luxury of significant space and time to dig deep in a recursive fashion to expose the contours and nuances of conflict while moving towards developing an appreciation for and skill with conflict resolution without sacrificing academic content or student achievement of a more traditional type. The work of Patricia Avery and colleagues (Avery, Levy, & Simmons, 2013), along with that of Diana Hess (2008) and Paula McAvoy (Hess & McAvoy, 2014; McAvoy & Hess, 2013), on classroom deliberation of controversial public issues, through structured academic controversy or other approaches, offers fruitful terrain for considering the forms of teacher education that might nurture both the skills and commitments to engaging in



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this form of teaching in today’s classrooms, especially given the stringent standards‐and‐ accountability regimes in which many teachers operate. In each of these works, we see many skilled and committed teachers who manage to find a space and to summon up their own courage to engage tough topics that allow students to address topics that other teachers find too threatening. Given these portraits of such resourceful teachers, and if this is work that social studies values, then how do we prepare teachers to enact such practices in their classrooms—and to what end? How do such activities connect to student learning as well as to teacher preparation practices? Another important aspect of teacher education across all subject areas today is preparation for diverse classrooms. One study by Meghan Manfra (2009) utilizes action research to engage teachers in a critical inquiry project around race, language, and class within the context of an advanced master’s degree program in social studies. In this case, the author makes a clear connection between a practice (critical action research) and classroom p­edagogy that, she argues, produces greater efficacy in these teachers’ abilities to address the needs of all the students in their classrooms. Most social studies teacher educators would applaud this outcome. The question remains: is critical action research the best way to achieve such an end? Will it work in other settings? The same questions could be applied to a qualitative research study of a social studies teacher by Fránquiz and Salinas (2013) that found that both academic content and language development could be addressed through the use of document‐based questions in the teaching and learning of U.S. history. Students developed academic vocabulary, content knowledge, and writing skills through an approach that addressed the needs of English Language Learners through a set of higher‐order thinking strategies. Finally, Brush and Saye (2009) take up the challenge of thinking about how best to address a fast moving target—technology use—within a social studies teacher preparation program. In this piece, the authors take up the concept of TPCK (technological pedagogical content knowledge), a construct first suggested by scholars Matthew Koehler and Punya Mishra (Koehler & Mishra, 2009; Mishra & Koehler, 2006). In Brush and Saye’s article, ­entitled “Strategies for Preparing Pre‐Service Social Studies Teachers to Use Technology,” the authors focus on an inquiry‐oriented approach to teaching history, attending to authentic uses of technology to improve student learning. Having engaged in a sustained program of research over time on this topic, these authors are able to draw upon a significant body of their own and others’ research as the warrant for their suggestions. More work like this would be useful in the field of social studies teacher education research.

16.6  Conclusion: The Policy Context for Teacher Education in Social Studies At a time when so much is being called into question regarding the quality and utility of traditional teacher education programs (e.g., Levine, 2014), we chose in this chapter to consider only a slice, albeit a prominent and impactful one, of the work in social studies with implications for teacher education that makes connections between student learning and teacher education in the field. We chose to embed this review within the context of the larger policy framework represented by the CAEP accreditation process, the InTASC

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standards promulgated by the Council of Chief State School Officers (2013) and CAEP, and many state departments of education nationwide. These policy initiatives reflect the conceptual framework being used to think about teaching and teacher education today, what has been called “the practical turn.” Writing about this turn towards establishment of core teaching practices, McDonald, Kazemi, and Kavanagh (2013) call for a shift in teacher education toward an alignment with these core teaching practices that would “reimagine teacher education pedagogy organized around core practices” and comment: From our perspectives, this framework could be the backbone of a larger research and development agenda aimed at engaging teachers and teacher educators in systematic knowledge generation regarding ambitious teaching and teacher education pedagogy. We conclude with an invitation to the field to join with us in imagining approaches to generating and aggregating knowledge about teaching and the pedagogy of teacher education that will move not only our individual practice but also our collective practice forward. (p. 378)

In social studies, such a research and development agenda would be an ambitious undertaking, but one that would bring the field into closer connection with trends in teaching, learning, and teaching education found in other core subject areas such as the concept of disciplinary literacy and learning progressions. The field has a number of promising research investigations of exemplary teachers as presented here; it remains for scholars and teacher educators to consider more systematically and comprehensively than has been the case in the past the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to become such exemplary teachers. Bringing research on the pedagogy of teacher education into closer conversation with what we know about the core practices of teaching social studies would advance the field along the lines called for above by McDonald and her colleagues. Given the new policy frameworks that will govern the work of teacher education and K–12 teaching in the foreseeable future, such steps will be essential in order to keep social studies from further marginalization.

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Reisman, A. (2012b). Reading like a historian: A document‐based history curriculum intervention in urban high schools. Cognition and Instruction, 30 (1), 86–112. doi:10.1080/07370008.2011.634081 Reisman, A., & Wineburg, S. (2008). Teaching the skill of contextualizing in history. The Social Studies, 99(5), 202–207. Rudolph, J. L. (2014). Dewey’s “Science as Method” a century later: Reviving science education for  civic ends. American Educational Research Journal, 51(6), 1056–1083. doi:10.3102/ 0002831214554277 Seixas, P., & Morton, T. (2012). The big six historical thinking concepts. Toronto, Canada: Nelson. Shanahan, C., Shanahan, T., & Misischia, C. (2011). Analysis of expert readers in three disciplines: History, mathematics, and chemistry. Journal of Literacy Research, 43, 393–429. Shaver, J. (2001). The future of research on social studies—for what purpose? In W. Stanley (Ed.), Critical issues in social studies research for the twentieth century (pp. 231–252). Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Shreiner, T. (2014). Using historical knowledge to reason about contemporary political issues: An expert‐novice study. Cognition and Instruction, 32(4), 313–352. doi:10.1080/07370008.2014. 948680 Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4–14. Shulman, L. S. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57(1), 1–22. Sleeter, C. (2014). Toward teacher education research that informs policy. Educational Researcher, 43(3), 146–153. Solem, M., Huynh, N., & Boehm, R. (Eds.). (2014). Learning progressions for maps, geospatial t­echnology and spatial thinking, a research handbook. Washington, DC: Association of American Geographers. Sternberg, R., & Horvath, J. (1995). A prototype view of expert teaching. Educational Researcher, 24(6), 9–17. doi:10.3102/0013189X024006009 Sykes, G. (1999). Teacher and student learning: Strengthening their connection. In L. Darling‐ Hammond & G. Sykes (Eds.), Teaching as the learning profession: Handbook of policy and practice (pp. 151–180). San Francisco, CA: Jossey‐Bass. Teaching history. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.teachinghistory.org Teaching works. (n.d.). University of Michigan. Retrieved from http://www.teachingworks.org Thornton, S. J. (1991). Teacher as curricular‐instructional gatekeeper. In J. Shaver (Ed.), Handbook of research in social studies (pp. 237–248). New York, NY: Macmillan. Thornton, S. J. (2004). Teaching social studies that matters. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Thornton, S. J., & Barton, K. C. (2010). Can history stand alone? Drawbacks and blind spots of a “disciplinary” curriculum. Teachers College Record, 112(9), 2471–2495. Valli, L., & Stout, M. (2004). Continuing professional development for social studies teachers. In S. Adler (Ed.), Critical issues in social studies teacher education (pp. 165–188). Greenwich, CT: Information Age. van Hover, S. (2008). The professional development of social studies teachers. In L.S. Levstik & C.A. Tyson (Eds.), Handbook of research in social studies education (pp. 352–372). New York, NY: Routledge. van Hover, S., Hicks, D., & Cotton, S. (2012). “Can you make ‘historiography’ sound more friendly?” Towards the construction of a reliable and validated history teaching observation instrument. The History Teacher, 45(4), 1–10. Van Sledright, B., & Franke, L. (2000). Concept and strategic knowledge development in historical study: A comparative study of two fourth grade classrooms. Cognition and Instruction, 18(2), 239–283. Voss, J., Blais, J., Means, M. L., Greene, T. R., & Ahwesh, E. (1986). Informal reasoning and subject matter knowledge in the solving of economics problems by naive and novice individuals. Cognition and Instruction, 3(3), 269–302. doi:10.1207/s1532690xci0303_7

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Children’s Learning and Understanding in their Social World Anne‐Lise Halvorsen

Children’s sense‐making of their social world has important implications for education policy and practice. Although elementary social studies is still under‐researched, various studies tell us a good deal about children’s interest in their social world and how they learn about this world. Social studies educators can profit from this research as they explore ways to increase children’s knowledge of their social world, encourage children’s curiosity about society’s purposes and functions, and motivate children to value participatory democracy. This chapter reviews and synthesizes recent scholarship—both empirical and theoretical— about the purposes of elementary social studies education, children’s thinking about social issues and citizenship, their understanding of social studies concepts, and the relationship between instructional approaches and student learning. In particular, the chapter focuses on research from the last 20 years, taking as its inspiration Brophy and Alleman’s (2008) review of early elementary social studies. However, for some areas, the chapter also addresses earlier research. Most of the discussion about curriculum standards, assessment, and research is from U.S. contexts. However, several international studies, particularly from the UK, are also described. The chapter concludes with a call for further research in specific areas. To understand the topics and issues in contemporary elementary social studies research (as well as the controversies), we must begin by describing the current and persistent challenges in elementary social studies education. Such context will provide a realistic roadmap for what is possible in the field. First, elementary social studies education is marginalized in the school day and is not assessed under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act reforms (e.g., Fitchett & Heafner, 2010; Pace, 2012; Passe, 2006; VanFossen, 2005; Wills, 2007). Students enrolled in schools serving low‐socioeconomic status (SES) and minority students are particularly at risk for not receiving social studies instruction (Au, 2007; Pace, 2008). Second, the area is under‐researched, in large part because it is underfunded (Halvorsen, 2013). Since 2001, the United States Department of Education’s Teaching American History Grant program (which lasted from 2001 to 2011) The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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has provided the only federal funding for social studies education, and these grants were not research-focused. While foundations provide some funding, these grants are limited and highly competitive. In large part because of the lack of adequate research funding, we know far less about children’s understanding of their social world than we know about, for example, their learning in literacy and mathematics. What we do know, however, reveals that educators often underestimate children’s interest in social studies topics and their thinking about such topics including their misconceptions. Despite some recent research, we still lack comprehensive evidence on which curricula and which instructional approaches are most effective in social studies education. Despite these challenges, social studies scholars have conducted some rigorous and informative research on children’s thinking and learning—studies that can serve as guideposts for future research. Another, and related, challenge in social studies education is the long‐standing and on‐ going debate among researchers and educators as to the purposes of social studies education. While it is generally agreed that social studies education should educate children for participation in a democratic society, there remains much debate not only on how to achieve this goal but also on what this goal really means. The next section addresses the challenge of defining elementary social studies.

17.1  The Purpose(s) of Elementary Social Studies Education Since the early 20th century, when social studies was first introduced in the elementary school curriculum in the U.S., educators have debated its purpose (Thornton, 2005). The issues in this debate include, among many others, content and skills in the individual disciplines (e.g., geography, history, economics, and political science), service learning, socialization, and multicultural education (Halvorsen, 2013). Some scholars prioritize the content of the disciplines (e.g., Hirsch, Kett, & Trefil, 1988; Ravitch, 1987) while others see social studies as a pan‐disciplinary field that probes broader questions about the human condition and blurs the disciplinary boundaries (e.g., Brophy & Alleman, 2006a, 2006b). Taking a sweeping perspective, the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), the leading organization in social studies education, states the following: “The primary purpose of social studies is to help young people make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world” (2010, p. 3). While social studies researchers and educators agree that preparation for democratic citizenship is the foremost goal of the field, what that preparation consists of and what democratic citizenship means varies widely. While the debate continues, in many ways the standards movement—for better or worse— has muted the discussion (some argue, silenced) by its conformist influence on the elementary social studies curriculum. Of course, curricular variations still exist, but for the most part textbooks, state standards, and state‐based district standards now guide the content and approach of elementary social studies education in the U.S. The dominant curricular approach is the expanding communities approach (also known as the expanding environments approach or the widening horizons approach). In the expanding communities approach, children study increasingly complex social units as they progress through the elementary grades: in kindergarten they study the social unit of the child, in first grade they study the family, in second grade they study the local community, and so on (Halvorsen, 2013; Ravitch, 1987).



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To visualize the expanding communities approach, think of the child’s world as concentric circles with the child and the child’s family at the center. Each circle expands the child’s social world—to the neighborhood, to the community, and so on. The logical premise behind this approach, which has been used in some form or another for over 100 years (Hanna, 1934; Stallones, 2002), is that the child’s world expands from the family to an ever‐ widening social world (e.g., the post office, the grocery store, the fire department, the police station). Support for the approach is also based in the conviction that children learn best from curricula that have relevance to their lives (Brophy & Alleman, 2006b; Katz & Chard, 2000; NCSS, 2008; Newmann & Associates, 1996). However, it is not clear from the research that the expanding communities approach has such relevance or that children learn more from the approach than from other approaches. Moreover, many teachers and students find the expanding communities approach boring and redundant (Zhao & Hoge, 2005). An even more severe criticism is that the approach limits children’s imaginations as well as their p­erception and appreciation of the wider social world (Bickmore, 1999). Another problem in elementary social studies is that the standards tend to create “disciplinary silos” for the areas of history, geography, economics, and civics and government. This clear disciplinary division means that teachers must somehow design coherent, integrated lessons for these various disciplines when taught as a single subject. Furthermore, in planning and teaching thematic or project‐based units for social studies classes, which are designed to integrate the social studies disciplines as well as other school subjects, teachers have to select compatible content standards from these other subjects. These are challenging tasks that require teachers to have advanced understanding of disciplinary knowledge and competence in many disciplinary skills. Many elementary teachers are not prepared for these tasks because teacher education programs generally have only minimal requirements in curriculum content preparation (Adler, 2008). The result is that many social studies teachers simply teach units based in a single disciplinary content (e.g., a history unit or an economics unit). Many textbooks and district curricular materials take the same approach. See for example, the Michigan Citizenship Collaborative Curriculum (n.d.), which is a well‐designed curriculum that, however, features discipline‐specific units rather than integrated units. Such approaches have strengths, in particular, preserving the integrity of the disciplines, but they are not integrative of all the social science disciplines. Although it is not curriculum, the leading national organization for social studies, National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS, 2010) uses “themes” rather than disciplines for its standards. These themes are culture; time, continuity, and change; people, places, and environments; individual development and identity; individuals, groups, and institutions; power, authority, and governance; production, distribution and consumption; science, technology, and society; global connections; and civic ideals and practices. The themes are integrative (e.g., culture integrates history and geography). The standards, written for grade spans, roughly follow an expanding communities approach. Teaching using these themes could lead to a more integrative approach, however, schools tend to follow state standards rather than the NCSS standards. Some states modify the expanding communities approach by emphasizing history e­ducation (see, e.g., California State Board of Education, 2005; Massachusetts Department of Education, 2003; Virginia Department of Education, 2008). In fact, these states refer to the standards for “history and social science” rather than for “social studies.” There is also evidence of the emphasis on history in social studies in some states’ curricula. First graders

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in Massachusetts read national and world folktales, legends, and stories. Third graders in Virginia learn about ancient Greece, Rome, and the Mali Empire in West Africa. Thus, social studies education in these states broadens the scope of the expanding communities approach with lessons on the topics distant and remote from the children’s immediate environment. Other states emphasize a “heroes and holidays” or “character education” (loosely defined as education focused on moral development and life skills) approach to elementary social studies, in conjunction with the expanding communities approach. For example, in Georgia, American “heroes” (George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr.) are taught and their personal qualities are celebrated (Georgia Department of Education, 2015). These standards integrate elements of character education into social studies. Georgia expects the following of its kindergarteners in the unit, “‘Being a Good American’: The student will retell stories that illustrate positive character traits and will explain how the people in the stories show the qualities of honesty, patriotism, loyalty, courtesy, respect, truth, pride, self‐control, moderation, and accomplishment” (Georgia Department of Education, 2015, p. 1). In Texas, kindergartners are expected to “explain the reasons for national patriotic holidays such as Presidents’ Day, Veterans Day, and Independence Day” and “identify c­ustoms associated with national patriotic holidays such as parades and fireworks on Independence Day” (Texas Education Agency, 2015). First graders are expected to understand “how historical figures, patriots, and good citizens helped shape the community, state, and nation” (Texas Education Agency, 2015). Specifically, they should be able to “identify contributions of historical figures, including Sam Houston, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King Jr., who have influenced the community, state, and nation;” and “identify historical figures such as Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Garrett Morgan, and Richard Allen, and other individuals who have exhibited individualism and inventiveness” (Texas Education Agency, 2015). Recently, social studies scholars have renewed the focus on inquiry‐based learning in social studies education. The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K–12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History (NCSS, 2013) states that the inquiry process is essential for students’ deep learning in social studies education. The Framework concludes that “active and responsible citizens identify and analyze public problems; deliberate with other people about how to define and address issues; take constructive, collaborative action; reflect on their actions; create and sustain groups; and influence institutions both large and small” (NCSS, 2013, p. 19). The Framework also defines the structure of the “inquiry arc” as “a set of interlocking and mutually reinforcing ideas that feature the four dimensions of informed inquiry in social studies: (1) Developing questions and planning inquiries; (2) Applying disciplinary concepts and tools; (3) Evaluating sources and using evidence; and (4) Commu­ nicating conclusions and taking informed action (NCSS, 2013, p. 17). The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices [NGA] & the Council of Chief State School Officers [CCSSO], 2010) also emphasize the importance of inquiry, since writing is central to most forms of inquiry. This revived emphasis on inquiry requires that researchers and educators understand how children construct their questions, apply their disciplinary understanding, evaluate



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their sources, and communicate their findings—both in written and oral form. It is critical that students understand how to ask compelling (or driving) questions, and then determine the subquestions that need to be answered in order to explore the larger, compelling question. Inquiry instruction that builds on children’s current knowledge and understanding can help them achieve the high standards set for them.

17.2  Research in Children’s Thinking in the Social Studies Disciplines Research in children’s disciplinary thinking has advanced in recent decades. Early research on children’s thinking in social education mainly focused on stage theory (e.g., Piagetian developmental stages) as applied to verbal or written responses to questions. Vygotsky’s (1978) work in sociocultural theory, in particular the importance of social constructivism to explain how children make meaning of their world and the ways culture is transmitted between generations, also influenced, and continues to influence, research in social studies education. Barrett and Buchanan‐Barrow (2005), however, argue different, and more accurate, ways of understanding children’s knowledge and cognition have replaced stage theory. They offer a number of reasons in support of this claim, described next. First, researchers recognize that children do not necessarily have first‐hand experience with social phenomena, including the institutions they learn about. Second, depending on their demographic backgrounds (i.e., race, socioeconomic position, language spoken at home), children’s understanding of social phenomena varies. Third, many researchers have replaced Piagetian theories with “naive” theory (also referred to as “lay” theory) that reflects the child’s sense‐making of social phenomena. Naive theory recognizes that children express their understanding of conceptual content when they offer explanations or make predictions using vignettes or scenarios (rather than directly responding to questions). Fourth, researchers recognize that children’s understandings of social phenomena are not  emotionally neutral. Their families and social groups prejudice their emotions that then  influence their social understandings. This more comprehensive analysis of cognitive development has implications for how researchers explain children’s learning and understanding in their social world (Barrett & Buchanan‐Barrow, 2005). The research on learning progressions—the purposeful building of particular concepts and skills toward mastery—in social studies is far less extensive than in other areas such as science and mathematics (see, e.g., Alonzo & Gotwals, 2012). Some researchers, particularly in history education, have begun to explore how children progress in learning. Social studies education would benefit from more research in learning progressions related to knowledge, skills, and values in the social sciences. In this section we look at the social studies research in children’s learning and understanding from the perspective of the individual social studies disciplines (i.e., history, geography, civics and government, economics, and anthropology/sociology). While we know that children do not compartmentalize their thinking along disciplinary lines, each discipline nevertheless features and emphasizes its own content and skills. Much of the research cited here is from Brophy and Alleman’s (2006a) extensive interviews (with K–3 students) about their knowledge and reasoning applicable to “cultural universals”—people’s basic needs and universal experiences (e.g., resources, clothing, housing, and governing institutions).

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They produced 11 studies, seven of which involved large samples of students from grades K–3, from varying achievement levels from a small city in Michigan, which was largely White. There was some variation in socioeconomic status (SES) (for two studies on shelter and clothing, one sample was from a high‐SES suburb, one sample was from a middle-/ working-class suburb, and one sample from a lower‐middle-/working-class suburb). Four smaller studies were on third graders only. One of these, focused on the topic of shelter, was conducted with children in Manhattan and one of these, focused on the topic of food, was conducted with children in rural Michigan (Brophy & Alleman, 2006a, pp. 13–15). These interviews are not generalizable since they were not conducted with a random sample of students across the United States and because there was little racial or language diversity. However, the students’ commentaries on the cultural universals, each of which relates to one or more disciplines, tell us a great deal about their understanding (including their misconceptions) of their social world. Other recent research, both from the U.S. and other countries, as well as results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, is cited that adds to this analysis of the social studies disciplines.

17.2.1 History Most research in children’s disciplinary thinking is in history education, presumably because history dominates the disciplines in the elementary social studies curriculum. Researchers around the world have studied children’s thinking in history: for example, Peter Lee and Rosalyn Ashby in England; Linda Levstik in New Zealand; and Levstik and Jeanette Groth in Ghana. Their work is described in this section. At the lower elementary level, history education features the child’s personal story (e.g., past, present, and future timelines), historical narratives, and biographies. Research has shown that young children understand the past better when it is presented in large chunks of time (Barton, 2002). In this way, they acquire a better grasp of differences in time periods (Barton & Levstik, 1996). Research has also found narrative frameworks, where there is a beginning, middle, and end, help students better understand the past (Brophy & Alleman, 2006a). At the upper elementary level, children can understand that the past is made up of defined and distinct time periods. However, like younger children, they remember the “big  ideas” of history—also known as the powerful ideas. These are the essential ideas related to a topic that help students understand how social systems work, how and why social systems change with time and culture (Alleman, Knighton, & Brophy, 2010; Brophy & Alleman, 2006a; Brophy, Alleman, & Halvorsen, 2012). In their longitudinal study on historical thinking among students in England (ages 7 to 14), Lee and Ashby (2000) found that the students’ ideas on historical explanations varied widely within and across age groups. They also found that students’ progression in different areas of historical understanding was often uneven—that is, students developed proficiency in one area of historical understanding (e.g., casual structure) more quickly than in others (e.g., rational understanding). Lee and Ashby concluded their study with a description of how students progressed in their understanding of historical accounts: the past as given; the past as inaccessible; the past as determining stories; the past as reported in a more or less biased way; the past as selected and organized from a viewpoint; and the past as (re‐)constructed in answer to questions in accordance with criteria (p. 212). They also found that



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students in schools in which history was not a separate discipline in the curriculum learned less history than students in schools in which history was taught separately from other social studies disciplines. Levstik (2001) studied the influence of national narratives on perspective taking among 49 racially diverse students ages 11 to 13 from New Zealand, using a semi‐structured interview that involved examining captioned historical pictures. She found that children struggled with perspective‐taking and tended to lack historical schema, leaving them ill‐equipped to “make sense out of the continuation of inequity, injustice, or immorality, in the nation or local community (Levstik, 2001, p. 89). Perspective‐taking in national history involves different kinds of challenges than perspective‐taking of events that are more distant and less personal. In a book on how he taught the inquiry approach in U.S. history, VanSledright (2002) reported that fifth graders could evaluate the validity, reliability, and perspective of historical documents and images. However, he also learned that some students cling to the idea of one, and only one, true account of the past. Usually, they accept the account they find in encyclopedias or textbooks; VanSledright described this learning as “encyclopedia epistemologies.” He also found that fifth graders struggle with overcoming presentism—viewing (and evaluating) events in the past through a contemporary perspective. To approach h­istory and historical figures with greater empathy and understanding, he concluded that students should interpret past events in their historical context and more closely identify with historical actors. Yet VanSledright found that even with specific instruction in these skills, the fifth graders in his study had difficulty applying them. The way national history is taught—and understood by students—varies across countries. In their study of the conceptions of citizenship of 150 Ghanaian junior secondary students, representing over 10 ethnic groups, Levstik and Groth (2005) found that (1) history education in Ghana appears to highlight ethnic history along with the official, dominant narrative; and (2) students’ understandings of their national history involved studies of struggle, sacrifice, and subjugation, as well as one of unity—that people of Ghana, no matter their ethnicity, must view themselves as Ghanaian. In contrast to how history is taught in many other countries, history in Ghana is taught to include both official history and vernacular/ ethnic histories. Barton (2001a) found that children in Northern Ireland have different sets of cultural tools to make sense of the world than children in the U.S. In particular, children in the U.S. see history as a “narrative of national progress, grounded in individual achievement” (p. 906) compared to children in Northern Ireland who have a more balanced view of the past. These differences are due in part to the different kinds of historical content children in these settings learn (Barton, 2001b). The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in U.S. History tests a nationally representative sample of U.S. students’ knowledge of American history in the areas of democracy, culture, technology, and world role, at grades four, eight, and twelve. The assessment contained a mix of multiple‐choice and constructed responses. In the fourth‐ grade assessment, administered to 7,000 students, sample question descriptions include “give two reasons why people immigrate to the U.S.” and “enter events on a timeline” (National Center for Education Statistics, 2011c, p. 16). Students’ scores were grouped into three levels: basic, proficient, and advanced. Results of the fourth graders’ performance on the 2010 NAEP in U.S. History demonstrated that the percentage of fourth graders at or above the basic level increased from 1994, although less than 25% of all students performed at or above the proficient level.

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Blacks and Hispanics made larger gains between 1994 and 2010 than Whites, however, achievement gaps still existed: there was 26‐point difference between Whites and both Blacks and Hispanics. Some promising news was that the lowest‐performing fourth graders made the greatest gains, since 1994, of all students (National Center for Education Statistics, 2011c). In summary, we know a fair amount about how elementary students understand history and the historical thinking skills they struggle with. Yet we lack sufficient detailed research on how they acquire these skills as well as how these skills, and skills development, differ by gender, race, and SES. Moreover, more research is needed to understand how to draw on the  cultural and ethnic heritages of the increasingly diverse student populations in the history curriculum.

17.2.2 Geography A review of the research in children’s learning and understanding of geography is complex because of the discipline’s many subfields. In this section, the focus is limited to the most commonly taught area in geography lessons: physical geography (cultural geography, a second important area, is reviewed in the anthropology/sociology section). Researchers in geography education argue that students need to study physical geography so they can understand their physical place in their close surroundings and in the world. At the elementary level, physical geography focuses on maps and related abstract thinking skills and concepts such as spatial understanding, perspective, grids, orientation, scale, and symbols. These are complex skills and concepts for young children. Research has shown, however, that young children can interpret and use simple maps in ways that help them understand large spaces (Liben, Kastens, & Stevenson, 2002). Bluestein and Acredolo (1979) found that even three‐year‐olds could use maps of small, familiar places (e.g., the classroom) to find objects. Liben and Yekel (1996) found that although young children have difficulty understanding plan maps, they can read maps that use an oblique angle (i.e., maps that depict the sides of objects, such as a chair legs). In their study of a racially diverse group of kindergartners, Brizuela, and Cayton‐Hodges (2013) studied children’s map‐making skills in a pre–post design. After receiving one hour per week of instruction in mapping activities (focused on concepts such as scale and measurement, map production, and map interpretation), the children demonstrated growth in their mapping skills. In the pre‐assessment, the maps looked like drawings, and in the post-assessments, the maps included routes with starting and ending points and used symbols. Even first and second graders can interpret map keys, understand map grids, and draw and identify map features (e.g., title, orientation, author, date, and symbols) (Ekiss, Trapido‐ Lurie, Phillips, & Hinde, 2007). However, scholars argue that students’ geography learning should be scaffolded by ages, developmental levels, and learning progressions (Ekiss et al., 2007; Wiegand, 2006). The NAEP in Geography tests students’ (nationally representative sample of 7,000 fourth graders) knowledge of space and place, environment and society, and spatial dynamics and connections. The assessment contains a mix of multiple‐choice and constructed responses. Sample question descriptions include “explain how an event affects people differently” and “use latitude to identify the location of an island” (National Center for Education Statistics, 2011b, p. 16).



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Fourth graders’ scores in 2010 were higher than they were in 2001 and 1994 for all students including those on free and reduced‐price lunch and English Language Learners. Although gaps in scores persisted between Whites and Blacks (32‐point difference) and between Whites and Hispanics (27‐point difference), they narrowed considerably from the gaps in 1994. As part of the NAEP assessment, students’ teachers were surveyed about the frequency with which they taught certain topics: 75% of these students’ teachers reported teaching geography topics at least once a month. The topics were other countries and cultures, environmental issues, use of maps and globes, natural resources, space and place, and spatial dynamics and connections. Of these topics, maps and globes were taught most often. Thinking about geography involves spatial understanding, which is an important focus in early mathematics lessons. The study of geography also relies on scientific understanding (e.g., on sustainability and environmentalism). Recently, advances in the geographic information system (GIS) have made geographic reasoning more accessible to younger children (e.g., Google Earth). Thus geography’s links to mathematics, science, and technology may offer greater access to research funding. Additionally, scholars of geography education could turn to the fields of mathematics and in particular spatial reasoning to understand children’s capacities, challenges, and supports that increase their spatial reasoning.

17.2.3  Civics and Government In elementary social studies, civics and government (based in the discipline of political science) is a broad subject that deals with, among other things, local, state, and federal government, community cooperation, power and authority, political processes, and democratic values and principles. In these classes, children learn how and why people form governments, how laws are made, the roles of political leaders, and the responsibilities of citizens in a democratic society. There are some studies of children’s thinking and learning in this area but as with the other disciplines, more research has been conducted at the secondary level. As such, some secondary‐level studies whose findings are applicable to younger students are described. Civic education is a vital goal of education in civics and government. However, the ways in which civic education is interpreted and enacted vary widely. For example, Parker (1996) lays out three different approaches to citizenship education—traditional, progressive, and advanced. Through their analysis of U.S. educational programs and democratic theory, Westheimer and Kahne (2004) found that three conceptions of the “good citizen”— personally responsible, participatory, and justice‐oriented—help describe the variation among education programs. These scholars and others have demonstrated the wide v­ariation in philosophies and approaches in programs. Brophy and Alleman (2006a) found that children primarily think about government as a benevolent instrument that responds to citizens’ needs and wishes (e.g., solving problems and providing assistance) and/or as the force of authority and power that influences/controls citizens’ actions (e.g., imposing laws and dealing with their infractions). They found that children generally think laws keep them safe and prevent crime. However, in their longitudinal study of elementary children, Moore, Lare, and Wagner (1985) found that children of five and six do not yet understand concepts such as state or country, cannot describe

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the role of government in providing public services, and do not understand current events. They also have limited comprehension of the roles of judges and juries and do not understand how laws protect individual rights. To the extent they understand different levels of government, children conflate the roles of local, state, and federal governments (Brophy & Alleman, 2006a). In her review of the literature, Berti (2005) found, however, that even young children have some political understanding, particularly with regard to individuals and power structures in their immediate environments. She explains: Although young children appear to lack a conceptual political domain, even in a very rudimentary form, they construct a set of inter‐connected concepts in the context of personal relations within the family, kindergarten, and peer groups, which provide some of the threads necessary for weaving true political concepts. These are the concepts of rule, authority, and personal issues, which constitute, respectively, the antecedents of the concepts of law, political authority, and civil liberties and individual rights, intended as limitations of government authority. (emphasis in the original, p. 77)

Berti and Andriolo (2001) studied the effects of an 11‐week curriculum focused on the state, government, and the law on a group of Italian eight‐year olds, compared to a group of students who did not receive this curriculum. They found that at the pre‐assessments, children did not have a clear understanding of the concepts, but at the post-assessments, children who had received the curriculum demonstrated significantly better understanding of the concepts, particularly with regard to services provided by the government and the role of political offices. Torney‐Purta, Hahn, and Amadeo (2001) studied civic knowledge and engagement of 90,000 14‐year‐old students in 28 countries. They used data (questionnaires about students’ knowledge of democracy and their expectation for future participation in civic‐related activities, among other areas) from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Civic Education Study. They found that students in most countries demonstrated understanding of fundamental democratic values and institutions, that students tended to be skeptical of conventional forms of political engagement but were interested in other forms of civic participation, and that students with the highest levels of civic knowledge were more likely to participate civically (Torney‐Purta et al., 2001). Hahn (1998) found similar results in her mixed‐methods research of the political attitudes of students from England, Denmark Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States. Analyzing questionnaires, observations, and semi‐structured interviews, she found that civic education was linked to countries’ civic cultures, and that students who stated they discussed issues from multiple perspectives expressed higher levels of political interest, efficacy, and trust (Hahn, 1998). Although these studies are of older students, their implications for younger students are important: civic knowledge can help increase students’ civic participation. Unfortunately, as Levinson (2010) has demonstrated, there is unequal access to political power among SES groups, termed “the civic empowerment gap.” More research is needed to understand the cause of the civic empowerment gap, but a likely contributor is the lower civic knowledge, as expressed by the NAEP, by minority and low‐SES students. In their study of more than 2,500 California juniors and seniors from 2005 to 2007, as well as 2,811



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nationally representative ninth‐grade students (in the aforementioned IEA Civic Education Study), Kahne and Middaugh (2008) found that high school students who are more academically successful, White, and/or high‐SES tend to receive more classroom‐based civic learning opportunities. These learning activities include discussing current events, learning about community problems and ways to respond, engaging in simulations, and studying government, history and related social sciences. Studies of longitudinal data of Chicago high school students (Kahne & Sporte, 2008), American high school students (e.g., Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996) and students from 28 countries (Torney‐Purta, Amadeo, & Richardson, 2007) reveal that certain educational activities can increase their civic participation. Presumably, research on elementary students would produce similar findings, although the degree to which younger children can engage civically is different. Many educators think a primary goal of civics and government education is to reduce this gap. Like U.S. history and geography, civics is also assessed by the NAEP (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2011a). The NAEP in Civics tests students’ (nationally representative sample of 7,000 fourth graders) knowledge of politics and government, foundations of U.S. democracy, the U.S. Constitution, world affairs, and roles of citizens in a U.S. democracy. The assessment contained a mix of multiple‐choice and constructed responses. Sample question descriptions include “explain the meaning of the Martin Luther King, Jr. ‘I Have a Dream’ speech” and “recognize taxes as the main source of government funding” (National Center for Education Statistics, 2011a, p. 15). The NAEP Civics assessment also collected data from the students’ teachers about the degree to which they taught civics topics. Students of teachers who reported emphasizing civics topics to a small, moderate, or large extent tended to score higher on all areas except for world affairs than students whose teachers did not teach these topics. The results of the 2010 NAEP Civics assessment showed that students of high‐SES status scored significantly higher than low‐SES students (as ­determined by free and reduced‐price lunch eligibility) and that both White and Asian/ Pacific Islander students scored higher on average than Black, Hispanic, and American Indian/Alaska Native s­tudents, as they had in 2006 and 1998 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2011a).

17.2.4 Economics Lower elementary social studies education deals with the local economy. At the upper elementary level, the focus turns to national and international economies. Children learn basic economic concepts (e.g., goods, services, resources, opportunity costs, profit, circular flow, and specialization) appropriate to their grade level. Research in the study of economics has explored children’s understanding of microeconomics—how money is earned, spent, and saved. Many young children have a beginning understanding of economics: people get their money from the bank to buy the things they need and want. For example, Brophy and Alleman (2006a) found that while children have some understanding of personal finance, they have a developing understanding of why we use money instead of bartering, how money is created, how credit works, and how supply and demand influence prices. In their study of 70 children from an urban preschool and two urban elementary schools using interviews about the concepts of scarcity, choice, opportunity cost, and monetary value, Schug and Birkey (1985) found that students’ levels of understanding are based on

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their experiences, which they conclude suggests the importance of providing young children economic-related experiences to reinforce student understanding. They also conclude that while some early elementary students have developed a basic understanding of some economic concepts, it is not until grade three that most children are capable of more than superficial or literal understandings. In a study of 182 fifth‐ and sixth‐grade students in three urban public elementary schools with similar demographics (over 70% of students receiving free or reduced price lunch and 80–90% of students are African American) Posnanski, Schug, and Schmitt (2006–2007) found that students who attended the school that had specialized instruction in economics, personal finance, and basic entrepreneurship scored higher on the Basic Economics Test and Personal Finance Test than students in the other two schools. Although the study has l­imitations, it demonstrates that teaching economic and financial principles to elementary children may help them gain knowledge to help them make smart financial decisions in the future. Webley (2005) similarly found that young children have little grasp of the “adult economic world.” They have difficulty understanding why goods and services vary in price and how profits are generated. Older children, however, have a more sophisticated understanding of economics; by age 11 or 12, they approach some adults’ understanding although, like adults, their actions may not reflect this understanding—while saving money is perceived as “a good thing,” most children do not save the money they receive or  earn. Webley also described “the autonomous economic world of children” or “the p­layground economy” in which children swap and barter as substitutes for monetary exchanges. Quaynor and Hamilton (2012) studied instruction on creating a personal budget in a sixth‐grade social studies class with children from eight countries, some of whom were refugees. They found that refugee students bring rich and unique experiences on which to draw related to teaching personal finance. More research is needed to better understand how to capitalize on students’ economics knowledge and skills gained from their personal experiences in the classroom. Generally speaking, the research on economics in social studies education is limited although what we do know is quite fascinating. This is an area where researchers and teachers, working together in the study of classroom experiences and lessons, could increase our knowledge about how students learn and understand basic economic principles.

17.2.5 Anthropology/Sociology Although anthropology/sociology are not subjects included in state or national content standards, elementary schoolteachers introduce knowledge and teach skills from these two areas (e.g., anthropological approaches to conducting inquiries about people and their interactions with others; sociological concepts such as roles and responsibilities of family and community members). Moreover, cultural geography, the study of cultural characteristics and how they differ across time periods and locations, is connected in many ways to anthropology and sociology. Researchers have found that young children’s understanding of other cultures is correct in some ways but is stereotypical in others. For example, research shows that children in the United States may have a stereotypical understanding of African



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and Asian cultures and that some children think all Africans live in the jungle (Brophy & Alleman, 2006a). These misconceptions can pose instructional obstacles. Brophy and Alleman (2006a) conclude: The presentism and chauvinism tendencies highlight the need for instruction that will help students to empathize with people from the past or from other cultures, so as to be able to view them within the context of their time and place and to appreciate their activities as sensible adaptations to that context. (p. 3)

In the same study, Brophy and Alleman found that students are better able to identify differences than similarities among races and nations. Moreover, children show more curiosity in people’s physical differences and behaviors than in their beliefs and values. This  narrow view of other races, nationalities, and cultures presents an instructional challenge for teachers. In summary, although there is not a great deal of research on children’s disciplinary thinking, we know that elementary age children, to some extent, understand the past, know something of the world outside themselves, understand how people govern themselves, and see how people meet their needs with limited resources. The study of cultural universals has promise for teaching both important differences across groups as well as similarities, and can be used to meet the learning needs of all children in a classroom (Alleman, Knighton, & Brophy, 2007). However, the research is often fragmented and anecdotal. More empirical research in these areas may lead to theories on learning and understanding that would have useful application in curriculum innovation in social studies education.

17.3  Research on Children’s Thinking about their Social World Social studies education, which begins with content of the social science disciplines, also deals with a great many ideas and values, including personal responsibility. To teach these ideas and to promote these values, curriculum designers need to know how children make sense of their world; of course, teachers need to know this as well. This section reviews the research on children’s thinking about those ideas and values that originate in the study of the individual social studies disciplines.

17.3.1  Diversity and Equity The social studies disciplines involve the study of groups—the family, the community, nations, governments, cultures, and more. In all these settings, the idea of respect for, and appreciation of, human differences (e.g., the values of diversity and equity) appears repeatedly, both explicitly and implicitly. Yet when children begin school, they quite naturally bring ideas about people unlike themselves; in some instances, these ideas may be based on  misunderstandings, stereotypes, and prejudices. There is considerable research on c­hildren’s attitudes toward racial and cultural differences and on their ideas about treating others fairly. For example, Brophy and Alleman (2006a) found that children often have chauvinistic, ethnocentric views of other peoples and other cultures. Van Ausdale and Feagin (2001)

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found that preschool age children are aware of racial or ethnic differences, and in some cases, use race as a form of social control. Hirschfield (2008) found, however, that children have more tolerant racial attitudes if their parents and teachers work actively to overcome racial/ethnic stereotypes. In research on how the value of fairness develops, Jordan, McAuliffe, and Warneken (2014) studied group attitudes among 64 young children. They found that six‐year‐olds exhibit bias toward members of their own social group, but eight‐year‐olds were more likely to show fairness to all groups. In her classic book on children’s moral development, Vivian Paley (1992) showed that children can reason and deliberate in sophisticated ways about a proposed classroom rule, “you can’t say you can’t play.” Despite what we have learned from this research about children’s attitudes towards d­iversity and equality, and the need for more instruction, elementary teachers, for various reasons, do not often teach these values (Bickmore, 1999; McBee, 1996; Ochoa‐Becker, Morton, Autry, Johnstad, & Merrill, 2001). Future research could build on what we know about children’s understandings about diversity and equity and evaluate curriculum p­rograms that are effective at fostering development in these areas.

17.3.2  Civic Identity and Participation Civic identity and participation is very different for younger children than for adolescents and adults. Younger children’s civic participation is often limited to their social networks of the classroom and schools, since they are not yet old enough to participate independently in public civic activities—if they do participate, it is likely due to the fact that older family members are participating. Despite the fact that younger children are not able to independently participate in civic activities the way older children are, there is research on measures that may signal future civic participation. In civics and government lessons, important themes are citizens’ civic identities and responsibilities. Chi, Jastrzab, and Melchior (2006) designed a set of tested, reliable measures of young students’ civic knowledge, civic thinking skills, civic participation skills and civic dispositions. The two measures were a student survey of student civic knowledge, skills and attitudes (55 Likert‐scale questions) and a set of grade‐level observation checklists of student skills and behaviors. Sample survey questions were “I try to get my family to recycle at home” and “It is important for me to follow the rules even if no one is watching (Chi et al., 2006, p. 29). Sample survey items are “Works independently with minimum teacher support by attempting to resolve questions before seeking help,” and “Does not single out or tease others based on characteristics (e.g. gender, race, class, neighborhood, disability, etc.)” (Chi et al., 2006, p. 34). These measures could be used to determine the efficacy of programs and to examine differences among groups. Class meetings can provide elementary students the opportunity to engage in practices used by adults in civic settings (e.g., town hall meetings, community group meetings). Angell (1998) analyzed minutes of 216 class meetings over three years in a mixed‐age upper elementary (ages 9–12) classroom in a private Montessori school and found that students were capable of adopting rules of parliamentary order, practicing respect for equal rights and differences, expressing themselves freely, playing a role in shaping group norms, and demonstrating empathy. When they had opportunities to set their own agenda, they chose



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moral issues (specifically about fairness and standards of civility). Angell found that growth was needed in defending minority positions and succumbing to peer pressure. In another study of class meetings over two years in public Montessori magnet school Angell (2004) found that class meetings can be a site for peace‐building citizenship education, because of the ways the students used the class meetings: to clarify school rules, resolve interpersonal conflicts, and problem solve as a group. However, this kind of instruction is not easy: in his study of two fourth‐grade elementary school teachers Beck (2005) found that learning to lead deliberative discussions is highly complex and challenging work. Levinson (2010) concludes that traditionally we measure civic participation quantitatively, for example, by voting statistics, numbers of boycotts, or political party membership. However, she argues civic participation is also evident in ways we cannot measure, for example, political engagement, community involvement, and social networking. This is true for children as well as adults. While elementary school children are too young for the kind of community service projects that junior high and high school students often undertake, with age‐appropriate instruction teachers can teach young children the fundamental principles of citizenship, beginning with classroom and neighborhood settings. Civics programs such as Kids Voting USA have the potential to help narrow gaps in civic involvement for high school students (McDevitt & Kiousis, 2006). This program is an interactive, election‐based curriculum and involves a number of curricular activities: the three s­trongest predictors of students’ participation in elections are frequent discussion of the election in class, teachers promoting opinion expression, and participation in get‐out‐the‐vote drives. However, the field would benefit from studying research in related areas outside of civic  education in social and emotional development, conflict resolution, and moral development—one of these, moral development—is described next.

17.3.3  Morality Issues The NCSS (2008) states that one criterion of powerful social studies is teaching and learning that are value‐based. This means social studies education should give students the opportunity to evaluate proposals, policies, and decisions within a framework of tolerance for others’ opinions and respect for justice, liberty, and the common good. Parker (2003) explains the importance of developing the child’s imagination and empathy: The evolving self is an increasingly imaginative and empathetic self who—thanks to social and intellectual attainments that are the product of particular kinds of mind/society interactions— is successively better able to take into consideration others’ perspective in determining what is fair and what is not. Such evolution can be encouraged. (p. 64)

It is not well‐understood if and how children develop respect for these values in their social studies lessons. Perhaps the most well‐known scholarship in this area is Lawrence Kohlberg’s research in which he adapted Piaget’s stage theory to moral development (see Power, Higgins, & Kohlberg, 1989). Kohlberg theorized individuals pass through six sequential stages of moral reasoning. Gilligan (1993), however, criticized Kohlberg’s research for privileging justice over other values and for the exclusivity of his research sample (i.e., White men). In her research, she found that female morality was more based on care of others than on universal behavior codes.

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However, Kohlberg’s and Gilligan’s research deals with adult morality. There is less research on children’s moral development. One exception is Fang, Fang, Keller and Kehle’s (2003) study of 350 Chinese children (ages 7 to 15) in which they found national culture influenced the children’s moral decisions. Another researcher who has studied moral e­ducation is Nel Noddings (2012, 2013). She proposes that education should promote s­ensitivity through an ethic of care. Her work has important implications for social studies education when children address ethical dilemmas in the context of democratic values. Noddings writes: “If we want students to think critically, we must give them time to explore issues and opinions in some depth” (2012, p. 134). She also states: “What we should unceasingly work toward is a thorough examination of laws and rules that will allow us to sort ethically among them” (2013, p. 201). In a study of her sixth‐grade urban classroom Alleyne Johnson (1995) uses an ethic of care (Obidah, Jackson‐Minot, Monroe, & Williams, 2004) to formally include students’ realities, including their experiences with death, into the c­lassroom, in ways that empowered students.

17.4  Curricular Approaches in Children’s Learning There are a number of curricular approaches in elementary social studies. Moreover, these approaches are taught in a variety of ways. Some approaches are teacher‐centric (e.g., lecture, round‐robin reading, and worksheets) while others are student‐centric (e.g., active knowledge construction rather that passive knowledge repetition). For example, Brophy (1993) found that instruction varies widely, in large part depending on teachers’ goals and their classroom settings. The dominant curricular approach in elementary social studies is the expanding communities approach (see earlier in this chapter). Many researchers (e.g., Egan, 1983; Frazee & Ayers, 2003; Halvorsen, 2013; Ravitch, 1987, Wade, 2002) criticize its lack of empirical support as far as academic achievement, its dullness and redundancy, and its narrow and exclusionary focus on the child’s immediate world. However, it is undeniable the approach is firmly established in content standards, textbooks, and school district materials. Although, at present, replacing the approach does not appear likely, other social studies approaches have been developed. Below, eight alternative curricular approaches to social studies e­ducation are described—some of which are compatible with the expanding communities and some of which are wholesale alternatives.

17.4.1 Integrative The integrative approach to social studies education aims at purposeful, in‐depth teaching of social studies of one or more subjects or domains in ways that privilege the content and skills of each of the integrated areas. The CCSS for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/ Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects and the C3 Framework recommend integrative approaches to teach the standards. Parker (2011) argues that the integration of social studies is an important curricular trend fueled in large part by the testing and accountability movement. Integration has the potential to preserve elementary social studies in the school day; however, it is often difficult to do effectively in practice (Alleman & Brophy, 2010).



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The rationale for the integrative approach is its authenticity—people are presented in real-world activities and settings. The approach, often taught in thematic units, integrates skills and knowledge from literacy, mathematics, science, and social studies. While some social studies researchers recognize the potential benefits of the integrative approach, they also warn its use may weaken social studies instruction (e.g., Alleman & Brophy, 2010; Halvorsen, Alleman, & Brugar, 2013; Hinde, 2009). Boyle‐Baise, Hsu, Johnson, Serriere, and Stewart (2008), for example, found in a study of 13 elementary school classrooms enrolling mostly White, low‐ to middle‐SES students, that the teachers who used an integrative approach did so haphazardly and marginalized social studies. The teachers and principals identified the NCLB Act as the cause of social studies’ marginalization. Similarly, in her semester‐long case study of social studies lessons in a fifth‐grade urban classroom, Pace (2012) found that social studies lessons tended to be routinized activities of reading passages from the textbook without ensuring comprehension. Pace concluded that standardized testing and professional development played a role in the poor quality of social studies instruction. The CCSS’s emphasis on content literacy has raised the possibility that social studies can be taught in the reading and writing curriculum. Because the CCSS requires a 50:50 balance of literary and informational reading, content‐rich areas such as social studies and science may benefit from this requirement. Researchers have found students’ literacy increases when combined with science lessons although there is less research on the linkage between literacy and social studies (see Alleman & Brophy, 2010). In addition to literacy, the arts, and particularly visual arts, also has promise for integration with social studies education. The disciplines in social studies naturally incorporate visuals (e.g., architecture, paintings, and photographs in history, maps in geography). The arts can be integrated with social justice education, for example through strategies such as community arts and service learning (Donahue & Stuart, 2010). The visual arts are helpful to all learners, including students with special needs. Research supports the benefits of arts integration with social studies. In her study of fifth graders’ history learning in a school enrolling a large number of low‐SES students, Brugar (2012) found that students who received instruction in an integrated history, literacy, and visual arts format demonstrated higher achievement than students who received traditional instruction. Unfortunately, however, effective integration of social studies and arts is difficult, as demonstrated in a study of 50 elementary preservice teachers (Brewer & Brown, 2009). They found that preservice teachers tended to perceive integration in superficial rather than complex ways and do not tend to consider the importance of maintaining the integrity of the disciplines being integrated or how to assess each discipline effectively.

17.4.2  Cultural Universals Jan Alleman and Jere Brophy (2001, 2002, 2003) are the main proponents of the cultural universals approach that they developed for elementary social studies curricula. The approach is based on the nine cultural universals they identified in their research on children’s thinking: food, clothing, shelter, family living, communication, government, childhood, money, and transportation. They explain that these cultural universals provide a sound basis for elementary social studies education because they derive from everyday life

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(outside school), they can be used in narratives, they teach disciplinary content, and they correct misunderstandings about other cultures and time periods (see also Brophy & Alleman, 2008). This approach has similarities to the integrative approach in that it aims to create a knowledge network from scattered bits of knowledge.

17.4.3  Project‐Based Learning Project‐based learning, a development of problem‐based learning, involves children in focusing on an authentic problem, project, or issue over a sustained period of time (Duke, 2014; Thomas, 2000). It has deep roots in the history of U. S. education. In the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, well‐known educators such as John Dewey and William Heard Kilpatrick recommended the project approach because it is child‐­ centered and purposeful (Kilpatrick, 1918). In project‐based learning, activities are ­student‐centered, highly collaborative, and often integrative. These activities can include data collection, communications with experts, creating a product for an audience beyond the classroom, and often field trips. Students are encouraged to make decisions, act independently, and take ownership of their work. The approach requires advanced planning and time commitment by teachers as well as management skills need for group coordination. In recent years, project‐based learning has increased in popularity in K–12 education. It  is particularly well‐suited for social studies education, which, at its heart, is about compelling questions, is naturally integrative, has authentic connections to the world beyond school, and whose content and skills lend themselves well to being taught in an in‐depth way. Although there is limited research on the effectiveness of project‐based learning at the elementary level in social studies, two studies report on promise of the approach. Halvorsen et  al. (2012) found that students in low‐SES settings who received instruction in two project‐based units—an economics and content literacy unit and a civics and government and content literacy unit—performed at statistically similar achievement levels as students in high‐SES settings with “business‐as‐usual” instruction. In another study, Whitlock and Fox (2014) described a project‐based unit in which students founded a business and raised money for charity. They found that the project was highly engaging to students and allowed them to feel as if they were making a difference in their community.

17.4.4 Simulation Simulation involves student participation in activities or experiences that reflect authentic life situations. Popular topics are taxation without representation, discrimination, and the inequitable distribution of the world’s resources (e.g., Bigelow & Peterson, 2002). The goal of the simulation approach is to give students the opportunity to take (i.e., simulate) an active role in dealing with problems and situations rather than just reading about them. There are many examples of simulation‐based activities in textbooks, curricular materials, and online lessons. Although the simulation approach is popular in some elementary classrooms, few studies have explored its effect on student learning. One exception is Marilyn Kourilsky’s simulation project that she called Mini‐Society (Kourilsky & Ballard‐Campbell, 1984). In this project, as students design and govern their imaginary society they acquire economic



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knowledge and skills. In another study on simulation, Ortiz and Kourilsky (1985) found the simulation project improved students’ knowledge of economic issues as well as their mathematical skills. Another exception is Sylvester’s economics simulation (1994), which is described later in this chapter in the section on justice‐oriented education.

17.4.5 Inquiry Inquiry, like project‐based learning, has its roots in Dewey’s pedagogical philosophies. Social studies educators have been using an inquiry‐based approach for decades (see Banks, 1973). One variant of inquiry, discovery learning, was popularized in the 1960s by Jerome Bruner (1961). Inquiry involves investigation of a compelling question by gathering and analyzing data, evaluating sources, and drawing conclusions. These are fundamental skills in social studies education. The C3 Framework, described earlier, uses an “inquiry arc.” The Document Based Questions (DBQs), from the History AP (Advanced Placement) examinations, take the inquiry approach. These questions have also influenced elementary education. While the research is limited, evidence suggests the influence is promising. In their study of fifth graders who used the Historical Scene Investigation (HSI), a web‐based social studies resource with DBQ‐type activities, Swan, Hofer, and Locascio (2007–8) found some students improved in their learning of history content and their development of reading, sourcing, and other historical thinking skills. Several studies show the effectiveness of this approach. For example, VanSledright (2002) used the approach successfully in a fifth‐grade history class. In his study of fifth graders (who were mostly White and middle class) from two classrooms—a gifted classroom and a mainstream classroom—Nokes (2014) found that when students received non‐traditional, document‐based instruction, they developed more historian‐like epistemologies. Unfortunately, research shows that these kinds of instructional approaches have not been widely adopted in elementary social studies classes, which tend to stick closely to traditional approaches (Levstik, 2008).

17.4.6  Service‐Learning/Civic Action The service‐learning/civic action approach is used in multiple variations in various s­ubjects. However, all variations aim at improvements in the spheres of economics, politics, and/or the natural environment. In social studies education, the service‐learning/civic action approach focuses on the social world by teaching students social science principles aimed at helping others. Although research on its effectiveness is limited, recent scholarship suggests the service‐ learning/civic action approach has promise. In a study of the concept of student voice among fifth graders at a progressive school (in which 27% of students receive free or reduced price lunch and 14% of students are of color) Mitra and Serriere (2012) found that the children need the ABCDEs of youth development—agency, belonging, competence, discourse, and (civic) efficacy to engage successfully in school life and civic life. In the project, the fifth graders identified, addressed, and solved a local issue (the lack of salad bar choices in the school lunchroom). Serriere, McGarry, Fuentes, and Mitra (2012) studied a teacher‐designed service‐learning curricular unit in a combined first‐ and second‐grade

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classroom at the same school. They concluded that the project, which used science, mathematics, and art to focus on homelessness and healthy human habitats, enriched the children’s local, global, and historic knowledge. In a study of three elementary‐level service‐learning groups that involved young children and adult leaders, Serriere, Mitra, and Reed (2011) found that service‐learning benefits from a youth–adult partnership in which children and adults share expertise and that the way teachers respond to student input relates to the buy‐in and engagement levels of students.

17.4.7  Justice‐Oriented Education Another alternative approach to social studies education is the justice‐oriented approach. Although educators differ on how to interpret and teach social justice, generally the approach is concerned with teaching students to recognize and resolve social injustices. Writing and implementing justice‐oriented curricula, despite the natural fit with a principal purpose of elementary social studies education, poses significant theoretical and real problems for teachers, especially for new teachers (Agarwal, Epstein, Oppenheim, Oyler, & Sonu, 2010). This approach has not been well researched, possibly because it has not been used extensively. Rethinking Schools, a nonprofit, independent organization founded in 1986, has published a number of social justice instruction materials: textbooks, policy books, and a quarterly journal titled Rethinking Schools. The journal promotes the adoption of social justice issues in all subjects, especially social studies. Related, Teaching Tolerance (2008), a project by the Southern Poverty Law Center that focuses on social justice and anti‐bias education, publishes curricular guides, professional development resources, and a magazine for teachers. These materials show teachers how to teach respect for diversity, equity, power, and privilege. Rahima Wade (2007) has also developed teaching strategies for social justice social studies education. Her research reports on her work with 40 teachers in both rural and urban settings who used teaching strategies that feature individual respect and responsibility, service commitment, and concern for humanity and the environment. Sylvester (1994) taught and evaluated a justice‐oriented, simulation‐based economics unit in a third‐ grade class. The children created a fictitious neighborhood, “Sweet Cakes Town,” in which they started businesses and dealt with authentic social and economic issues—homelessness, entrepreneurship, economic competition, and unemployment. He found that the children improved certain academic skills as they studied socioeconomic structures and conditions. The instruction technique of discussion is well suited to justice‐oriented education. In his book on teaching democracy, Parker (2003) suggests a number of ways to engage diverse students in meaningful dialogue with each other about authentic problems that reflect issues of equality and justice. Among his suggestions are daily life discussions, discussion groups with diverse perspectives, and dialogic discussions.

17.4.8  Core Knowledge Another alternative approach to social studies education is the core knowledge approach. E.D. Hirsch, well‐known for his 1988 best seller, Cultural Literacy (Hirsch, et  al., 1988), argued that children’s poor reading skills were attributable to their lack of cultural literacy.



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In response, he developed a curriculum program based on this perceived need: the Core Knowledge Series, published in books such as What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know, What Your First Grader Needs to Know, and so forth. Several school districts in the United States and elsewhere adopted the program. A recent study of 1,000 elementary students in 20 New York City schools, found that students in the Core Knowledge Program outperformed their peers at comparison schools who received standard instruction in reading (the instructional approaches varied among the schools, but most were described as “balanced literacy” approaches) (The NYC Core Knowledge Early Literacy Pilot, n.d.). Although there are still other approaches to social studies education, these eight alternative approaches are the most well‐known, researched, and tested. The important point about these alternatives, despite the continuing dominance of the expanding communities approach, is that researchers and educators are daring to design and teach new approaches. Even if none of the alternative approaches replaces the traditional approach (and many are envisioned as complements, not replacements), they stimulate fresh and exciting ideas about teaching and learning.

17.5  Looking to the Future: New Research Areas As this chapter has described, social studies education research on children’s learning and understanding in their social world has resulted in many new curricular materials/ approaches and many modifications to existing curricular materials/approaches. However, as the chapter also emphasizes, more empirical research is needed in elementary social studies education. Studies of subjects that receive more funding such as math and literacy might provide roadmaps for social studies scholars. Three areas where more research is needed include: 1. improved development of and use of assessment measures; 2. the study of curricular materials/approaches; and 3. the analysis of the relationship between social studies education and citizenship ideas/ values.

17.5.1 Assessment Assessment in social studies education lags behind other fields in several ways, in large part because it is not required by the mandates of the NCLB Act. Social studies does not tend to be assessed until upper elementary grades (if at all at the elementary level). Of course, simply because subjects are tested does not ensure high‐quality instruction (Grant, 2001). However, the use of assessments may drive educators to place more emphasis on social studies, which would be an important first step. At the lower elementary level, assessments exist such as TerraNova (2015), which offers social studies assessments starting with first grade. It has questions—both multiple‐choice and constructed response—in the areas of geographic perspectives, historical and cultural perspectives, civics and government perspectives, and economic perspectives. Another assessment is the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (2015), for students beginning in second grade.

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It has questions on history, geography, economics, and government and society. The subcategories of these disciplines are the 10 NCSS themes. However, since state standards for lower elementary social studies vary, there are alignment problems between curriculum and assessment. With better assessment measures, researchers could conduct evaluative experimental design studies. At the upper elementary level, some assessment measures are aligned with state content expectations. In addition, as discussed earlier, there are NAEP assessments in civics, geography, and U.S. history. As with the TerraNova and the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, a challenge with these is that they don’t align with each state’s social studies standards since the stand­ ards vary from state to state. Another challenge with these measures, which are typically written in multiple‐choice format, is that they are limited in so far as their ability to measure real depth in student understanding. One assessment measure in social studies education that merits more investigation is oral assessment. Teachers at the lower elementary level often find they learn more about children’s understanding from talking to them than by testing them on written (i.e., multiple choice) examinations. Oral assessments (i.e., in interview format), for example, allow students to explain their reasoning, their understanding of historic events, their interpretation of maps, and their explanations of people’s economic decisions. However, oral assessments, which are necessarily individual, evaluator‐student conversations, take time and money. One promising assessments example is the Stanford History Education Group’s (n.d.) innovative project for assessment measures entitled “Beyond the Bubble” for students, grade six and above. These assessments measure higher‐order historical thinking skills such as sourcing, corroboration, contextualization, and use of evidence. As VanSledright (2002) notes, such assessments, while expensive to administer and expensive to score, provide an authentic and holistic assessment of students’ cognitive thinking. Further development is also needed regarding assessment measures about motivations, attitudes, and beliefs, particularly regarding political socialization and civic efficacy. As mentioned previously, the work by McDevitt and Kiousis (2006) on Kids Voting USA provides an excellent foundation on which to build further measures for elementary students about the civic development, political knowledge, critical literacy skills, activism, among other indicators of civic involvement, as measured by self‐reports. The field of literacy has various motivation instruments such as the Motivations for Reading Questionnaire (MRQ) and the Motivation to Read Profile (MRP) that could guide social studies scholars seeking to design such instruments for their field. Once assessments and instruments are developed and implemented, scholars could examine the student and school contextual factors that influence student achievement in order to better understand the achievement gaps. In particular, the ways in which low‐SES children and children of color (1) lack opportunities to receive high‐quality instruction and (2) perform at lower levels on traditional assessments than their peers need to be studied.

17.5.2 Curriculum The study of social studies curricular materials/approaches offers many research opportunities. Limited evidence exists for the success of the various curricular materials/approaches in terms of student mastery of social studies knowledge and skills. We need experimental



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design studies that compare their efficacy in order to decide which to teach and support. Longitudinal studies in particular could help us learn which curricular materials/approaches have positive effects on children’s learning and understanding. It is particularly important to investigate the effects of these approaches on children who are low‐performing and from poverty. What works for some students may not work for other students.

17.5.3  Citizenship Ideas/Values More analysis is needed on the relationship between social studies education and citizenship ideas/values. If a main goal of social studies education is to educate children in the principles and values of citizenship, then a productive research area is the analysis of if and how schools work toward this goal as well as if and how they succeed in achieving it. Particular attention needs to be paid to the ways students make (or do not make) connections between school learning and their civic lives. Moreover, cross‐cultural studies, such as the one conducted by Solano‐Campos (2015) on children’s ideas of civic nationality in the U.S. and Costa Rica, could shed light on the ways children’s understandings of national identity formation differ across contexts. Development of such measures, necessarily qualitative rather than quantitative, poses a formidable challenge. However, just because the challenge is difficult does not mean no attempt should be made to meet it. If educators set goals, they are obliged to measure their achievement or failure.

17.6  Final Thoughts Social studies research tells us a great deal about how children learn and understand their social world. As the chapter explains, however, much remains to be researched. We especially need more empirical studies from the elementary classrooms where teachers are experimenting with new materials and new methods, about whom those materials and methods are benefiting and why. However, one cannot overestimate the complexity of the challenges in such social studies research—for example, political, cultural, tradition vs. innovation, classroom marginalization, and underfunding. Yet, given elementary social studies’ enormous responsibility for preparing children for their future role as informed citizens, it is essential that policymakers, researchers, and educators support research in social studies education.

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Leveraging Literacy

Research on Critical Reading in the Social Studies Ilene R. Berson, Michael J. Berson, Danielle V. Dennis, and Rebecca Lovering Powell

18.1  The Evolution of Literacy in the Social Studies Throughout the social studies research literature, extensive attention has focused on the battle between the content areas for space and place in the school curriculum, and in this competition, language arts (i.e., reading) has surfaced as the victor (Boyle‐Baise, Hsu, Johnson, Cayot Serriere, & Stewart, 2008; Fitchett & Heafner, 2010; McMurren, 2007; VanFossen, 2005; Wills, 2007). In the decades since Camperell and Knight (1991) reviewed the research on reading and the social studies, the field of social studies has continued its long, complicated and often contentious relationship with literacy. Camperell and Knight identified emerging conceptualizations of functional literacy that drew attention to the role of prior knowledge and interactive, text‐based learning experiences to promote comprehension and social studies domain‐specific reading and writing. They lamented the paucity of research to inform practice and the slow diffusion of evidence‐informed pedagogy into classroom instruction. Nonetheless, their chapter on Reading Research and the Social Studies promoted the potential of functional literacy focused on utilitarian reading and writing skills to help students successfully negotiate the demands of being a member of society. In the intervening time period, the field of social studies has undergone a tidal shift from focusing on discrete, decontextualized functional reading skills to disciplinary-specific approaches. Previously, most studies on reading performance in the field highlighted the role of classroom textbooks in instruction (De La Paz, 2005; Nokes, Dole, & Hacker, 2007). However, widespread access to digital resources has broadened the emphasis to include reading historical texts, analyzing primary sources, and interpreting visual content, a­ligning more with a disciplinary literacy approach that engages students in the habits of thinking, reading and writing practiced in specific social studies disciplines (McConachie & Petrosky, 2010). Efforts to build on the symbiotic connection between literacy and the social studies have progressed along another path that diverges from Camperell and Knight’s (1991) theoretical The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.



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framework. They highlighted the application of cognitive theories to content-based reading in the social studies; this approach aligned with literacy research associated with social studies instruction since the turn of the 20th century that focused on the role of content area reading in the classroom (Moje, 2008). Content area reading requires readers to utilize a variety of generic comprehension strategies as they negotiate social studies subject areas. At the center of a content area literacy approach is the reading strategy (e.g., pre‐reading, predicting, testing hypotheses against the text, asking questions, summarizing), which suggests a universality of instructional practices regardless of characteristics of the reader or the content of the text. For example, research on social studies and literacy instruction in the 1980s and 1990s focused more on comprehension and strategy instruction than any other topic (Gaffney & Anderson, 2000). This magnified the role of content area reading in both theory and practice, but also further marginalized disciplinary specific approaches. The ubiquitous approach offered by content area reading may have led to the misunderstanding that all teachers were teachers of reading, and positioned the strategy as the mediator for comprehension (Moore, Readence, & Rickelman, 1983). In the mid‐1990s when research in the field of literacy shifted to a focus on writing (Gilstrap, 1991), content area literacy also focused on both reading and writing and the strategies required to negotiate and create text in the social studies.

18.2  Movement towards Sociocultural Aspects of Instruction In the 1990s, some literacy scholars redirected the content area literacy conversation away from the effectiveness of strategy instruction to exploring the sociocultural underpinnings of teaching and learning (Alvermann & Moore, 1991; Bean, 2000). Using the lens of social constructivism, researchers viewed the nature of the reading material as the leading factor in student motivation (Au, 1998; Hinchmann & Moje, 1998). Thus, scholars called for teacher preparation and education to organize instruction around the social construction of meaning by teachers and students as they interact with text (Au, 1998). Although the conversation shifted within literacy research circles, studies of classroom implementation found that teachers continued to focus on didactic approaches to content literacy instruction that were often devoid of both sociocultural explorations of text and strategy instruction (Hinchman & Zalewski, 1996; Moje, 1996; Sturtevant, 1996).

18.3  Call for Discipline‐Specific Literacy Whether focused on the strategy or the interaction with text, missing from earlier conversations was the content being taught. Recent literature calls for “a shift from teaching generic strategy instruction to teaching discipline‐specific language and literacy practices” (Fang, 2014, p. 444). Disciplinary literacy brings together the research on basic literacy acquisition and various disciplinary knowledge (Shanahan, 2009), while recognizing that several factors related to the reader, and his/her interaction with the text, are at play when negotiating meaning. A student’s level of prior knowledge, the type of text, and the purpose for reading are all elements to consider when teaching discipline‐specific content. Further, since readers alter their attention to different structures, vocabulary, and rhetorical and

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linguistic characteristics of texts, content experts must share their literacy practices with students during instruction (National Institute for Literacy, 2007). Definitions of literacy also have shifted beyond pragmatic linguistic constructs of decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension, which dominated the research literature reviewed by Camperell and Knight (1991). They now include “political and social practice that limits or creates possibilities for who people become as literate beings” (Van Sluys, Lewison, & Flint, 2006, p. 199). The stance that curriculum should guide students toward their roles as active citizens emerged at the start of the 20th century as part of the social meliorist movement (Kliebard, 2004). The critique and aim of improving society continued to frame the work of the social reconstructionists who promoted a social studies curriculum committed to analyzing and responding to social issues (S. E. Epstein, 2014). In contempor­ ary practice, tensions with the current outcome‐based accountability processes call for a shift in emphasis from a passive, fact‐based and standardized approach to a transformation into an active and meaningful learning experience (Agarwal‐Rangnath, 2013; Au, 2009; S. E. Epstein, 2014). Social reconstructionists espouse values that are inherent to critical literacy theory, while also promoting social justice.

18.4  Critical Literacy Critical literacy practices are an important part of disciplinary specific learning (Agarwal‐ Rangnath, 2013; S. E. Epstein, 2014). Banks (2004) has argued for an expanded conception of literacy that extends beyond basic skills and prepares students to function as citizens: Literate citizens in a diverse democratic society should be reflective, moral, and active citizens in an interconnected global world. They should have the knowledge, skills, and commitment needed to change the world to make it more just and democratic. (p. 298)

This perspective of critical literacy goes beyond just developing knowledge in the discipline. Banks promotes a form of critical literacy that builds an understanding of how knowledge is produced so that students may critique accepted practices and receive information to transform ways that they make sense of and engage with the world. A critical literacy stance aligns with the social studies (Reidel & Draper, 2011; Soares & Wood, 2010), providing a theoretical context in which perspectives, ideologies, and d­iscourses are analyzed to disrupt, critique, and think deeply about texts as well as produce content that resists discursive practices. Lee (2007) and Bain (2006) contend that disciplinary literacy and critical literacy are interwoven processes. In concert, these approaches to learning offer a bridge to enhance interdisciplinary linkages while attending to the specific discourses unique to the social studies (Wolk, 2003). Analyzing diverse sources, asking questions about the evidence, weighing the credibility of information, and using e­vidence‐based interpretation to support a claim are practices embedded in the disciplinary literacy approaches of social scientists (Monte‐Sano, De La Paz, & Felton, 2014b), but also can be appropriated by students across all social studies strands, including history, g­eography, economics, government and civics, and culture and society, even at young ages (Powell, Cantrell, & Adams, 2001). Understanding that language is not neutral, that each text is not neutral, and that each individual approaches



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a text with cultural background is key to promoting students’ critical stance as they become apprenticed into the disciplinary practices across the social studies. Recognizing that texts lack neutrality (Bakhtin, 1986; Fecho & Botzakis, 2007; Gee, 2013), critical literacy is built on exploring personal, sociopolitical, cultural, economic and intellectual connections to position readers as “meaning‐makers, critics, and actors rather than passive recipients” (Reidel & Draper, 2011, p. 125). It also provides an approach that shifts agency to the students to engage in the democratic process and shared decision‐ making. The intent of instruction from a critical literacy frame is to empower students and facilitate transformative action (Au, 2009). As a theoretical frame, critical literacy aligns with multiple strands of inquiry across social studies content areas. In a review of research on critical literacy instruction in upper primary and secondary classrooms, Behrman (2006) illustrates that integrated language arts and social studies specific instruction dominates the literature base. Disciplinary‐ specific approaches in the social studies urge students to look at issues from multiple p­erspectives and to read texts from a critical perspective. Critical literacy rests on the assumption that “disciplinary knowledge is used not as facts to be memorized, but as p­erspectives for interpreting the world” (Mathews, 2015, p. 227). In order for students to engage in disciplinary literacy they must conceptualize texts in new ways. These approaches overlap with the dimensions of critical literacy identified by Lewison, Seely Flint, and Van Sluys (2002). They describe four interrelated dimensions to critical literacy. Lewison et al. suggest that the first dimension of critical literacy involves seeing the “everyday” through “new lenses” and “problematizing common knowledge” (p. 383). Secondly, critical literacy disrupts standardized or scripted approaches and instead pursues diverse ways of practicing reading by interrogating multiple viewpoints. The third dimension of critical literacy requires readers to go beyond the personal to the sociopolitical, and question how language is tied to power relationships in society that privilege some and marginalize others. Ultimately, learning translates into actions focused on social justice in which students seek alternative ways to transform existing inequities and oppressive practices. Social studies educators have studied the fundamentals of promoting this participatory experience in their instruction. Wolk (2003) applied a critical literacy approach to focus students on issues of power and social inequality in the social studies classroom. Students acquired skills in questioning authors’ assumptions and beliefs, interrogating the voices heard and the voices that were silenced, and pursuing activism. Similarly Au (2009) illustrated with two classroom lesson plans how critical literacy places students as “agents of transformation in their classrooms, schools, and communities, raising questions of whose knowledge is in the curriculum, and examining foundations of history” (p. 7). By restructuring the curriculum and adopting a pedagogy focused on critique and social advocacy, these studies translated the tenets of critical literacy into social studies teaching. Helping students become critically aware requires teachers to integrate discussion of controversial issues into instruction. “The very nature and content of the social sciences are replete with controversial issues. Every major historic and contemporary encounter b­etween individuals, cultures, peoples, nations, and governments; every human struggle with the land and environment; and every conflict over production, distribution, and c­onsumption of resources is a study in controversy” (McBee, 1996, p. 38). The use of multiple texts is a common entry to critical literacy and promotes understanding of authorship

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as situated reality. For example, when students read the stories of those who resisted injustice and p­roduce countertexts that validate the perspectives of underrepresented groups they may come to recognize reading and writing as interpretive activities (Beck, 2005; Behrman, 2006; Reidel & Draper, 2011; Wolk, 2003). Although a growing body of research in education has highlighted the role of critical literacy in classrooms, most of the research focuses on classroom‐based accounts with rich narratives of classroom activity but lacks specific details regarding methodological approaches, procedures, or data sources (Behrman, 2006; Bishop, 2014). Moreover, the research reveals a gap in applications with younger learners (Kuby, 2013; Rogers & Mosley, 2006; Vasquez, 2014). The implementation of a critical literacy stance is often discussed in the context of adolescent literacy and secondary literacy instruction, and so it is not surprising that middle and high schools are presumed to be the place where this instruction should take place. Much of the research is based on assumptions that literacy proficiency is a prerequisite to critical literacy practices (Behrman, 2006). However, emerging studies have revealed that students do not need to master basic literacy skills before engaging in this learning cycle of asking complex questions about power and privilege and taking action to challenge commonplace examples of inequities (Kuby, 2013; Reidel & Draper, 2011; Rogers & Mosley, 2006; Vasquez, 2014). Developing critical literacy is a long‐term process that begins in the early grades and continues through college. Downplaying or ignoring controversial topics in the curriculum may be common, but it is unwise, even with young learners (Rogers & Mosley, 2006; Vasquez, 2014). Widely held assumptions about what young children are capable of understanding have been discounted by research on younger children’s cognitive and emotional capabilities to learn about social issues. As Kelly and Brooks (2009) argue, “The rhetoric of ‘vulnerability’ and ‘protection’ [associated with innocence] is not necessarily helpful to children or young people” (p. 207), as these concepts do not increase children’s abilities to know and understand the world. An emerging body of evidence into this approach has demonstrated that critical literacy is not just appropriate for older and more advanced students. Children’s capacity for abstraction between the ages of four and eight signals the onset of literacy and aligns with early capabilities to engage in introductory and foundational work of academic disciplines. Kuby (2013) and Vasquez (2014) have studied adaptations of this approach with children as young as three to five years old. Soares and Wood (2010) and Rogers and Mosley (2006) applied the model to teach students how to question social studies texts in the elementary grades. From this perspective, then, critical literacy instruction can start as early as preschool and the lower elementary grades. In support of this recommendation, Pappas (1993) found that beginning in kindergarten children could differentiate between different forms of discourse. This nascent skill set may be the precursor to critical and disciplinary literacy. As children’s education advances, they develop increased sophistication to recognize and engage in the unique processes diverse disciplines use to produce and critique knowledge. Shira Epstein (2014) presented a qualitative case study analysis of four social studies classrooms that enacted critical literacy as part of civic projects in intermediate elementary, middle school and high school classrooms. She highlighted three phases that led to contextualized decision‐making and application of the literacy techniques and skill sets embodied by civic leaders. These phases included problem identification, exploration of the civic dilemma, and design and implementation of actions to ameliorate social issues.



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According to her findings, students not only must learn to read diverse forms of text, but also learn to “compose print, visual and oral texts to articulate their messages to varied audiences” (p. 6). Critical literacy implies a focus on controversial issues; however, Hess (2009) noted that controversy is socially constructed rather than an inherent characteristic of any issue. This assertion represents another example of the overlap between critical and disciplinary literacy. As part of students’ civic literacy skill set, seeking out diverse perspectives on an issue through reading, discussion, and debate can build upon students’ capacity to explore controversial issues, build coalitions, and communicate ideas that promote social change. Although not specifically referring to critical literacy, Agarwal‐Rangnath (2013) illustrated how social studies can be enriched with a social‐justice oriented and literacy‐based curriculum. Teaching social studies and language arts as complementary subjects facilitates the introduction of multiple perspectives—exploring fewer topics but approaching them more critically (Wade, 2007). This form of critical literacy situates disciplinary‐specific learning within the public sphere and everyday life of the student, adapting to the developmental needs of the learner to make the discourses accessible (Moje, 2010). Disciplinary literacy centralizes the process of inquiry (Moje, 2015) by engaging learners in “the kinds of knowledge production and representation…that members of the various disciplines enact on a regular basis. The point of such engagement is to make clear how disciplinary communities produce knowledge, thereby enabling learners to question that knowledge” (Moje, 2010, p. 275). Students learn to read and write in the service of these investigations.

18.5  Disciplinary Literacy Social studies researchers continue to grapple with the pathways toward authentic, d­isciplinary engagement. Often the disciplinary‐specific approach has been conflated with replicating the discourses of academics and professionals across the field, placing them outside of the reach of learners who struggle with reading, including younger children, learning disabled students, and English Language Learners (Fagella‐Luby, Sampson Graner, Deshler, & Valentino Drew, 2012; Heller, 2010). Given these concerns, historically, content area literacy focused on utilizing generic reading strategies to enhance comprehension of discipline-specific texts (Vacca & Vacca, 2008). A criticism of content area literacy instruction was that it supported students in knowledge acquisition (Warren, 2013), but not in understanding how knowledge was produced in that discipline. The result was that generic reading strategies, or content area strategies, were often “pushed in” to content classes from the outside in an attempt to support student content knowledge acquisition (Brozo, Moorman, Meyer, & Stewart, 2013). Some outside‐in strategies include K‐W‐L charts (Ogle, 1986), and reciprocal teaching (Palinscar & Brown, 1984). In contrast, Brozo et al. (2013) identified inside‐out literacy skills and strategies, driven by the text and purposes for reading, as disciplinary literacy processes. Disciplinary literacy moves beyond generic strategies commonly associated with content area literacy to more precise skills and understandings associated with specific disciplines and the habits of mind of those disciplines (Fang & Coatoam, 2013; Moje, 2007, 2008; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2012). Disciplinary literacy examines the ways knowledge is learned, understood, produced, and evaluated in the disciplines; it is an “essential aspect of disciplinary practice,

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rather than a set of strategies or tools brought into the disciplines” (Moje, 2008, p. 103). According to McConachie and Petrosky (2010), “disciplinary literacy involves the use of reading, reasoning, investigating, speaking, and writing required to learn and form complex content knowledge appropriate to a particular discipline” (p. 16). Moje (2008) asserts disciplinary literacy as “a matter of teaching students how the disciplines are different from one another, how acts of inquiry produce knowledge and multiple representational forms… as well as how those disciplinary differences are socially constructed” (p. 103).

18.5.1  Disciplinary Literacy and the Social Studies Specific disciplines represent and critique information in unique ways. Authentic work in the social studies needs to be approached by students “with curiosity, imagination, and passion” (Moje, 2015, p. 255). Therefore, it cannot be scripted or standardized for delivery (Avila & Moore, 2012; Zacher Pandya, 2012). Even within the field of social studies, there are differences among the disciplines (e.g., economics and geography) with the way information is created, shared, and evaluated for quality (Shanahan, 2009). Fang and Coatoam (2013) offered that, “proponents of disciplinary literacy recommend that literacy instruction be anchored in the disciplines and advocate explicit attention to d­iscipline‐specific cognitive strategies, language skills, literate practices, and habits of mind” (p. 628). The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework (2013) emphasized the need for disciplinary literacy skills, yet there remains much debate about how to teach these literacy skills and what role the social studies teacher plays in the development of a student’s literacy growth (Fang & Coatoam, 2013; Fang & Schleppergrell, 2010; Fisher & Ivey, 2005; Learned, Stockdill & Moje, 2011; Moje, 2010; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2012). According to the Common Core State Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010), literacy is a school‐wide, shared responsibility that should occur across the content areas, but many literacy scholars question the assertion that “every teacher is a teacher of reading” (Fisher, & Ivey, 2005; Gillis, 2014; Moje, 2008; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2012). This catchphrase oversimplifies literacy as the “cognitive processes of decoding, comprehending, encoding, and composing informational print texts” (Moje, 2008, p. 99) and marginalizes the unique discourses and practices of social scientists. Moreover, Boyle‐Baise et al. (2008) contend that when social studies is integrated into reading in elementary classrooms, it “assumes that social studies has no unique pedagogy of its own” (p. 248). These concerns over transmitting knowledge devoid of connections to authentic practice have fueled a shift away from integration of generic reading strategies to a focus on disciplinary‐specific literacy strategies, including an emphasis on epistemology, patterns of discourse, and cognitive practices used by experts in the field. Since disciplinary literacy frames disciplines as “spaces in which knowledge is produced or constructed, rather than as repositories of content knowledge or information” (Moje, 2008, p. 100), instruction shifts away from merely teaching generic reading skills applied to social studies content. Instead the focus is on the apprenticeship of students in the tools and norms of practice disciplinary experts use to create, critique, and communicate that knowledge (Fang & Coatoam, 2013; Moje, 2008, 2011; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008).



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Crucial to developing disciplinary literacy is background knowledge about the content being studied and background knowledge about the syntactic structure of the text (Fang & Schleppergrell, 2010; Moje, 2008). Understanding the various syntactic and semiotic structures found in a discipline provides the reader with tools to comprehend the often‐ complex language of each discipline. In addition to the content area strategy of accessing background knowledge, students must engage in the disciplinary literacies that separate each discipline from the others. For example, Fang (2012) studied the linguistic complexities of a variety of texts and discovered differences in specific disciplines. His research indicated historical texts frequently contain archaic vocabulary, abstract language, complicated syntax, and various visuals that require considerable background knowledge. Students must be taught to examine text structure and genre to understand how to think about navigating the texts encountered in specific disciplines. Although scholars have described disciplinary‐specific language and literacy strategies of historians (Nokes, 2014; Reisman, 2012; VanSledright, 2010, 2013; Wineburg, Martin, & Monte‐Sano, 2011) as they question truths, sources, and evidence, other areas of social studies remain largely conceptual (Bain, 2005; Kamil et al., 2008). Each of the social studies disciplines differs in content, epistemology, language use, and habits of mind. The “norms of knowing, doing, and communicating” are socially constructed and evolve over time as part of day‐to‐day practices. As Moje (2008) noted: To learn deeply in a subject area, then, young people need to have access to the ways that c­onventions of disciplinary knowledge production and communication can be routinely or more explicitly challenged and reshaped; such knowledge gives young people the power to read critically across various texts and various disciplines. Through this access, they can become critical readers and thinkers. (p. 103)

Disciplinary literacy and civics education.  In civics education, which derives mainly from the field of political science, definitions of civic and political literacy lack consensus. Levine (2007) noted, “… there is no academic discipline devoted to questions about what people can and should do as participants in a democratic society” (p. 112). The field of social studies has not operationalized what it means to be an “expert citizen” and as such the discipline‐specific conceptualizations of political literacy and civic engagement defy easy definition. For example, Cassel and Lo (1997) completed a secondary data analysis of a national U.S. sample of high school students and their parents to assess knowledge development for political concepts and facts. They concluded that education has a small effect on political literacy, with more direct influence deriving from political involvement that is associated with social position, ability, and parental modeling. Part of the challenge perhaps with supporting the development of political or civic literacy is the traditional dichotomized stance of teaching procedural knowledge about rights and responsibilities of citizens and the three branches of government versus the skills and dispositions for participatory citizenship. Banks (2015) further problematized mainstream civic education as presenting this knowledge base as “neutral, objective, and uninfluenced by human interests and values” (p. 154). When instruction promotes memorization of political facts, highlights the heroic deeds of a limited representation of political leaders, and practices a form of patriotism that reinforces dominant power relations across the nation, marginalized students become disengaged, and citizenship education fails.

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In addition to problematic instructional practices, research has found fault with poorly written reading materials that undermine students’ engagement and interest in civics (Chambliss, Torney‐Purta, & Richardson, 2016; Valencia & Parker, 2016). In a study of secondary students’ civic literacy, students developed an enhanced understanding of democracy and expressed motivation to take action after reading carefully designed p­assages that reflected genres commonly used by political scientists (i.e., inform, argue, and explain). The research outcomes suggest that text‐based learning with well‐written instructional materials can facilitate comprehension of complex civics concepts (Chambliss, Torney‐Purta, & Richardson, 2016). Recently, case studies of classroom teachers also have illustrated the benefits of using social inquiry to engage students in critical consumption of political information (Journell, Beeson, & Ayers, 2015). According to Shira Epstein (2014), disciplinary literacy for civics requires students to “read, talk, write, and draw” to engage them in public life (p. 6). Students need careful scaffolding to analyze political information and subsequently apply these skills in the diverse forms of civic engagement, including participation in the community through volunteering, advocating for political action through voting, organizing, or lobbying, and devising as well as enacting solutions to bring about sustainable change. Individual agency and voice are essential elements of this process and shift the focus from prescribed or official content knowledge to students’ lived experiences and localized conditions (Banks, 2015). Lack of  research on  disciplinary literacy.  As was the case when the 1991 Handbook of Research on Social Studies Teaching and Learning was published (Camperell & Knight), conceptual studies promoting advocacy, offering recommendations for practice, or reporting basic descriptions of classroom implementation far outnumber articles presenting systematic research. Given its relatively recent conceptualization and implementation in the field, the evidence base for disciplinary literacy is especially limited. Proponents stress that students engage in more effective and authentic learning experiences when the teaching and learning of social studies subjects embeds specialized literacy skills and requires students to apply the habits of the mind of experts in the field (Nokes, 2014; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008; VanSledright, 2010, 2013; Wineburg, Martin, & Monte‐Sano, 2011). Nonetheless, evidentiary practices on how to translate discipline‐specific approaches into classroom instruction remain elusive. In fact there are probably few other areas of social studies in which so much is written on the basis of so little research. Reviews of the literature have expressed surprise and dismay regarding how few research studies have been designed to empirically question theories, assumptions and established practices. In a search of peer-reviewed journals, literature using the terms “disciplinary literacy” and key social studies themes (i.e., history, geography, economics, civics and government) were identified for the time period from 2000 to the present. A review of the body of literature confirmed a heavy emphasis on historical literacy. In light of the limited evidence base, Moje (2007) has called for continued research to explore the effects of disciplinary literacy instruction on “the learning of mainstream c­onceptions of subject matter, critical stances on subject matter, conventional literacy skills, or critical literacy skills” (p. 35). There is a need for a clearer understanding of what we know about each social studies discipline and how we can link that knowledge to the role and function of experts in the field. An important key to this understanding is greater awareness of and attention paid to the skills of historians (Nokes, 2014; Reisman, 2012;



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VanSledright, 2010, 2013; Wineburg, Martin, & Monte‐Sano, 2011), political scientists (Dudley & Gitelson, 2002; Journell, Beeson, & Ayers, 2015; Levine, 2007), economists (Lusardi & Mitchell, 2014; Schug & Wood, 2011), and geographers (Bednarz & Bednarz, 2004; Bednarz & Kemp, 2011; Downs & Liben, 1991; Liben, Kastens, & Stevenson, 2002; Miller, Keller, & Yore, 2005; Nagel, 2008). The social studies fields of inquiry have not reached consensus on identifying shared understandings of epistemologies, theories, and knowledge. Although it is clear that each discipline produces, communicates, and critiques knowledge, the standards and conventions employed involve dynamic processes. It is beyond the scope of this review to explore in‐depth the disciplinary‐specific epistemology, patterns of discourse, and cognitive practices of each of the specific social studies strands. Given the breadth of research on reading in the social studies, the focus of this chapter highlights the evolution of frameworks that undergird the scholarship on fostering disciplinary literacy as an embodiment of critical inquiry theory (Behrman, 2006; Bishop, 2014; Lewison et al., 2002; Soares & Wood, 2010; Wolk, 2003). Intentional focus on meaningful integration of complex literacies within the social studies must consider children’s developmental progression, and research that may promote informed decisions about disciplinary literacy for students throughout the life cycle are highlighted below to fill current voids in the field of practice.

18.6  Developmental Progression for Disciplinary Literacy Chall’s (1983) seminal work on the stages of reading development is oft cited for the delineation between learning to read and reading to learn. As a result, social studies texts in the early grades are typically used for the purpose of teaching a child to fluently decode texts, with little focus on creating meaning about complex topics. On the other hand, social studies instruction in the later grades presupposes that students possess the necessary literacy skills to successfully navigate the text. Missing from the learning to read/reading to learn dichotomy is an understanding of how the unification of literacy practices and disciplinary content serves to develop a more democratic constituency that utilizes texts so they are “not merely a way to learn new information but…a way to engage in new kinds of thinking” (Wineburg, 1991, p. 515). Wineburg’s interpretative approach aligns with a critical literacy framework that requires students to read, analyze, question, and challenge text (McLaughlin & DeVoogd, 2004), and offers educators a way of thinking about the convergence of literacy and social studies that supports both the understanding of social studies content and the trajectory of literacy development. Literacy develops across a continuum that spans from constrained to unconstrained skills (Paris, 2005). Constrained skills, often referred to as foundational or early reading skills, are those with a ceiling for mastery. For example, once a child learns the 26 letters in the English alphabet, she has reached the ceiling for learning the alphabet and rarely requires additional instruction on letters. Less constrained skills include decoding and fluency, and unconstrained skills are those without a ceiling for mastery, such as vocabulary and comprehension (Paris, 2005). According to Paris, children learn the constrained skills rapidly, and will spend the majority of their lifetime learning unconstrained skills. These unconstrained skills are the focus of research in content area reading and disciplinary literacy. In the following section, we focus on the unconstrained skill of comprehension,

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as well as the factors that influence comprehension development in social studies classrooms and support a developmental progression for disciplinary literacy.

18.6.1 Comprehension Comprehension, or “the act of constructing meaning with oral or written text,” (Duke & Carlisle, 2011, p. 200), is a complex process that develops over time from birth throughout a person’s lifetime (Duke & Carlisle, 2011; Duke, Pearson, Strachan, & Billman, 2011). Described by Paris (2005) as an unconstrained skill and by Afflerbach, Pearson, and Paris (2008) as a growth construct that “can never really be mastered” (p. 364), comprehension development is multifaceted. Numerous influences work together at home and at school to foster comprehension, including language experiences, cognitive abilities, prior knowledge, word recognition, morphological awareness, vocabulary, and fluency (Senechal, 2006). Factors that affect comprehension development interact over time. According to Shanahan and Shanahan (2012), cognitive demands required for comprehension are s­imilar in all the disciplines. To facilitate the process of metacognition, generic comprehension strategies, such as predicting, questioning, and summarizing, are often tools teachers introduce to help students access and comprehend text. However, social studies teachers must also be able to identify the thinking processes specific to their discipline in order to elucidate those processes to students and apprentice students into the field of study. Monte‐Sano, De La Paz, and Felton (2014a) argue, “Disciplinary reasoning, including recognizing biases in sources, comparing evidence, situating evidence in its context, and taking into account different perspectives and multiple causes” (p. 543) is a cognitive requirement of comprehending historical text. It is more complex than analyzing an author’s purpose for writing; the reader, or disciplinary expert, must compare and evaluate evidence within the text and outside of the text. Good readers in social studies courses use the same skills as good social scientists (Barksdale, 2013; Nokes, 2011), adapting literacy strategies to meet the disciplinary specific requirements of the task rather than adopting general literacy approaches. Therefore, to model the processes of disciplinary experts, s­tudents must interpret and analyze the text with multiple sources and examine subtexts within a text. Despite the important process of selecting texts to promote the epistemology and habits of mind of the discipline, research evidence reveals that social studies lessons continue to rely predominantly on a single textbook with little consideration of other sources or heuristics for teaching reading comprehension (De La Paz, 2005; Nokes, Dole, & Hacker, 2007; Valencia & Parker, 2016). Use of a single text as well as negation of explicit reading c­omprehension approaches with social studies instruction can present a challenge for any learner. Emerging readers, students with learning disabilities, and English Language Learners (ELLs) may be particularly affected, as their access to texts and key concepts is difficult given the nature of content‐specific and general academic vocabulary (Barber et al., 2015; Hairrell et al., 2011; Vaughn et al., 2009). However, even students in advanced social studies courses avoid assigned reading, and in high poverty, low achieving schools where comprehensive textbooks remain the single and principal source of information, student disengagement from text‐based learning is exacerbated (Valencia & Parker, 2016). Nonetheless, despite the range in reading levels and prior knowledge among students,



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social studies texts inaccurately assume that students have a working knowledge of c­oncepts and vocabulary to apply the text‐based information to assignments. As a result, older students may have the capacity to decode text but not apply it in substantive ways (Valencia & Parker, 2016), while younger students may lack decoding skills, but still engage in textual sense‐making that demonstrates refined thinking about a social studies topic (Aukerman, Brown, Mokhtari, Valencia, & Palincsar, 2015). Students interpret texts from culturally‐mediated perspectives, and readers from nondominant groups may require effective strategy instruction that simultaneously values students’ existing comprehension repertoires (Aukerman et al., 2015) and explicitly teaches how the chunking of information and annotations of text‐based knowledge directly align with learning tasks (Valencia & Parker, 2016). In tandem, these approaches shift from pervasive teacher‐centric models of instruction that underestimate children’s literacy capabilities by privileging one “right” answer and narrowly defining good comprehension as aligned with a singular interpretation of text (Aukerman et al., 2015). As noted by Valencia (Aukerman et al., 2015, p. 84), “the essential aspect of comprehension is the interactive process of constructing meaning.” Effective teaching of content knowledge in the social studies provides students with extensive opportunities to debate and discuss text as they grow as readers. Since history textbooks typically tend to obscure how knowledge is created within the discipline and present historical events as immutable facts (Barksdale, 2013; Nokes, 2011), studies of social studies teaching and learning also have asserted the benefits of instructing with varied data sources, including narrative texts and primary sources. Instruction with these materials may foster connections to prior knowledge, promote relevance and interest among learners, and present multiple representations of content. Nonetheless, unless educators attend to empirical evidence to guide their efforts to foster authentic disciplinary literacy and problematize texts, teachers may continue to face challenges in optimizing students’ learning with inquiry‐driven instruction. Some argue that instruction focused on developing disciplinary literacy engages students in learning how to access disciplinary texts and discourses. In this case, the type of text drives the selection of discipline specific comprehension strategies (Brozo et al., 2013; Fang, 2014). Teaching students to know which strategies to access based on the type of text and the discipline is central to disciplinary literacy‐based instruction. Although NAEP results (Suh & Grant, 2014) indicate that eighth‐ and twelfth‐grade U.S. History students’ assessment scores are associated with instructional activities that engage students in reading historical resources, current research is still disentangling the types of learning experiences that promote skills in historical analysis and interpretation. Wolfe and Goldman (2005) conducted research with middle school students, and found that young adolescents are capable of comprehending arguments in historical accounts and can engage in corroborative processing by connecting information from multiple texts. When students use prior knowledge and information from within and across texts to generate causal explanations, the students generate more complex inferences. Conversely, paraphrasing was insufficient in supporting reasoning about events. Instead of positioning content area reading strategies and disciplinary literacy strategies as antagonistic, a symbiotic model combining the two may improve students’ comprehension of disciplinary texts. Learned, Stockdill, and Moje (2011) noted, “reading strategies can and should work in the service of disciplinary knowledge building” (p. 159). However, Fang and Coatoam (2013) asserted that disciplinary literacy requires comprehension of disciplinary

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discourses, “disciplinary content and disciplinary habits of mind,” including “reading, writing, viewing, speaking, thinking, reasoning, and critiquing” (p. 628). Moje (2010, 2011) argued a discipline‐based model of literacy instruction is needed to prepare critical thinkers with skills for comprehending and critiquing the materials they read. Rather than working in opposition, a “synergistic paradigm” (Learned, Stockdill, & Moje, 2011, p. 165), with content area literacy strategies and disciplinary literacy, could strengthen students’ comprehension (Brozo et al., 2013).

18.6.2  Background Knowledge Background knowledge, crucial to comprehension, increases as children gather information about the world around them from birth through the later years. In the early years, this is developed through communication with family members, caregivers, and in early preschool experiences (Hart & Risley, 1995). In school, background knowledge about the world and various texts increases as teachers engage students in extensive reading and learning about content (Duke & Carlisle, 2011; Learned, Stockdill, & Moje, 2011; Reisman, 2012). Background knowledge is important in many areas, including knowledge of discourses of schooling, content, genres, and text structures. Both comprehension and background knowledge increase when we focus instruction on integrating the two in classrooms (Duke & Carlisle, 2011; Duke, Pearson, Strachan, & Billman, 2011). Crucial to disciplinary literacy is background knowledge about the content being studied, but also about the syntactic structure of the text (Fang & Schleppergrell, 2010). Understanding the various syntactic and semiotic structures found in texts relevant to a discipline provides the reader with tools to comprehend the often‐complex language of each discipline in the social studies. Not only is background knowledge key to meaning‐ making, it is influenced by the cultural lenses and identities students bring to the text (Damico, Baildon, Exter, & Guo, 2009; T. Epstein, 2000): Using students’ personal and cultural experiences is key. When students’ prior knowledge, identity and culture are validated, not simply as background story or as token forms of inclusion but as the main context for their work, students are more willing to invest themselves in their learning process and move beyond what they already know. (Gallagher & Ntelioglou, 2011, p. 329)

Students’ interpretation of text is strengthened by background knowledge of the content, but influenced by their family and cultural backgrounds. Educators that understand and utilize students’ personal and cultural experiences will facilitate richer classroom practices and support students in developing new and deeper understandings of the discipline. Therefore, not only is it imperative that teachers engage in communities of practice and discourse with novices, it is also critical that experts meet students where they are culturally to help them interpret text, and uncover their own personal bias in understanding disciplinary text. Damico et  al.’s (2009) qualitative study examined ways students’ cultural knowledge impacted their evaluation of two web‐based texts. Their findings suggested that students relied more on a priori beliefs, rather than textual evidence, to guide meaning‐ making. Family history, personal experiences and cultural background knowledge were the pillars that students appeared to use to construct meaning, rather than text evidence alone.



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In addition to understanding the cultural knowledge of students, it is vital to know and grow the subject‐related background knowledge of students. Monte‐Sano et  al.’s (2014a) mixed‐methods study reiterated the significance of background knowledge when teaching content. Their findings suggested that when teachers implemented a disciplinary literacy curriculum, students made academic gains. However, teachers’ knowledge of students’ academic background knowledge and the need to build background or schemata was essential.

18.6.3 Vocabulary Building academic vocabulary is another critical aspect of disciplinary literacy, and unfamiliar vocabulary and text complexity have been cited as the primary stumbling blocks for student learning in social studies (Alexander‐Shea, 2011; Hairrell et al., 2011). Vocabulary knowledge provides access to the comprehension of complex social studies texts and assists students in developing understandings about the comprehensive nature of multiple topics. Alexander‐Shea (2011, p. 96) noted: If the overarching goal of social studies courses is to involve students in civic activities that  encourage them to better understand the world and their place in it, then the goal of vocabulary development in social studies courses should be to further that mission by helping students grasp the complete scope of the social concepts they are encountering.

Like comprehension, vocabulary is an unconstrained skill (Paris, 2005) that students will spend a lifetime developing. Vocabulary knowledge becomes more sophisticated as s­tudents’ perceptions of the world expand, and with this advancement, comprehension of more complex topics also emerges. In the later years, language development supports comprehension growth as children engage with morphemes (i.e., the smallest units of meaning in words) and learn vocabulary strategies. The breadth and depth of vocabulary influence comprehension development (Tannenbaum, Torgenson, & Wagner, 2006). Vocabulary growth is facilitated as children experience repeated exposures to words in different contexts through read‐alouds, independent reading, and content area instruction that integrate engaging vocabulary tasks, such as anticipation guides, graphic organizers, semantic mapping, concept circles, among others (Alexander‐Shea, 2011; Duke & Carlisle, 2011; Duke et al., 2011; Hairrell et al., 2011; Reisman, 2012). While vocabulary instruction is crucial in all content areas, the social studies often involve lexical density and complex language patterns that pose r­igorous comprehension challenges as students attempt to navigate the meaning of words, as well as the context of those words (Alexander‐Shea, 2011; Hairrell et al., 2011). If students are to participate in the discourses of social studies, then they must learn the academic language of those subject areas. Teachers’ instructional decisions impact student comprehension and vocabulary acquisition. Time given to intentional instruction on effective strategies, emphasis on development of disciplinary funds of knowledge, integration of reading and writing, availability of interesting and diverse texts, and actual time spent reading affect vocabulary and comprehension development (Duke & Carlisle, 2011; Duke et  al., 2011). In addition, teachers’

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selection of appropriate texts to encourage intertextual connections is paramount in social studies (Reisman, 2012; Wolfe & Goldman, 2005) as students learn the importance of reviewing information from a variety of sources that present multiple perspectives. Reisman (2012) suggested “contextualization and corroboration … are intertextual strategies that require one to draw connections to prior knowledge or between multiple texts” (p. 104). Instructional activities, such as higher level questioning, coaching, active reading, and modeling, positively impact reading comprehension development (De La Paz et al., 2014; Duke & Carlisle, 2011; Reisman, 2012; Taylor, Pearson, Peterson & Rodriguez, 2003). The role of the teacher is especially critical for students whose home environments lack literacy rich experiences. Research has affirmed that students achieve expected advances in  reading comprehension and vocabulary development when placed in high quality instructional environments for two consecutive years (Duke et al., 2011). Moreover, emerging research indicates comprehension and knowledge of social studies terminology increases as teachers practice a gradual release of responsibility for learning (Pearson, 1985) and model the literacy practices specific to social studies (De La Paz et al., 2014; Duke & Carlisle, 2011; Reisman, 2012; Taylor et al., 2003). When enacting the gradual release of responsibility instructional framework, teachers initially model how to complete a task, then teachers and students jointly practice the task, and finally students independently complete the task. However, Brozo et  al. (2013) and Heller (2010) asserted that p­roficiency with disciplinary literacy is questionable for those not at the college level, and that expecting adolescents to be able to successfully participate in it is overreaching. Nonetheless, research studies by Reisman (2012) and Monte‐Sano et al. (2014a) suggested that when students are apprenticed into the habits of a mind of a discipline, historical thinking and comprehension increase. Although very young learners may require more collaborative practice with these types of critical and complex disciplinary literacy tasks, early childhood experiences also lead to demonstrated independent proficiency in later grades (Fertig, 2005; Vasquez, 2014). As children experience language and text, whether at home or school, language and cognitive development are strengthened and continue to develop into richer meanings and understandings, or comprehension. The daily curricular decisions teachers make provide rich, meaningful language and literacy experiences that increase comprehension in the social studies and develop discipline specific knowledge. There are multiple interacting factors that influence the constructive process of comprehension and vocabulary development, including the interaction of the reader to the text, prior knowledge, views, purposes, processes, strategies, and contextual factors (Duke & Carlisle, 2011; Duke et al., 2011; Taylor et al., 2003). Disciplinary literacy requires not only a generic knowledge of the content area, but also understandings of the specific discourses of the discipline to facilitate rich understanding and the habits of mind of the discipline. These factors work together synergistically to deepen meaning and understanding of text.

18.6.4  Dialogic Literacies—Speaking and Writing Although the developmental progression for literacy has traditionally privileged print‐ based text and the accompanying focus on skill development in comprehension and vocabulary, profound changes in the forms of reading and writing have expanded beyond the



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written word and necessitated a shift toward multimodal literacies that integrate diverse representations of knowledge (Gee, 2013; Kress, 2003). For example, dialogic literacies highlight the interplay between spoken discourse and various text types to communicate about the world around us. In the social studies, representations of knowledge increasingly rely on digital media as sites of learning, and the interplay of print text with images has e­levated visual information as an integral modality of communication. The concept of d­ialogic literacy represents a subset of disciplinary literacy that promotes participatory engagement in learning to make sense of and engage with communities of practice in the social studies (Gee, 2013; Lave & Wenger, 1991). Dialogic literacy, “the ability to engage productively in discourse whose purpose is to generate new knowledge and understanding” (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 2005, p. 756), supports development of initial understandings and ideas (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 2005; Dyson, 1990). According to the New London Group (1996), “Students need to develop the capacity to speak up, negotiate, and to be able to engage critically with the conditions of their working lives” (p. 67). In Reisman’s (2012) quasi‐experimental study that examined effects of an intervention on students’ historical thinking, teachers applied the gradual release of responsibility model to support students in their historical thinking. At the conclusion of the six‐month intervention, students scored higher on historical content knowledge and reading comprehension measures. The students had been apprenticed into the habits of mind of historians through an intensive intervention that focused on the way knowledge is constructed in the discipline. By embodying the goals, beliefs, and practices of historians, the students advanced their learning through active engagement and literacy practices that involved shared communication processes. As disciplinary experts and students engage in discourse and dialogue about the subject, Russell (2010) noted, “… texts are given life through activity, through use in contexts” (p. 353), and this activity creates a participatory framework that invites students to become a member of the disciplinary community of practice (Bakhtin, 1986; Bereiter & Scardamalia, 2005; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Rogoff, 1990). To support student writing and development of habits of thinking that mimic the inquiry methodologies and discourse of historians, Monte‐Sano et al. (2014a) utilized discussion, graphic organizers, and close reading of multiple texts. In Graham and Perin’s (2007) meta‐analysis of writing research, “collaborative arrangements where students help each other with one or more aspects of their writing had a strong and positive impact on writing quality” (p. 463). De La Paz et al. (2014) asserted that academically diverse students’ writing of historical arguments substantially improved with a curriculum that integrated disciplinary literacy strategies. Even younger students have demonstrated enhanced critical literacy skill development as they partake in retellings of picture books that explore issues of race and culture (Lysaker & Sedberry, 2015). The timing of disciplinary literacy instruction is, perhaps, best understood in the context of a child’s overall literacy development trajectory. Language experiences, whether oral or text based, affect comprehension from birth through later elementary school years. From birth to kindergarten entry, there is an “explosive period in oral language and cognitive development” (Duke & Carlisle, 2011, p. 202). Language growth continues into the early elementary years through referential communication (Lloyd, 1990), understanding of the discourse patterns of schooling, and cognitive flexibility that allows children to concurrently process “phonological and semantic information” (Duke & Carlisle, 2011, p. 208). In later elementary years, inferential reasoning increases as children connect text, whether

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oral, written, or hypertext, with prior knowledge and extend beyond the text (Coiro & Dobler, 2007; Duke & Carlisle, 2011). Read‐aloud experiences from birth through the later elementary years benefit students’ comprehension by exposing them to various text structures, syntactic structures, world knowledge, vocabulary, and discourses (Santoro, Chard, Howard, & Baker, 2008). When social studies teachers expose children to the l­anguage of their discipline through read‐alouds of primary source documents, biographies, diaries, and other texts, it builds background knowledge, provides opportunities to listen to various text structures, builds content vocabulary, and affords opportunities for rich discussions without the cognitive load required to decode complex vocabulary and syntactic structures.

18.7  Visual Literacy as a Disciplinary Specific Construct Literacy in the social studies extends beyond the capacity to read print‐based text. Social studies educators often find that developing a critical perspective requires supplementing classroom texts with other resources. In particular, visual images are valuable sources of information about cultural, historical, and sociopolitical phenomena. The intentional exploration of images as part of the pedagogy moves students from the arbitrary “seeing” to the deliberate “looking” (Ali‐Khan, 2011, p. 315). This problematizes images and the ways in which meaning is constructed from information depicted through pictures. In particular, the integration of primary source images into instruction may engage learners in constructive learning experiences that foster authentic engagement with critical inquiry across social studies content areas (e.g., Barton, 2001, 2005; Dilek, 2009; Dutt‐Doner, Cook‐Cottone & Allen, 2007; Ensminger & Fry, 2012; Veccia, 2004). Despite the inherent value of primary sources as an instructional resource for young learners, most early childhood and elementary level teachers have not had preparation or professional development to guide implementation (Waring & Torrez, 2010). Moreover, the  limited research on the implementation of the integration of primary sources has focused on intermediate elementary grades and higher. Nonetheless, most states throughout the U.S. have standards requiring the use of primary sources beginning in kindergarten (Veccia, 2004). Social scientists have found visual primary sources provide invaluable evidence for historical inquiry (Waring & Torrez, 2010) by offering unique insight to an event or memory through the perspective of an individual who directly experienced the historical event. Although educators have embedded primary source documents into middle school and secondary classrooms (Britt & Aglinskas, 2002; Grant & Gradwell, 2005; Swan & Locascio, 2008; Wooden, 2008), use in preschool and primary grades is less common (Berson & Berson, 2014; Morgan & Rasinski, 2012). The use of primary sources delineates social studies as an interpretive, evidence‐ based area of inquiry that requires multiliteracies to identify and interpret data from diverse sources. Primary sources are a fundamental informational resource (Morgan & Rasinski, 2012), which “simultaneously broadens students’ worldviews and supports their critical thinking abilities” (p. 586). Using primary sources in the classroom actively engages s­tudents in interpreting the mystery of the past and exploring multiple representations of events. By learning to use the tools of social scientists to access



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h­istorical evidence, pose questions, apply a disciplinary lens to data gathering and c­orroborating sources of evidence (Wineburg, 2001), children may begin developing the foundational skills for critical a­nalytical thinking and reading necessary for disciplinary literacy (Barton, 2005). Current conceptualizations of literacy embrace a multimodal perspective that values both illustrative materials as well as text (Kerper, 2003; Pappas, 2006). Widely used, picture books support knowledge acquisition and early literacy skill development. However, there is a preponderance of fictional books in preschool and primary grade classrooms with little attention to informational genres (Mantzicopoulos & Patrick, 2011). Pappas (2006) contends that the dominance of narrative text in primary classrooms has created a barrier to young children’s literacy skills and development. Students are especially interested in nonfiction texts and image‐laden content (Dwyer & Neuman, 2008), demonstrating an innate preference for nonfiction books since they find the photographs appealing and r­elevant to their lived experiences. Nonetheless, teachers often lack familiarity with processes for the systematic inclusion of information resources. To prepare children a­dequately, educators need to first develop visual ways of knowing, which provide learners information about the world around them as they refine their familiarity with oral and written language (Calo, 2011). Research‐based teaching strategies involve scaffolded instruction, activation of prior knowledge, engaging students in making predictions, teacher modeling, think‐alouds, guided questioning to foster application of concepts and analysis, and summarization of information acquired for comparison and contrasting with other data sources (Barton, 2001; Calo, 2011; Duke, 2004; Filipenko, 2004; Fuhler, Farris, & Nelson, 2006; Hall & Sabey, 2007). In the early years, the focus is on establishing a foundation for visual literacy and historical inquiry through scaffolded analysis of primary sources. Young learners have limited prior knowledge of historical events, people, and time periods, so the initial introduction to primary sources focuses on images and artifacts as concrete visual representations of the past (Dilek, 2009). In Ensminger and Fry’s (2012) conceptual framework for primary source practices, using visual primary sources as an illustration of factual information is a starting process for anchoring learning with a vicarious experience that fosters historical imagination. These “residues of the past left behind by our ancestors” (VanSledright, 2004, p. 230) provide context and help young learners construct a foundation for exploring events and people’s experiences. However, since children typically assess primary sources as credible representations of information or events (Dutt‐Doner et  al., 2007), teachers need to instruct students to question, evaluate, and challenge information sources. This examination approach to p­rimary source inquiry (Ensminger & Fry, 2012) actively engages students in the work of historians and social scientists. Rather than focusing on learning strategies that emphasize the management and recall of historical data and social studies content, students employ the tools of historians and explore this archival evidence, using other sources to collaborate, enrich and extend their thinking about events and people (Nokes, 2012). Teachers also may support students’ critical thinking by introducing multiple sources of information to accompany the primary source. By exploring diverse perspectives or learning to synthesize information students may develop their inquiry skills. Fillpot (2009) described five processes that are critical for developing students’ “perception of history as multi‐perspectival accounts constructed from various sources of information.”

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These processes include: “timelining, reading for background knowledge, interpreting sources, mapping geographic historic information, and synthesizing various sources to design a narrative.” Educators may adapt these strategies to facilitate developmentally appropriate and engaging learning experiences.

18.8 Conclusion Social scientists have begun documenting and identifying the culturally and historically specific practices that constitute their fields. By highlighting the development of students’ interpretive and critical skill sets that approximate the habits of the mind and approaches of experts, social studies education may focus disciplinary literacy instruction on what people do, rather than on rote constructs of the knowledge people possess. Across its many domains, social studies expertise is inherently complex, comprising specific ways of interpreting artifacts and critiquing knowledge to understand the broader context of phenomenon. Although each social studies domain has specific ways of knowing as “expert,” there are hierarchies of value that legitimate critical literacy and multiliteracies as i­nescapable elements that bind the field. While research has clearly shown that reading is a developmental process, an empirical evidence base for disciplinary literacy implementation that results in desired and optimal outcomes is elusive, especially in the early grades. Future work on disciplinary literacy needs to further explore the literate processes and practices of various disciplines in the social studies, identify avenues to enhance teacher capacity and collaboration, and articulate ways of engaging students from diverse sociocultural and academic backgrounds in disciplinary learning with a critical lens. Findings from this work can then be used to revise and refine existing and emerging models of disciplinary literacy instruction, helping teachers recognize that while every teacher in the social studies uses text and visual content to teach, not every teacher is a reading teacher. Social studies has its own unique pedagogy. To attain the goals of disciplinary literacy instruction we need to rely on the research to situate our practices and avoid repackaging generic strategies and advertising them as discipline‐specific ones. Through focused efforts, the field may aspire to effectively attain the goals of disciplinary literacy instruction.

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Emergent Bilinguals in the Social Studies Cinthia S. Salinas, Noreen Naseem Rodríguez, and Brooke Blevins

Over the past decade, the growing number of young learners enrolling in public schools who speak languages other than English have presented social studies educators with an opportunity to strengthen our pedagogical practices and broaden our understanding of a more inclusive ideal of citizenship. In fact, an increasingly multilingual/multicultural mosaic provides “sites of contestation, negotiation, and struggle” that have prompted the field of social studies to examine both the ideological and pedagogical practices that emphasize access and claims of citizenship (Rosaldo, 1997, p. 36). Conceptualizations of citizenship and modes of participation and understanding in our democratic society that are developed in social studies classrooms inherently bring forth several compelling reasons why social studies scholars need to attend to the schooling experiences of emergent bilinguals. First, the sheer growing presence of emergent bilingual learners waiting to become informed citizens prompts social studies educators to acknowledge a demographic imperative. The U.S. Census Bureau (2004) lists 325 distinct languages spoken by children at home, with Spanish as the most common language after English (77.2% in the 2008–2009 school year) although language use varies from state to state (Batalova & McHugh, 2010). While the highest percentages of these students are in Western states (Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, and Texas) and urban areas (students in cities made up an average of 14.2% of total public school enrollment), they are present in schools across the country (U.S. Department of Education, 2014). According to the National Center for Education Statistics (U.S. Department of Education, 2014), 9.1% (an  estimated 4.4 million) of public school students in the United States during the 2011–2012 academic year were not yet proficient in English, up from approximately 7% of public school students in the 1999–2000 school year. These young speakers of languages other than English are not necessarily immigrants; Zehler et al.’s study (2003) estimates between 50% and nearly 66% of non‐English-speaking youth were born in the United The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.



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States and it is likely that this number is now higher. Those that do immigrate possess a wide array of life experiences and a range of formal academic schooling upon their arrival in the U.S., not to mention distinctions in class, dialect, religion, and cultural traditions. Second, social studies scholars have focused upon second language acquisition in response to several legal requirements and mandates. For example, the long‐standing legal precedents beginning with Lau v. Nichols (1974) require schools provide under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 equitable educational opportunities to students regardless of national origin and language (414 U.S. 563). The relationship between language instruction, nation of origin, and immigrant status were further protected by the 14th amendment a few years later in Plyler v. Doe (1982, 457 U.S. 202). As a result, across the U.S., educators are legally obligated to provide emergent bilinguals with appropriate instruction. Moreover, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 requires English Language Learners (ELLs) to achieve a narrow definition of academic achievement and annual yearly progress (AYP) consequently placing additional demands upon all classroom teachers. While the social studies content area was omitted from the curriculum standards and testing blueprint mandated by NCLB, several states have opted to include social studies content in their state level testing (Burroughs, 2002). In addition, Cho and Reich (2008) explain that Virginia state policies ask that emergent bilinguals demonstrate English proficiency after one year in the core content areas including the social studies. As a result of both legal and political mandates, social studies educators are now required to attend to both the content and linguistic development of second language learners. While some research focuses upon the demographic imperative, legal precedent, and/or policy mandates as the rationale for improving the academic experiences of emergent bilinguals, the bulk of the literature offers a more critical understanding of  citizenship education as an underlying premise for examining the experiences of s­econd language learners in the social studies (e.g. Choi, 2013; Salinas 2006). At the core of these studies is a sense that the social studies field is an ideal space to nurture a critical citizenry. In this chapter we begin by detailing the methods we employed to choose and analyze scholarship surrounding the education of emergent bilinguals in the field of social studies, including providing an overview of key terms, concepts, and contexts that are particularly important to the field. We then describe the unique challenges emergent bilinguals face in the social studies classrooms and synthesize various concepts and strategies that conceptual research has suggested might address these challenges. Finally, we examine empirical research that highlights social studies teachers’ perceptions of second language learners as well as the impact of particular curricular and instructional practices designed to meet the needs of emergent bilingual students.

19.1 Methods Initially we began the literature search through a range of academic databases (e.g., Google Scholar, EBSCO, ScienceDirect) using keywords or phrases such as “English language learners,” “Second language learners,” “emergent bilinguals” AND “social studies,” “history,” “geography” for peer-reviewed publications and books published after 2000—a fifteen year span. We opted not to search policy databases (e.g. Proquest, PolicyFile) as we specifically

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sought pedagogical practices not commonly described in policy documents and publications. The literature presented in this review is not exhaustive. Specifically, only publications that were purposefully situated in the social studies and that offered a content‐based analysis of English as a Second Language (ESL) instruction within the disciplines were included in the parameter of the search. Studies that were not specifically content‐focused or specifically situated within the social studies were considered more relevant to the field of second language instruction and were not included in this review. Research literature that highlighted notions of sheltered language instruction (an instructional framework which merges academic content and academic language learning simultaneously) and utilized pervasive models/approaches like the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) (Chamot & O’Malley, 1994) or the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 1999) was considered as relevant for this review. Because most ESL training for content teachers within the university or in professional development is based either on CALLA or SIOP models, we felt it was appropriate to include these articles in this review (O’Brien, 2012). Shifting away from traditional approaches that separate language instruction from content instruction, these and other related content‐based instructional models/approaches provide linguistic scaffolding by providing relevant and engaging content that motivates students to actively participate in both language development and content learning (Merino & Scarcella, 2005; Short & Fitzsimmons, 2007). Research literature also notes an additional shift in second language acquisition theory and practice by focusing attention toward “purposefully enact[ed] opportunities for the development of language and literacy in and through teaching the core curricular content, understandings and activities…” (Bunch, 2013, p. 298). Focusing on content‐ based c­ urricula and instruction (Brinton, Snow, & Wesche, 1989) emphasizes the teaching of language along with content and recognizes the distinct language and literacy practices of the disciplines. Consequently within this review we also included publications utilizing cultural literacy (Szpara & Ahmad, 2007) and disciplinary literacy. Moje (2008) argued that it is essential to focus on “those content specific and complex literacy practices that are unique to the discipline” (p. 96) in order to meet the needs of emergent bilinguals. We also sought out research literature that attended to the significance of the political context, cultural dynamics and/or social needs of teachers and learners in ESL social studies classrooms and programs. For example, Gordon’s (2012) examination of Hofstra University’s use of the Hawaii‐based Kamehameha Elementary Education Program (KEEP) utilized Banks’ (1991, 2003) and Sleeter and Grant’s (2003) well‐known multicultural education frameworks to advocate that teachers “break out of the confines of additive curricula” (p. 699) through more transformational and social action curricula and a reconstructionist paradigm. Similarly, Fránquiz and Salinas (2011b) used identity texts (Cummins, 2001) and critical historical inquiry to demonstrate how late arrival immigrants can write historical narratives to position themselves as empowered and invested authors. Finally, the work of Choi (2013) argued on behalf of several culturally relevant approaches (Ladson‐Billings, 1995; Marri, 2009) that serve to bring salient histories (Salinas, 2006), caring-centered p­edagogies (Pang, 2001), and social justice education (Freire, 1970) to social studies classrooms.



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19.2  Key Terms and Context in Social Studies and Second Language Learning Fundamental bodies of work particularly in the areas of linguistics (e.g., Cummins, 1979, 1981; Krashen, 1987) and language program design (e.g., Bunch, 2013; García, Kleifgen & Falchi, 2008; Short, 2002) are essential to understanding the experiences of emergent bilingual learners in the social studies. The pedagogy of second language instruction, like any body of work, has a specialized context and lexicon. For example, emergent bilingual students participate in a variety of academic programs that provide language support. At the elementary level, bilingual programs may be offered that usher students into mainstream classrooms (exiting to all‐English classrooms in early grades or “late exit” at the end of elementary school) or supplemental supports may be afforded through sheltered instruction. At the secondary level, some programs provide ESL language instruction in separate school sites while others offer sheltered instruction or mainstreamed classrooms (Short, 2002). At the secondary level in particular, newcomer immigrant students who are emergent bilinguals are greatly pressured to pass state-level exams in English and race to accrue credits needed for graduation (Salinas, 2006). Moreover, immigrant students may have also experienced interruptions in their schooling, known as Students with Interrupted Formal Education (SIFE), in their home countries and consequently may have other academic needs (Meltzer & Hamann, 2005). As emergent bilinguals enter into classrooms they present a range of language proficiency that must be taken into consideration when designing instruction. Krashen and Terrell (1983) describe four developmental stages most often cited by scholars. They explain that emergent bilinguals proceed through the following: preproduction, typified by a “silent period” when emergent bilinguals comprehend more English than they are able to produce; early production, common to more risk‐taking with English accompanied by errors in pronunciation and grammar; speech emergence, when after one to three years of exposure to English, ELLs have a growing understanding of English language structure and a receptive understanding of academic English; and intermediate fluency, characterized by near native‐ like fluency in social English but not yet in academic English. Importantly, the seminal guides Passport to Learning: Teaching Social Studies to ESL Students (Cruz, Nutta, O’Brien, Feyten & Govoni, 2003) and Teaching Social Studies to English Language Learners (Cruz & Thornton, 2009b) provide a comprehensive framing for social studies teachers that situates these stages within the content area. Finally, for the sake of this review and because of our own views on teaching and learning, we call attention to deficit labels dominant in school policies and discourses. Deficit thinking models posit that students fail in school due to internal deficiencies such as limited intellectual abilities or linguistic shortcomings (Valencia, 2012). Common deficit terms like Limited English Proficient (LEP), English Language Learners (ELL), English Learners (EL), and English as a Second Language (ESL) “discount the home languages and cultural understandings” of children and their communities (Garcia & Kleifgen, 2010, p. 2). In contrast, whenever possible we employ the term ‘emergent bilingual’ or ‘second language learner’ as a way to acknowledge both languages as valued and legitimate. In addition, we note an important complication in analyzing the experiences of emergent bilingual or second language learners in the social studies classroom. Aware of Zehler et al.’s (2003) findings, we recognize a second language learner may or may not be an immigrant.

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However, any emergent bilingual should signal social studies teachers to consider both the linguistic and cultural experiences (e.g. race, class, gender, immigration status, phenotype and so forth) of their students. As a result, in this review we also sought out work that dealt with the intersection of language and experience of immigration.

19.3  Emergent Bilinguals in Social Studies Classrooms A variety of challenges exist for both social studies teachers and emergent bilinguals. In this section we provide an overview of these challenges and review a variety of solutions and strategies provided in the research literature. Any review of the field would be remiss if it did not begin with three widely distributed publications—the two guides mentioned e­arlier, Passport to Learning: Teaching Social Studies to ESL Students (Cruz et al., 2003) and Teaching Social Studies to English Language Learners (Cruz & Thornton, 2009b); and Double the Work: Challenges and Solutions to Acquiring Language and Academic Literacy for Adolescent English Language Learners (Short & Fitzsimmons, 2007)—that provide a thorough and fundamental guide to the field. These texts provide an introduction to content‐based ESL instruction and pedagogical exemplars for each content area (e.g., World History, American History, Economics). Importantly, they set forth an essential consideration in explaining, “while the immigration of families with children to the United States is certainly not new, what has changed is how those children are educated” (Cruz et al., 2003, p. 3) and, “u­ltimately social studies educators must still answer the primary educational question for their own subject: What is worth teaching?” (Cruz & Thornton, 2009b, p. 4). Though we narrow this review to published articles, we note that scholars across the field consistently cite these three texts.

19.3.1  The Challenge of Language Acquisition in the Social Studies Classroom For emergent bilinguals in social studies classrooms, the most immediate challenge is l­anguage—the introduction of a second language through academic instruction and mater­ ials presents distinctive challenges that have been well examined in social studies research. Sheer exposure to English in classroom settings is not sufficient; to develop the advanced language skills necessary to communicate for academic purposes, students need metalinguistic awareness that enables them to attend to grammar, morphology, and phonology as well as content (Harper & de Jong, 2004). Research literature highlights the differences b­etween “conversational or social English … and acquiring academic English, or the language of content … ” (Brown, 2007, p. 186), what Cummins (1981) described as Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP). Understanding this distinction is instrumental to illustrate real‐world connections that emergent bilinguals can fluently access as opposed to the more abstract and decontextualized nature of the school or content/discipline world. Sociolinguists note that while not every learner proceeds through each mode in the same way or at the same pace, they ordinarily master basic communication first before being able  to understand academic language (Cummins, 1979). Interpersonal communication develops fairly rapidly, in two to three years, while academic language is estimated to take between five and seven years to develop. The most significant variable affecting students’



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academic English acquisition is the amount of formal schooling received in their native l­anguage (Thomas & Collier, 2002). If students have interrupted or no formal schooling in their native language, it can take seven to ten years for them to develop the academic English language proficiency needed to perform at grade level standards. If students have two to  three years of formal schooling in their native language, grade‐appropriate English a­cquisition can occur in five to seven years. In our review of the literature, we determined multiple components of language that posed particular challenges in the field of social studies. In order to reduce the cognitive load of students who are learning English while still providing content area instruction, we noted four distinct challenges: (1) making complex content comprehensible; (2) addressing academic vocabulary; (3) providing emergent bilinguals with opportunities to speak and listen; and (4) capitalizing on students’ native languages.

19.3.2  Making Complex Content Comprehensible Given the distinction between BICS and CALP, social studies content must first be “c­omprehensible” while at the same time the forms and functions of the target language are highlighted (VanPatten, 1990). In the field of social studies, the nature of both language discourse and content demand a high level of language proficiency that merit attention (Wang, Many, & Krumenaker 2008). For instance, Schleppegrell and Oliveira’s (2006) analysis of history content‐based instruction used a systemic functional linguistics approach to analyze how historians construct an interpretation in their linguistic choices. They argued, “this approach enables struggling readers to analyze how historians construct an interpretation in their linguistic choices; for example, in the way historical actors are represented, in identifying who is agentive in the sequence of events, and in recognizing how causes and outcomes have been construed.” (p. 255). In reporting about their work with teachers p­articipating in a History Project summer workshop, Schleppegrell and Oliveira (2006) highlighted the importance of “deconstructing and unpacking the language” in the social studies in order to carefully attend to “time, cause, agency, abstraction, and interpretation” (p. 256). They argued that such linguistic analysis by history teachers provides a visual interpretation of time markers and connectors, complex nominal groups and reference devices (or synonyms). Beyond history or social studies specific uses of language, other scholars emphasize the common use of relative and dependent clauses, and passive voice in social studies texts. The complex sentence structure, meant to insert historical facts, sequenced events, cause, and effect in expository texts is, unfortunately, incomprehensible to many emergent bilinguals (Brown, 2007). In advocating for visual scaffolding of social studies texts and materials, Cruz and Thornton (2012) add that formal or archaic language and specialized jargon as well as textbook‐ based questioning compound the challenge encountered by emergent bilinguals and their teachers.

19.3.3  Addressing Academic Vocabulary Academic vocabulary that is unique to the social studies presents the second most obvious challenge for teachers and emergent bilinguals. For instance, Cho and Reich (2008) utilized act and bill to illustrate discipline‐specific words that are homonyms, words with the same

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spelling and pronunciation but with different meanings outside of the social studies. Furthermore, many social studies vocabulary words are highly abstract with culturally embedded meaning and experiences (O’Brien, 2012), are unfamiliar and used with low frequency outside of the field (Cho & Reich, 2008; Szpara & Ahmad, 2007; Weisman & Hansen, 2007), and may have dual meanings (Weisman & Hansen, 2007). Fránquiz and Salinas (2013) called attention to idiomatic expressions, such as the “Cold War” and “Iron Curtain,” which can cause confusion among emergent bilinguals. In addition, the abstract nature of terms like “freedom,” “democracy,” and “justice” are but a sample of the terms that become difficult to translate or visually represent, adding to the complexity of vocabulary instruction in the social studies (Salinas, Fránquiz, & Guberman, 2006; Szpara & Ahmad, 2007; Weisman & Hansen, 2007). Moreover, when embedded within large amounts of social studies text, content vocabulary can overwhelm second language learners and lead to m­isunderstandings, confusion, and frustration. To promote the acquisition of language skills, scholars suggest the scaffolding of l­anguage through vocabulary development (Salinas, Fránquiz & Reidel, 2008; Szpara & Ahmad, 2007), the use of deliberate or guiding questioning (Cruz & Thornton, 2009a; Fránquiz & Salinas, 2011b; Rodriguez, Salinas & Guberman, 2005), and opportunities for student talk time (Cruz & Thornton, 2009a; Egbert & Simich‐Dudgeon, 2001). Several authors, for example, suggested creating picture dictionaries and word walls and allowing emergent bilinguals to write definitions in their native language (Weisman & Hansen, 2007). Vocabulary development has also been the focus in the use of common etymological o­rigins or cognates. Cognates, words that share meaning, spelling, and pronunciation in two l­anguages, are one tool that can provide vocabulary support for emergent bilinguals. Though false cognates can be an easy trapping (e.g., compromise/compromiso), social studies concepts and terms like international/internacional, justice/justicia, and nation/nación become a readily accessible metacognitive strategy that allows emergent bilinguals to bridge words in two languages that have similar linguistic roots (Jimenez‐Silva & Gomez, 2012). Explicit practice with social studies specific vocabulary and strategies for learning such vocabulary can also facilitate s­tudent understanding and promote greater use of academic language in conversation.

19.3.4  Providing Opportunities to Speak and Listen Third, as second language learners transition from conversational to academic language they need opportunities to practice speaking and listening in addition to reading and writing. Counterintuitive to some teachers’ desire to “protect students from embarrassment, refraining from asking them difficult questions or completing the students answers for them”1 (Cruz & Thornton, 2009a, p. 271), opportunities to read, write, listen, and speak are vital in developing language skills essential for emergent bilinguals (Szpara & Ahmad, 2007). Secondary classroom studies have shown that emergent bilinguals are often marginalized in the classroom due to language (O’Brien, 2012) and lack of confidence (Wang et al., 2008). Unfortunately, social studies instruction is notoriously reliant on lectures and teacher‐directed instruction. This method of instruction is highly problematic for second language learners who may lack contextual and background knowledge because lectures involve fewer graphic cues and fail to provide opportunities for instantaneous clarification or feedback (Brown, 2007).



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Research suggests, however, that increased interactions between emergent bilinguals and English‐speaking students (Cruz & Thornton, 2008; Cho & Reich, 2008) through heterogeneous group work, pairings, or class discussions afford opportunities for all students to act as full participants and take more linguistic risks. As second language learners transition from informal social language to the unfamiliar academic language of social studies used in schools, multiple processes are occurring that demand all the linguistic resources available to emergent bilinguals to facilitate oral language development (Fránquiz & Salinas, 2011a; Fránquiz & Salinas, 2013). Social studies content is most frequently delivered through listening, reading, and writing; however, models of second language acquisition show that listening and speaking are the modalities of language that develop first, followed by reading and then writing (Krashen, 1988). The work of Cruz and Thornton (2008) in the social studies provides the most explicit attention to Krashen and Terrell’s (1983) model. In their work, Cruz and Thornton describe teaching strategies aligned with National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) themes in the elementary social studies classroom that help engage emergent bilinguals and make content comprehensible through each stage. Cruz and Thornton’s guide provides not only working understandings of the stages of fluency but also a listing of strategies and assessments common to the social studies, like graphic organizers, journal writing, role‐playing, oral reports and interviewing. Cruz and Thornton (2008) add, “teacher’s knowledge of their students’ cultural and linguistic background is an asset … knowledge of students’ cultures, communities, primary languages, and familiar interaction styles contributed to meeting students’ academic needs” (p. 13). Moreover social studies scholars argue that emergent bilinguals need “frequent opportunities for social interaction” that will yield not only the production of language but rather the production of language specific to the social studies (Weisman & Hansen, 2007, p. 181). In particular, research highlights the importance of carefully constructed small group activities that lower anxiety and promote language development opportunities (Subedi, 2008).

19.3.5  Capitalizing on Students’ Native Languages The final challenge involves integrating and utilizing the rich linguistic knowledge emergent bilinguals have in their native languages. Szpara and Ahmad (2007) and Wang et al. (2008) discuss capitalizing on students’ first languages and providing native language materials and resources whenever possible. When native languages are used in the classroom, students can use their existing linguistic abilities to make sense of new content, particularly when they are allowed to work collaboratively with other speakers of that language (Subedi, 2008; Szpara & Ahmad, 2007). Fránquiz and Salinas (2011a) concluded that, “the role that native language supports can play in the academic lives of late‐arrival immigrant students learning English is significant as they display their own interpretation of history” (p. 73). In a separate piece, Fránquiz and Salinas (2011b) described how newcomer students interact in whole class discussion in English but in small groups in Spanish. The end results are “optimal opportunities for students to encounter knowledge and create identity texts … ” that are created collectively and in the multiple languages (p. 201). Thus, understanding the linguistic and cultural resources of students is paramount for successful social studies instruction.

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In sum, emergent bilinguals have multiple language needs that social studies educators must attend to in order to develop both English language proficiency and academic content knowledge. An understanding of the progression from conversational, social language to the abstract language unique to the disciplines of social studies is essential. To facilitate learning at various levels of this progression, educators should consider multiple strategies to reduce cognitive load. Such strategies include supplying emergent bilinguals with guiding questions prior to reading; study guides, outlines, or reading notes to highlight key points, people, events, and major themes; and utilizing drawings or graphic organizers like content maps to demonstrate relationships (Brown, 2007; Szpara & Ahmad, 2007). Not to be confused with simplifying material, as Szpara and Ahmad (2007) caution, approaches for reducing cognitive load serve to “identify the key aspects … and describe the information in the simplest terms possible. The language and the form of presentation shifts, but the content does not” (p. 192). Such strategies can assist emergent bilinguals in better comprehending text and academic vocabulary. Additionally, social studies educators must remember to provide opportunities for second language learners to utilize multiple modalities and native languages when possible; this can be achieved through the use of bilingual dictionaries, developing translations through the school district, community members, or online, and providing visual and pictorial supports (Szpara & Ahmad, 2007).

19.4  Classroom Instructional Practices The vast majority of publications in our review not only identified the most common linguistic challenges encountered by teachers and emergent bilinguals in the social studies, but also focused upon instructional strategies that emphasized content through sheltered language instruction. Misco and Castañeda (2009), for example, organized a taxonomy of ELL strategies that included content organization, instruction, and pedagogy. They argued for a pedagogy that “refers to the actual enacted content and instruction, as well as to the unique characteristics of the teacher in conjunction with the students and their milieu” (p.  183). Similarly Cruz and Thornton (2009a) proposed a four‐pronged approach that included vocabulary and language skills development, promoting interactive learning between ELLs and English‐speaking students, comprehensible language input, and accommodating a variety of learning styles. In their work, Cruz and Thornton provided exemplar lessons for several NCSS themes and encouraged “creating structured learning environments in which material is presented and supported by contextual clues along with language and curricular modifications” (p. 272). The fundamental premise for these and other related articles referenced either the CALLA or SIOP models and delivered a clear message that classroom instructional practices should teach language and content simultaneously. For the sake of this review, we categorized the scholarly work into the two focus areas: (1) accessing cultural knowledge and (2) instructional classroom strategies particular to the social studies.

19.4.1  Accessing Cultural Knowledge While some research referenced the absence of emergent bilinguals’ prior knowledge and understanding of the American cultural context (Cho & Reich, 2008; Szpara & Ahmad, 2007; Weisman & Hansen, 2007), most research also asserted that emergent bilinguals have



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valuable experiences and rich cultural and historical knowledge. As such, social studies instruction should “provide students the opportunity to share their experiences related to culture, language and knowledge” (Weisman & Hansen, 2007, p. 180). O’Brien (2011) concluded that social studies teachers, with a content focus on culture, history, geography, anthropology and so forth, should be especially aware of the importance of students’ home language, culture and experiences. Research suggests that emergent bilinguals are continuously making connections between what they have learned from their home communities (Szpara & Ahmad, 2007; Urdanivia‐English, 2001) and popular American culture, as well as from their prior and current formal schooling experiences (Rodriguez et al., 2005; Wang et al., 2008). Fránquiz and Salinas (2013) note complex understandings of historical figures like Martin Luther King, Jr. that may transcend borders or interpretations of history that may differ as in the case of Leon Trotsky and his place in Mexican vs. U.S. history. Both cases exemplify that emergent bilinguals are not tabula rasa, but instead bring particular knowledge to the social studies classroom. Providing explicit links (e.g., K‐W‐L strategy or photographs familiar to immigrant communities) between the experiences of immigrant communities and the social studies content can make students’ understandings relevant while also providing valuable insights into the lives and practices of emergent bilingual students (Rodriguez et al., 2005; Weisman & Hansen, 2007). Familiarity with students’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds opens up opportunities for vital contributions and access to students’ and their families’ funds of knowledge (Weisman & Hansen, 2007). Cruz and Thornton (2008), for instance, emphasized that the teacher’s knowledge of students’ communities, language, and interaction styles situates a more asset‐based interpretation of emergent bilinguals rather than a deficit perspective. Moreover, such recognition promotes a sense of belonging and connection vital to students’ academic success (Szpara & Ahmad, 2007). Essential to meeting the needs of emergent bilinguals from immigrant communities is a reconsideration of the fundamentally flawed curriculum that offers dominant and excluding narratives. Choi (2013) explained, “Immigrant students often have viewed social studies, which often silence the histories of non‐European regions and reinforce narrowly‐defined national citizenship, as meaningless and irrelevant to their lives … ” (p. 12). The problematic school curricula offer only dominant perspectives, furthering a lack of knowledge about the histories of others. At least two projects call for a reconceptualization of the social studies curricula on behalf of emergent bilinguals and immigrant children. Salinas (2006), for example, in her critique of a late arrival immigrant curricula adopted by a Texas school district, turns the field’s attention to critical geography as an alternative approach. She argues that a critical geography lens allows for an emphasis on porous boundaries, cultural diffusion, and the human/immigrant construction of space. This reconceptualization thus yields the construction of knowledge, a view of diaspora, as well as multiple perspectives that “underscores active and inclusive participation and the development of critical skills necessary to address controversial economics, social and political issues” (Salinas 2006, p. 26). Similarly, Misco and Castañeda (2009) proposed that a reverse chronology approach to the social studies can yield stronger connections “with students’ current life experiences and progress to antecedent knowledge and experiences that explain why things are the way they are” (p. 185). Using Dewey’s (1916) notions of epochs and ideas that are intimately connected to a learner’s own ideas, interests, or experiences, Misco & Castañeda suggested that the reverse chronology format has greater utility by providing content more relevant

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and meaningful to emergent bilinguals. Curricula, according to Choi, Salinas, and Misco and Castañeda, should be more rooted in and relevant to the lives and knowledge of immigrants’ contemporary understandings of American democracy.

19.4.2  Instructional Strategies Explicit to the Social Studies Researchers agree on a long list of instructional approaches that best serve the academic needs of emergent bilinguals. To counter the significant issue of social studies texts which present difficult syntax and higher order language difficult for emergent bilinguals, research suggests the use of pre‐reading activities and modified/simplified materials and outlines (Cruz & Thornton, 2009a). Reducing the cognitive load students encounter is the end goal of altering these curricular materials. A list of general strategies, like learning to skim or scan and use the table of contents, glossary, or index are highlighted throughout the research literature as strategies that can help emergent bilinguals better access social studies materials. As noted in the earlier section on the challenge of second language acquisition, emergent bilinguals need to learn how to decode words and unpack culturally laden passages in order to make content accessible. Though a time‐consuming element of instruction, modeling and implementing simple reading strategies allow for understanding of key terms or aspects of the content to emerge (Szpara & Ahmad, 2007). The use of visual representations of knowledge by teachers and students are also c­ommonly cited as effective in the research literature (Cruz & Thornton, 2009a; Salinas, Fránquiz & Guberman, 2006; Szpara & Ahmad, 2007). Several publications also note the value of realia (e.g., artifacts) as a way to represent knowledge and/or have students produce content knowledge (Cruz & Thornton, 2009a; Salinas et al., 2008; Weisman & Hansen, 2007). However, most publications point to more common forms of visual representations of knowledge, like graphic organizers, Venn diagrams, T‐charts, and timelines, as ways to help teachers present information and help students construct their own understanding of knowledge. The use of graphic organizers makes visible the relationship between concepts and allows a construction of connections that are essential to the field of social studies. Cruz and Thornton (2009a) explained that content maps can aid in highlighting the most significant ideas within dense texts by making the relationships between facts and concepts transparent. Finally, providing emergent bilinguals with multiple modalities (e.g. music, photographs, recordings, maps) is also seen as way to help emergent bilinguals make sense of content (Cruz & Thornton, 2009a; Weisman & Hansen, 2007). Szpara & Ahmad (2007) argued, “a good guideline is to ensure that key information is always presented in a least two forms, one verbal and one written” (p. 193). Several scholars have argued on behalf of photographs as an effective way to construct knowledge through historical inquiry (Cruz & Thornton, 2012; Fránquiz & Salinas, 2011a, 2011b; Rodriguez et al., 2005; Salinas et al., 2006). Building upon the work of Barton (2011) and others (e.g., VanSledright, 2002), these studies describe the interpretive act of historical thinking and the use of visual primary sources that can be rich with information without cumbersome and sometimes abstract text (e.g. journal entries, speeches, government documents). For instance, Urdanivia‐English (2001) created the Photographs of Local Knowledge Sources (PHOLKS) project that promoted historical perspectives for elementary emergent bilingual students through photographs to build historical narratives.



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Several authors argue on behalf of using historical inquiry as an instructional approach that supports language development as well as perspective‐taking—broadening the appeal of the social studies to include elementary and secondary level immigrant/emergent bilinguals (Fránquiz & Salinas, 2011a, 2011b; Rodriguez et al., 2005; Urdanivia‐English, 2001). These projects also emphasize historical inquiry topics (e.g., immigration, el movimiento, geopolitical border with Mexico) that are more relevant to immigrant communities and their experiences. The use of more visually oriented primary sources provides opportunities for teachers to scaffold more sophisticated discussion and understandings and may even facilitate biliterate writing and narrative construction (Fránquiz & Salinas, 2011a; Rodriguez et al., 2005; Urdanivia‐English, 2001). The long list of classroom instructional strategies needed to meet the academic needs of emergent bilinguals includes both language and content strategies. However, few scholars directly addressed the notion of authentic assessment for emergent bilingual students in social studies classrooms. Gordon’s (2012) use of role‐play advocated on behalf of more performance‐based assessment that allowed emergent bilinguals to develop their understandings of language and content. Role‐play participants performed well on formative assessment instruments such as observations and questioning and mastered target‐­language vocabulary after they performed dramatic skits about amending the U.S. Constitution. Drawing from the work of Avery (1999), Case and Obenchain (2006) point to the need for authentic and equitable assessment that accounts for the linguistic demands of the social studies encountered by emergent bilinguals. The authors articulated a three‐pronged approach that begins by understanding the emergent bilingual’s English language proficiency and then asks teachers to determine the relationship between the language demands and learning objectives (e.g. reading, writing, speaking and/or listening) and the social studies content learning objective (e.g. historical inquiry, cause and effect). The next step, Case and Obenchain explain, is to select or create an assessment that is appropriate for either examining student learning as a dichotomous variable (assessment measured by yes or no statements) or a progress indicator as a developmental variable (assessment measured by rubrics or portfolios). Possible instruments for authentic assessments include portfolios, rubrics, checklists, conferences, anecdotal records, and peer reviews. Much of the research literature we reviewed which suggested effective instructional practices for emergent bilinguals referenced the CALLA and SIOP models and argued that “an authentic context for learning academic English” is facilitated in classrooms that provide equitable access and merge language and content instruction (Wang, Many, & Krumenaker, 2008). As O’Brien (2011) concludes, “While none of these suggestions is new to the field… Undoubtedly, a focus on some of these techniques could improve the overall quality of instruction in these (social studies) classrooms, but the ELLs would particularly stand to benefit” (p. 45).

19.5  Teaching Emergent Bilinguals in the Social Studies Fránquiz and Salinas (2013) proclaim, “portraits of successful teachers of linguistically and culturally diverse students are needed now more than ever” (p. 339). In their examination of a late arrival immigrant social studies classroom, the researchers describe how teachers can center academic literacies that connect history to the language, culture and identities of

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second language learners. Their findings are largely founded on teachers’ abilities and w­illingness to provide not only appropriate instruction but also on how teachers employ sociocultural as well as critical notions that push traditional approaches to social studies instruction. The significance of teacher’s understandings and pedagogies cannot be overstated because the majority of emergent bilinguals are not placed with teachers certified in bilingual education or ESL but rather mainstreamed into classrooms with native English speakers (García et al., 2008).

19.5.1  Social Studies Teacher’s Perceptions of Emergent Bilinguals How social studies teachers engage in pedagogical opportunities with emergent bilinguals has been taken up in particular ways. O’Brien’s (2009, 2011, 2012) and Cho and Reich’s (2008) surveys of high school social studies educators have provided the field with a baseline understanding of teachers’ attitudes towards working with emergent bilinguals; attitudes which can have a substantial influence on the academic success of these students. O’Brien’s work was prompted by the Florida Consent Decree (1990) that mandated in‐ service training for teachers. One can argue that many states may follow in asking that teacher education and in‐service programs take more measured steps in preparing teachers for the academic, including both the language and content, needs of emergent bilinguals (e.g. U.S. vs. Texas, 2007). O’Brien’s (2009) work is situated within a larger research base that shows the general public and educator’s resistance and negative dispositions towards emergent bilinguals while also pointing to the importance of teachers in the overall learning opportunities and experiences afforded to these students. In addition to surveying high school teachers’ (n = 123) attitudes in general and in their own social studies classrooms, O’Brien also conducted structured interviews with eight respondents. His findings found contrary perceptions amongst the social studies teachers participating in the study. For example, while a majority of those teachers surveyed felt that second language learners created an overall positive educational atmosphere, the respondents split almost evenly agreeing (33.3%) and disagreeing (32.5%) that inclusion of these students benefits all s­tudents in social studies classrooms. O’Brien points to clear contradiction in showing that 77.9% of his survey respondents felt that emergent bilinguals should not be included in social studies mainstream classrooms until fluent in English while 57.7% felt emergent bilinguals would be welcomed in their mainstream classrooms. Intuitively one would argue on behalf of more ESL-specific professional development for teachers in the social studies content area (e.g., Wang et  al., 2008). However, simply providing professional development does not inherently ensure teachers will embrace particular practices that benefit emergent bilinguals. O’Brien’s (2011) analysis of the same data set also focused upon social studies teachers’ perceptions of professional development. Given his respondents’ negative, if not contrary, comments regarding their preparation for working with emergent bilinguals, he argued that districts should review the efficacy of the professional development opportunities they offer teachers. In their survey of social studies teachers, Cho and Reich (2008) also used a survey method to identify the challenges high school social studies teachers in Virginia (n = 33) encountered in developing academic experiences for emergent bilinguals as well as the most frequent accommodations. Though the list of teacher concerns and approaches was familiar (e.g., language barrier, lack of



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background knowledge, lack of time; e.g., allow for extra time, allow for native language use, modify materials), in contrast to teachers surveyed by O’Brien (2011), the teachers in this study rated teacher professional development that increased their “cultural understandings” as very important. However, Cho and Reich note, “the teachers’ indication of cultural training as the most important was surprising because teachers reported that cultural differences between ELLs and themselves was the least challenging obstacle” (p. 238), once again highlighting social studies teachers’ contradictory responses in regard to working with emergent bilinguals. Linking the quality professional development and district/campus support to teachers’ perceptions of English language learners, O’Brien suggested that improved instruction and educational experiences for emergent bilinguals can be enhanced through a more rigorous evaluation of the professional development offered to social studies content teachers. O’Brien (2012) further argued that “with no sustained follow‐up support to help teachers implement the training in the classroom” the deficiency of teacher ESL education and development is magnified (p. 301).

19.5.2  Empirical Studies Though there is a rich body of conceptual work, there is unfortunately a thin body of empirical work that examines the experiences of teachers and emergent bilinguals/immigrants in the social studies. Scholars have predominantly examined the perceptions of social studies teachers through survey methods (i.e., Cho & Reich, 2008; O’Brien, 2012), while others have further explored the dispositions and positionalities of teachers through traditional qualitative inquiry (Choi, 2013; Rodriguez et al., 2005; Salinas et al, 2006; Subedi, 2008; Wang et  al., 2008). A handful of studies have also examined emergent bilinguals/ immigrant students’ experiences in the social studies classroom (Fránquiz and Salinas, 2011a, 2011b, 2013; Subedi, 2008;). Finally, at least four studies have used qualitative frameworks to suggest other curricula approaches (Choi, 2013; Gordon, 2012; Salinas, 2006; Salinas, Fránquiz & Reidel, 2008). Wang et al.’s (2008) single case study of Tom, a ninth grade social studies teacher, examines a list of adopted ESL practices including the use of multiple modalities, emphasis of knowledge over language, as well as adaptation of social studies content materials. In analyzing Tom’s pedagogies, however, Wang et al. also used the descriptive qualitative study to emphasize the shortcomings of many instructional modifications that lower the academic expectations and content standards for emergent bilinguals. In contrast, most other empirical studies tend to provide exemplars and reveal the decision‐making processes and reflections of teachers working with second language learners in both elementary and secondary schools. For example Subedi (2008), using a cross‐cultural and critical dialogue framework, examined the experiences of two teachers of color, Maria and Anita, in linguistically diverse elementary classrooms. Subedi’s qualitative inquiry reminds the field that “teachers play a critical role in shaping the nature of knowledge students learn in social studies classrooms” (p. 417). Anita struggled to find ways to counter a form of linguistic bullying—the act of marginalizing and silencing emergent bilinguals and using harmful acts of lingualism/racism including statements such as, “Go back to where you came from” (p. 431). Anita’s reflections revealed a consciousness that acknowledged connections

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between language and cultural background and the ubiquitous “societal discourse of racism and xenophobia” (p. 431) that all children can recognize and learn. Using the classic text Baseball Saved Us by Mochizuki, Anita created activities that allowed her students to connect the racial slurs experienced by Japanese children during WWII referenced in this book to the ones students may have in their own school/classroom. As a result, the children in Anita’s classroom decided that respect and inclusion would guide their interactions with each other. Subedi concluded that the intervention of teachers like Maria and Anita helped to create a safe and essential democratic space for emergent bilinguals. Other empirical analyses in the social studies highlight the importance of the teachers’ positionality in the design of instruction for emergent bilinguals/immigrant students. Choi’s (2013) case study of Mr. Moon, a Korean‐American social studies teacher, noted the impact of social studies teachers’ dispositions on instructional decisions. Mr. Moon delivered an account of the school curriculum by creating a global history and world religion curriculum that “provided a safe, open forum for his students to discuss their worldviews and critique the official knowledge” (p. 15). Mr. Moon’s ability to create culturally relevant experiences and a learning community resulted from his engagement with and consciousness of a range of political, economic and social perspectives. Choi argued that Mr. Moon’s “cultural, and linguistic struggles in childhood provided a significant impetus for his advocacy of immigrant ELLs and for an in‐depth understanding of their sociocultural standings and academic needs” (p. 17). Similarly, Rodriguez et al.’s (2005) examination of Latina preservice teachers in bilingual/ESL classrooms details how study participants selected or broadened historical topics (e.g., used a focus on Henry Ford to consider the many working immigrants and women that typically worked on the assembly line) that were more closely related to their own lives and the lives of their children as bilingual immigrants. Scholars typically argue it is essential to present social studies curricula in a manner which explicitly shows relevant connections between the curricula and the lives of emergent bilinguals/immigrant students in order to prepare a generation of citizens with more global or transnational interpretations of citizenship (Choi, 2013; Gordon, 2012; Rodriguez et al., 2005; Subedi, 2008). For example, Choi (2013) examined Mr. Moon as he “streamlined the official curriculum and shifted to global, multicultural citizenship in order to better address the needs of his newcomer students and build strong connections between their home culture and school curriculum” (p. 14). Gordon (2012) examined student teacher Ana Rosa’s transformational multicultural curriculum, which confronted an ethnocentric worldview and used role‐play as a means to “empower ELLs to advocate for their interests in the broader democratic society” (p. 706). Ana Rosa’s high school students connected the legislative process to their own lives by role‐playing the processes of making laws within their community and amending the Constitution. However, given the emphasis on visuals as a means to scaffold emergent bilinguals’ learning in the social studies, it is understandable that several studies promoted the inclusion of historical inquiry as a means to engage these students. For instance, in a qualitative study of bilingual/ESL elementary classrooms, Latina preservice teachers provided their elementary bilingual/ESL students with primary sources of Tejanos who fought on the side of those defending the Alamo, including Jose Toribio Losoya and Gregorio Esparza. In analy­ zing the young preservice teachers’ decisions, the authors argued, “Historical positionality demands that students name multiple positions (e.g., not only associated with Santa Anna



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but now also with Losoya and Esparza) and put them in relation to each other (are we villains or heroes or much more?)” (Salinas et al., 2006, p. 205). At least three qualitative studies have examined late arrival immigrant/newcomer in secondary social studies school settings. Late arrival immigrant/newcomer students arrive in our schools with valuable understandings of the world and a range of schooling experiences. Often they are placed in sheltered language classrooms that allow for an emphasis on content and language development support. Fránquiz and Salinas (2011b) used historical inquiry to examine how emergent bilinguals/immigrant students authored historical narratives in a sheltered English American History classroom. The social studies teacher in the study designed a unit that countered the Black–White race binary history narrative by providing a history of racism encountered by Latinas/os in the United States. The use of primary sources and document‐based questions offered rich contextual clues that allowed late arrival immigrants/newcomers to develop a narrative regarding historical events like the movimiento and recent anti‐immigrant tension in Arizona. Fránquiz and Salinas explain, “artifacts that students produce whereby they take ownership of their learning… what students are asked to do and whether they are positioned as learners and knowers can either expand or constrain their opportunities for identity investment and cognitive engagement in subject matter” (p. 200). The use of historical inquiry consequently allowed for the writing of a narrative that was more reflective of the students’ own experiences, histories and identities. In a related study, Fránquiz and Salinas (2013) contrasted an American History unit that included Latina/o perspectives regarding historical events and  one that did not. Both sets of lessons used historical inquiry and an abundance of p­hotographs and document‐based questions to scaffold language in the content areas. The authors explain that: During the teaching of the causes of the Cold War, Ms. Alcala did not use the social justice framework that she had used when teaching the race narrative that led to the civil rights era and current immigration policies … This teaching of the Cold War … did not consider the n­ewcomer immigrant students’ personal positioning in their writing. (p. 354)

The result of not including the perspectives of Latinas/os, the authors argue, is that late arrival/newcomer students were not as successful in creating a cohesive narrative nor did they produce “text” that embodied their identities as young citizens. Fránquiz and Salinas (2011a) have also argued in a separate qualitative study on behalf of the “role native language supports can play in the academic lives of late‐arrival immigrant students learning English in a sheltered social studies classroom” (p. 73). Again, using historical inquiry and introducing often avoided or difficult histories that are relevant to the lives of young immigrants, the authors also make clear that though English language development is important, so are speaking and writing of narratives in a student’s native language. The social studies teacher in the study acknowledged and furthered the linguistic and cultural knowledge late arrival immigrant/newcomer students brought to social studies classrooms. The historical inquiry assignments afforded the students opportunities to write historical narratives and other texts in the language of their choice. This body of work has emphasized curricular and instructional spaces that can include the experiences and language of second language learners. Beyond historical inquiry in h­istory classrooms, empirical work has also focused attention upon critical geography as a

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means to better serve the needs of emergent bilinguals. Salinas (2006) used a cultural citizenship framework to argue that the curriculum itself should be altered in order to make more complex ideals of citizenship inclusive for immigrant/emergent bilingual students. Salinas’ textual analysis of a packaged late‐arrival American History curriculum troubled citizenship education, especially for immigrant students. In this piece she advocated for the use of a critical geography lens that reflects a “deepening ethnic texture” (p. 26) and a more complex understanding of place, space and participation in our democratic society. Through a more critical lens, geography can emphasize history of diaspora and a contemporary deliberation over citizenship. Salinas argued, “The adoption of World Geography could usher in a new consciousness regarding immigrant education for late arrival immigrant students.” (p. 26). The use of a critical geography lens in a sheltered language instruction social studies classroom setting was examined in a follow‐up study where Salinas, Fránquiz and Reidel (2008) found an abundance of “reciprocal histories” that presented marginalized communities in more empowering ways. For example, rather than considering the movement of the cowboy and cattle drives that describe western expansion, the reciprocal history emphasized the vaquero and the confrontation between the Spaniards and indigenous peoples in the southwest. Unlike the packaged curriculum purchased for late‐arrival immigrants in  the previous study, the teacher in the study taught world geography as a means to “amplif[y] the relationship between people and physical features of the earth while also attending to power, race, class and gender” (p. 74). Salinas et al. argue that world geography can provide a more engaging and relevant view of complex societies and their relationship to the earth’s resources. Ultimately, these empirical studies in late‐arrival/newcomer social studies settings highlight the need to continue investigating what is actually happening in classrooms and what import these curricular and pedagogical practices are having on emergent bilingual students’ linguistic, academic, and social development.

19.6 Conclusion The growing number of immigrants and emergent bilinguals in our schools demands that social studies educators focus their attention on how best to serve the academic and linguistic needs of these students. Given the ultimate goal of the social studies to develop responsible and engaged citizens, educating emergent bilinguals becomes a civic imperative. If we hope to prepare citizens for a multicultural, global society, we must examine how we can utilize culturally relevant and inclusive social studies curriculum and pedagogy to meet language and content needs of emergent bilingual students. Research has certainly highlighted a myriad of challenges that emergent bilingual students face as they engage in social studies classrooms and has detailed a variety of instructional strategies that can help to mitigate these unique challenges. This research emphasizes the need for social studies educators to consider how emergent bilingual students’ sociocultural backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences influence their social studies learning and, more importantly, how they can better support and engage these students in social studies learning in culturally relevant ways. However, it is essential that we continue to engage in empirical research that considers how we can enact curricular and instructional practices that value the voices and experiences of students who are largely marginalized in traditional civic life and



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promote their academic, linguistic, and social success. Ultimately, as social studies educators we should lead the charge in co‐creating an inclusive civic space and vision with our emergent bilingual students through both our research and practice.

Note 1 Hatch (1992) named this phenomenon of teachers providing a comfortable environment without developing academic content knowledge the “benevolent conspiracy” and found that it effectively blocked access to the acquisition of academic content knowledge

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Cummins, J. (1979). Cognitive/academic language proficiency, linguistic interdependence, the optimum age question and some other matters. Working Papers on Bilingualism, No. 19. Toronto, Canada: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Bilingual Education Project. ERIC (No. ED184334) Cummins, J. (1981). Bilingualism and minority‐language children. Toronto, Canada: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education Cummins, J. (2001). An introductory reader to the writings of Jim Cummins. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. New York, NY: The Free Press. Echevarria, J., Vogt, M., & Short, D. (1999). Making content comprehensible for English learners: the SIOP model. Boston, MA: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon. Egbert, J., & Simich‐Dudgeon, C. (2001). Providing support for non‐native learners of English in the social studies classroom: Integrating verbal interactive activities and technology. The Social Studies, 92(1), 22–25. Fránquiz, M., & Salinas, C. (2011a). Newcomers to the U.S.: Developing historical thinking among Latino immigrant students in a central Texas high school. Bilingual Research Journal, 34, 58–75. Fránquiz, M., & Salinas, C. (2011b). Newcomers developing English literacy through historical thinking and digitized primary sources. Journal of Second Language Writing, 20, 196–210. Fránquiz, M., & Salinas, C. (2013). Knowing English is not enough! Cultivating academic literacies among high school newcomers. The High School Journal, 96(4), 339–357. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum. García, O., & Kleifgen, J. A. (2010). Educating emergent bilinguals: Policies, programs, and practices for English language learners. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. García, O., Kleifgen, J. A., & Falchi, L. (2008). From English language learners to emergent bilinguals. Equity Matters: Research Review No. 1. New York, NY: Campaign for Educational Equity. Gordon, T. (2012). Using role‐play to foster transformational and social action multiculturalism in the ESL classroom. TESOL Journal, 3(4), 698–720. Harper, C., & de Jong, E. (2004). Misconceptions about teaching English language learners. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 48(2), 152–162. Hatch, E. (1992). Discourse and language education. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Jimenez‐Silva, M., & Gomez, C. (2012). Teaching social studies with cognates: A path to English language development. Social Studies Review, 51, 80–83. Krashen, S. D. (1987). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. New York, NY: Prentice‐Hall. Krashen, S. D. (1988). Second language acquisition and second language learning. New York, NY: Prentice‐Hall. Krashen, S., & Terrell, T. (1983). The natural approach: Language acquisition in the classroom. Hayward, CA: The Alemany Press. Ladson‐Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32, 465–491. Marri, A. R. (2009). Creating citizens: Lessons in relationships, personal growth, and community in one secondary social studies classroom. Multicultural Perspectives, 11(1), 12–18. Meltzer, J., & Hamann, E. (2005). Meeting the literacy development needs of adolescent English learners through content‐area learning. Providence, RI: The Education Alliance at Brown University. Merino, B., & Scarcella, R. (2005). Teaching science to English learners. UC LMRI News, 14(4), 1–7. Misco, T., & Castañeda, M. E. (2009). “Now, what should I do for English language learners?” Reconceptualizing social studies curriculum design for ELLs. Educational Horizons, 87(2), 182–189. Moje, E. B. (2008). Foregrounding the disciplines in secondary literacy teaching and learning: A call for change. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 52(2), 96–107.



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O’Brien, J. (2009). High school social studies teachers’ attitudes toward English language learners. Social Studies Research and Practice, 4(2), 36–48. O’Brien, J. (2011). The system is broken and it’s failing these kids: High school social studies teachers’ attitudes toward training for ELLs. The Journal of Social Studies Research, 35(1), 22–28. O’Brien, J. (2012). English language learners (ELLS) and social studies. In William B. Russell (Ed.), Contemporary social studies: An essential reader, 293–315. Charlotte, NC: Information Age.. Pang, V. (2001). Multicultural education: A caring‐centered, reflective approach. Boston, MA: McGraw‐Hill. Rodriguez, H., Salinas, C., & Guberman, S. (2005). Creating opportunities for historical thinking with bilingual students. Social Studies and the Young Learner, 18(2), 9–13. Rosaldo, R. (1997), Cultural citizenship, inequality, and multiculturalism. In W. Flores and R. Benmayor (Eds.), Latino cultural citizenship: Claiming identity, space, and rights (pp. 27–38). Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Salinas, C. (2006). Educating late arrival high school immigrant students: A call for a more democratic curriculum. Multicultural Perspectives, 8(1), 20–27. Salinas, C., Fránquiz, M., & Guberman, S. (2006). Introducing historical thinking to second language learners: Exploring what students know and what they want to know. The Social Studies, 203–207. Salinas, C. Fránquiz, M., & Reidel, M. (2008). Teaching World Geography to late‐arrival immigrant students: Highlighting practice and content. The Social Studies, 99(2), 71–76. Schleppegrell, M., & Oliveira, L.C. (2006). An integrated language and content approach for history teachers. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 5, 254–268. Short, D. J. (2002). Newcomer programs: An educational alternative for secondary immigrant students. Education & Urban Society, 34(2), 173 Short, D. J., & Fitzsimmons, S. (2007). Double the work: Challenges and solutions to acquiring language and academic literacy for adolescent English language learners. Report to Carnegie Corporation of New York. New York, NY: Alliance for Excellent Education. Sleeter, C., & Grant, C. (2003). Making choices for multicultural education: Five approaches to race, class and gender. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley. Subedi, B. (2008). Fostering critical dialogue across cultural differences: A study of immigrant teachers’ interventions in diverse schools. Theory & Research in Social Education, 36(4), 413–440. Szpara, M. Y., & Ahmad, I. (2007). Supporting English language learners in social studies class: Results from a study of high school teachers. The Social Studies, 98(5): 189–195. Thomas, W., & Collier, V. (2002). A national study of school effectiveness for language minority students’ long‐term academic achievement. Santa Cruz, CA: Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence. Urdanivia‐English, C. (2001). Whose history? Social studies in an elementary English class for speakers of other languages. The Social Studies, 92(5), 193–197. U.S. Census Bureau. (2004). Language spoken at home for the United States:2000 [Census 2000 Special Tabulation 224]. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/mp/www/spectab/specialtab.html U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2014). English Language Learners in public schools. The Condition of Education 2014 (NCES 2014‐083). Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgf.asp Valencia, R. R. (Ed.). (2012). The evolution of deficit thinking: Educational thought and practice. New York, NY: Routledge. VanPatten, B. (1990). Attending to content and form in the input: An experiment in consciousness. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 12, 287–301. VanSledright, B. (2002). In search of America’s past: Learning to read history in elementary school. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

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20

The Problem of Knowing What Students Know

Classroom‐Based and Large‐Scale Assessment in Social Studies S. G. Grant

Interest in educational assessment has never been stronger, and yet questions abound. The debate around value‐added measures1 of assessing teachers is just one of several that surround the issue of assessment and its presumed outcomes—teacher and student accountability and improvement.2 The concerns about evaluating teachers are understandable since we have been trying to do so for a relatively short time and our instruments seem clumsy at best. We have been assessing children’s knowledge and understanding far longer, yet it is not clear that we have any better handle on how to do so in coherent and useful ways. Assessment is as much a part of the teaching and learning experience as are planning, instruction, resources, and whiteboards. Teachers teach, students learn; students take tests and teachers grade them. It is a long and well‐established tradition. Still, knowing what s­tudents know, with any degree of confidence, proves problematic. Classroom assessments garner less criticism than large‐scale tests and for good reason: Typically, classroom m­easures are more varied in type, concern only the students in a particular class, and are more directly tied to the taught curriculum than are their large‐scale peers. That said, the problems that plague standardized tests share sufficient common ground with classroom‐ based measures that the very idea of assessment is challenging regardless of the form it takes. As a field, we have spent considerable time talking about content, teaching, and learning, but we struggle with the question of how to know what students know.3 And I must offer a caveat here: Although a larger literature now exists on assessment in social studies, it pales when compared to that in other fields (Grant & Salinas, 2008; Torrez & Claunch‐Lebsack, 2013). The claims and evidence I offer in this chapter, then, draw as much on the broader assessment literature base as they do on that portion devoted to social studies. In the first part of this chapter, I look at current conceptions of classroom‐based and large‐scale testing. These two forms of assessment dominate the field, yet each presents a range of opportunities and challenges. I then look at the special challenge posed by validity The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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in general and face validity in particular. I end the chapter with a brief review of some of the more promising trends in assessment.4

20.1  Classroom‐Based Assessment Despite the prevalence of the practice, there is no definitive study of classroom‐based assessment in social studies. As Torrez and Claunch‐Lebsack (2013) note, “the extant literature is replete with studies on assessment, testing, and evaluation, yet there is a paucity of empirical research focusing specifically on assessment in the social studies classroom” (p. 462). The literature base on teaching and learning is replete with references to assessment but, as an independently analyzed area, classroom‐based assessment stands in some deficit (Bonner, 2013). In some ways that situation makes sense—teachers do not create and administer assessments independent of their planning, instruction, and resource decisions (Brookhart, 2013). Researchers, then, are likely to report on classroom assessments as part of a larger pedagogical perspective. What this means, however, is that, as a field, if we want to focus on assessments in classrooms, we need to take a page from stargazers who must sometimes view objects from the side rather than look at them full on.5 First, let us consider a distinction between the terms test and assessment. Though often used as synonyms, they are quite different: test refers to a single, systematic sample of a person’s knowledge and/or skill; assessment refers to a broad approach to and array of evaluative tasks (Cizek, 2009). Assessment may include tests, but it is not limited to them. Moreover, the term test typically refers to a summative evaluation whereas assessment may be formative or summative. Torrez and Claunch‐Lebsack (2013) point out that, although classroom‐based assessments can take many forms, they must connect directly to teachers’ instructional activity: “The primary characteristic of social studies CA (classroom assessment) is that it serve a constructive purpose; it benefits teaching and learning” (p. 462). Those benefits may come in formative or summative fashion, they may be formal or informal in nature, they may be teacher or student generated. In the end, however, classroom‐based assessment serves an educative as well as an evaluative purpose (Black & William, 1998, 2009; Moss, Girard, & Greeno, 2008; Stiggins, 1998). From their review of the extant literature, Torrez and Claunch‐Lebsack conclude that “good” classroom assessment practices share four qualities: (a) they inform both students and teachers, (b) they illuminate and enhance the learning process, (c) they must be varied and ongoing, and (d) they should reflect authentic social studies activities. Torrez and Claunch‐Lebsack (2013) provide the most comprehensive review to date of the little that is known about the components of teacher‐developed assessments in social studies classrooms. In their chapter, they describe both the state of current practice (and its antecedents) as well as a set of promising directions. The latter includes a particularly thoughtful review of the research on disciplined inquiry and the appearance of action research studies that look deeply into teachers’ practices. Given Torrez and Claunch‐ Lebsack’s (2013) review of the research literature, let me turn to a brief discussion of the benefits and challenges of classroom‐based assessments as I develop the argument that knowing what students know may be the most daunting issue we face. Classroom‐based assessments offer several benefits as a means of understanding what students know.6 First, teacher‐developed tasks offer more and more varied opportunities



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for students to show what they know and can do. With occasions to monitor students i­ndividually and as a class, through formal and informal tasks, and with a full palette of possibilities, teachers can use classroom‐based assessments toward myriad ends. Although multiple approaches to assessing students offer no guarantee of a single and c­onvergent insight, with more assessment opportunities come more occasions to build a more robust understanding of students’ capabilities (Cizek, 2009). A second benefit to classroom‐based assessments is the potential for close ties to the taught curriculum (Allen, Ort, & Schmidt, 2009; Brophy & Alleman, 1998). Validity, as we will see, comes in many forms, but the idea that the teacher who is teaching a class is the same one designing an ensuing assessment offers a content coherence that large‐scale test designers can only imagine. Finally, classroom‐based assessments hold an advantage over their standardized cousins in terms of the speed with which tasks are scored and results are returned to students. Learning involves relearning and one of the big disadvantages of large‐scale testing is the general lack of feedback on students’ ongoing performance. Grading students’ work and returning it with corrective feedback serves as many educative functions as it does evaluative (Black & William, 1998, 2009; Stiggins, 1998; Wineburg, Smith, & Breakstone, 2012).7 The benefits of classroom‐based assessment are several, but they do not obviate a set of challenges. Those challenges begin with the unevenness in design and presentation that describes the world of classroom‐based assessments. The value of teacher‐designed evaluations begins to evaporate when one realizes just how wide and uneven the array of assessment designs is (Banks, 2005; Bonner, 2013; Wiggins, 1998). The sheer variety of such tasks underscores two problems that, while typically associated with large‐scale testing, yield similar challenges to classroom‐based assessments. The first of these problems is reliability. Generally defined as the dependability of results (Cizek, 2009; Parkes, 2013), reliability is based on the premise that subsequent administrations of the same or very similar tasks will yield the same or very similar results. In large‐ scale testing situations, reliability is typically achieved by giving the same exam to demographically and academically matched sets of students. If their final scores closely align, then the exam is judged to be reliable (Horn, 2006; Joint Committee on Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, 2014; Messick, 1989).8 While ­generally not a difficulty for large‐scale assessments, reliability is a significant problem for classroom assessments (Parkes, 2013). First, classroom teachers rarely engage in the kind of test‐ retest procedure that psychometricians embrace to build reliability measures, but they often ask students about the same ideas in a variety of ways. Nuthall and Alton‐Lee (1995) and Rogers and Stevenson (1988) observe, however, that, when asked about the same topic through different assessment approaches, students can appear to know different things. A second challenge on the reliability front concerns the scoring of s­ tudents’ work. Though many schoolchildren have a pet story about a teacher who seemed to score their papers harder than their peers’ work, intrarater consistency (i.e., the manner in which a single teacher evaluates her or his students’ performances) is less an issue than is interrater agreement (Brookhart, 2013; Cizek, 2009; Haladyna, 2009). In a study of how teachers grade document‐based question (DBQ)‐like responses, Baker (1994) challenges the notion that student performances can be objectively and consistency scored: Four history teachers, handpicked on the basis of their excellent teaching reputations, shared neither explicit nor implicit sets of criteria to judge the quality of students’ history understanding. Judging 85 written explanations, they came to little agreement. (p. 100)

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The fact that classroom teachers rarely have their assessments scored by colleagues does not obviate Baker’s point: Knowing what students know is as dependent on who is making the judgment as it is on the students’ performance itself.9 The second challenge to classroom assessments revolves around validity. There are many forms of validity, but the construct generally refers to the agreement between an assessment measure and the behavior it is meant to represent and the “degree to which conclusions based on test information are on target” (Cizek, 2009, p. 68).10 Although validity is perhaps most associated with high‐stakes testing, there is reason to think about it in classrooms as well. The most common validity concern in classroom assessments surrounds the alignment between the taught and the tested curriculum (Cizek, 2009). Every schoolchild knows the anxiety of seeing a set of questions that look utterly unlike the teaching that preceded them. Other elements of validity are subtler. For example, identifying lists of prominent people, places, and events is a social studies assessment staple, yet how close a match is there b­etween the results of such a task and engaging in an active civic life? Knowing something about the social world, both past and present, makes sense as an attribute of citizenship, but what something and to what degree? Is it enough to know the dates of the Civil War and that Abraham Lincoln was President at the time? Or must students know that multiple causes are attributed to that event and that the importance of them individually and together is still a topic of considerable debate? The kind of assessment tasks assigned is a consideration, but validity demands that we make judgments about the fidelity of those tasks in light of what matters in and outside of the classroom. Classroom teachers are generally on their own in making those decisions. Despite their universal presence, classroom‐based assessments receive little empirical attention (Bonner, 2013). One reason for this situation may be the difficulty in untangling assessment from the other elements of a teachers’ classroom practice. Another reason could be the many variations of assessment practice and the fact that most can be used toward either formative or summative goals. Whatever the reason, we know far less about teachers’ and students’ experiences around assessment than we do about any other phase of classroom activity. That such would be the case is all the more surprising when some observers claim that classroom‐based assessments yield far better data about students than do their large‐scale peers (Cizek, 2009; Ducker & Perlstein, 2014).

20.2  Large‐Scale Assessment As educators, we have traditionally put aside concerns about the reliability of students’ responses and teachers’ scoring. We have long known that not all classroom tests are equally rigorous. And we have ignored the fact that, although classroom‐based assessments more directly evaluate students’ knowledge of the taught curriculum, the question of whether those assessments measure something of value remains (Supovitz, 2009): Passing social studies tests has not always translated into confidence in the value of the courses we took (Epstein, 1994, 2008; Schug, Todd, & Beery, 1984). But until the rise in importance of large‐scale testing, teachers, students, and the public seemed to have pursued a mutually agreed‐upon non‐aggression pact regarding classroom‐based assessment: The part of “doing school” that includes classroom‐based assessment continues unchallenged (Bonner, 2013; Cizek, 2009).



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For many years, the use of large‐scale assessments also went unchallenged (Darling‐ Hammond & Adamson, 2014; Stiggins, 2014). Large‐scale assessments are not new to schooling in general or to social studies in particular; New York students, for example, have taken state‐level, Regents history exams for over 100 years. Elevating the anxiety about large‐scale testing has been the introduction of high‐stakes accountability. Large‐scale or standardized tests11 have garnered considerable attention, though less in the case of social studies than in literacy and mathematics (Au, 2007; Grant, 2006; Grant & Salinas, 2008). More attention, however, has not produced more confidence in the results. In effect, we have more testing and less certainty than ever (Darling‐Hammond & Adamson, 2014; Koretz, 2008; Ravitch, 2011, 2014; Stiggins, 2014; Supovitz, 2009). In 2008, Cinthia Salinas and I reviewed the extant literature on large‐scale assessment in social studies. We concluded that the scholarship is best defined as ambiguous. We could see no definite patterns in terms of the relationship between assessments and teaching and learning or between assessments and accountability. Moreover, we were left thinking that a coherent theory of assessment and the relationship between assessment and accountability has gone missing. As a field, we have created large‐scale assessments based largely on the hope that they will tell us what students know and can do. Were we asked to show the research evidence that supports the value‐added benefits of high‐stakes testing, however, we would be hard-pressed to do so (Au, 2007; Ravitch, 2014; Stiggins, 2014; Supovitz, 2009). Supovitz (2009) provides perhaps the best articulation of theory to support standardized testing in general. Motivational theory is based on the premise that testing provides a measure of motivation through the positive and negative consequences attached to test results. A theory of alignment argues for testing as an integral third leg of a standards and curriculum triad that demonstrates a coherence of effort. Informational theory is predicated on the assumption that test results offer useful data to teachers and administrators responsible for making decisions about students and programs. And symbolism theory maintains that assessments signal accountability to various stakeholders interested in seeing schools improve. Since the chapter that Cinthia Salinas and I wrote in 2008, however, no real advances have been made in terms of theoretical support for large‐scale testing specific to social studies. Any judgment about the benefits of large‐scale assessments, then, begins with the p­resumption that those benefits will accrue once we have assessments that marshal a high degree of confidence among students, teachers, and the public (Cizek, 2009). Standardized assessments presumably have a practical evaluative and sorting function that helps educators make thoughtful decisions about students’ school experiences. Increasingly, however, large‐scale testing programs exist within a public sphere that weighs the value of those assessments on multiple levels. No longer is it only teachers and students who worry about the amount of time needed for standardized testing, the uncertain match to the taught c­urriculum, and the overall value to schooling in general. The current calculus around large‐scale testing appears to be more doubtful than it has in the past: If anything, the climate around large‐scale testing is more toxic than ever (Chatterji, 2014; Klein, 2014; Ravitch, 2014; Stiggins, 2014; Yuan & Le, 2012). The rollout of the Common Core State Standards has produced a general backlash across the United States; the rollout of the attendant standardized tests has produced furor in states like New York and Florida (Alvarez, 2014) and the phenomenon of parents pulling their children from testing in Massachusetts, Oregon, and elsewhere. Since No Child Left

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Behind, the public’s appetite for testing has waned (Bushaw & Lopez, 2013; Ravitch, 2014; Yuan & Le, 2012) such that parents are pushing state‐level policymakers to scale back the number of tests they administer. With dramatically more challenging assessments and d­ramatically lower student scores, the outcry among New York parents, for example, has forced the state Board of Regents to reduce the number of state‐level tests administered (Brody, 2014). Although the backlash against Common Core‐aligned testing is new, it recalls some of the long‐standing critiques of large‐scale assessment. A short list of those critiques includes the idea that: (a) testing offers a patina of objectivity that masks a range of subjective (and too often obfuscating) decisions (Breakstone, Smith, & Wineburg, 2013; Kohn, 2000; Martin, Maldonado, Schneider, & Smith, 2011); (b) testing programs offer evidence of the increasing marketization and privatization of schooling (McNeil, 2000; Ravitch, 2014); (c) tests inspire a kind of defensiveness in teachers whereby they sacrifice teaching time to test preparation (McNeil, 2000; Ravitch, 2011; Vogler, 2006); and, (d) high‐stakes testing promotes a new form of discrimination against poor and minority students (Au, 2009; McNeil, 2000; Ravitch, 2014). This latter problem seems all the more discouraging given that so much of the rationale for testing‐as‐the‐solution policies, such as No Child Left Behind (No Child Left Behind [NCLB], 2002), takes the leveling of the education playing field as its mantra: “The purpose of this title is to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high‐quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging State academic achievement standards and state academic assessments” (NCLB, 2002, sec 1001). The emerging research evidence, however, suggests that the gaps continue (Reardon, 2011) Chatterji (2014) summarizes the many problems evident in the use of large‐scale tests: Educators, parents, and local officials reasonably fear that, yet again, tests are serving as blunt policy instruments to drive top‐down reforms with inadequate time and resources for designing deeper curriculum and assessments to match, with little or no professional development of teachers and school leaders and in neglect of critical supports that schools need to succeed. (p. 30)

As these critiques suggest, the negative effects of large‐scale testing infect almost all areas of the academic mission of schools. The research literature, however, focuses primarily on the impact of testing on teachers’ pedagogical practices. And there the scholarly evidence presents a more nuanced picture. The depictions of teachers forced into teaching defensively by high‐stakes tests (e.g., McNeil, 2000) are compelling, but equally so are those portraits of teachers who persist in adopting a more ambitious pedagogical stance (Davis, 2010; Gradwell, 2006; Grant, 2003; Grant, 2006; van Hover, 2006; Swan & Hofer, 2013; Yeager & Davis, 1996). One of the most compelling examples is Gradwell’s (2006) study of a third‐year teacher whose eighth‐grade social studies classes routinely featured equal thirds of gifted, “regular,” and special education students. The teacher, Sarah Cooper, knew what to expect of the state social studies exam, but she focused her instructional attention on content and historical sources that she knew would engage her diverse classes. And she routinely posted the highest exam passing rates in her department. Tricia Davis (2010) also experienced state‐test success, though her approach was to focus on helping students learn to write evidence‐based arguments.



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To be sure, teachers are making instructional concessions to the state‐level exams. In elementary schools, the primary impact of high‐stakes testing seems to be on the amount of time allotted for social studies instruction (von Zastrow & Janc, 2004; Fitchett & Heafner, 2010; Wills, 2007). In secondary classrooms, some teachers are differentiating their p­ractices based on whether the class is an elective or carries with it a large‐scale exam (Gerwin & Visone, 2006). These and other concessions, however, vary across teachers’ practices with their content decisions being most affected (Grant, 2010). The notion of educational policy as a blunt tool is no less true for high‐stakes testing than it is for any other reform‐minded action. And the increasing consequences tied to test results clearly influence teachers’ practices. But they do so neither uniformly, nor consistently, nor exclusively. Teaching and learning are among the most complex social interactions in which humans engage. It only makes sense, then, that large‐scale assessments would be one of several influences on that interaction (Grant, 1996). Although high‐stakes, standardized testing may not be the death star it is sometimes portrayed to be, the critiques largely stand. Such assessments typically meet the standards of reliability; they struggle to be persuasive on the validity front. The size and scope of large‐ scale testing, whether the stakes are high or low, provide psychometricians with the necessary conditions to craft assessments that meet the standard criteria for reliability (Cizek, 2009). The issues of intra‐ and interrater reliability that arise in classroom‐based assessments can be magnified on a scale evident in standardized testing, but the controls evident around such assessments mitigate much of the possibility for error. In some ways, validity issues, too, can be managed more effectively on large‐scale tests (Cizek, 2009). Yet creating assessments that meet the specific statistical requirements is not the same thing as creating assessments that inspire confidence that they are measuring something worth measuring. It is to this issue that I now turn.

20.3  The Thorny Problem of Face Validity Chatterji (2014) notes, “with ill‐prepared schools and students, what will the test results really tell us about student learning and the quality of schooling?” (p. 30). Darling‐ Hammond (1991) puts the problem more directly: High‐stakes testing “cannot be a constructive lever for reform unless we invest in more educationally useful and valid measures of student learning” (p. 229). These and other observers point to the notion that, despite our best collective efforts, our assessments continue to present validity problems. Haladyna (2009) argues that concerns about validity scale up dramatically in high‐stakes testing contexts. He identifies two groups of problems: content irrelevance and content underrepresentation. The first of these, factors such as cheating that can unduly influence students’ scores, is less relevant for this chapter than the second—flaws in test scope and design that undermine confidence that an assessment measures something of value. Though there are many kinds of validity issues (Horn, 2006; Messick, 1989), three focus on the relationship between the goals for social studies education and the instruments developed to measure them—content, construct, and face validity. The first two are much described and embraced by psychometricians; the third, I will argue, may end up being the most important to the other stakeholders in American education—teachers, parents, students, and the public.

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Content validity represents the extent to which items on a test sufficiently represent a domain of knowledge or skill such that a set of reasonable inferences can be drawn. Construct validity, by contrast, highlights the extent to which a test is judged to accurately and adequately measure student knowledge and skill around a particular idea or concept. Put simply—a social studies test would have content validity if it was determined to yield a set of inferences that match the overall goals of a set of social studies standards; it would have construct validity if the questions or tasks were judged to be useful proxies for a particular construct such as the American Revolution. Content and construct validity q­uestions can be answered in a number of ways, but the default approach is to have content and pedagogical experts review draft questions and come to agreement on a set that reflect a set of standards. That process for validating tests seems appropriate, but it masks two problems. First, is the issue of goals. Horn (2006) notes that an endemic concern for those who would assess social studies is the fact that no clear and concise set of goals exists. Standards documents abound, but they are rarely bounded in ways that provide a coherent sense of guidance to test developers. The generally expressed goal of social studies—preparation of good c­itizens—is vague at best (VanSledright & Grant, 1994). Presumably it means some set of knowledge, skills, dispositions, and behaviors. But what particular knowledge and at what depth? What kinds of skills and how are they represented? And can we really develop large‐ scale test proxies for dispositions and behaviors? With such an ill‐defined field, test d­evelopers are left with little in the way of content guidance. The second problem is the issue of face validity. Although generally dismissed by psychometricians (Nevo, 1985; Secolsky, 1987),12 face validity may present the biggest threat to large‐scale assessment. Face validity is defined as “the suitability of the content of a test or item(s) for an intended purpose as perceived by test takers, users, and/or the general public” (Secolsky, 1987, p. 82). What seems to bother many psychometricians about face validity is its seemingly casual nature and the idea that it is a judgment rendered by “t­echnically untrained observers” (Anastasi, 1988, p.144). Clearly, it is important to have subject matter and test design experts involved in the validation of tests, particularly those that hold high stakes for teachers and students. But the new landscape of large‐scale assessment means that experts are no longer the only voices in the debate. Instead, validity has become a political issue, one in which politicians and the general public join with teachers, parents, and students as stakeholders (Alvarez, 2014; Macken‐Horarik, 2011; Ravitch, 2014). Nevo (1985) argues that, among other things face validity is a key feature of any test that is “intended for a practical use” (p. 288) as it is more likely to inspire cooperation and effort among test takers, reduce dissatisfaction with low scores, and improve public support for the tests. Expert evaluations of content and construct validity are no less important today than they have been in the past. Yet the general concern over too much testing and the particular furor over the Common Core‐inspired tests has produced a volatile situation with regard to assessment (e.g., Ravitch, 2014). For better or worse, non‐expert groups have joined the conversation around the nature and use of large‐scale tests. Those groups bring many a­nxieties to bear, but among them is the challenge to the face validity of tests administered (e.g., Casner‐Lotto, 2006; Gorin, 2013). The question remains: How do we as educators know what students know with any degree of confidence? In the next section, I look at some of the newest approaches to assessment in light of this challenge.



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20.4  Moving Forward? Much ink has been spilled in arguments about doing away with large‐scale assessments. Those arguments may have gained more traction of late but, in fact, the current policy debate is less about eliminating such exams than it is about reducing the amount of testing and seeking alternatives to the limited formats evident in most large‐scale testing (Heitin, 2014). A quick scan of the online and scholarly literature on assessment suggests that there is much activity afoot on the latter approach. Reform groups like the Gordon Commission on the Future of Assessment in Education suggest that at least four types of alternative assessment‐development activity has arisen. In this section, I briefly review each of these categories through the description of a representative group and then I assess the p­ossibilities for such efforts in addressing the issue of face validity. I conclude this section with some thoughts about new avenues for research on assessment.

20.4.1  Single‐State‐Level Innovation One category of assessment advancement is evidenced in the Washington State Office of Public Instruction (OSPI). This single‐state‐level innovation represents the case where p­olicymakers in a state decide to create one or more alternatives to the standard large‐scale approach of multiple‐choice testing. The Washington State effort is perhaps the most r­adical example in this category as they have created a set of classroom‐based assessments (CBAs) from which teachers can choose (OSPI, n.d.‐a). The CBA program features assessments that cover all social studies areas—civics, e­conomics, geography, history, and international perspectives—but the civics CBA is required at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Two or more CBA options are offered at each level: The elementary options include, for example, “What’s the Big Idea?” (history) and “You Decide” (civics). The latter asks students to identify a problem and a policy or law that attempts to solve it, to explain one way the policy or law attempts to solve the problem, to identify individuals and/or groups who participated in the policy‐ or law‐ making process and explain how they did so, and to provide reasons for agreeing or d­isagreeing with the law or policy by explaining how the law or policy promotes a right or democratic ideal with one or more supporting details. Students who participate in this assessment have the option to write a paper or develop a presentation that “someone outside their classroom could easily understand and review using the rubric” (OSPI, n.d.‐b)

20.4.2  Single‐State Consortia Offering a performance‐based alternative to a traditional large‐scale test takes a different form in the actions of a single‐state consortia such as the New York Performance Standards Consortium. The 28 high schools which make up the Consortium represent a range of demographics, but each must document how it “meets and exceeds New York State Regents standards through a rigorous commencement‐level performance‐based assessment task” (Performance Assessment, n.d.). At the heart of the effort for social studies students are evidence‐based arguments rooted in questions such as “Who Or What Is Responsible for

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the End of Slavery in the United States?” and “What Is the Meaning of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment?” Students’ work is graded by their classroom teachers, but each school’s efforts are monitored by the Performance Assessment Review Board, Inc., an external body of educators, test experts, researchers, and members of the legal and business world, which also systematically samples student work.

20.4.3  Multi‐State Consortia An entirely different assessment project can be seen in the work of multi‐state consortia such as the Innovation Lab Network (ILN) that is affiliated with the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) organization (CCSSO, n.d.). The assessment portion of the ILN’s Standards, Assessment, and Accountability initiative is intended to help states implement new large‐scale exams in two ways. One is the annual National Conference on Student Assessment, which offers opportunities to examine a wide range of testing issues. The second way is through the State Collaborative on Assessments and Student Standards effort that supports the work of state education professionals. The social studies collaborative—Social Studies Curriculum, Assessment, and Instruction (SSACI)—which was largely responsible for the development of the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards (National Council for the Social Studies, 2013) is currently working on a white paper related to state‐level testing that would encourage states to consider piloting alternative project‐based assessments in addition to the more traditional large‐scale assessments.

20.4.4  Funded Projects One last way that fresh ideas about assessment are being generated can be seen in the work of funded projects such as Beyond the Bubble (n.d.). Attempting to find useful ground between multiple‐choice and document‐based questions, the Beyond the Bubble project offers a range of history‐based assessments that focus on the evaluation of evidence, h­ istorical knowledge, and historical argumentation. Although intended as formative, c­lassroom‐focused assessments, the item types developed in the Beyond the Bubble project could be adapted for use on large‐scale exams. These several efforts challenge the traditionally narrow range of large‐scale assessment options. Advocates for richer, more ambitious, more authentic assessment are not new (Darling‐Hammond & Adamson, 2014), but public sentiments against the kudzu‐like growth of standardized testing combined with the development of more robust testing alternatives types signals a new assessment landscape. Will such new directions, however, satisfy the need for face validity in large‐scale testing? Although there are important differences in scope and focus, the Washington State, the Performance Standards Consortium, and the Beyond the Bubble project emphasize s­tudents’ ability to construct evidence‐based arguments. Making and supporting arguments (which is also prominent in the SSACI‐sponsored C3 Framework) seems like a reasonable measure of students’ experiences in social studies classrooms. The history‐only focus of the Beyond the Bubble and the Performance Standards Consortium stands in contrast with



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the wider social studies focus evident in the Washington State effort. That latter effort includes an emphasis on public policy that would seem to expand the possibility of a positive face validity judgment on the grounds that successful social studies students ought to be able to speak to range of social dimensions. Constructing evidence‐based arguments whether in history alone or across the social studies spectrum, however, still may not satisfy the need for face validity in social studies assessments. Still open is the question of whether students are inclined to and capable of taking informed action. That goal, expressed clearly in Dimension 4 of the C3 Framework and surfacing in new state‐level social studies frameworks in places like New York, Connecticut, and Kentucky, holds that “individual mastery of content often no longer suffices; students should also develop the capacity to work together to apply knowledge to real problems” (National Council for the Social Studies, 2013, p. 19). Making and supporting arguments is a form of action, especially if those arguments are made public in one venue or another. But taking informed action is both richer and more likely to look like real social studies understanding if more authentic options and venues are available (Levine, 2013; Levinson, 2014; National Council for the Social Studies, 2013). While some observers worry about the psychometric problems of more authentic assessments (Terwilliger, 1997), allowing psychometrics to rule the day may undercut the overall value of large‐scale testing in ways that ultimately may prove an even bigger disadvantage (Gorin, 2013; Newmann, Brandt, & Wiggins, 1998). I conclude this look forward with some thoughts about directions in which researchers might turn to study assessment. Given my argument above, it will not surprise readers to learn that I think the construct of face validity offers a useful lens on the kinds of studies that could yield both pedagogical and pragmatic benefits. Secolsky’s (1987) definition of face validity highlights the potential impact of testing on a wide swath of stakeholders, including students, teachers, and the public. The question evident in the title of this chapter—how do we know what students know—cuts to the heart of the face validity issue for it is as nettlesome to each of these groups as it is to researchers. There is more empirical evidence about how teachers respond to large‐scale assessments than about students’ experiences and the public’s perceptions. Still the research on teachers assumes the exams as a given and thus focuses on teachers’ pedagogical intentions and actions in light of those exams; we have not explored the degree to which teachers have confidence in the tests that they administer or what they would offer in place of them. The  few studies on how students respond to large‐scale tests focus on how they think through the questions asked; we know virtually nothing about what students would c­onsider appropriate measures of their knowledge and skills or about how that knowledge and those skills translate once students leave school. And, aside from a few national surveys, the public reaction to large‐scale testing has gone largely unexamined; we know that increasing numbers of parents and others are protesting the administration of some tests, but it is unclear what their reasons are and how other kinds of assessments might alleviate their concerns. Although face validity would seem reserved for discussions of large‐scale testing, echoes of that discussion should be heard and studied in the context of classroom‐based assessments. If we take seriously Torrez and Claunch‐Lebsack’s (2013) argument that far less research exists on classroom‐based assessments than on their large‐scale peers, then looking at the kinds of measures teachers develop may offer some clues into the possibilities

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for  large‐scale efforts. And the potential for teachers who embrace the notion of taking informed action to create robust and confidence‐inspiring tasks seems especially high. These few paragraphs suggest a rich terrain for empirical study and for empirical study with pragmatic as well as pedagogical benefits. It is important for researchers to continue existing lines of study into how teachers and students (and the public) navigate the extant assessment landscape. But thoughtful, well‐designed research can also speak to the practical— what could confidence‐inspiring assessments, both classroom‐based and large‐scale, look like? We will never have perfect assessments, but it is hard to believe that we cannot build, administer, and score assessments that speak more directly to the teaching and learning that occurs in schools.

20.5 Conclusion For all the concerns about the nature and practice of large‐scale assessment, the current context may provide the fertile ground for real reform. That ground will fail to generate a robust product, however, unless some of the enduring challenges of standardized testing are addressed. Those challenges include the types of testing approaches taken, but they also include the fact that social studies educators have been reluctant to define the field in ways that provide useful guidance to test designers. Classroom‐based assessment may point to more useful directions, but the problems associated with such measures are not dissimilar to those of their large‐scale peers. High on that list of problems, I have argued, is face validity. Long dismissed by psychometricians, face validity could become the key factor in newly designed state‐level testing, especially as public support for such programs erodes. Coincidentally, then, dissatisfaction with the approaches taken and the results of high‐stakes tests along with the emergence of new possibilities could result in a future where all stakeholders gain confidence in answering the question of how we know what students know.

Notes 1 By “value‐added” measures of assessing teachers, I refer to the relatively new practice of using statistical measures of student growth—typically as determined by standardized test scores—to determine how much teachers contribute to their students’ learning. Hill, Kapitula, and Umland (2011) have published a particularly useful analysis of value‐added approaches. 2 See the debate between Patricia Levesque and Kevin Welner (2015) in the New York Times. 3 In this chapter, I limit my attention to large‐scale exams that carry with them some measure of public accountability, though not necessarily high stakes (see note 11 below). As a result, I do not report on the use of assessments such as the Iowa Test of Basic Skills or the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The latter does garner some public attention when new scores are released, but the sampling approach taken and the lack of connection back to particular teachers and students and the curriculum in which they are engaged mark this (and similar measures such as the International Civics and Citizenship Study) as very different kinds of assessments. 4 In order to maintain a coherent focus and a reasonable length, there are several assessment– related topics that I will not cover in this chapter. There are, however, good resources on each so I  would encourage readers to explore the noted citations for the history of assessment in social  studies (Grant, 2006; Torrez & Claunch‐Lebsack, 2013), accountability and assessment



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(Grant & Salinas, 2008; Ravitch, 2011; Supovitz, 2009), and the many types of assessment (M­cMillan, 2013; Moss, Girard, & Greeno, 2008). Brian Girard offered this useful insight in a set of discussant comments on a paper during a CUFA presentation in 2014. In this chapter, I will use the term “know” as a proxy for social studies content and skills. Cizek (2009) points out that classroom‐based assessments can also provide motivation for s­tudent learning and assistance to teachers in their instructional planning. Tests can also be reliable over time if the results of similarly designed tests produce consistent scores. In fact, Baker (1994) found more agreement on students’ scores between English and history teachers than she did across the history teachers in the sample. Although most observers view validity and reliability as distinct constructs, Haladyna (2009) argues that reliability functions as a form of validity in that, if high‐stakes tests are viewed as unreliable, then confidence in the assessments as valid measures is undermined. Hereafter, I use the terms “large‐scale” and “standardized” as synonyms to mark those tests developed at the state‐level for the purpose of generating data on students’ social studies knowledge and skills. Not all large‐scale exams, however, carry with them high stakes so I use that terminology only in those instances where there are clear consequences based on students’ test performance. In fact, the latest edition of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (Joint Committee on Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, 2014) does not even list face validity as a kind of validity.

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Hill, H., Kapitula, L., & Umland, K. (2011). A validity argument approach to evaluating teacher value‐added scores. American Educational Research Journal, 48(3), 794–831. Horn, C. (2006). The technical realities of measuring history. In S. G. Grant, (Ed.), Measuring history: Cases of state‐level testing across the United States (pp. 57–74). Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Joint Committee on Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. (2014). Standards for educational and psychological testing. Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association. Klein, A. (2014, October 13). Push to limit federal test mandates gains steam. Education Week. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/10/15/08testing.h34.html Kohn, A. (2000). The case against standardized testing: Raising the scores, ruining the schools. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Koretz, D. (2008). Measuring up: What educational testing really tells us. Boston: Harvard University Press. Levesque, P., & Welner, K. (2015, May 4). New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/ roomfordebate/2015/05/04/is‐testing‐students‐the‐answer‐to‐americas‐education‐woes Levine, P. (2013). We are the ones we have been waiting for: The promise of civic renewal in America. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Levinson, M. (2014). No citizen left behind. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. Macken‐Horarik, M. (2011). Building a knowledge structure for English: Reflections on the c­hallenges of coherence, cumulative learning, portability and face validity. Australian Journal of Education, 55(3), 197–213. Martin, D., Maldonado, S.I., Schneider, J., & Smith, M. (2011). A report on the state of history education: State policies and national programs. National History Education Clearinghouse. Retrieved from http://teachinghistory.org/system/files/teachinghistory_special_report_2011.pdf McMillan, J. (Ed.). (2013). Handbook of research on classroom assessment. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. McNeil, L. (2000). Contradictions of control: Educational costs of standardized testing. New York, NY: Routledge. Messick, S. (1989). Validity. In R. L. Linn (Ed.), Educational measurement (3rd ed., pp. 13–103). New York, NY: Macmillan. Moss, P., Girard, B., & Greeno, J. (2008). Sociocultural implications for assessment: Professional learning, evaluation, and accountability. In P. Moss, D. Pullin, J. Gee, E. Haertel, & L. Young (Eds.), Assessment, equity, and opportunity to learn (pp. 295–332). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. National Council for the Social Studies. (2013). College, career, and civic life (C3) framework for social studies state standards. Washington, DC. Author. Nevo, B. (1985). Face validity revisited. Journal of Educational Measurement, 22(4), 287–293. Newmann, F., Brandt, R., & Wiggins, G. (1998). An exchange of views on “Semantics, psychometrics, and assessment reform: A close look at ‘authentic’ assessments.” Educational Researcher, 27(6), 19–21. No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. (2002). Pub. L. No. 107–110, § 115, Stat. 1425. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/index.html Nuthall, G., & Alton‐Lee, A. (1995). Assessing classroom learning: How students use their knowledge and experience to answer classroom achievement test questions in science and social studies. American Educational Research Journal, 32(1), 185–223. OSPI. (n.d.‐a). Developed assessments for social studies. Retrieved from http://www.k12.wa.us/ SocialStudies/Assessments/default.aspx OSPI. (n.d.‐b). Whose rules? Retrieved from http://www.k12.wa.us/SocialStudies/Assessments/ Elementary/ElemCivics‐WhoseRules‐CBA.pdf Parkes, J. (2013). Reliability in classroom assessment. In J. McMillan (Ed.). Handbook of research on classroom assessment (pp. 107–123). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Performance Assessment. (n.d.). Alternatives to high‐stakes testing. Retrieved from http:// p­erformanceassessment.org/consortium//calternatives.html

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Ravitch, D. (2011). The death and life of the great American school system: How testing and choice are undermining education. New York, NY: Basic Books. Ravitch, D. (2014). Reign of error: The hoax of the privatization movement and the danger to America’s public schools. New York, NY: Vintage. Reardon, S.F. (2011). The widening academic achievement gap between the rich and the poor: New evidence and possible explanations. In R. Murnane & G. Duncan (Eds.), Whither opportunity? Rising inequality and the uncertain life chances of low‐income children. (pp. 91–116). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation Press. Rogers, V., & Stevenson, C. (1988). How do we know what kids are learning in school? Educational Leadership, 45(5), 68–75. Schug, M., Todd, R., & Beery, R. (1984). Why kids don’t like social studies. Social Education, 47(5), 382–387. Secolsky, C. (1987). On the direct measurement of face validity: A comment on Nevo. Journal of Educational Measurement, 24(1), 82–83. Stiggins, R. (1998). Classroom assessment for student success. Washington, DC: National Education Association. Stiggins, R. (2014). Revolutionize assessment: Empower students, inspire learning. New York, NY: Corwin. Supovitz, J. (2009). Can high stakes testing leverage educational improvement? Prospects from the last decade of testing and accountability reform. The Journal of Educational Change, 10(2–3), 211–227. Swan, K., & Hofer, M. (2013). Examining student‐created documentaries as a mechanism for engaging students in authentic intellectual work. Theory & Research in Social Education, 41(1), 133–175. Terwilliger, J. (1997). Semantics, psychometrics, and assessment reform: A close look at “authentic” assessments. Educational Researcher, 26(8), 24–27. Torrez, C., & Claunch‐Lebsack, E. (2013). Research on assessment in the social studies classroom. In J. McMillan (Ed.). Handbook of research on classroom assessment. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. van Hover, S. (2006). Teaching history in the Old Dominion: The impact of Virginia’s accountability reform on seven secondary beginning history teachers. In S. G. Grant (Ed.), Measuring history: Cases of state‐level testing across the United States (pp. 195–220). Greenwich, CT: Information Age. VanSledright, B. A., & Grant, S. G. (1994). Citizenship education and the persistence of classroom dilemmas. Theory & Research in Social Education, 22(3), 305–339. Vogler, K. (2006). Measuring history through state‐level tests: Patterns and themes. In S. G. Grant, (Ed.), Measuring history: Cases of state‐level testing across the United States (pp. 303–320). Greenwich, CT: Information Age. von Zastrow, C., & Janc, H. (2004). Academic atrophy: The condition of liberal arts in America’s schools. Washington, DC: The Council for Basic Education. Wiggins, G. (1998). Educative assessment: Designing assessments to inform and improve student performance. San Francisco, CA: Jossey‐Bass. Wills, J. (2007). Putting the squeeze on social studies: Managing teaching dilemmas in subject areas excluded from state testing. Teachers College Record, 109(8), 1980–2046. Wineburg, S., Smith, M., & Breakstone, J. (2012). New directions in assessment: Using Library of Congress sources to assess historical understanding. Social Education, 76(6), 290–293. Yeager, E., & Davis, O. (1996). Classroom teachers thinking about historical texts. Theory & Research in Social Education, 24(2), 146–166. Yuan, K & Le, V. (2012). Estimating the percentage of students who were exposed to deeper learning on the state achievement tests. Santa Monica, CA: Rand. Retrieved from http://www.hewlett.org/ library/grantee‐publication/estimating‐number‐students‐who‐were‐tested‐cognitively‐demanding‐ items‐through‐state‐achievement

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Media and Social Studies Education Jeremy D. Stoddard and Alan S. Marcus

The role of moving pictures in social studies classrooms is not new. First came educational film and filmstrips, then educational television and commercial mass media used in the classroom, and more recently the ability to engage with films using everything from Beta and VHS to DVD and streaming video. Moving images are encapsulated in lectures, videogames, and daily news clips. Furthermore, young people engage with moving images that represent the past and present outside of the school on their home televisions and now mobile phones or tablet computers. These moving pictures all tell a story, a story developed by people with particular beliefs, values, and objectives. As Wise (1939) noted in the early days of educational film, “The motion picture is an instructional tool of tremendous power in the accumulation of knowledge and ideas and in the development of attitudes and appreciations… it contributes something to learning which is otherwise unobtainable” (p. 142). Wise recognized that the moving picture not only provides “information” but is also powerful as a trigger for affect and emotion and an influence on audiences’ understandings and beliefs—something he viewed as being unobtainable through other mediums at that time. Wise’s recognition that film and other media hold tremendous educational power is as true now as it was then. This educational power goes far beyond the schoolhouse doors, as film, video, and videogames may be the primary way in which young people (and even older generations) now learn about history, culture, and current events outside of school. The potential benefits as well as drawbacks have received a growing amount of attention by educational researchers over the past three decades. Levstik and Tyson’s (2008) Handbook of Research in Social Studies Education did not include a chapter on media, but instead reflected the growing body of research into c­omputing in education with a chapter on technology. Shaver’s 1991 Handbook of Research on Social Studies Teaching and Learning, however, contained two chapters that examined aspects of media in social studies education. Clegg’s chapter on games and simulations examined both analog and computer‐based games and simulations as mediums for The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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engaging young people in political processes and issues or historical events (1991). Splaine’s chapter on mass media examines the impact of mass media, primarily commercial television, on young people’s views on culture, race, gender, history, and politics (1991). That chapter was heavily informed by research methods from the field of communications (e.g., Fiske, 1990). Splaine identified several methodological challenges and areas for future research relevant to our work here: 1. The need for continued and benchmarked content analysis of media, as it is “an important precursor to determining effects and implications for social studies” (p. 307). 2. The need for more participant observation and a better understanding of the complexities of the naturalistic environments in which young people engage with media. 3. The need for further development of research methods, including the expanded use of interviews and other measures, both short‐term and long‐term, to assess the impact of media on young people’s understandings of history, politics, and what it means to be a citizen. In this chapter we examine the growing body of research on the role of media in social studies education, with a particular focus on the effects of media on teaching and learning and models for engaging young people in various forms of critical analysis of media (e.g., media literacy, critical literacy). We use the term media broadly to include moving images from film, video, television, videogames, and animations delivered via a growing array of technologies (e.g., computers, tablets, mobile phones). Over the past two decades, evolving media and technology platforms have transformed the ways in which we engage with media. This convergence of media platforms and the ways in which society consumes, shares, and produces media has also affected the ways we teach and learn (Jenkins, 2006). Instead of network television shows available only at scheduled times on TV, videogames only playable on a dedicated console, and films viewable only in theaters or from a rental store, these media are now streaming and available on demand for students and teachers to access 24 hours a day. This means that instead of watching educational television live or needing a VHS player to watch a film in class, media can be streamed on demand via a classroom projector, as part of a presentation, or on students’ personal devices. The emerging approaches to studying media in the research included in this chapter address many of the issues raised by Splaine (1991) above, though many limitations still exist in our abilities to measure the impact of media on young people’s learning, their thinking about the past, and their abilities to engage as citizens. We first focus on theoretical and analytical frames that have emerged over the past two decades for examining the role of media in social studies education, addressing in part the content analysis goal identified by Splaine. We then present empirical studies that have made contributions to our understanding of how teachers and students engage with film, video, and games toward various intellectual and curricular goals. As the two chapters from the 1991 handbook illustrate, the research on the effects of media on young people’s understanding of the past or engagement as citizens is diverse and interdisciplinary. In order to capture that variety here, we conducted a wide search using both common education research databases, such as ERIC, as well as specific media studies journal searches and tools such as Google Scholar. Given our own work in the field, we started with



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the research we have cited over the years in order to identify some of the salient seminal works as well as source journals for this work. We then used permutations of the terms “social studies,” “history,” “civics,” and “citizenship” with the terms “film,” “new media,” “games,” “television,” and “simulations” on EBSCO’s Education Research Complete, Proquest, ERIC, and Google Scholar. When we found studies that appeared particularly relevant, we then used the databases as engines to identify other studies that cited them. We also searched these terms in prominent journals such as Theory & Research in Social Education, Social Studies Research and Practice, The Journal of Social Studies Research, The History Teacher, Curriculum Inquiry, Journal of Curriculum Studies, and Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education. We have established several boundaries for what we included in order to make this chapter coherent within space constraints. Our main emphasis for the chapter is the major theoretical and empirical contributions that have been made. In particular we focus on the emergence of research into media in social studies education from three traditions: history/history education and historical thinking; critical media and disciplinary literacies; and film and cultural studies. While we primarily focus on theoretical and empirical contributions, we have also included some examples of how this research and theory have been translated for teacher practice, as this is a substantial portion of the existing literature in the form of content analysis and descriptions of pedagogical models. Finally, we have focused largely on the use of commercial media or documentaries produced for a broader audience in teaching and learning and not media designed by educational p­ublishers as supplements to textbooks for classroom use (e.g., Pearson) or on student production of media. This line has also blurred, of course, as teachers now routinely use streaming video in the classroom, including educational media produced by organizations such as PBS and the Discovery family of networks. We have included these examples of “educational media” but not media produced by textbook publishers that have essentially replaced the filmstrips of decades past. We also do not address the growing body of work related to teaching with or through social media or student use of media outside of the classroom. These emerging areas of research are closely related to our work here, but because of space limitations and the organization of this handbook we take a more narrow approach. Chapter  22, The Diffusion of Technology into the Social Studies by Bolick, provides insights into research on the integration of some of these technologies in teaching and learning.

21.1  Theoretical and Analytical Traditions for Studying Media in Social Studies Unlike the chapters in the Shaver (1991) handbook, which focused on relatively narrow epistemological and methodological approaches to mass media in social studies education, here we explore lines of inquiry that have emerged from film and media studies, cultural studies, media literacy, history, and sociocultural and cognitive grounded models of h­istorical thinking. Of course, these traditions have not developed in isolation, as there is some crossover between the three theoretical traditions we use to organize this work. We do not claim these to be purely distinct, but to be representative of the academic and intellectual traditions from which they emerged.

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21.1.1  Film, Media and Cultural Studies The fields of film and media studies and cultural studies have had a profound influence on the social studies curriculum, the inclusion of multiple perspectives and multiculturalism, and through the analysis of the role of mass media in shaping how we view the world and others around us. Early models of media analysis were influenced by work done in media studies in particular. Frameworks for teaching media analysis in social studies by Considine (1989) and Cates (1990) were influenced by formal film analysis techniques, such as identifying bias and analyzing how lighting and camera angles reflect power issues in a film. Though applied to history or social studies-related film and media, these models of analysis are not as relevant as more recent applications of media and cultural studies as pedagogical models for teaching with media in social studies classes. Theories developed from cultural studies or the studies of race, class, and gender are more relevant for studying how film represents history or social and political issues, as well  as how film may influence young people’s understanding of politics or of the past. For example, Stoddard and Marcus (2006) adapted Shohat and Stamm’s (1994) concept of the burden of representation as a model for analyzing how well a film represented the perspectives and histories of historically marginalized groups. In this case the burden of representation is related to how well a film establishes, reinforces, or contradicts racist notions of race and freedom and the burden that a film carries to allow a viewer to understand underrepresented groups’ perspectives, histories, and worldviews. Through an analysis of two films used widely at the time to teach about slavery and African American history, Glory (1989) and Amistad (1997), they argued that this burden may be met through films that represent complex and rich personal stories from the perspectives of historically marginalized groups and individuals, and through films that do not solely focus on Eurocentric histories, film narratives, or stories that appeal to White audiences. They later extended the burden of historical representation as a model for examining the potential of film made for and by indigenous groups as a medium for engaging students in non‐western histories, perspectives, and epistemologies (Stoddard, Marcus, & Hicks, 2014). In addition to applying film and cultural studies’ theories for interpreting the representations in film, educational researchers have begun to apply Britzman’s (1998) conceptualization of difficult knowledge as a framework for understanding how teachers and students encounter and interpret challenging or difficult representations in film. Britzman’s notion of difficult knowledge is grounded in psychoanalytics, which has long been a favored tool of film critique within film studies. As Garrett (2011) notes, “Britzman’s (1998) notion of ‘difficult knowledge’ distinguishes learning about the traumatic experiences of others from other learning experiences, and allows us an entry into these problems of learning” (p. 321). Gaudelli, Crocco, and Hawkins (2012) and Garrett (2011) use the lens of difficult knowledge to interpret the reactions of teacher participants to an archive of film footage from WGBH’s Vietnam: A Television History (1983) and Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006), respectively. In addition to these theoretically or empirically grounded analyses of media in social studies, this tradition has also led to numerous articles focused on using films that address specific issues to attempt to challenge the common U.S. history narrative of progress and freedom found in social studies classes and textbooks or to include perspectives often marginalized from the social studies curriculum. These articles combine content analysis of



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media with pedagogical models to address issues of race (e.g., Hess, 2007; Justice, 2003; Stoddard & Marcus, 2006), gender (e.g., Marcus & Monaghan, 2009; Scheiner‐Fisher & Russell, 2012), global perspectives (e.g., Lee, 2010; Russell & Benedict, 2012), and challen­ ging issues such as genocide (e.g., Goldstein, 1995; Manfra & Stoddard, 2008) or the impact of war (Horton & Clausen, 2015). This ever‐expanding list of articles advocating for the use of film to challenge the curricular status quo in social studies illustrates the perceived value of the medium for developing critical literacy and for engaging students with marginalized perspectives.

21.1.2  Media Literacy and Critical Literacy Media literacy, or the ability to decode media messages and identify the perspectives of authors, is a second prominent field that has influenced how we conceptualize and study the role of media in social studies education. Media literacy emerged from the traditions of  literary and cultural studies in the fields of English and literacy education as well as information sciences (e.g., Hobbs, 1998, 2007). Critical media literacy developed with the influence from the more critical views of the cultural and media studies movement and has been applied particularly through examining issues of power in media and the effects of commercialism with media serving as a form of public pedagogy (e.g., Giroux, 2002; Kellner & Share, 2007). Giroux (2002) explains that film as public pedagogy acts as “a powerful teaching machine that intentionally tries to influence the production of meaning, subject positions, identities, and experience” (p. 587). Kellner and Share (2007) present critical media literacy as a way to counter the commercial and political effect of film as public pedagogy through a combination of cultural studies and critical pedagogy that addresses the need for “critical approaches that make us aware of how media construct meanings, influence and educate audiences, and impose their messages and values” (p. 4). Kellner and Share’s (2007) model for critical media literacy draws from four traditions: feminism and standpoint epistemologies; cultural and media studies; progressive and transformative education; and radical democracy. In addition to Kellner and Share’s call for critical media literacy as a key component for democratic citizenship, Buckingham (2000) makes the argument for media education as a vital frame for developing citizens. Buckingham, along with Hoechsmann and Poyntz (2011) and others, also make the case for student media production as a key component to developing the kind of critical literacy needed as citizens in the information age, or what Hoechsmann and Poyntz term “Media Literacy 2.0.” Mason and Metzger (2012) argue for a conceptualization of media literacy grounded in pragmatism that emphasizes both the constructed nature of particular messages in any given medium as well as the context that influences how these messages are engaged with and the meaning that is made. Critical media literacy has developed to address many of the issues raised by Splaine (1991) regarding the influence of mass media on how young people view the world and those different from them. Matthews (2009) draws from critical media literacy and theories of visual culture to present a model for teaching with the reality television program The Amazing Race. She models how teachers could use the series to engage students in developing their critical literacy skills, in particular asking them to challenge the systemic oppression ­portrayed in The Amazing Race (2001–2009), and engaging them as global citizens.

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Garrett and Schmeichel (2012) present a more practical model for engaging s­tudents both in developing critical media literacy and in the explicit analysis of satire and current events using another example of youth popular culture, the news satire program The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (1999–2015).

21.1.3  History and Historical Understanding/Historical Thinking The greatest body of research in the role of media in social studies education over the past two decades has been driven by shifts in how the fields of history and history education view media and by the emergence of research in areas of historical thinking that has occurred over the past 30 years. Starting primarily with O’Connor (1988), historians began to recognize the role that film and television had started to play in how people engaged with the past as well as the role that film could play as history and as evidence for historical inquiry: However unfortunate, it appears likely that even well‐educated Americans are learning most of  their history from film or television. It is reasonable, therefore, that at least some of the classroom attention we normally devote to the critical reading of textbooks and journal articles should be extended to teaching people to be informed, critical viewers of historical film and television (p. 1201).

O’Connor (1990) presented a typology for the role film could play as historical evidence: (1) the moving image as representation of history; (2) the moving image as evidence for social and cultural history; (3) actuality footage as evidence, and (4) the history of the moving image as industry and art form. This initial framework marks one of the significant moments leading the growth in work in history education on the role of film. There are also numerous books and articles that advocate for the use of feature films to teach history and provide examples of how to analyze various films or how to teach using specific films (Briley, 2002, 2007; Kraig, 1983; Maynard, 1971; Paris, 1997; Russell, 2012, Toplin, 2002). Much of this work, however, focuses on analyses of the historical accuracy of films and the proposed engagement of students in analyzing film for accuracy versus other types of historical inquiry identified by O’Connor (1990). Finally, there has been more recognition that film, both documentary and feature, is a unique kind of historical document (Rosenstone, 2002, 2004; Toplin, 1996) that can challenge how the past is viewed and how history is represented (Rosenstone, 1995, 2006). Soon after O’Connor’s (1988, 1990) work helped to legitimize the role of film in history, Wineburg (1991) and Seixas (1993, 1994) identified the role that film plays in popular historical consciousness and as an area of study in history education. Others also argued that much of what students may “know” about the past is derived from film rather than from textbooks or teachers (Briley, 2002; Pultorak, 1992; Wineburg, Mosborg, & Porat, 2001). This work built from the growing social history movement and from work that applies sociocultural and social cognition theory to examine the processes for learning and understanding history. This body of work, often referred to as historical thinking or historical inquiry, models pedagogy after the work of historians (e.g., Lee & Ashby, 2000; VanSledright, 2002; Wineburg, 1991, 2001) and in identifying key constructs in understanding



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history (e.g., empathy, significance) through inquiry with the goal of creating more humanistic citizens (e.g., Ashby & Lee, 1987; Barton & Levstik, 2003; Seixas, 1994). The work in historical thinking has been the basis for much of the emerging work in film and history, in particular, viewing film as historical evidence for use in inquiry (e.g., Woelders, 2007a, 2007b) and using the affective and storytelling power of film to explore how it can be a medium for historical empathy and perspective recognition (e.g., Metzger, 2012; Stoddard, 2007). In one of the earliest studies designed to explore how young people viewed history represented in film, Seixas (1993, 1994) used a sociocultural lens to focus on young people’s historical consciousness through studying how they viewed representations of race in Western genre films from different time periods and in particular how Native Americans were portrayed. Film is also a prominent catalyst for engagement with the past outside of schools. Wineburg and his colleagues (Wineburg, Mosborg, Porat, & Duncan, 2007a, 2007b) note the potential influence of the movie Forrest Gump (1994) on how people across generations think about the 1960s—and which elements are collectively remembered or forgotten, while Afflerbach and VanSledright (2001) call students’ pattern of evaluating historical accounts against what they already know from watching movies the “Disney effect.” Subsequent studies have begun to explore the role of media utilizing additional lenses from work in historical thinking, in particular those that help to interpret the emotional or affective impact of film and how films can represent particular perspectives or evoke empathy. In addition to empirical work in this area described below, a number of conceptual frameworks have been developed for teaching history with film that have drawn upon both the work in history on film and the work on historical thinking and historical inquiry pedagogy. These frameworks, conceived of as historical film literacy or part of historical literacy (Marcus, 2005; Metzger, 2007, 2010; Walker, 2006), the Russell Model for Using Film (Russell, 2012), or more specific models for using film to address areas within historical thinking such as perspective recognition and narrative (e.g., Marcus, Metzger, Paxton, and Stoddard, 2010), are often induced from case studies of practice or drawn from conceptual work. These pedagogical models conceptualize film as historical evidence to be interrogated with a particular emphasis on student engagement in identifying the perspectives in film, analyzing how film represents the particular contexts in which it was produced, and recognizing the need to critically analyze contemporary representations of the past to avoid the view that recent films are inherently more accurate in their representations that Seixas (1993, 1994) observed in his study. Pedagogically, they also encourage teachers to have specific goals for any particular film to be used and to have students do serious intellectual work with film that is scaffolded in a manner similar to other sources in historical inquiry. However, though these models are drawn from theory and practice, little has been done with them empirically to test their veracity through experimental or design-based research models.

21.1.4  Critical Analysis of Interactive Media Videogames and online worlds, similar to documentary film, are not often viewed as containing particular values or taken seriously as historical or political texts. However, as their prominence in education is growing, so is the concern over the values and models of the

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world that they engage students in, leading scholars to apply frameworks from critical media literacy and historical thinking to analyze these media in ways similar to the more static film and video. This work comes from the recognition that students need to be engaged in analyzing how game worlds or interactive online spaces are designed with particular goals in mind, be it the model used to “win” a game or the conception of citizen guiding the designer (Raphael, Bachen, Lynn, Baldwin‐Philippi, & McKee, 2010). Squire (2006) frames the analysis of videogames such as Civilization III (2001) as ideological worlds and the interaction between player and this world as a designed experience driven in part by the values of the game’s creators. Squire explains that because videogames are developed by teams of programmers with particular views and perspectives on the world, these views are integral to the ideological game world and the subsequent designed experiences “in which participants learn through a grammar of doing and being” (p. 19). Similarly, Brown (2007) describes the reaction of college freshmen to the online simulation Darfur is Dying (2006) during their academic orientation and its potential impact on the students who played it. He worried in particular about how engaging students in the role of a potential victim of genocide in the simulation could impact them both emotionally and in terms of their understanding of the situation in Darfur. These kinds of content analyses of more interactive media, along with analyses such as Matthews (2009) above, build from the long tradition of work in film and cultural studies and curriculum studies to identify issues of representation and power in media used to engage students or audiences in learning about global or marginalized historical and current issues. These theoretical traditions, of course, also have particular traditions of scholarship. Analyses of media using critical theory or frameworks from film and cultural studies tend to be interpretive works grounded in theory and textual analysis that are not based in empirical data collected from participants. The largest body of work related to media in social studies education over the past two decades has emerged from the work in historical thinking, which is more heavily grounded in social psychology and classroom‐based interpretive research using teachers and students as participants. The following section is therefore dominated by empirical work within history education, but also includes relevant work from global education and teaching about politics, and work done on controversial issues and other aspects of social education more broadly.

21.2  The Role of Media in Social Studies Teaching and Learning There is no doubt about the rising use of media in social studies classrooms. This media comes in the form of film, social media, documentary filmmaking, online research, the use of video clips as part of lectures, and use of tablets and digital textbooks. In particular the greater access to, and reduced cost of, film and other forms of moving images have led to their greater presence in the classroom. The rationale for the inclusion of film ranges from film facilitating the past “to come alive” (Dobbs, 1987, p. 16), to the ability of feature film to support student inquiry (Sabato, 1992), to the fact that film can communicate about the past in a way not available from written sources (Johnson and Vargas, 1994). Compared to other areas of research within social studies education the studies related to film do not have a rich history or the same depth. However, over the past decade, empirical work in this area has established a foothold and begun to inform the field about issues related to using



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film to teach history and civics to secondary students. Here we review two areas of research: (1) teachers’ beliefs about and practices with film; (2) students’ making sense of film as history or as evidence of the past.

21.2.1  Teachers’ Beliefs about and Practices with Film There are three primary areas of research related to teachers and teaching. The first examines teachers’ views on media and their epistemic beliefs about media and how it represents history, issues, or other social studies related concepts. The second focuses on teacher decision‐making with media as part of their curriculum and pedagogy. The third area focuses on teacher practices with film. Overall, teachers’ views on media reflect a lack of epistemic understanding of the constructed nature of media, especially with documentary‐ style media (Stoddard, 2010, 2013). This epistemic view, along with the teachers’ ideological views, leads to the use of media that does not align with the types of historical inquiry or democratic education they aspire to (Mangram, 2008; Stoddard, 2009). Finally, there have been a number of small studies, often case studies, of teacher practice that provide insights into how teachers are using film and its relation to teacher decision‐making. Other than several regional surveys that attempt to capture a bigger picture of teacher media use (e.g., Hobbs, 2006; Marcus & Stoddard, 2007), there is little in the form of generalizable findings about teacher practice with media. Teacher beliefs about media.  Overall, research into teacher beliefs about media have shown that many hold a relatively simplistic understanding of how media is constructed and also the role media plays in influencing the public’s understanding of the world and current affairs. Mangram’s (2008) qualitative study of 15 secondary social studies teachers, from a mix of urban, suburban, and rural settings, and their understanding of media and popular culture, and how this understanding informed their relationships with their students, found that the teachers used several binaries in thinking about media. The study utilized data from multiple in‐depth interviews conducted over three years. Mangram asked: “In what ways do secondary social studies teachers talk about and make meaning of media and popular culture?” and, “How do the meanings these social studies teachers make concerning media and popular culture influence their perspectives on their students as consumers of media and popular culture?” (p. 38). The teachers used binaries to discuss media sources such as “biased/unbiased,” “partial/impartial,” and “liberal/conservative” to explain how they made sense of media and popular culture. Teachers also reported the belief that their students “uncritically engaged media and popular culture and thus needed ‘protection’ from these entities” (p. 32). Mangram concludes that teachers need to better understand media and popular culture themselves in order to better help students to use and interpret these sources. Teacher decision‐making with media.  Stoddard (2010, 2012) found similar epistemological issues with the ways in which the two teachers he worked with understood the nature of media and how it influenced their pedagogical decisions. As part of a semester‐long mixed methods study, he found that the teachers treated different types of historical evidence inconsistently in their classes. For example, even though these teachers were quite

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proficient in engaging students in inquiry‐based strategies with text and image‐based p­rimary sources, they would show documentary films as if they were neutral or objective sources of history (Stoddard, 2010). Further, he found that there was a relationship between how the teachers viewed fiction film epistemologically, as a construction or representation, and how they viewed documentary films largely as objective, and how they used these sources pedagogically (Stoddard, 2012). In part to respond to what both Mangram and Stoddard found in terms of teachers’ views of media and its influence on their practice, Gaudelli, Crocco, and Hawkins (2012) studied a group of five teacher participants who were part of a long‐term professional development project focused on a database of outtake video clips from the Vietnam War documentary produced by WGBH TV in Boston. These outtakes included many interviews that never made it into the final documentary. Through a series of three focus groups conducted over a year, they found a shift in the ways in which the participants viewed documentary film, shifting to a more critical stance, as well as a shift in their ideas about how to teach with documentary outtakes to help their students develop their own understandings of the construction of documentary film. They also used the concept of difficult knowledge (Britzman, 1998) to help teachers think about the emotional reactions they had to some of the clips on different events and issues from the Vietnam War and how it has been portrayed in the media and in popular culture. Garrett (2011) also uses the concept of difficult knowledge and psychoanalytic theory to attempt to interpret preservice teachers’ encounters with, and reaction to, scenes presented in When the Levees Broke (2006). The six participants, all students at a large Midwestern university, were engaged in exploring the underlying issues of race and poverty in New Orleans exposed by Hurricane Katrina that are portrayed in Spike Lee’s documentary. Garrett makes the case for using concepts like difficult knowledge and films like Levees that present difficult knowledge “as a starting point for a host of reactions that we ought to be aware of ” (p. 345) when teachers and students encounter traumatic historic events and current issues. Teacher practices with media.  The scholarship around teacher practices with media is also in need of further development, but what does exist provides a mixed view of teacher p­ractices. Based on several small survey studies, the participants in these studies reported a high percentage of media use overall in their teaching, with the majority of this use being for delivering “content” in some form (Blake & Cain, 2011; Hobbs, 2006; Marcus & Stoddard, 2007). Hobbs (1999), in her mixed‐method study of 27 teachers from one urban and one suburban school in Massachusetts (not just social studies teachers) over six years, found seven “non‐optimal” uses of media: no clearly identified instructional purpose, no use of pause, rewind, or review, large‐group viewing experiences to give teachers a ‘break’, teacher m­entally disengages during viewing experiences, teacher uses TV viewing as a reward, teacher uses media only as an attentional hook, teacher uses video to control student behavior. These practices with film reinforce stereotypes of teacher film use as a day off and for non‐academic purposes. As a follow‐up, Hobbs conducted a telephone survey in 1996 with 130 K–12 teachers (Hobbs, 2006). Sixty percent of the teachers reported that they use t­elevision, videotapes, and film. When asked to report how they used these sources, almost half (46%) were to “deliver content” (p. 44).



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Building on the work of Hobbs, Marcus and Stoddard’s (2007) online survey of 84 high school social studies teachers in urban, rural, and suburban schools in Connecticut and Wisconsin found that film was used frequently in the social studies, but often in relatively unstructured ways in their class. They reported that 75% of their participants used some portion of a Hollywood film either every day or a few times a week, and another 18% used Hollywood film once a week. Therefore over 92% of the teachers used some portion of a feature film at least once a week. The 84 teachers used 169 different films (feature and documentary) with the most used films being Glory (52% of all teachers), Amistad (41%), Schindler’s List (35%), and Saving Private Ryan (31%). This study also provided information about how the teachers used film. For example, 65% of the teachers showed the majority or entirety of films. Seventy percent of the time the teachers reported using film to “provide subject matter content” or to “develop empathy or bring a subject/time period to life.” Blake and Cain (2011), in their survey of 30 British history teachers from inner‐city and suburban state secondary schools in northeast England, found a similar high use of feature films among their participants, including 19 listing Schindler’s List, and 10–12 participants identifying Hope & Glory, All Quiet on the Western Front, Dances with Wolves, and Amistad. The teachers reported using primarily short clips from films as opposed to full‐length viewings. Films were viewed as being motivational for student interest, and also used largely to teach content and as representations of past events. Similar to Marcus and Stoddard (2007), Blake and Cain (2011) found that there was a low rate of using strategies like structured discussions after viewing the film. Donnelly’s (2014) study of teachers in Australia (n = 202) focused more specifically on teacher practice with film and the factors that impact this practice. Similar to Marcus and Stoddard (2007), she found the predominant motivations for using film were to encourage empathy (42%) and to bring history to life (30%). She also identified a number of factors that impacted this practice, including the teachers’ visual literacy, context of teaching, and their own conceptual knowledge of history and pedagogical skills. Two qualitative case studies provide even richer descriptions of teacher decision‐making and practice with film and inform several articles. Stoddard’s (2007, 2009, 2010, 2012) study of two teachers in a midsized Midwestern city over the course of a semester found a diverse use of films toward pedagogical goals, including film as a medium for developing empathy as perspective recognition (2007), as evidence for controversial issues discussions (2009), and as a way to deliver content for notes (2010, 2012). He found that the teachers’ use of documentary films as evidence for controversial issues discussions on the use of atomic bombs against Japan and the role of the U.S. in Vietnam to be problematic. The teachers wanted to engage students in activities that had them think critically and deliberate, but then also wanted the students to take on a particularly moral or political stance reflected in the films they selected (Stoddard, 2009). He found that the teachers used fictional film more thoughtfully as a medium for engaging students in exploring different perspectives during the study of totalitarianism and the Holocaust and the Great Depression. Similar to Stoddard’s study, Metzger and Suh’s (2008) case studies of two White teachers in suburban Michigan schools and their use of The Patriot (2000) and Roots (1977), respectively, found numerous positive and problematic aspects of the teachers’ practice with film. The positive aspects of the teachers’ practices included the power of the films as historical storytelling, the ability of the films to help students visualize the past and experience “reality,” and the way the films evoked feelings for other people and created emotional

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connections to the past. Metzger and Suh also found that the use of film helped the teachers move beyond the textbook and formal curriculum to include different perspectives such as in The Patriot, and as a way to include an African American historical perspective in the curriculum and to create emotional authenticity using Roots. However, they also discovered significant limitations with how the teachers used the films including not debriefing some of the narratives with students and not addressing painful historical issues or connecting the issues to today. Thus, Metzger and Suh conclude that while there are many benefits to using film, films can also be “dangerous because of their potential to convey historically problematic messages to students which neither they nor their teachers are prepared or willing to confront” (pp. 103–104). The studies about teacher practices and beliefs related to film represent an important step toward understanding why and how teachers use film and how those practices may influence student learning. These findings reinforce other studies that look at teacher practices and beliefs with other types of documents and methods and support the work of teacher educators in their effort to mentor effective teachers. However, our understanding of why and how social studies teachers use film needs further attention.

21.2.2  Students’ Sense‐Making of Film The scholarship focused on how students make sense of film as a text or as historical evidence is more established and developed than the studies in the previous section on teacher beliefs and practices with film. Over the past decade, studies with film have both built upon work in the field that examines how students “read” historical sources and also provided teachers with empirical evidence to support best practices. Much of the focus has been on how students view film as a historical source and their interpretations of what they have seen in relation to the historical record. Still, more needs to be done, particularly in the classroom context and in areas such as the role of emotion and affect with film in attempting to develop historical empathy or in the effect of media on student motivation. Seixas (1993, 1994) published one of the first and most influential studies. He was motivated by a belief that popular media influenced young people’s understanding of the past and by the lack of scholarship about how young people “read” historical films (Seixas, 1993). In particular, he uses a framework of historical consciousness to examine how students determine the “accuracy” of a historical film, if at all, and other questions about how they interpret film. Nine Canadian high school students participated in the study outside of regular classroom time. The students watched clips from Dances with Wolves (1990) and The Searchers (1956), answered interview questions, and completed a questionnaire. Data analysis included three lenses: (1) film viewing (e.g. aesthetic qualities of production, narrative, believability, relationship of film to reality); (2) the film-maker (film‐makers’ situated perspective, social and historical context); (3) student as film‐viewer (students’ situated perspective and interpretive framework). When viewing Dances with Wolves, Seixas (1993) found that students saw the film as a “window on reality” (p. 357), and they spoke about the film and a broader discussion of Native American–White relations seamlessly. Students also viewed the film favorably because they agreed with the interpretive stance and message of the film, particularly in contrast to The Searchers, with which they disagreed. For The Searchers, the students said



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the film used outdated cinematic conventions, had poor aesthetic qualities, and did not reflect reality, especially compared to the more modern (in terms of aesthetics and message) and engaging Dances with Wolves. Seixas concludes that “[t]he critical educational experience came, then, not from viewing an engaging contemporary film with a powerful historical message, but from following such a film with a dated interpretation of similar events” (p. 365). Seixas’ work was a catalyst for other research about how students use film to understand the past and provided some of the first data to help other researchers and teachers think about teaching with film in more sophisticated ways. Building from this Seixas study, and using similar methods, Meyerson and Paxton (2007) compared the similarities and differences between 26 Native American and White students in Wisconsin and how they read film as historical texts. They also used Dances with Wolves but then added Far and Away (1992) and three non‐film historical texts. Expanding on Seixas’ findings, Meyerson and Paxton sought to understand “how socio‐economic milieu influences what students learn from history movies and how this knowledge interacts with the history they learn (or fail to learn) from more traditional historical ‘texts’” (p. 168). Their findings included that Far and Away was seen as less trustworthy than Dances with Wolves by both groups, though in general the White students found all sources more trustworthy than Native American students did, except for the textbook which the Native American students found overwhelmingly more trustworthy. This study added to the knowledge base in the field by including the added dimensions of comparing groups of students with different heritage as well as comparing film to other sources of historical knowledge in order to examine student epistemic views of film as a source. Dimitriadis (2000) conducted a study to explore how young people mediate historical knowledge through popular culture with a focus on African American adolescents at a neighborhood community center in a small Midwestern city. He used the film Panther (1995) and conducted a series of focus groups. Dimitriadis draws on work in social studies education about how students interpret curricular texts and adds film to the list of texts studied. He also focuses on how young people engage with film in relation to their broader lives and events in society. Dimitriadis found that the use of the film made history relevant in the here and now, “transforming history from a noun to a verb. These young people used Panther to actualize history, mobilizing a specific discourse to deal with a profoundly unsettling event” (p. 61). He goes on to contend that we need to understand the importance of popular culture in young people’s lives more than the limits of popular culture, and he calls for more popular culture in school curricula. Gaudelli and Siegel (2010) expand the notion of media text from these previous studies by focusing on how young people view different types of media and how they represent the world. They asked two high school student focus groups (n = 21 total) to examine contemporary globally focused media, including clips from documentary and feature films related to the conflict in Iraq, the digital simulation Darfur is Dying, and blogs and short online videos. Their goal was to understand what information the young people took from the media and how they viewed it as a source for understanding the world. They found that their participants were highly engaged by the personal stories in clips from films such as Osama (2003) but found it challenging to interpret the veracity of claims in other media such as An Inconvenient Truth (2006). Finally, the participants reacted to the selected media by feeling the need to take action as a result of the messages from the media, especially media such as the simulation Darfur is Dying. Similar to the other studies, the participants

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struggled to contextualize the sources or identify the positionality of the media and how they were designed with particular values and objectives. These studies on student interpretation of media all provided important contributions by conducting studies that moved the field forward in considering how young people read and interpret film as historical texts and use film and other media to make sense of the past and today. However, all four studies took place outside of the classroom context without the reality of day‐to‐day teaching. Students’ views on  film as  historical source.  One of the most prominent issues studied in classroom‐based research on the role of media in social studies classes is how students in these classes view film as a historical source. Overall, there is a reported disconnect between students’ general views that feature film in particular does not warrant status as a legitimate historical source with the ways in which they talk about feature film or use it as an example in classroom discussions or in interviews. In two studies, Marcus, Paxton, and Meyerson (Marcus, 2007; Marcus, Paxton, & Meyerson, 2006) report on how students think about film as a historical source in the classroom and how students used films as evidence about the past. One study used mixed methods with 41 high school juniors during their World War II units in two classrooms in a school near San Francisco, CA (Marcus, Paxton, & Meyerson, 2006). The other study was a year‐long mixed‐methods research project with 46 high school students in two Connecticut classrooms, one urban and one suburban (Marcus, 2007). They found that compared to other sources of evidence (teachers, textbooks, documentary film, and p­rimary sources such as photographs and audio‐taped speeches), students believed feature films are less trustworthy as sources. However, despite the students’ beliefs that feature films were not authoritative sources or contained bias, they did not view the clips shown in class critically or question their legitimacy or trustworthiness as sources. Similar to what Seixas (1993, 1994) reported, students did little to challenge the films as legitimate historical sources without being confronted with contradictory evidence or narratives. Marcus (2007) further explains the effects of the use of film in his study on how students viewed it as a source. Though the students reported that feature films are not particularly trustworthy as historical sources, they viewed documentary films as quite trustworthy. However, he also notes that although it is often assumed that teaching students to critically analyze film would decrease their trust in it as a source, students in both classes in his study saw all film as more trustworthy at the end of the year. Marcus posited that this could be the result of the teachers’ reinforcement of the films as legitimate sources or the lack of c­omparing the films to other perspectives or contradictory evidence. He also found that students believed that films based on “real” people or events, ones with known actors and music, and ones where the students said they related with the characters, were seen as more trustworthy. Marcus’ study confirms the importance of teacher practices in using film as well as the influence of particular features or characteristics of the film. The issue of students’ inability to critically “read” documentary films also arose in studies by Stoddard (2009) and Damico, Baildon, Exter, and Guo (2009/2010). In his multicase study of two high school history classes, Stoddard found that students’ (n = 54) views on documentaries used in a history class as evidence for controversial issues discussions were related closely to their previous knowledge on a particular event or issue and on their views about that event. For example, some students viewed the same documentary film to be “for”



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or “against” a particular issue based largely on their own views and experience with the event. Further, students were swayed more often by documentaries because of their inclusion of “real people” and visual evidence, and thus were questioned less as sources unless they conflicted with pre‐held views on the event being portrayed. Damico, Baildon, Exter, and Guo (2009/2010) similarly found that the 70 ninth‐grade students they studied at an international school located in East Asia had difficulty critically viewing the online, documentary‐style “multimodal” text Loose Change, which espouses conspiracy theories regarding the U.S. government’s involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Similar to Stoddard, they found that students’ interpretation of the film was based on their prior knowledge of the attacks and views of the Bush administration, and that they were swayed by aspects of the video that they found affectively compelling and authoritative (e.g., narrator voice, visual evidence). They also, however, raised questions about perceived gaps in the film and counterarguments that were present as well as the perceived authorship—reflecting some aspects of metacognitive knowledge (p. 279). Overall, both studies concluded that more work needs to be done to both understand, and potentially encourage, students’ epistemological understanding of documentary style film and ability to evaluate the credibility of visual texts. Film for authentic learning: Historical inquiry, empathy, and politics.  The final category of studies focuses on using media for authentic teaching and learning, specifically for historical inquiry, the development of historical empathy, and the dynamic nature of politics. These studies make important initial contributions to issues of scaffolding for student inquiry using film (Woelders, 2007a, 2007b) and the potential and limits of using film to engage students in empathy (Metzger, 2012; Stoddard, 2007). Two studies focused specifically on scaffolding instruction with film for middle grades students. Woelders’ (2007a) action research study near Vancouver, Canada, on the use of film in a unit on medieval civilization focused on 29 eighth‐grade students’ abilities to interpret films as historical accounts alongside other sources. He used the feature film Joan of Arc (1999), the documentary film Islam: Empire of Faith (2002), as well as other d­ocuments, and provided scaffolding through K‐W‐L charts and anticipation guides. Woelders concludes that films, when compared with other historical accounts and when well‐scaffolded, can be authentically used by students to understand knowledge construction and to critically evaluate media representations they experience in their everyday lives. In addition to heavily scaffolded activities, Gersten, Baker, Smith‐Johnson, Dimino, and Peterson(2006) found that using short clips of the documentary film Eyes on the Prize (1991) along with scaffolding was effective in helping middle grades students with learning disabilities more effectively understand complex historical content within general education settings. The study was conducted in a midsized city in the northwest U.S. with 76 students of whom 33 were diagnosed with a learning disability. Students without disabilities also performed better in the class sections using the short film clips versus the text‐based comparison classes focused on the same curricular content. This study was largely limited to measuring comprehension of the history presented in the film but also provides insights into the potential of visual texts and the potential motivational effect of media. Stoddard (2007) and Metzger (2012) examined the role of film as a medium for developing empathy, with both studying classes where film was used to study the Holocaust. Stoddard found some successful aspects of practice, such as using films like The Wave

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(1981) and Swing Kids (1993) to help students recognize the perspectives of Nazi perpetrators, non‐Nazi German bystanders, and the different groups of victims in terms of some of the decisions they made. However, he also found that there were limits on the ability of students (n = 54) to understand the experiences of victims or perpetrators and that d­ocumentary films on the Holocaust in particular were both powerful but potentially p­roblematic in leading some students to believe they could really understand the events and experiences of survivors included in the films. Metzger’s (2012) qualitative case study with one teacher and three students on the use of the film The Pianist (2002) was guided by the question: “What can historical empathy look like when enacted as a learning goal in an actual classroom, and what potential complications or tensions might teaching for historical empathy using a dramatic film raise for learning and applying content knowledge about historical context of an emotionally d­ifficult topic?” (p.  390). He found that the film helped bridge a gap for students between “numbers and stuff ” and “actually seeing it happen” (p. 398). The film moved the students from intellectually understanding the Holocaust to confronting it emotionally. At the same time he found that the power of the film perhaps led some of the students to believe they truly know what it was like to live through that experience and thus they “over‐empathize” (p. 407) where the emotional aspect of empathy blinds students to the historical context and even to learning the content of the film. Metzger concludes: “[t]hat these students’ conclusions were so broad as to almost overlook historical context altogether suggests it may be difficult for teachers to appreciate or control the extent of the emotional, visceral influence of movies” (p. 405). History is not the only subject where media is viewed as a way to make learning more authentic. In their study of 51 students in two high school government classes in the eastern U.S., Journell and Buchanan (2013) found that a teacher’s use of the series The West Wing (1999–2006), about a fictional White House, was both motivating and helpful for developing students’ understanding of dynamic and authentic political processes. Along with political media in the form of television news and political commentary, political ads, and issues‐based documentary films, Journell and Buchanan’s study shows how these media may be used to make learning about politics more authentic when compared to textbook based lessons on political processes. They also argued that this media intervention increased participants’ abilities to be informed and critical consumers of politically themed media. Studies over the past two decades on how students interpret and learn from media in the social studies differ greatly from Splaine’s (1991) research on the impact of mass media. The methods and frameworks have evolved along with the increased use of media in social studies classrooms. However, these studies, like those on teacher practice, often involve small groups of participants or are in case study settings. They also rely heavily on research methods drawn from the historical thinking line of research, which are both helpful but also limited in many ways when measuring the impact of media versus the use of other types of historical evidence (e.g., documents) or the textbook representation of political processes.

21.3  Directions for Future Research The work we reviewed for this chapter addresses many of the issues raised by Splaine (1991). Theoretical frameworks have emerged that allow for the interpretation of media and their impact on teaching and learning in the social studies, and these frameworks continue to



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evolve to address new lines of inquiry. The analysis of the content of media has become more sophisticated, although as the work by Squire (2006) and Raphael, et al, (2010) suggest, these analyses’ frameworks will need to continue to evolve to critique and interpret the more dynamic game, online, and social media environments and learner interactions with media. In particular, researchers will need to seek to understand issues of representation and designed experience in an environment of media convergence where the lines between media as well as between media consumer and media producer are blurred. In addition to frameworks, the data generation and interpretation methods have also addressed many of the concerns of Splaine (1991). As a result of methods drawn from sociocultural and cognitive work in history education, these studies incorporate participant observation, interviews, talk‐out‐loud protocols using video elicitation, questionnaires, and some limited measures that attempt to interpret or measure the impact of emotion or difficult knowledge. Many of these studies took place within the complex environments of schools and classes and provide insights into the role media play in these classes. These methods and interpretive frames from the work in history education have led to a better understanding of how young people interpret film as history and view it as a source, and have led to the identification of the epistemological and ideological barriers to a more interpretive or critical pedagogy with film on the part of teachers. Of course, there is still much to be done in this evolving and rapidly growing area of inquiry that has yet to mature. In order to better understand the role of media in social studies teaching and curriculum on a national scale, a more comprehensive survey could be used with a national sample of teachers to provide insights into the media teachers are using in the classroom, what perspectives these media contain or how they are used to connect with others outside of the class, and the media‐focused pedagogical strategies that are employed. This may be tied to the national surveys on educational technology as well. For example, is the trend of teachers using film and media to engage students in challenging or difficult content prominent in all schools? Or are media largely viewed as a more motivating way to “transmit” content to students? In order to fully understand the designed experiences and ideological worlds of film, games, and online sites in which students engage, we continue to develop analytical frameworks for examining these environments beyond any notion of content they may contain. This means going beyond the diegesis of the film, game, or media world and engaging with the context of production and influences on the design. This may include models for analyzing Twitter narratives or the values and modeling embedded in Minecraft, or for exploring the potential affordances and limits of understanding a historic site represented using augmented reality. In addition, measures and analytical frames need to be further developed to understand the role and impact of emotion and perspective that is unique to media as well as to better understand the claimed increase in student motivation. More effective measures or modes of data generation and analysis also are needed to understand the epistemic understandings of teachers and students regarding how media serve as sources of knowledge for understanding history, politics, and other areas within the social studies. The work by Damico, Baildon, Exter, and Guo (2009/2010) represents a possible starting point. One of the most effective ways of helping students to develop this kind of epistemic view of media and skill set of analyzing media is through the production of media and reflection on the decisions and processes that occur during production. Too often media education

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and educational technologies are separated out, but there are many strong and compelling reasons for this bifurcation to end and for media and technology to be viewed as interconnected. But what does this also mean for data visualization media using GIS data or augmented reality imaging? How do students view these as sources of information? Would having students create these media as parts of inquiry activities help them to develop more sophisticated and critically reflective views? This is an area that has not been really explored outside of an educational technology perspective, and then usually emphasizes the production of historical narratives using media versus the construction of meaning in the media itself and students’ understanding of media as a result. Finally, while there have been many models proposed for effective critical media literacy or historical film literacy pedagogy, these models have rarely been studied or developed through quasi‐experimental or design‐based research studies. Without this next empirical step in these lines of inquiry, there is little chance of illustrating the effectiveness of these techniques or working to take them to scale across state or national education systems. Of course, given contextual and cultural factors, there will never be one model of engaging students in developing critical media literacy or historical film literacy, but larger-scale studies (or meta‐analysis of many case studies) would provide us better insights into which models may work best for which students in particular settings. This work would, of course, need to take place in conjunction with colleagues in educational technologies, and within the policy frameworks that establish standards and curriculum, as well as the forms of assessment used to drive instruction. We also need to examine the course requirements for preservice teachers and where media education fits in— be it in methods courses or as part of their prerequisite course requirements in order to address the need for more fully developed teacher epistemology of media. The research on media in social studies is as dynamic and diverse as the evolving and increasing role that media has in teaching and learning social studies itself. We should be encouraged by the sophistication of many of these studies and the lines of inquiry that have emerged. As the body of research grows in these areas, it will be easier to systematically build from previous work and collaborate on interpretive frameworks and data generation methods and measures. Just as different media continue to evolve and c­onverge, this area of research will continue to develop over the next two decades and beyond due to the ever‐changing technology landscape and the power of the moving image in society.

References Afflerbach, P., & B. VanSledright. (2001). Hath! Doth! What? Middle graders reading innovative history text. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 44 (8), 696–707. Ashby, R., & Lee, P. (1987). Children’s concepts of empathy and understanding in history. In C. Portal (Ed.), The history curriculum for teachers, 62–88. London, UK: Falmer Press. Barton, K. C., & Levstik, L. S. (2003). Teaching history for the common good. New York, NY: Routledge. Blake, A., & Cain, K. (2011). History at risk? A survey into the use of mainstream popular film in the British secondary school history classroom. International Journal of Historic Learning, Teaching and Research, 10(1), 88–98. Briley, R. (2002). Teaching film and history. Organization of American Historians Magazine of History, 16(4), 3–6.



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Briley, R. (2007). Doing the right thing by teaching film in the American history classroom: Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989) as a case study. In A. S. Marcus (Ed.), Celluloid blackboard: Teaching history with film, 217–34. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Britzman, D. P. (1998). Lost subjects, contested objects: Toward a psychoanalytic inquiry of learning. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Brown, J. G. (2007). Teaching about genocide in a new millennium. Social Education, 71(1), 21–23. Buckingham, D. (2000). The making of citizens: Young people, news and politics. London, UK: Routledge. Cates, W. M. (1990). Helping students learn to think critically: Detecting and analyzing bias in films. The Social Studies, 81(1), 15–18. Clegg, A. A. (1991). Games and simulations in social studies education. In J. P. Shaver (Ed.), Handbook of research on social studies teaching and learning, 523–528. New York, NY: Macmillan. Considine, D. M. (1989). The video boom’s impact on social studies: Implications, applications, and resources. The Social Studies, 80(6), 229–234. Damico, J. S., Baildon, M., Exter, M., & Guo, S. (2009/2010). Where we read from matters: Disciplinary literacy in a ninth‐grade social studies classroom. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 53(4), 325–335. Dimitriadis, G. (2000). “Making history go” at a local community center: Popular media and the construction of historical knowledge among African American youth. Theory & Research In Social Education, 28(1), 40–64. Dobbs, C. M. (1987). Hollywood movies from the golden age: An important resource for the c­lassroom. Teaching History: A Journal of Methods, 12(1), 10–16. Donnelly, D. (2014). Using feature film in the teaching of history: The practitioner decision‐making dynamic. Journal of International Social Studies, 4(1), 17–27. Fiske, J. (1990). Introduction to communication studies. (Rev. 2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Garrett, H. J. (2011). Routing and rerouting of difficult knowledge: Social studies teachers encounter When the Levees Broke. Theory & Research in Social Education, 39(3), 320–347. Garrett, H. J., & Schmeichel, M. (2012) Using The Daily Show in social studies. Social Education, 76(4), 211–215. Gaudelli, W., Crocco, M., & Hawkins, A. (2012). Documentaries, outtakes, and digital archives in teaching difficult knowledge and the Vietnam War. Education and Society, 30(2), 5–25. Gaudelli, W., & Siegel, B. (2010), seeking knowledge through global media. Curriculum Inquiry, 40(5), 582–599. doi:10.1111/j.1467‐873X.2010.00512.x Gersten, R., Baker, S., Smith‐Johnson, J., Dimino, J., & Peterson, A. (2006). Eyes on the Prize: Teaching complex historical content to middle school students with learning disabilities. Exceptional Children, 72(3), 264–280. Giroux, H. A. (2002). Breaking into the movies: Film and the culture of politics. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing. Goldstein, P. (1995). Teaching Schindler’s List. Social Education 59(6), 362–364. Hess, D. (2007, May/June). From “Banished” to “Brother Outsider,” “Miss Navajo” to “An Inconvenient Truth”: Documentary films as perspective‐laden narratives. Social Education, 71(4), 194–199. Hobbs, R. (1998). The seven great debates in the media literacy movement. Journal of Communication, 48(1), 16–32. Hobbs, R. (1999). The uses (and misuses) of mass media resources in secondary schools. Washington, DC: Eric Document (No. ED439452) Hobbs, R. (2006). Non‐optimal use of video in the classroom. Learning, Media and Technology, 31(1), 35–50. Hobbs, R. (2007). Reading the media: Media literacy in high school English. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Hoechsmann, M., & Poyntz, S. (2011). Media literacies: A critical introduction. Oxford, UK: Wiley‐Blackwell.

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Horton, T., & Clausen, K. (2015). Extending the history curriculum: Exploring World War II victors, vanquished, and occupied using European film. The History Teacher, 48(2), 321–338. Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York, NY: New York University Press. Johnson, J., & Vargas, C. (1994). The smell of celluloid in the classroom: Five great movies that teach. Social Education, 58(2), 109–113. Journell, W., & Buchanan, L. B. (2013). Fostering political understanding using The West Wing: Analyzing the pedagogical benefits of film in high school civics classrooms. The Journal of Social Studies Research, 37(2), 67–83. Justice, B. (2003). Historical fiction to historical fact: Gangs of New York and the whitewashing of h­istory. Social Education, 67(4), 213–215. Kellner, D., & Share, J. (2007). Critical media literacy, democracy, and the reconstruction of education. In D. Macedo & S. R. Steinberg (Eds.), Media literacy: A reader (pp. 3–23). New York, NY: Peter Lang. Kraig, B. (1983). Visions of the past: History in the movies. Georgia Social Science Journal, 14(1), 1–6. Lee, P., & Ashby, R. (2000). Progression in historical understanding among students ages 7–14. In P. Stearns, P. Seixas, & S. Wineburg (Eds.), Knowing, teaching, and learning history: National and international perspectives (pp. 7–14). New York, NY: New York University Press. Lee, T. (2010). Ten top films for teaching about China today. Social Education, 74(1), 49–51. Levstik, L., & Tyson, C. (Eds.). (2008). Handbook of research in social studies education. New York, NY: Routledge. Manfra, M., & Stoddard, J. (2008). Powerful and authentic digital media and strategies for teaching genocide and the Holocaust. The Social Studies, 99(6), 260–264. Mangram, J. A. (2008). Either/or rules: Social studies teachers’ talk about media and popular culture. Theory & Research in Social Education, 36(2), 32–60. Marcus, A. (2005). “It is as it was”: Feature film in the history classroom. The Social Studies, 96: 61–7. Marcus, A. (2007). Students making sense of the past: “It’s almost like living the event.” In A. S. Marcus (Ed.), Celluloid blackboard: Teaching history with film (pp. 121–166). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Marcus, A., Metzger, S., Paxton, R., & Stoddard, J. 2010. Teaching history with film: Strategies for secondary social studies. New York, NY: Routledge. Marcus, A. S., & Monaghan, M. (2009). Tasting the fluoride: The potential of feature film to enhance the instruction of the women’s movement. Social Studies Research and Practice, 4(1), 13–30. Marcus, A., Paxton, R., & Meyerson, P. (2006). “The reality of it all”: History students read the movies. Theory & Research in Social Education, 34(3), 516–552. Marcus, A., & Stoddard, J. (2007, May/June). Tinsel town as teacher: Hollywood film in the high school history classroom. The History Teacher, 40(3), 303–330. Mason, L., & Metzger, S. A. (2012). Reconceptualizing media literacy in the social studies: A pragmatist critique of the NCSS position statement on media literacy. Theory & Research in Social Education, 40(4), 436–455. Matthews, S. A. (2009). Disrupting The Amazing Race: Education, exploration, and exploitation in reality television. Theory & Research in Social Education, 37(2), 247–272. Maynard R. A. (1971). The celluloid curriculum: How to use movies in the classroom. New York, NY: Hayden Book Company. Metzger, S. (2007). Evaluating the educational potential of Hollywood history movies. In A. Marcus (Ed.), Celluloid blackboard: Teaching history with film (pp. 63–98). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Metzger, S. A. (2010). Maximizing the educational power of history movies in the classroom. The Social Studies, 101(3), 127–136. Metzger, S. (2012). The borders of historical empathy: students encounter the Holocaust through film. Journal of Social Studies Research, 36(4), 387–410.



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Metzger, S., and Suh, Y. (2008). Significant or safe? Two cases of instructional uses of history feature films. Theory & Research in Social Education 36: 88–109. Meyerson, P., & Paxton, R. (2007). Stronger than the classroom: Movies, texts, and conceptual change (or lack thereof) amidst sociocultural groups. In A. S. Marcus (Ed.), Celluloid blackboard: Teaching history with film (pp. 167–185). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. O’Connor, J. (1988). History in images/images in history: Reflections on the importance of film and television study for an understanding of the past. American Historical Review, 93: 1200–1209. O’Connor, J. (1990). Image as artifact: The historical analysis of film and television. Malabar: Robert E. Krieger. Paris, M. (1997). Integrating film and television into social studies instruction. Bloomington, IN: Eric Digest: Eric Clearinghouse for Social Studies/Science Education. Pultorak, D. (1992). Problems of perception of audio‐visual information in studying history. The History Teacher, 25(3), 313–319. Raphael, C., Bachen, C., Lynn, K., Baldwin‐Philippi, J., & McKee, K. (2010). Games for civic learning: A conceptual framework and agenda for research and design. Games and Culture, 5(2), 199–235. Rosenstone, R. (1995). Visions of the past: the challenge of film to our idea of history. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rosenstone, R. (2002). The visual media and historical knowledge. In L. Kramer & S. Maza (Eds.), A companion to western historical thought (pp. 466–481). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Rosenstone, R. (2004). Inventing historical truth on the silver screen. Cineaste, 29(2), 29–33. Rosenstone, R. (2006). History on film/film on history. Harlow, UK: Pearson Education Limited. Russell III, W. (2012). The art of teaching social studies with film. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 85(4), 157–164. Russell, III, W., & Benedict, W. (2012). The reel history of the world: Teaching world history with major motion pictures. Social Education, 76(1), 22–28. Sabato, G. (1992). Movies bring history to life. Take it from experience. Social Studies Review, 32, 83–88. Scheiner‐Fisher, C., & Russell, III, W. (2012). Using historical films to promote gender equity in the history curriculum. The Social Studies, 103(6), 221–225. Seixas, P. (1993). Popular film and young people’s understanding of the history of Native American– White relations. History Teacher, 26 (3), 351–370. Seixas, P. (1994). Confronting the moral frames of popular film: Young people respond to historical revisionism. American Journal of Education, 102(3), 261–285. Shaver, J. P. (Ed.). (1991). Handbook of research on social studies teaching and learning. New York, NY: Macmillan. Shohat, E., & Stam, R. (1994). Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the media. New York, NY: Routledge. Splaine, J. (1991). The mass media as an influence on social studies. In J. Shaver (Ed), Handbook of research on social studies teaching and learning (pp. 300–309). New York, NY: Macmillan. Squire, K. (2006). From content to context: Videogames as designed experience. Educational Researcher, 35(8), 19–29. Stoddard, J. (2007). Attempting to understand the lives of others: Film as a tool for developing h­istorical empathy. In A. S. Marcus (Ed.), Celluloid blackboard: Teaching history with film (pp. 187–214). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Stoddard, J. (2009, June). The ideological implications of using “educational” film to teach controversial events. Curriculum Inquiry, 39(3), 407–433. Stoddard, J. (2010). The competing roles of epistemology and ideology in teachers’ pedagogy with historical media. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 16(1), 133–151. Stoddard, J. (2012). Film as a “thoughtful” medium for teaching history. Learning, Media, and Technology, 37(3), 271–288.

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Stoddard, J. (2013). Hillary: The Movie, the History Channel, and the challenge of the documentary for democratic education. Teachers College Record, 115(3), 1–32. Stoddard, J., & Marcus, A. (2006, Spring). The burden of historical representation: Race, freedom and “educational” Hollywood film. Film & History, 36(1), 26–35. Stoddard, J., Marcus, A., & Hicks, D. (2014). The burden of historical representation: The case of/for indigenous film. The History Teacher, 48(1), 9–36. Toplin, R. (1996). History by Hollywood: The use and abuse of the American past. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Toplin, R. (2002). Invigorating history: Using film in the classroom. Magazine of History, 16(4), 5–6. VanSledright, B. (2002). Confronting history’s interpretive paradox while teaching fifth graders to investigate the past. American Educational Research Journal, 39(4), 1089–1115. Walker, T. (2006). Historical literacy: Reading history through film. The Social Studies, 97(1), 30–34. Wineburg, S. S. (1991). On the reading of historical texts: Notes on the breach between school and academy. American Educational Research Journal, 28(3), 495–519. Wineburg, S. (2001). Historical thinking and other unnatural acts: Charting the future of teaching the past. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Wineburg, S., Mosborg, S., & Porat, D. (2001). What can Forrest Gump tell us about students’ historical understanding? Social Education, 65(1), 55–58. Wineburg, S., Mosborg, S., Porat, D., & Duncan, A. (2007a). Forrest Gump and the future of teaching the past. Phi Delta Kappan, 89(3), 168–177. Wineburg, S., Mosborg, S., Porat, D., & Duncan, A. (2007b). Common belief and the cultural curriculum: An intergenerational study of historical consciousness. American Educational Research Journal, 44(1), 40–76. Wise, H. (1939). Motion pictures as an aid in teaching American history. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Woelders, A. (2007a). Using film to conduct historical inquiry with middle school students. The History Teacher, 40(3), 363–395. Woelders, A. (2007b). “It makes you think more when you watch things”: Scaffolding for historical inquiry using film in the middle school classroom. The Social Studies, 98(4), 145–152.

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The Diffusion of Technology into the Social Studies Cheryl Mason Bolick

When Shaver’s (1991) Handbook of Social Studies Teaching and Learning was published, technology was just beginning to infiltrate our schools and society. The number of computers connected to the Internet hit one million as non‐regulated commercial use of the Internet became available in 1991. Simultaneously, computers were making a rapid entrée into K–12 schools. In 1981 approximately 18% of K–12 schools had one or more computers for classroom instruction (Office of Technology Assessment, 1988). By 1991, nearly 98% of K–12 school buildings had at least one computer; however, computers in the classroom were still quite limited (Mageau, 1991). In 1991, social studies teachers fortunate enough to have a computer in their classrooms might have been using the computers for administrative work such as word processing a document or averaging grades in a spreadsheet. Students may have used software programs such as KidPix or Oregon Trail in the social studies classroom (Diem & Berson, 2010). Today, nearly every teacher has computers or tablets in their classroom and the web‐based applications and downloadable apps are virtually unlimited. Warschauer (2003) argues that this “ability to access, adapt, and create new knowledge using new information and communication technologies is critical to social inclusion in today’s era” (p. 8). Today, nearly 90% of American adults access the Internet and the majority believe it is a positive influence on their lives (Pew, 2014; Thieman, O’Brien, VanFossen, & Berson, 2013). Likewise, 97% of U.S. teachers report they have one or more computers in their classroom and the ratio of students to computers is 5.3 to 1 (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2010). Technology has disrupted the way we teach, learn, socialize, recreate, and go about everyday activities. Technology has also considerably altered the way social s­cientists engage in their daily work. It is interesting to consider the changes in the fields of social sciences and ponder how they may relate to changes in the field of social studies education. Historians report that technology is reshaping their scholarly endeavors. Results of a survey conducted by The American Historical Association report “most [historians] are The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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deeply immersed in new media and thinking critically about its effect on the way they do history” (Townsend, 2010). Historians report using technology in their research to conduct basic online searches, scanning, data analysis, and online publishing. Economists likewise use technology to conduct research, analyze data, and online p­ublish. Because of the ubiquitous nature of technology in our society, economists perpetually are exam­ ining the impact of technology. Similarly, technology tools such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Global Positioning Systems (GPS), online maps, and Remote Sensing play an increasingly valuable role in the work geographers do as they conduct research. We know that our elected officials are continually seeking new ways to use technology to stay connected to their constituents. The majority of today’s legislatures use social media sites (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2014). These online legislatures are using social media for ­reasons such as: campaigning, position taking, policy statements, public relations, personal, and  other (Greenberg, 2014). Their online presence is so ubiquitous that it “is now part of ­governing and managing and not just a part of politicking and campaigning” (Greenberg, 2014). Over the past three decades, seminal reviews of technology in social studies have been published (Berson, 1996; Ehman & Glenn, 1991; Swan & Hofer, 2008; Whitworth & Berson, 2003). In many ways these reviews are “historical documents” that shed light on the era in which they were written (Hicks, Lee, Berson, Bolick, & Diem, 2014). Ehman and Glenn’s chapter (1991) set the initial stage for the field of technology and social studies literature with their review of the “use and impact of interactive technology on social studies education” and their commentary on research methods used to study technology and social studies. Whitworth and Berson (2003) conducted an extensive review of social studies and tech­ nology literature. They discovered a dramatic increase in the number of publications tout­ ing the uses of technology in the social studies classroom. Yet, they also found a scarcity of research as well as a disconnect between the uses of technology and the goals of social studies education. Their piece concluded by calling for, “research on the use and effective­ ness of technology in social studies classrooms that enhances social studies education (according to the NCSS standards) that goes beyond merely accessing information on the Internet.” Adhering to this call, Swan and Hofer (2008) focused their chapter on published research from the field. Based on their review of the research, Swan and Hofer echoed the call for more work to be done that addresses the use of technology as a “cognitive support for various thinking processes in a diversity of school settings” (p. 322). As the noted reviews have been published, the definition of technology has evolved. New technologies have emerged and as technology has become more ubiquitous the definition of “technology” has developed over time. The Association for Education and Communications and Technology (AECT) has an entire committee devoted to definitions and terminology in the field. In the Shaver (1991) handbook, Ehman and Glenn defined interactive techno­ logies as “computer controlled programs and associated media such as electronic data bases, video discs, and compact discs” (p. 513). Swan and Hofer (2008) later built upon the Ehman and Glenn definition and defined technology as “computer or networked tools and resources that directly support the teaching and learning of social studies” (p. 308). The AECT definition and terminology committee conceptualizes educational t­echnology as: Educational technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological processes and resources. (Januszewski & Molenda, 2008, p. 1)



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This chapter will build off previous examinations and extend the review to include n­etworked tools and resources such as the now ubiquitous tablets and mobile phones. The intent of this chapter is to present an overview of the literature. I will then examine the literature through the lens of a paradigm shift over time. Diffusion theory will be presented as a way to frame the integration of technology over time. Finally, I will discuss a research critique which will lead to the presentation of a new model for technology integration.

22.1 Methodology The literature search included sources from the 1960s to the present in which the focus was on technology innovation or technology integration into the social studies curriculum. Although sources as early as the 1960s were reviewed, the primary publications were selected from the years between 1985–2014 because of the great changes in technology and the immersion of new technologies in schools during this period. The literature was specif­ ically reviewed to address the question, “How does the literature inform what we know about technology’s use in the social studies classroom?” Initial searches of the Education Full text database, the ERIC database, and the ProQuest dissertation database were conducted. Selected peer‐reviewed journals such as the journals published by the American Educational Research Association, journals specific to the field of technology and education, such as the Journal of Research on Technology and Education, the Journal of Educational Computing Research, and the Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education Journal were reviewed. To specifically address trends in the field of social studies education, articles in Theory & Research in Social Education from 2000 (Vol. 28, no. 1) to the Winter 2014 edition (Vol. 39, no. 1) were analyzed for their focus on technology. The review started with the 2000 edition because this marked both the first  ­technology‐themed Theory & Research in Social Education and the beginning of ­regularly published technology‐related articles. Additionally online searches of Google Scholar and JSTOR were conducted as well as reviews of other scholarly journals and texts, technical and federal reports, and reference lists from technology and education journals. The published research in the social studies field has significant limitations. The broader field of technology in K–12 schools offers large quantitative studies using survey data that provide large‐scale information about the use of technology in schools and a way to measure changes in technology use over time. While quantitative studies of technology use in schools do provide an overview, they are deficient in providing a contextual understanding of teachers’ use of technology that qualitative methodologies afford. Empirical research using case study methods also has been prevalent in the past several years. The nature of this type of research, however, is limited to small populations and overwhelmingly investigates teachers and schools who exemplify best practices, those involved in educational reform, or technology use as a vehicle of reform. An additional limitation is the fundamental truth that technology constantly changes at a rapid pace (Berson & Balyta, 2004). Given the fast pace with which new technologies emerge, it is difficult for the scholarship to keep up. With each new technology, a period of innovation must pass for the technology to be introduced. Then, researchers must design and implement studies to investigate the effects of the new technology. Finally, the researchers must prepare and submit a publication for review. The layers of academic

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publishing result in a delay in publication of research studies on the newest technologies. For this reason, unpublished dissertations offer one method of informing the field of current research and innovation in a more rapid process. An overview of the field will be discussed in the following section.

22.2  Description of the Field An analysis of social studies articles in Contemporary Issues of Technology and Teacher Education (CITE) from the inaugural issue in 2000 to the 2014 issue (Vol. 14, issue 3) reveal conceptual pieces (28) are the most published articles. Qualitative articles closely follow with 24 publications. In stark contrast, the journal has only two mixed‐method studies and eight quantitative studies. From WebQuests to social media, over 20 different types of t­echnology are represented across the publications. Digital primary source sites are the most discussed technology tool during the past 14 years. CITE published authors represent 47 different academic institutions. Reviewing these articles makes it clear that scholars in the field are attempting to con­ ceptualize and theorize. “While the call for technology integration into the social studies classroom is clear, the application of technology within the realm of social studies has t­raditionally been theoretically underdeveloped” (Doolittle & Hicks, 2003, p. 72). A review of the 28 technology‐related articles published in Theory & Research in Social Education from 2000 to 2011 demonstrates a change from the computer‐assisted instruction focused on drill activities to a vision for educational transformation by integrating tech­ nology into the curriculum. As the field has matured, the number of empirical studies has increased over the years. Without a doubt, qualitative methodologies still dominate the research methods being used to investigate the use of technology in the classrooms. Digital primary sources are the most discussed technology tool throughout both the CITE and Theory & Research in Social Education articles. The majority of the articles examine teacher or preservice teachers’ use of technology. Few articles examine student learning with technology tools. Overall, the literature tends to be disjointed and lacks a substantive body of literature to build upon. Guidelines for using technology in teacher education were originally published in 2000 (Mason et al., 2000). The authors recently published an updated version of the guidelines (Hicks et  al., 2014). The presentation of the new principles and the discussion shed an introspective view on how the field has changed and will continue to change. Table 22.1 presents the two sets of principles. The authors reflect upon the years that passed between the two publications: … during this time we have grown older and maybe more critically aware of the hypo cycles and techno‐romance of emerging technologies. We have seen and experienced unprecedented developments in, and access to, digital technologies that now more than ever permeate (and blur) our private and public lives, digital technologies that instantaneously connect us to networks of information (that we can consume and create) and people at multiple scales across multi institutions. (Hicks et al., 2014)

The authors of the guidelines discuss that the revised standards come not only from the changing landscape of technology and schooling, but also in changing focus from



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Table 22.1  Comparison of the original and updated principles (Hicks et al., 2014) 2000 principles Extend learning beyond what could be done without technology. Introduce technology in context. Include opportunities for students to study relationships among science, technology, and society. Foster the development of the skills, knowledge, and participation as good citizens in a democratic society. Contribute to the research and evaluation of social studies and technology.

2014 principles Use technologies to promote effective student learning. Introduce technology in context(s). Removed. Cultivate and support a variety of civic practices with technology. Contribute to the research and evaluation of social studies and technology.

“learning with or through digital technology” toward the “quality and forms of learning that may be enabled through access to digital technologies” (Hicks et  al., 2014, p. 7). They acknowledge the field is making a move to focus more on student learning. They encourage teacher educators to look beyond the technology itself and consider how teachers can use technology to support student learning. The revised guidelines exemplify how technology is constantly evolving and prompting scholars to reconsider not only the practical integration of technology into teaching and learning but also how to study and examine the integration of technology. This shift prompted the development of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK). Simply stated, TPACK acknowledges that just because a teacher is technology proficient in their personal life, they may not be proficient in using technology to teach social studies content. Mishra and Koehler’s (2006) TPACK framework has served as a springboard for numerous pieces that examine TPACK in the social studies classroom. Hicks et al. describe their second principle by stating that TPACK is a “theoretical space where teachers reason about how to best use technology in their instruction” (Hicks et al., 2014, p. 9; Lee, 2008). The third principle was reworded to emphasize the active civic practices that we engage in formally and informally via technology. The introduction of Web 2.0 tools has drastically transformed the field by including literacy skills as being essential for citizenship (Hicks et al., 2014; Warshauer, 2003). The final principle regarding research remained unchanged. However, the authors encourage researchers to focus their efforts on student learning and deep processing across the social studies disciplines. Reflecting upon the revised changes, it becomes apparent that different paradigms are represented in the field.

22.3  Different Paradigms, Different Representations After reviewing the body of literature, it became evident there was a gradual paradigm shift in how technology is used and viewed in the social studies classroom. To better understand the nature of technology and the social studies, paradigms about technology and social studies teaching and learning must be explored. In their discussion about

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Table 22.2  Paradigms of teaching and learning Postpositivism

Interpretivism

Critical theory

Ontology

Realist, reality is external to human Social Realist, external to mind mind construction Methodology Scientific method is only source of Collaborative Subjective inquiry, based knowledge on idealogy and values Epistemology Objectivism: Correspondence theory, Subjectivist “Subjective” objectivism there are universal discoverable facts

p­aradigms and frames in distance education, Heinecke, Dawson, and Willis (2001) insist that the scholarly focus should go beyond the technology itself and focus on theoretical foundations: The important point is that the technology does not define what can be done with it in an educational setting. It is just one component in the discussion. Fundamental questions that are often associated with philosophy and psychological theories of learning must also be included in the discussion. (p. 295)

A paradigm is a “comprehensive belief system that guides research and practice in a field” (Heienecke et al., 2001, p. 295). There are numerous paradigms and frames in education. This chapter will explore three dominant paradigms: postpositivism, interpretivism, and critical theory. Each of these paradigms has unique perspectives on the nature of reality (ontology), nature of knowledge (epistemology), and nature of methodology (Heinecke et  al., 2001). These theories are used to highlight the unique and different natures t­echnology applications have in the classroom. Table 22.2 outlines the unique nature of each paradigm. The majority of works from the 1980s and 1990s in social studies and technology are based on postpositivism. Postpositivism embraces the concept that the scientific method will guide learners to master universal truths. Teaching and learning in the postpositivism classroom are based on “mastery learning, programmed instruction, direct instruction, symbolic simulations, expert systems, and tutorials” (Heinecke et al., 2001, p. 306). As a result of this philosophy, software for drill and practice dominated the early market of tech­ nology and social studies. However, little research was conducted on the effectiveness of tools (Ehman & Glenn, 1991). Indeed, a review of technology‐related articles published in Social Education demonstrates the idea that early work in the field was dominated by efficiency and transmissions of facts (Bolick, McGlinn, & Siko, 2005). Diem (1983) con­ tended the early dialogue around social studies and technology focused on “first generation problems.” He described issues related to software literacy and hardware as the first round of issues to be addressed. He calls for the field to move towards “second generation p­roblems” that focus on the cultural and social impacts of technology and cybersecurity. Diem argues that a focus beyond software literacy and hardware will bring about more s­tudent‐centered learning. The field has made steady progress towards using technology to facilitate more active and student‐centered learning. Research in the field has moved from a postpositivist para­ digm to constructivism over time. Ehman and Glenn (1991) reviewed the literature at the



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time and determined that there were two perspectives of understanding technology use in the social studies: “computers as teachers’ assistants and as students’ learning tools” (p. 516): As teachers’ assistants, computers can be used to promote students’ knowledge and skills through the use of drill and practice software, tutorial programs, and simulations. As students’ learning tools, computers can be used to foster critical thinking and problem solving through student use of data bases, spread sheets, and electronic networks to access remote databases for analysis. (p. 516)

In the first era, the primary purpose of technology in the social studies classroom is to transfer information to the students. Thus, research conducted in this first era sought to better understand if students were learning more efficiently. Martorella’s quintessential “sleeping giant” article (1997) awakened the field to the con­ cept that the paradigm was shifting towards interpretivism. Interpretivism embodies beliefs that learning is “focused on a holistic view of learning, and is based on social interaction as a primary means of knowing and on multiple versus single views of reality” (Heinecke et al., 2001, p. 308). Students are active learners and learning is a social process. The interpretivist paradigm framed digital resources as cognitive digital tools. Three distinguishing charac­ teristics delineate digital resources from cognitive tools (Songer, 2007): audience, learning activities, and learning performances. Hicks et al. (2014, p. 5) argue that technology should be used to engage learners with discipline‐specific inquiries: Having access to digital resources does not mean that teachers and students know how to use them to support their inquiries. Access alone does not directly equate to students learning anything. It is still important that teachers and their students learn how to develop and p­articipate in discipline‐specific inquiries, which means learning to manage research, organize data, and prioritize and unpack evidence in the construction of accounts and narratives.

Engaging in this sort of inquiry process led social scientists begin to regard digital resource as a technology‐based “information source containing facts, perspectives, or information on a topic of interest” (Songer, 2007 p. 475). Digitized primary sources available through a website such as the Library of Congress are an example of a social studies digital resource. These resources are intended for a wide and diverse audience. Teachers and students may use this site, along with researchers, or anyone in the general public. How the different users learn with the site is also quite variable. A recreational geneal­ ogist seeking information about their ancestors will most likely use a site such as Library of Congress differently than a high school student investigating a topic for a class paper. Digital tools’ audience and learning activities are general resulting in unspecified learning products. A high school student may use an online archive to write a history paper or a  ­doctoral student may use one with dissertation research. Either way, there are no ­predetermined specific learning performances for those using a digital tool. A cognitive tool differs from a digital resource in that it is a technology‐based “information source or resource presenting focused information, specifically tailored for particular learning goals on a particular topic of interest for learning by a particular target audience” (Songer, 2007, p. 476). Saye and Brush’s problem‐based historical inquiry project (PBHI) is one exemplar in which students engage in historical inquiry to promote civic competence through a technology‐mediated environment (Saye & Brush, 2007). Unlike the Library of

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Congress site discussed above, PBHI has an intentional audience of high school students who study history through a problem‐based inquiry teaching model. How a student uses PBHI to study the Civil Rights era has been intentionally designed to scaffold student learning (Saye & Brush, 2007). Beyond an intentional audience, cognitive tools have t­argeted learning activities and products. Looking again at the PBHI project, students used web‐based tools to engage in problem‐based learning and develop specific learning a­ctivities that are then shared with others. Cognitive tools extend how and what we learn (Kim & Reeves, 2007). Cognitive tools scaffold student learning in a way that students access and process information. They orga­ nize the information in a way that creates new knowledge that can be shared with a wider audience. Shifting from technology as digital resources to technology as cognitive tool can assist us in responding to Cuban’s enduring question, “In what ways can teachers use t­echnology to create better communities and build strong citizens?” (p. 197). As the field of social studies and technology continues to evolve, there is a move to see through the lens of a critical theory paradigm. Building upon interpretivism, the discussion of the critical theory paradigm is based on the assumption that the purpose of education is to “empower people with the development of critical thinking and intervention skills” (Heinecke et  al., 2001, p. 313). Despite the concept that social studies should transform rather than transmit (Stanley, 2005) critical theory has guided little of the development, integration, and research of technology and social studies. This is surprising given that NCSS states the purpose of social studies is to: “help young people make informed and rea­ soned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world” (NCSS, 1994, p.3). A few initial studies in this area are examining technology in the social studies through a critical lens (Marri, 2005: Lathan, 2013). There is great potential for the field to grow and develop not only application but design research studies that further extend the critical theory paradigm with social studies and technology.

22.4  Diffusion Theory Diffusion theory (Rogers, 1995) provides a framework for understanding the impact that technology has had on understanding the field of social studies over time. Diffusion theory has been increasingly used by many researchers to frame innovation. Writing nearly three decades ago about diffusion of innovations in social studies, Hahn (1977) emphasizes the importance of looking at change over time, “The social studies community has made strides in both research and development in the past decade. We are hopeful that these efforts will  continue. But all that effort will be for naught if attention is not given to diffusion” (pp. 170–171). Examining technology integration through the lens of diffusion theory con­ textualizes the current status of the field. This theory allows for technology to be considered an innovation, “defined as an idea, practice or object that is perceived as new by an individual of another unit of adoption” (p. xvii). The process of diffusion begins with the introduction of an innovation and ends with its adoption or rejection. The characteristics of the innova­ tion influence the rate of adoption and include its perceived relative advantage over existing technologies/ideas, its compatibility with the individual or organization, how clearly the innovation can be understood, how easily it can be communicated and how easily the



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innovation can be tried or experimented with. Individuals in a social system, in this case schools, do not adopt an innovation at the same rate but, rather, in an over‐time sequence. Therefore, individuals and institutions can be classified into adopter categories such as innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards (Rogers, 1995, p. 255). According to Rogers (1995), an opinion leader is able to influence others’ attitudes or overt behavior informally in a desired way with relative frequency (p. 27); an innovator is venturesome and develops communication patterns and relationships among a clique of innovators (p. 263). Diffusion theory provides a lens through which to identify the factors that hinder or facilitate technology integration such as adopter characteristics and techno­ logical characteristics. The following sections will address the key findings from this review and provide an analysis of these findings within the context of diffusion theory. Diffusion is a type of social change, defined as the process by which alteration occurs in the structure and function of a social system (Rogers, 1995). The researchers in the 1960s and 1970s (for example, Papert, 1978, 1980; Pea, 1983; Thornburg, 1984) can be considered innovators. These scholars were among a camp whose vision for educational technology was educational transformation. Some of the first researchers writing about technology and social studies in the 1980s (Ehman & Glenn, 1987, 1991) under diffusion theory can be considered influential opinion leaders in regards to technology in schools. As previously suggested in this review, the results of this study have left an imprint on the educational technology field. Opinion leaders and change agents provide information and advice about innovations to others within the educational system. These researchers were pivotal in setting forth new possibilities for technology and schooling. Diffusion theory can help explain why the effects of technology have not been pervasive within the culture of teaching and learning. The gap between vision and reality exists because full diffusion has not yet occurred. The adoption of the innovation has not been diffused beyond innovators, early adopters, and perhaps a portion of the early majority (Rogers, 1995). There is little to no evidence in the extant literature that the diffusion of technology has occurred beyond the innovator and early adopter stages. However, diffusion theory does allow for further diffusion to occur in the coming decades perhaps much like other educational innovations such as small‐group teaching, reading, and mathematics innovations, in which teachers altered their fundamental classroom practices. Early adopters and opinion leaders are often the “embodiment of successful, discrete use of new ideas” (Rogers, 1995, p. 264) and not considered “traditionalists”; later adopters often deliberate for some time before adopting a new idea or innovation.

22.5  Research Critique This review has synthesized literature in which technology innovation and technology integration into the social studies has been the focus. The review has demonstrated that the field has significant limitations. Recognizing these limitations almost 20 years ago, the Panel on Educational Technology of the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (President’s Committee on Advisors on Science and Technology, 1997) called for “a large scale program of rigorous, systemic research on education in general and educational technology in particular [which] will ultimately prove necessary to ensure both

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the efficiency and cost‐effectiveness of technology use within our nation’s schools” (p. 7). Since that time, extraordinary amounts of money have been spent on educational tech­ nology efforts in our nation’s schools. Yet, this review of the literature has revealed that we still know relatively little about the impacts and consequences of integrating technology into the social studies classroom. The U.S. Department of Education’s report, A Retrospective on Twenty Years of Education Technology Policy (Culp, Honey, & Mandinach, 2003) emphasized this point by reporting, “The call for research on the impact of educational technology on schools and teaching and learning activities is a final constant theme found over the past twenty years of reports” (p.  15). Roblyer and Knezek (2003) further resounded the call for a new education t­echnology research agenda by contextualizing technology research within the current political climate. The field of social studies education is restrained by the limited number of large‐scale quantitative studies and by the large number of qualitative studies that focus on small popu­ lations. The synthesis of the literature provided in this review demonstrates disjointed efforts to investigate the impact of technology on learning in schools that are also ungrounded in theory. The lack of a common research agenda is due to three characteristics unique to the field: the rapidly changing nature of the field, the minimal amount of grant funding for social studies research, and the fact that educational technology research is conducted by a variety of stakeholders without a focus on student learning. The minimal amount of grant funding for the field of social studies also contributes to the derisory amount of funding to inspire and support innovative research and development. There are signs, however, that the field is attempting to defragment itself and conduct research that systematically extends prior work and builds upon one another’s scholarship. Like most fields of educational research, social studies educational technology research is struggling to redefine itself in the wake of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). As called for by NCLB, scientifically‐based research requires researchers to rethink their research designs. One of the driving purposes behind the Federal Government’s efforts is to encourage research that directly impacts student learning and teaching methods. Berliner (2002) refers to the difficult job educational researchers are facing today by commenting, Easy‐to‐do science is what those in physics, chemistry, geology, and some other fields do. Hard‐to‐do science is what the social scientists do and, in particular, it is what we educational researchers do. In my estimation, we have the hardest to do science of them all … We face particular problems and must deal with local conditions that limit generalizations and theory‐ building—problems that are different from those faced by the easier‐to‐do sciences. (p. 18)

Roblyer (2005) contends that educational technology researchers have an unusually difficult time following new federal research guidelines because technology tools change so rapidly that it is nearly impossible to build a body of literature on a tool over time. She also claims that the research paradigm to compare learning with technology against learning without technology is often made complex by instructional design and teacher‐effects. Harris (2005) supports the notion that educational technology research has been slow to show significant results. Harris claims the reasoning behind this is that the field does not have a focused agenda. She suggests that the field is divided between those who see tech­ nology as a “technocentric” approach to education and those who see education technology



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research as pedagogical dogmatism. The technocentric approach is one in which the focus is on the technology tools. Harris argues that this approach has filled the literature with fragmented and meaningless studies. She cites Zhao, Pugh, Sheldon, and Byers (2002) who discusses the disconnect: Traditionally, studies on educational technology have been largely interested in finding out, in horserace fashion, the relative success of particular technological innovations as it affects s­tudent learning…Because many of these technology‐specific studies did not explore more fundamental issues in technology and education…the research community is having a difficult time offering desperately needed suggestions to policy makers and practitioners. (p. 483)

Harris continues by claiming that the second approach that has weakened educational technology research is pedagogical dogmatism. She refers to the field’s efforts to reform schools through technology as the “Trojan horse” agenda. Too often, researchers have attempted to use technology to mask motives to transform teaching and learning. Harris (2005) recognizes that many technology leaders define their work with constructivist theories. She urges the field to consider “whether professional, political, or personal penchants should dictate large‐scale educational policy—especially those in democratic societies” (p. 119). The integration of technology is a complex process that is impacted by multiple factors. Friedman and Hicks (2006) extended these ideas in a dialogue focused on the social studies in which they called for scholarship that will: (a) discuss, model, and evaluate appropriate and relevant research questions—that are both ethical and doable; (b) use appropriate methodologies, whether quantitative or qualitative to answer the research questions at hand; and (c) clearly describe the implications of the findings for improving teacher education by meeting teacher needs and/or fostering student learning.

Cuban (2001) argued that “champions of technology wanted fundamental change in  classroom practice” (p.135), and that only incremental changes have resulted due to ­technology use; he referred to technology as oversold and underused. To fervent advocates of using technology in schools, no revolution had occurred in how the teachers organize or teach in these classrooms. Nor have there been dramatic or substantial changes in how teachers teach or children learn. If anything, the addition of a computer center to the array of centers already in common use in these classrooms means that teachers have adapted an innovation to existing ways of teaching and learning that have dominated early childhood education for decades. (p. 58)

Recognizing the fragmented research focus across the field of education, the editors of the leading educational technology journals sounded a call for a proactive research agenda for the field of educational technology (Bull, Knezek, Roblyer, Schrum, & Thompson, 2005). The editors lamented, “the body of usable information available today is scant and scattered” (p. 218). They suggest that the lack of a common research agenda is due to unrealistic ­expectations for technology‐based reform, lack of consensus on research questions and methodologies which can clearly be seen in the Theory & Research in Social Education and CITE journal analysis, and the diminished role of research in school reform. A proactive research agenda would foster a collaborative partnership between educators and research.

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This partnership would help to better connect educators and the research questions they pursue with researchers and the questions they pursue (Bull et al., 2005). Means and Haertzel (2003) likewise call for innovative research and cite that “multiple and complementary research strategies are needed to measure the implementation and impacts of learning technologies. No single study, genre of studies, or methodology is a­dequate to the task” (p. 257). Means and Haertzel (2003) call for three specific strategies of research designs: ●●

●●

●●

Contextualized evaluations, that focus on studying the context within which an i­nnovation is implemented and the way the innovation unfolds with a complex o­rganizational system; Multilevel, longitudinal research, that uses statistical models to estimate (1) the multiple contexts of students’ learning environments, (2) the innovation’s cumulative effects, and (3) the direct and indirect effects of contextual variables on outcomes and i­mplementation; and Random‐assigned experiments, in which students, classes, or schools are assigned at random to participate in a particular treatment or in a non‐treatment control group. (p. 258)

Despite the gap between the issuance of these calls and the publication of this chapter, the author contends these calls have not been answered. Manfra (2014) posed a similar question when she pondered if Martorella’s metaphorical sleeping giant was still sleeping? The m­etaphor refers back to Martorella’s 1997 reference to “how little the social studies curricu­ lum has been affected by the technology changes sweeping the nation” (p. 511). In Manfra’s discussion of social studies and technology over time, she contends that the social studies field has seen “glimpses of tentative steps toward more authentic instruction in the social studies, yet there still seems to be a digital divide. This digital divide has less to do with access to technology and more to do with the tenacious divide in access to technology‐mediated instruction that is authentic and focused on discipline‐based thinking” (Manfra, 2014). The field of social studies and technology research is at a significant crossroads. This is a time that the field can choose not only how to respond to mandates such as those outlined in NCLB, but the field can choose how to chart its future within the lives of schools. It is a reality that the literature has not clearly documented that technology has impacted teaching and learning (Roblyer & Knezek, 2003). Schrum et al. (2005) called for the field to “create a strategy that simultaneously meets the requirements for evidence that technology can make a difference in classrooms and articulates what we understand to be essential in asking appropriate questions and designing authentic research” (p. 204). They continue by empha­ sizing the importance to connect teacher beliefs, teacher practices, and subsequent student learning outcomes. Following the standards discussed above would enhance future research. The field needs more theory‐driven research. Burkhardt and Schoenfeld (2003) recognized the need for theory‐ driven research. They argued the lack of theory is parallel to the lack of a clear rationale. Lack of attention to coherent theory building leaves us looking balkanized and incoherent… It also leaves us vulnerable to attack from the outside—powerful politicians, and some academics, who understand little of what educational research is all about feel empowered to tell us how to go about our business. (p. 13)



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Designing theory‐driven studies encourages researchers to build on existing findings and show connections among studies. Recognizing the unique nature of educational t­echnology research within the current climate, the author offers the following questions to further the field: ●● ●●

●●

●●

●●

How has technology integration in social studies affected learning outcomes? What measurement tools are best suited to the new schools and strategies that technologies require? What are the educational implications of technology research being conducted by those in the social sciences and humanities? What factors influence and perpetuate digital equity? What are the effects of technology on social interaction and collaboration within learning environments? What evidence is needed to indicate that diffusion of this innovation has occurred?

22.6  New Model for Technology Integration Recognizing the current status of technology in social studies teaching and learning, this section will present a model of technology integration to frame future efforts to investigate and document technology in schools. The model is situated within the literature presented in this review and presents educators and researchers with a new lens with which to examine technology in schools. There are four factors within this model: technology agenda, research models, diffusion of innovation, and technoculture. Figure  22.1 represents how these factors are interrelated. The field must recognize that the tension between technocentrism and pedagogical dogmatism are one cause for disjointed efforts to integrate technology in schools and for fragmented research agendas. It is time for the field of social studies to make a decision as to overtly using technology to promote school reform or to promote technology innovation throughout the existing school curriculum (Harris, 2005). We believe that educators and

Technoculture

Technology agenda

Research models

Diffusion of innovation

Figure 22.1  Model for technology integration.

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researchers should recognize this and place value on “pedagogical plurality” (Harris, 2005). Making this choice not only presents a new schema for technology integration, it also presents a new lens for technology research. The new model for technology research should be expanded to convey the essential role technology is playing in our society and in our schools to create a technoculture. The new model of technology research should connect the ways technology is being used in society with learning goals and teaching practices. Technology in schools cannot be studied without considering technology in society. The field is not only limited in these three areas—­ technology agendas, research models, and diffusion of innovations—but we know little about how these three are connected. Framing technology as a learning tool encompasses each of these three factors. Technology is a tool that should be examined within the context of larger societal structures (Berson, Lee, & Stuckart, 2001). Postman (1998) reminds society “culture always pays a price for technology” (p. 3). The technoculture created by the proliferation of technology in our society, places technology in a distinctive position. It is not just an innovation being implemented in classrooms. Technology is firmly entrenched in our society. The life students live outside the classroom is inundated with technology. There is a growing interdependence on technology today. Research efforts cannot be limited to technology within classrooms. To fully grasp the t­echnology’s impacts, researchers must consider how technology has enveloped culture and society. Social studies researchers should also examine research conducted in other academic fields. Given that the field of library science prepares school media specialists and supports research that examines uses of media and technology, library science has a natural connec­ tion to the field of education. The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) president supported the notion that the fields of education and library science should collaborate when she stated, As tech‐savvy leaders, school library media specialists … are partners in the school community—budgeting innovatively, improving teachers’ knowledge and skills through tech­ nology training, supporting e‐learning, and using technology to provide equitable access to all members of the school community. (Vaughn, 2005)

Library science research offers the field of education insight into student learning with technology. Specifically, recent efforts into constructing digital libraries and learning with digital libraries offer valuable information for educators. Education researchers should also seek out relevant research from the other fields such as business, engineering, visual arts. Specifically, the field of education could inform its work by examining organizational theory and research from the business field. Business organizations have reorganized t­hemselves to reflect the technical and cultural changes in the way we live and work. Schools have been slow to reform in a way that reflects the changes technology has on the way we live and learn. The impact technoculture has on schools and learning is all encompassing within the new model. It directly relates to technology agendas, research models, and ­diffusion of innovation. Policymakers, educators, and scholars are all stakeholders in the  field of



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t­echnology integration. Each group has its own technology agendas that impact  what tech­ nology is integrated into schools and how it is integrated. Policy, ­legislation, funding, and standards all have a tremendous impact on the integration of technology. This model calls for stakeholders to join together and develop a common agenda for meeting the vision for technology integration. Harris (2005) takes the field to task when she calls upon researchers to determine whether they are pushing an agenda of technocentrism or pedagogical dogmatism. The review of the literature presented demonstrates that technocentrism does not advance the field. Researchers must heed the calls for future research discussed earlier and focus efforts on students and learning. Research focused on students and learning will not only help to defragment the field, it will help to move the field forward with a focused research agenda. Otherwise, as demonstrated in this review, the field remains an ever‐moving target with few research findings that build on one another. Complementary to a technology agenda that intentionally builds upon prior work are research models that investigate pedagogical issues related to technology integration. Research design should seek to investigate effectiveness of technology agendas (Berson, 1996; Dynarski et  al., 2007). Oppenheimer’s (1997) cornerstone critique of the field questions funding for technology in schools based on no “good evidence that most uses of computers significantly improve teaching and learning” (p. 48). Unfortunately, the field has not significantly responded to the critique and there remains scant evidence to serve as a rebuttal to Oppenheimer. Research should be proactive and seek to move the field forward, “If technology is to be viewed as having a clear and essential role to play in education, it must have a clearly articulated research agenda and high quality studies that both document and shape its impact” (Roblyer, 2005, p. 199). Research agendas that address these characteristics and address the contextual factors of the K–12 schools are pivotal for diffusion to occur. Longitudinal and widespread data are much needed. Contextual factors of K–12 schools do not allow schools to adopt innova­ tions that do not meet their needs and support their goals. A focused research agenda that goes beyond the limitations of case studies, doctoral dissertations, and project evaluation is needed by K–12 schools; simply put, schools need the research that only the research community can provide. A common agenda and solid research design will directly impact the diffusion of techno­ logical innovation. The educational research community can assist the diffusion process. Organizations (K–12 schools) adopt innovations when the innovation is perceived to be beneficial, is compatible with the goals of the organization, is clearly understood, and is easily used and accessible. Rogers (1995) claims there are five stages of adoption: awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption. The review of the literature clearly demonstrates that there is an awareness and interest by policymakers, students, and educators in the diffu­ sion of integration of technology in schools. There have been fragmented interests in evalu­ ation in the past. Evaluation of technology in schools has been limited primarily to small research studies that do not have a common agenda. As discussed earlier, leaders in the field are attempting to develop an evaluation agenda that is less fragmented and that produces more thoughtful and theoretically based findings. These findings would most likely lead to a more informed trial and adoption phase in which educators and policymakers can best decide which technologies to use in classrooms and how to use the technologies.

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22.7 Summary The proliferation of technology in the social studies classroom and in society has grown exponentially since the Shaver (1991) handbook was published. This has had an impact on social studies teaching, curriculum development, and scholarly efforts. Unquestionably, as technologies continue to emerge, the impact will continue to grow. Moore’s Law predicts that technology becomes more efficient every two years. This rapid change impacts schools, researchers, society, and industry. Technology will continue to become more ubiquitous in society and continue to have consequences for schools and society. The implications are clear that educators must understand the degree to which technology is impacting policy and legislation, the culture of the school, and teaching and learning in the classroom. Diffusion theory offers a lens to consider the change over time. The process of diffusion begins with the introduction of an innovation and ends with its adoption or rejection and occurs in an over‐time sequence. The process of diffusion of technology remains in its early stages. The diffusion of the innovation during the last two decades of the 20th century primarily included the innovators and early adopters. This early acceptance of the innovation provided the impetus for technology in K–12 schools and provided a fertile field for researchers who may also be categorized as innovators and early adopters; however, diffusion has not occurred beyond the two initial adopter cate­ gories in K–12 schools or in the research community. The early majority, late majority and laggards have not yet adopted the innovation. With a more focused research agenda, it is available for diffusion of technology to occur within all categories. Social studies educators should take a proactive stance to embrace technology that allows them to live and learn in ways that are better than they could before they had the tech­ nology. Using a critical lens, scholars should critically examine the new technologies to understand how technology impacts society and culture and to identify ways in which technology can be used to overcome patterns of injustice. Doing this requires collaborative efforts among educators, researchers, policymakers, and representatives from the tech­ nology field. In particular, research should be used to not only evaluate technology but also to guide future development and implementation.

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Manfra, M. M. (2014). Editorial: 15 years after Martorella’s sleeping giant: A year of special themed issues. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 14(1). Retrieved from http:// www.citejournal.org/vol14/iss1/socialstudies/article1.cfm Marri, A. (2005). Educational technology as a tool for multicultural democratic education: The case of one US history teacher in an under‐resourced high school. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 4(4), 395–409. Martorella, P. H. (1997). Technology and the social studies—or: Which way to the sleeping giant? Theory & Research in Social Education, 25(4), 511–514. Mason, C., Berson, M., Diem, R., Hicks, D., Lee, J., & Dralle, T. (2000). Guidelines for using t­echnology to prepare social studies teachers. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 1(1). Retrieved from http://www.citejournal.org/volume‐14/issue‐4‐14/social‐studies/guidelines‐ for‐using‐technology‐to‐prepare‐social‐studies‐teachers Means, B., & Haertzel, G. (Eds.). (2003). Cross cutting themes in research design. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological pedagogical content knowledge: A framework for teacher knowledge. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017–1054. National Center for Education Statistics. (2010). Teachers’ Use of Educational Technology in U.S. Public Schools: 2009 (NCES 2010‐040). Washington, DC: Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=46 National Conference of State Legislatures. (2014). Legislative social media sites. Retrieved from http:// www.ncsl.org/research/telecommunications‐and‐information‐technology/legislative‐social‐ media‐sites.aspx National Council for the Social Studies. (1994). Expectations of excellence: Curriculum Standards for Social Studies. Washington, DC: Author. Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress. (1988). Power on! New tools for teaching and learning: A new course for education. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Oppenheimer, T. (1997). The computer delusion. The Atlantic Monthly 280(1), 45–62. Papert, S. (1978). Interim report of the LOGO project in the Brookline public schools: An assessment and documentation of a children’s computer laboratory. Artificial Intelligence Memo No. 484. Brookline, MA. (Eric Document Reproduction Service No. ED 207 799). Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms: Children, computers, and powerful ideas. New York, NY: Basic Books. Pea, R. D. (1983). LOGO programming and problem solving (Technical Report No. 12). New York, NY: Bank Street College of Education, Center for Children and Technology. Pew Research Center (2014). Americans feel better informed thanks to the Internet. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/12/08/better‐informed Postman, N. (1998, March). Five things we need to know about technological change. Proceedings of the New Tech Annual Conference, Denver, CO. President’s Committee on Advisors on Science and Technology. (1997). Report to the president on the use of technology to strengthen K–12 education in the United States. Washington, DC: Author. Roblyer, M. D. (2005). Educational technology research that makes a difference: Series introduction. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education [Online serial], 5(2). Retrieved from http://www.citejournal.org/vol5/iss2/seminal/article1.cfm Roblyer, M., & Knezek, G. (2003). New millennium research for educational technology: A call for a national research agenda. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 36(1), 60–76. Rogers, E. M. (1995). Diffusion of innovations. (4th ed.). New York, NY: The Free Press. Saye, J. W., & Brush, T. A. (2007). Using technology‐enhanced learning environments to support inquiry in social studies classrooms. Theory & Research in Social Education, 35(2), 196–230. Schrum, L., Thompson, A., Sprague, D., Maddux, C., McAnear, A., Bell, L., & Bull, G. (2005). Advancing the field: Considering acceptable evidence in educational technology research. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education [Online serial], 5(3/4). Retrieved from http://www.citejournal.org/vol5/iss3/editorial/article1.cfm



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Shaver, J. P. (Ed.). (1991). Handbook of research on studies teaching and learning. New York, NY: MacMillan. Songer, N. B. (2007). Digital resources versus cognitive tools: A discussion of learning science with technology. In S. Abell & N. Lederman (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Science Education (pp. 471–491). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Stanley, W. B. (2005). Social studies and the social order: Transmission or transformation? Social Education, 69(5), 282–286. Swan, K., & Hofer, M. (2008). Technology in the social studies. In L. S. Levstik, & C. A. Tyson (Eds.), Handbook of Research in Social Studies Education (pp. 307–326). New York, NY: Routledge. Thieman, G. Y., O’Brien, J. E., VanFossen, P. J., & Berson, M. J. (2013). Use of technology. In J. Passe (Ed.), The state of social studies (pp. 233–246). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Thornburg, D. D. (1984). Exploring Logo without a computer. Menlo Park, CA: Addison‐Wesley. Townsend, R. B. (2010). How is new media reshaping the work of historians? Perspectives on History. Retrieved from http://www.historians.org/publications‐and‐directories/perspectives‐on‐history/ november‐2010/how‐is‐new‐media‐reshaping‐the‐work‐of‐historians Vaughn, D. (2005). Statement from AASL president Dawn Vaughn on National Education Technology Plan. Warschauer, M. (2003). Technology and social inclusion: Rethinking the digital divide. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Whitworth, S. A., & Berson, M. J. (2003). Computer technology in the social studies: An examination of the effectiveness literature (1996–2001). Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education [Online serial], 2(4). Retrieved from http://www.citejournal.org/vol2/iss4/socialstudies/ article1.cfm Zhao, Y., Pugh, K., Sheldon, S., & Byers, J. L. (2002). Conditions for classroom technology innova­ tions. Teachers College Record, 104(3), 482–515.

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Global Education David L. Grossman

Today’s students are becoming citizens in the context of the most comprehensive and far‐reaching global era in human history. As Hicks (2009) puts it, “One can no longer make sense of everyday life unless this is set in the context of living in a global society. In particular the process of globalization is changing the face of the planet. We are now faced with a multiplicity of global linkages, far distant events and decisions impact nationally and locally. The current world order is being changed by the forces of globalization.” In education this calls for competencies that have not traditionally been emphasized by schools. This is not a question of blame; it is a reflection of an accelerated historical lag created by an unprecedented magnitude of change. Pundits like Friedman (2007) have provided ample evidence that globalization is not a temporary condition, and that it has transformed the way the world works. While the forces of globalization are complex and can be countervailing or even conflicting, awareness of these forces and concerns about their implications for education are not new. Lee Anderson (1981) described a way in which human affairs have been transformed globally by accelerated changes through the use of a visual represented by a J‐curve. Lee Anderson uses examples in the form of J‐curves to document the exponential growth of phenomena such as global population growth, the number of books published, the circulation of money, the speed of communication, energy consumption, and life expectancy. In this globalized world, according to Anderson (1981) we are living beyond the bend of the J‐curve. He then concludes that globalization challenges the way we educate children about the world, and that we need to reduce the gap between what is taught in our schools and the realities of a globalized world. Similarly Boyer (1985) wrote that in our more crowded, more interconnected, more volatile, and unstable world, if education does not help students see beyond themselves and understand the interdependent nature of our world, new generations will remain ignorant with diminished capacity to live confidently and responsibly. As Pike (2015, p. 12) puts it, “Whether for good or ill, the argument goes, globalisation has forever changed the way the The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.



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world works and education shoulders a responsibility to prepare students to adapt and c­ontribute to this enlarged community.” Driven by greater attention to both positive and negative impacts of globalization, p­olicymakers and educators from across the organizational spectrum now call for a new form of education to prepare students to live and work effectively in an increasingly global­ ized world (Myers, 2010). In a Delphi study based on responses from 182 policymakers in nine countries in North America, Europe and Asia, the most important characteristic for future citizens in the 21st century was identified as the ability to look at and approach problems as a member of a global society (Cogan & Derricott, 2000). In the United States a Global Competence Task Force of state education agency leaders, education scholars, and practitioners has advocated the creation of a school culture where investigating the world is a common practice. Their report champions a focus on global competence, here defined as “the capacity and disposition to understand and act on issues of global significance” (Mansilla & Jackson, 2011, p. xiii). Some find it useful to characterize this push for global or international education as a social movement (Parker, 2011; Tye, 2009; Tye & Tye, 1992),1 and most educational insti­ tutions and organizations now include a global dimension in their mission statements (Gaudelli, 2009). For example, in a rather typical policy statement within its “first‐ever, fully articulated international strategy,” the United States Department of Education states: In today’s globalized world, an effective domestic education agenda must address global needs and trends and aim to develop a globally competent citizenry. It is no longer enough to  focus solely on ensuring that students have essential reading, writing, mathematics, and  s­cience skills. Our hyper‐connected world also requires the ability to think critically and  c­reatively to solve complex problems, the skills and disposition to engage globally, well‐honed communication skills, and advanced mathematics, science and technical skills. (U.S. Department of Education, 2012, p. 2)

23.1  Many “Global Educations” The widespread adoption of the concept of a globally oriented education notwithstanding, exactly what institutions mean when they use the term “global” often lacks clarity. Goals may include global awareness, global perspectives, global understanding, global citizenship, global competencies, and globally oriented civic action. Most often, despite lofty rhetoric, the global goal, even if clearly defined, is not often operationalized in terms of measurable outcomes, with some exceptions (e.g., Mansilla & Jackson, 2011). This has led some to criticize global education as fuzzy, and others to worry that global goals are in conflict with national ones. What then is the impetus behind the advocacy for global education? According to Zong, Wilson, and Quashiga (2008), the central rationale for global educa­ tion “rests on the necessity of preparing students for the increasing interconnectedness among people and nations that characterizes the world today” (p. 199). Standish (2014) finds that there are at least three common rationales that underpin initiatives for global/ international education: social/individual change (global citizenship/global perspective),

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economic (skills for the global market, 21st century skills, projecting economic power and competitiveness), and occasionally academic (global knowledge for its own sake). In contrast, Parker (2008) reports that international education in U.S. schools seems to be driven by national, economic, and military security. Given such a diverse set of rationales, when considering the term “global education,” one encounters a fragmented literature about its scope and meaning. Even though the discourse around the term “global education” has been around for decades, there c­ontinues to be a wide debate about its meaning and conceptualization, as well as many critiques. The previous handbook chapter on global education (Zong, Wilson, & Quashiga, 2008) provides an o­verview of different approaches to global education, but no single paradigm for global education has emerged. As Marshall (2007) aptly puts it,  teachers and global educators are currently “drowning in a sea of seemingly s­imilar terms” (p. 38): e.g., global citizenship education, education with a global or inter­ national dimension, development education, world studies, education for international u­nderstanding, etc. Some like Parker (2008) prefer “international education” to describe this field of inquiry, and in an earlier iteration of this handbook Massialas (1991) titled his chapter, “International Understanding.” Often international and global education are used to describe the same phenomena. Others prefer to distinguish global from international education. While calling for an integration of global and international education, the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) in the United States makes the following distinction: “Global education focuses on the interrelated nature of condition, issues, trends, processes, and events while international education emphasizes specific world regions, problems, and cultures” (McJimsey, Ross, & Young, 2006). Pike (2015), while acknowledging that global and i­nternational education are both reform movements attempting to broaden students’ understanding of the world in the wake of globalization, separates global education as a primary and secondary school initiative from international education at a tertiary level. Merryfield and Harris (1992) argue that the terms international education, international studies, and world studies are not synonymous with global education since they do not necessarily include attention to perspective consciousness, global systems, global history, and cultural understanding. In the end, just as Berger (2002) finds many globalizations, we can find many “global educations” in the literature. In this regard one can describe a continuum from an approach based on those seeking to prepare students to be more competitive in an increasingly globalized world contrasted with those advocating global education as a transformative vision of schooling built around planet‐wide issues and/or social justice (Parker, 2008; Pike, 2000). According to Cook (2008), one way in which global education has struggled to survive in the face of growing demands for practical educational skills rather than global justice has been to regularly reinvent itself, jettisoning those elements that have the potential to weaken its political acceptability. This has led to rather diffuse parameters as well as numerous lofty objectives, and hence conceptual imprecision. Some proponents are quite troubled by the lack of conceptual clarity in global education and worry that the meaning of global education has become diluted. Reimer and McLean (2009) acknowledge that global education reaches broadly and conjures up a rich diversity of values, meanings, and definitions, but its conceptual complexity leaves room for confu­ sion and uncertainty, making a universal, consistent understanding of global education



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virtually unattainable. O’Connor and Zeichner (2011) argue that as global education is a site for ideological battles on the issue of globalization and its significance for schools, it is important that those in the field of global education express their views with ideological clarity. Others, while not denying the need for clarity, emphasize a more constructivist approach in which students and teachers have a hand in conceptualizing key concepts in global education (Andreotti, 2006; Merryfield, 1993; Merryfield & Harris, 1992). This approach emphasizes learners’ and/or teachers’ involvement in the process of developing a conceptualization of global education as part of a process of engaging with their own and others’ perspectives. Within the multiplicity of rationales for and conceptualizations of global education there are two important tensions/fault lines that thread through the literature and thus require our attention here. These are particularistic versus universalistic conceptualizations of global education, and soft versus critical global education.

23.2  Particularist versus Universalist Conceptualizations of Global Education From the discourse about the conceptualization of global education, we can describe an important continuum ranging from what one might call narrow/particularist/exclusive versus broad/universalist/inclusive/integrative conceptions. In the former we tend to find a concept of global education built around a single issue, theme, or geographical area, such as the study of a single country other than one’s own. While some use the term global in this narrower geographical sense, others emphasize a more universalist, holistic conception. In the latter case global education encompasses any number of “big concepts” (Standish, 2014). Thus, at the broadest end of the continuum we find global education used as an inclusive “umbrella” term for multiple subconcepts or subareas. This version is prominent in the definition of global education in the European Strategy Framework for Improving and Increasing Global Education in Europe to the Year 2015: “Global Education is understood to encompass Development Education, Human Rights Education, Education for Sustainability, Education for Peace and Conflict Prevention and Intercultural Education; being the global dimensions of Education for Citizenship” (O’Loughlin & Wegimont, 2003).

23.3  Soft versus Critical Global Education Another continuum in the conceptualization of global education, or perhaps more appro­ priately tension in this case, is the effort to distinguish between soft and critical global e­ducation. The spread of global education has not occurred without problems or critics. Scholars like Andreotti (2006), Merryfield (2009), and Parmenter (2011) have raised fundamental questions about the power imbalance in the production of knowledge and the need to recognize alternative narratives in global education. In particular, these critics challenge the neoliberal, homogenized version of globalization and by extension the global education that is derived from it, and invite educators to rethink the way knowledge about the world is conceptualized (e.g., Merryfield, 2009; Merryfield & Subedi, 2006;

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Pike, 2015; Subedi, 2010). They argue for a critical global perspective that “decolonizes” mainstream knowledge about global societies. Thus, from critiques of the most prominent constructs of global education a concept of “critical global education” has emerged that seeks to engender a critical lens that reinforces a social justice ethic. Arguing that “soft” global education does little to acknowledge how social problems are constructed and replicated, critical global education rejects and goes beyond most mainstream approaches. Critical global education is built on the argument that critical global perspective notions of power, voice and difference, and the development of critical literacy are central to global education (Andreotti, 2006). In this context Carroll (2015) makes the case for a global literacy “that seeks to address inequality, conflict, and injustice and build peace and cultural understanding with recognition of personal and collective identity and agency” (p. 154). In order to “go global,” there is a pressing need for “schools and policy‐makers to provide reflexive opportunities for students to detect bias, understand perspective and disrupt hegemonic discourses” (Carroll, p. 156). In a similar vein, Bourn (2015) suggests that “global education could and perhaps should take a more radical direction, making stronger connections to themes of power, inequality, social justice, and critical reflection” (p. 23). To O’Connor and Zeichner (2011) critical global education is an approach to global e­ducation that seeks to educate students about the causes and consequences of global injus­ tices and to support student work towards global transformative change. Critical global education argues for greater emphasis on critically assessing social, political, and economic structures in the interests of finding and addressing areas of inequity and injustice. In this regard, we might say that critical global education seeks to create what Westheimer and Kahne (2004) call “justice‐oriented” or Banks (2008) calls transformative citizens, but in an explicitly global context.

23.4  Common Themes in Global Education The conceptual debates notwithstanding, some scholars have attempted to unify under­ standing of global education by identifying a set of common themes. Analyzing existing frameworks, Kirkwood (2001) attempted to bring clarity to the ambiguity of definitions in the field of global education. She compared definitions in the literature with the conceptual framework developed by Hanvey (1976), and found that these common elements were embedded in all extant conceptualizations of global education: multiple perspectives, appreciation of cultures, knowledge of global issues, and the world as an interrelated system. In a similar review of formal definitions of global education, Mundy, Manion, Masemann, and Haggerty (2007) identified six common orientations in the literature: a view of the world as one system; commitment to human rights; recognition of the importance of i­ntercultural understanding and tolerance for difference; belief in the efficacy of individual action; commitment to child‐centered and progressive pedagogy; and awareness of e­nvironmental issues. Drawing on cross‐national research and emphasizing teachers’ views, Merryfield, Lo, Po, and Kasai (2008) found five elements of global education that form worldmindedness: (1) knowledge of global interconnectedness; (2) inquiry into global issues; (3) skills in perspec­ tive consciousness; (4) open‐mindedness, recognition of bias, stereotyping and exotica; and



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(5) intercultural experiences and intercultural competence. According to Hicks (2015), global education is the term used internationally to describe a form of education that: ●●

●●

●●

●●

enables people to understand the links between their own lives and those of people throughout the world; increases understanding of the economic, cultural, political, and environmental i­nfluences which shape our lives; develops the skills, attitudes, and values which enable people to work together to bring about change and take control of their own lives; and works towards achieving a more just and sustainable world in which power and resources are more equitably shared.

23.5  Fundamental Questions in Constructing Global Education Rather than attempt to resolve these conceptual debates and tensions, it is important to frame the debates as a process of reflective and critical inquiry, using a careful approach to  global education terminology based on deliberation and self‐analysis. Paraphrasing Humes (2008, p. 41), before employing a preferred global education construct, there are several prior questions one should ask: ●● ●● ●● ●● ●●

Why have these particular concepts/terms achieved prominence at this particular time? What is the knowledge base from which they derive? How has political and economic power been used to promote them, and to what ends? Whose interests do the terms serve? How do they shape the thinking of educational professionals?

Through a process of addressing these questions, social studies educators and researchers can clarify their purposes and approaches to global education as well as the strategies they might use. In conclusion, the term global education can shelter seemingly ideologically opposite positions, thus potentially leading to very dissimilar and even conflicting classroom p­ractices. Although as Berger (2002) advises us, our choice of words matter, there are still enough commonalities among these approaches to move to addressing the major issues related to global education in the K–12 context. These commonalities are rooted in the h­istory of the development of the field of global education.

23.6  The Historical Roots of Global Education In addition to acknowledging the diversity of rationales and terminology available, under­ standing the historical roots of global education and the extent of its usage throughout the world can provide a useful framework for current and future work. Although philosophi­ cally the concept of a globally aware citizenry has been traced back to the ancient Greek notion of cosmopolitanism (Nussbaum, 2002), the notion of global education in its more contemporary form is now some 50 years old, and has been tracked and documented

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(see e.g., Zong, Wilson, & Quashiga, 2008). There is general agreement that for the emergence of the modern version of global education much is owed to the work of Lee Anderson, James Becker, and Robert Hanvey. Anderson and Becker (1968) did ground­ breaking work for the Foreign Policy Association. Later Lee Anderson (1979) produced a major volume on global education for the Social Studies Development Center at Indiana University, and Becker (1979) edited an important book on schooling in a global age with support from the Kettering Foundation. Hanvey’s (1976) seminal paper, “An Attainable Global Perspective,” describing the dimensions of a global perspective, perhaps the most cited work in the field of global education, has had a profound influence on later work. While acknowledging Hanvey’s contribution, Hicks (2008) traces the development of global education in the United Kingdom to Robin Richardson’s World Studies Project in the 1970s (Richardson, 1979), as well as the early work of Derek Heater (1980). In the 1980s, drawing on the work of Richardson (1979), Anderson (1979), and Hanvey (1976), Pike and Selby developed the Centre for Global Education at York University and wrote what Hicks (2008) calls a classic work in the field of global education, Global Teacher, Global Learner (Pike & Selby, 1988). O’Connor (1982) and Heater (1982) have described the early development of global education in Western Europe and Britain respectively. Beyond its early origins, the later history of global education as a field of inquiry and practice has been relatively well documented, particularly in the United States (e.g., Becker, 2002: Hicks, 2003; Kniep, 1985; Sylvester, 2005; Tye, 2009), the United Kingdom (Hicks, 2008; Mannion, Biesta, Priestly, & Ross, 2011), and Canada (Mundy et al., 2007). Fujikane (2003) has compared the development of global education in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan.

23.7  How Global is Global Education? As some of the preceding references indicate, global education is an active topic of inquiry in multiple settings. But just what is the reach of global education internationally? Based on an international survey of educators in the 1990s, Tye (1999) reported that out of responses from 52 countries, he found 14 nations where global education was reported to be a significant factor in their schooling. Not surprisingly most of these were developed western societies, plus Japan and South Korea. Tye (2003, 2014) has provided two updates on this survey that expand these results. In a review of primarily post‐2000 research literature on global citizenship and global education in English using key authors and key words, Reynolds (2015) found that of the 1,110 articles identified, 20% were from the United States, 20% were from Australia, and 11% came from the United Kingdom. Still, despite this, there is evidence that the number of nations giving significant attention to global education has grown. In 2002 the North–South Centre of the Council of Europe hosted a European‐wide conference that developed a European framework for increasing and improving to the year 2015. This framework is summarized in the Maastricht Declaration (O’Loughlin & Wegimont, 2003). Building on the Maastricht Declaration, GENE (Global Education Network Europe, n.d.) was formed and serves as a European network of ministries and agencies responsible for support, fund­ ing and policymaking in the field of global education. GENE facilitates the sharing of policy learning related to global education among over 40 ministries, agencies and other national



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bodies in over 25 European countries, and is a good source of individual country reports on global education. There are GENE country reports on global education in Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, and Slovakia (Forghani‐Arani, Hartmeyer, O’Loughlin, & Wegimont, 2013; Global Education Network Europe, n.d.). In the case of global education in Russia, Lenskaya (2009) provides a detailed description of the historical and sociopolitical context of the development of global education in Russia’s educational reforms in the 1990s, and Kolker, Sheina, and Ustinova (2009) describe the Russian experience in integrating global perspectives in education at all levels. Elsewhere we find overviews of global education from Canada (Evans, Ingram, Macdonald, & Weber, 2009); New Zealand (Mutch, 2005); Australia (Global Education Project, 2011); and the United States (Parker, 2011; Tye, 2009). In the English language literature we also find reports of global education in Germany (Scheunpflug & Asbrand, 2006); Poland (Jasikowska & Witkowski, 2012); Taiwan (Chou, Cheng, Lin, & Wang, 2014); South Korea (Sung, Park, & Choi, 2013); Japan (Fujikane, 2003; Motani, 2007); the Netherlands (Hoghoof, 2005); Jordan (Alazzi, 2011); Turkey (Acikalin, 2010; Kaymakci, 2012); and Hong Kong and Shanghai (Chong, 2015; Lee & Leung, 2006; Lo & Chong, 2015).

23.8  Streams within Global Education Given the expanded reach of global education in recent decades and the ongoing debates about its conceptualization, the optimum strategy may be to designate global education as a broad field of study, thus allowing the examination of its heterogeneous characteristics (Marshall, 2007). There are a number of educational streams that are linked to or are seen as partners in global education. In his earlier informal survey of global education in 52  countries, Tye (1999) found the issues most often identified (in order of frequency from the most cited) were: ecology/environment, development, intercultural relations, peace, economics, technology, and human rights. Similarly today prominent in the litera­ ture are multicultural education, peace education, environmental education/sustainable deve­lopment, human rights education, development education, and global citizenship education. This chapter provides a very brief review of each of these streams in terms of its relationship to global education.

23.8.1  Multicultural Education Subject to multiple definitions and approaches, in its broadest sense multicultural e­ducation refers to any form of education or teaching that incorporates the histories, texts, values, beliefs, and perspectives of people from different cultural backgrounds. Synthesizing definitions and approaches to multicultural education from a diverse litera­ ture, Castagno (2009) identified six approaches, educating for (1) assimilation; (2) amal­ gamation; (3) pluralism; (4) cross‐cultural competence; (5) critical awareness; and (6)  social action. Gaudelli (2003) observes that global education and multicultural e­ducation share definitional ambiguities subject to debate among scholars about both their definition and focus.

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A considerable literature explores the linkages between multicultural and global e­ducation (e.g., Heilman, 2009; Merryfield, 2000; Swartz, Warner, & Grossman, 1998). Diaz, Massialas, and Xanthopoulos (1999) offer a visual picture of overlapping circles that illustrate their contention that global and multicultural education, while generally distinct, still have areas of overlap, e.g., attention to cultural diversity and human rights. They then differentiate the two fields based on context: multicultural education is largely focused on intergroup relations within a student’s nation while global education generally is focused beyond one’s own borders. According to Ladson‐Billings (2004), while multicultural education has always included some acknowledgment of international contexts, the emphasis has been primarily on the cultural landscapes of particular nation states. However, she adds that with the impact of globalization on the blurring of national borders, notions of difference take on new meaning. Christine Bennett (2011) argues that neither multicultural education alone (with an emphasis within a society), nor global education alone (with a worldwide emphasis) is sufficient for effective democratic citizenship in the 21st century. Cortes (1998) writes that both global and multicultural education arose in response to issues of diversity and the interrelatedness of human destinies, whether this occurred within or across national boundaries. He argues that multicultural and global educators need to develop a closer partnership based on shared goals and common intersecting themes. While not arguing for a conflation of multicultural and global education, he suggests nine intersec­ toral themes: individuals and groups; similarities and differences; movement of people; transnational linkages; multiple perspectives; perceptions and images; generalizations and stereotypes; relationships and communication; and comparative multicultural systems. In a similar vein Cole (2001) argues for a merger of global and multicultural education based on shared objectives, a kind of “multiculturalized” global education. Baker (1999) also advo­ cates the integration of multicultural and global education. He suggests that they are “two sides of the same coin,” and suggests that a curriculum based on Hanvey’s (1976) dimensions of a global perspective could be extended to include a multicultural perspective. According to Heilman (2009) a better understanding of the different origins of global and multicultural education could help bring the fields together. She offers a creative synthesis of the two fields in which there are four central elements: (1) an ethical dimension based in the recognition of human rights; (2) a technical dimension in which knowledge about cultures, history, politics, and global dynamics matters; (3) an i­maginative dimension related to the need to understand across differences; and (4) a civic dimension recognizing and requiring action to redress injustice and inequalities in power. (Heilman, 2009, p. 43)

As Banks (2008) notes, multicultural and global education have some shared goals (e.g., social justice). Along these lines Barrett (2013), based on a review of research from a psychological perspective, identifies intercultural competence as including “open‐mindedness, empathy, multiperspectivity, cognitive flexibility, communicative awareness, the ability to adapt one’s behavior to new cultural contexts, and … discourse skills (p.26). These are qual­ ities that are often listed as goals of global education as well. Banks (2008), a leader in the field of multicultural education and founder of the Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Washington, has developed models that



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bridge multicultural and global education. According to Banks, students should develop a delicate balance of cultural, national, and global identifications. In order to clarify these identifications and to facilitate student attainment of higher stages of cultural development, Banks (2009) has developed a Stages of Cultural Development Typology. It describes a framework for thinking about and facilitating the identity development of students who approximate one of six stages: cultural psychological captivity; cultural identity clarification; biculturalism; multiculturalism and reflective nationalism (cultural national identity); and globalism and global competency (cosmopolitanism) (Banks, 2009).

23.8.2  Peace Education Peace education encompasses a wide variety of aims and approaches and ideological content, but finds strong support, particularly from nongovernmental international organizations. UNICEF (1999) defines peace education as: the process of promoting the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values needed to bring about behavior changes that will enable children, youth and adults to prevent conflict and violence, both overt and structural; to resolve conflict peacefully; and to create the conditions conducive to peace, whether at an intrapersonal interpersonal, intergroup, national or international level.

Emphasizing the global level, the internationally known peace educator Betty Reardon has described the general purpose of peace education as the development of authentic planetary consciousness that will enable students to function as global citizens (Snauwaert, 2012). She links peace education to global responsibility, writing that in order to conceptualize positive peace students must have the opportunity to think about how the world might be and envision a society characterized by justice. According to Reardon, students need to have some notion of the transformed world that is the goal of peace education (Brock‐Utne, 2000). A 1974 UNESCO Recommendation links education for peace to international under­ standing, human rights, and fundamental freedoms (Buergenthal & Torney, 1976). However, according to Harris (2008), most countries have ignored UN mandates. Peace education in most countries is seen as a “soft” issue, neither embraced by citizens frightened by real or imaginary enemies, nor seen as contributing to students’ ability to compete in a high‐tech global economy. Turning away from more global approaches, many peace educators have become more concerned about civil, domestic, cultural, and ethnic forms of violence, and focus on conflict resolution in schools (Harris, 2008). In a survey of the literature, Cook (2008), while finding a close alignment between the principles of peace and global education, found that peace education’s role, breadth, and prominence within the global education field have progressively diminished in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In a world that still faces many of the same problems from the time when the field of peace education first emerged in the 1970s, she hopes that a strengthened peace education component within global education could better inform responses to these challenges. According to Bickmore (2009), global education is a crucial element of peace education because it responds to the global dimensions of conflict and security that already affect the lives of young people worldwide. Global education has the potential to prepare future

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citizens to make responsible decisions in the light of the global context, but no global e­ducation is adequate that does not directly address violence, both large scale and domestic.

23.8.3  Environmental Education/Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) In his report on global education worldwide, Tye (1999) found that the environment and sustainability were among the most prominent global issues cited. There is no doubt that the environment has become established in the international agenda in the last two decades. At the global level environmental education and education for sustainability received enhanced attention after the United Nations 1992 Conference on Environment and Development developed Agenda 21 (United Nations, & United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, 1992). Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations system, governments, and major groups. Scholars in England and Sweden have collaborated on lessons aimed at envi­ ronmental learning emphasizing the links between local, national, and global perspectives and have conducted research to identify barriers to students’ understanding of these issues (Rickinson, Lundholm, & Hopwood, 2009). Jelin (2000) advanced the notion of “global environmental citizenship” because environmental issues have to be examined in relation to the different spheres of action: at the community, national and international levels The Asia‐Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding (APCEIU), a UNESCO Institute, takes the position that Education for International Understanding (EIU) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) are two concepts with one goal (APCEIU, 2007). The Centre explains that EIU and ESD are not dogmas, but evolving concepts, and because of their synergy both can contribute to the overall goal of creating a culture of peace that encompasses individuals, community, nations, international/global systems, and a sustainable relationship between humanity and nature (APCEIU, 2007). However, Scheunpflug and Asbrand (2006), citing examples from Germany, report t­ensions between the education for sustainability and global education. On the one hand, advocates for education for sustainability have accused proponents of global education of having overly traditional views with regard to problems of sustainability that hinder the integration of environmental issues. On the other hand, proponents of global education have feared that with too much emphasis on sustainability, ecological concerns might undermine attention to issues of worldwide justice.

23.8.4  Human Rights Education (HRE) Globalization has led to an increased concern about the responsibility of all international actors to ensure the promotion and protection of human rights. This provides a linkage to human‐rights‐oriented global education. The primary lineage of human rights discourse can be traced to the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations in 1948. The 1974 UNESCO Recommendations (UNESCO, 1974), the major doc­ ument issued by a UN agency that specifically links human rights to global and interna­ tional education, is still in force among its member nations (Torney‐Purta & Barber, 2011).



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In a review of the research on human rights education Tibbitts and Kirchschlaeger (2010) note the overlap between discussions of human rights education and related approaches such as citizenship education, peace education, global education, and education for sustain­ able development. Amplifying the global dimension of Human Rights Education (HRE), Bajaj (2011) describes and analyzes three models of HRE: global citizenship, coexistence, and transfor­ mative action. HRE for Global Citizenship seeks to provide learners with membership to an international community through fostering knowledge and skills related to universal values and standards. Learners are repositioned as members of a global community and not simply as national citizens. In a special section of an issue of the journal Social Education, Kirkwood‐Tucker (2012) directly links the preparation of global citizens to the study of human rights. Believing that teachers have a moral responsibility to equip students with the knowledge, attitudes and skills for competent citizenship in a global age, she challenges classroom teachers to teach about the realities of human rights violations across the globe and suggests pedagogical approaches to accomplish this end. Beyond a simple linkage, some argue that human rights are the very foundation of global education. Osler and Starkey (2000) argue that international human rights declarations, adopted by the whole international community, provide a common set of universal values that can be used to make judgments about global issues and about the implied responsibil­ ities to respect the rights of others. According to Landorf (2009, p. 47) “it is evident that global education is philosophically based on human rights, and especially on the core human rights concept of moral universalism.” She cites the fact that early global educators (e.g., Torney‐Purta, 1982a: Tucker, 1982) argued that human rights should form the frame­ work of global education, and concludes that human rights concepts form a moral impera­ tive that is the basis of global education as evidenced by global education policy, documents, and curricula. She argues that global educators have a responsibility to promote the idea that processes of globalization should be subject to moral considerations that include the ethical and legal principles entailed by human rights.

23.8.5  Development Education/Global Learning Another stream or lineage within global education is development education, found more prominently on the European scene. According to Bourn’s (2014) comprehensive review, development education emerged in the late 1960s and 1970s in Europe and North America in response to the de‐colonization process and the emergence of development policy by both governments and NGOs. A European “Consensus” document (Multi‐Stakeholder Forum, 2007), states that the aim of development education is to have lifelong access to opportu­ nities to be aware of and understand global development concerns and the local and personal relevance of those concerns. It promotes change toward a combination of a justice and sus­ tainability. However, as Bourn (2014) adds, early in the 21st century there was a noticeable shift away from the term “development education.” This has been accompanied by increasing use of terms like “global learning,” “global citizenship education,” and “the global dimension” (in education) as they appear to be more accessible to practicing educators. The Development Education Association (DEA) originally focused on promoting an understanding of development issues and our connections to them, but it has now broadened

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its scope to consider how education can lead to a better understanding of the wider world, including economic globalization, development, environmental issues, and human rights. It now uses the term “global learning” to cover this broader range of inquiry and has changed the organization’s name to Think Global (Think Global, n.d.).

23.8.6  Global Citizenship Education Tye (2009) describes the 1980s and 1990s as the “golden years” of global education. Based on this review, perhaps we have entered a “golden era” of global citizenship education. In recent years public discourse around the idea of global citizenship has increased dramati­ cally if not exponentially, especially within the sphere of educational policy. While the traditional model of citizenship education is often quite parochial in its viewpoint, and silent on the citizen’s relationship to states and peoples outside the nation (Avery, 2004), global citizenship education is more focused on the nation’s international involvements and issues of global interconnectedness (Davies, Evans, & Reid, 2005). A significant marker of the growing attention to global citizenship education is found in the United Nations Global Education First Initiative (GEFI), launched in 2012. This five‐ year initiative identifies global citizenship as one of its three educational priorities (Global Education First Initiative, 2012). In support of this initiative UNESCO (2013, 2015) has formed a Global Citizenship Working Group and published a booklet offering pedagogical guidance, including topics and learning objectives toward integrating global citizenship education into education systems. In this expanded discourse, the term global citizenship itself seems open to appropriation by many actors on the global scene (Byers, 2005). Bowden (2003) argues that the notion of being a global citizen or citizen of the world is in many regards equivalent to be stateless. However, as a UNESCO (2013) consultation document points out, global citizenship does not entail a legal status or membership. Rather it should be understood as more of a meta­ phor or ethos that reflects a psychosocial framework for a collective perspective that gener­ ates civic actions in the public domain to promote a better world and future. Gaudelli (2009) describes five different discourses of global citizenship: (a) neoliberal, in which a global citizen is still affiliated nationally but is governed by a universal market conception; (b) national, in which civic identity is a social compact between the nation and the citizen; (c) Marxist, which bases global citizenship on class collectives that transcend national borders; (d) world justice and governance, which rationalizes global citizenship through global human rights, international law, and global civil society; and (e) cosmopolitan, whose framework of global citizenship includes matters of value, morality, and humane treatment According to Peters, Britton, and Blee (2008), the term global citizenship actually expresses a hope for a form of global civil society in which the rights of individuals and groups are observed by all governments. At the same time Byers (2005) warns that there is a potentially dark side to global citizenship, as the term can reflect the same parochialism and paternalism associated with imperialism and colonialism. In a survey of the use of the term “global citizenship” in government, business, civil society, and education in the English‐speaking world, Schattle (2008) initially found 600  published references, and a high proportion of these within the educational arena.



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He  argues that the use of the term global citizenship in the educational arena does not signal the arrival of a new, distinct, globally oriented ideology. Rather it illustrates how familiar ideologies are adapting to the increased public recognition of global interdependence (Schattle, 2008). Still, no less than global education itself, the term global citizenship remains very broad, and consequently difficult to operationalize in education (Tawil, 2013). Peters, Britton, and Blee (2008) argue that because each term in this concept is highly contested and open to argument, there can be no single dominant notion of global citizenship. Oxley and Morris (2013) identified eight principal conceptions of global citizenship, and grouped them into two broad types: a cosmopolitan set that includes conceptions derived from a political, moral, economic, or cultural perspective, and a set that involves a strong degree of advocacy from a particular social, critical, environmental, or spiritual perspective. Myers (2006) writes that while it is often heard today that we are all global citizens, the term “global citizenship education does not comprise a coherent and identifiable area of educational theory or practice in the United States” (p. 370). He argues that educators should consider global citizenship education as an additional layer for developing democratic citizenship provided it includes three curricular topics: “1) international human rights as the foundation of global citizenship, 2) the reconciliation of the universal and the local, and 3) political action beyond the nation state” (p. 376). In a case study of two e­ xemplary education programs dealing with global themes with diverse approaches, Myers found that while a global perspective was often incorporated into these programs, the concept of global citizenship was less coherent. Based on these case studies he concludes that at best the U.S. educational system approximates the goal of developing national c­itizens with some relative understanding and awareness of the rest of the world. As the Myers (2006) study reflects, the insertion of citizenship into the global education concept has the potential to sharpen some of the tensions in the field of global education. According to Rapaport (2010), because of the lack of a consensus on the meaning of the term, its controversial nature and the lack of a dedicated place in the curriculum, U.S. edu­ cators, unlike their colleagues in Europe, Canada, or Southeast Asia, are less enthusiastic about introducing the concept of global citizenship in their classrooms. In a review of inter­ national projects in citizenship education Parker (2010) identifies two central oppositions or dichotomies that come into play in the tensions around the concept of global citizenship: multiculturalism versus nationalism and nationalism versus cosmopolitanism. In a multi­ cultural society citizenship education is often criticized as being framed by dominant groups who seek to reinforce their position, but it also can be challenged by marginal­ ized groups who struggle to reform or replace the dominant vision. In this regard Banks (2008) calls for “transformative citizenship” education that “helps students to develop reflective cultural, national, regional, and global identifications and to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote social justice in communities, nations, and the world” (p. 137). Nevertheless, in the citizenship education discourse the opposition of nationalism to globalism or cosmopolitanism remains. In order to balance the binary of local, ethnic, religious, or national values and cosmopolitan values that transcend those more local boundaries, some theorists have explored the notion of “rooted cosmopolitanism,” (e.g., Kymlicka & Walker, 2012; Tarrow, 2005). In its most basic form rooted cosmopolitanism implies that local/national/cultural attachments are not inconsistent with global responsi­ bilities. The promise of rooted cosmopolitanism is that the same national identities that

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bind people to their own national community can also mobilize moral commitments to more distant others. In this argument rooted cosmopolitanism means that individuals can inculcate and affirm their national identity and simultaneously inculcate and affirm a sense of global citizenship (Kymlicka & Walker, 2012, p. 6).

23.9  Global Education and the Curriculum How do we deal with these multiple globally related streams when they are in competition for space in the curriculum and attention in the classroom? On occasion advocates of one of these approaches have sought to declare that all the other streams in global education are subsumed under their own. Davies (2006, 2008) reports that in a discussion of approaches to global education Robin Richardson somewhat famously used the fable of the blind men who grasped different part of an elephant and perceived what they found as the whole. Thus, while correct in their own perceptions, they were only partly right. In reaction to this “elephant education” approach, Davies says that Richardson concluded that the term global education is probably as good as any to evoke the whole field (Davies, 2006). With all due respect to the advocates of the primacy of other related fields, the evidence seems to support Richardson. Still, when one finds efforts to include global education in schooling, proponents c­ommonly face the problem of finding space within the subject structure that exists in most school systems. Like other interdisciplinary fields global education rarely stands alone as a course and thus must find or create space with existing subjects. In an educational environ­ ment increasingly focused on testing and assessment within traditional subjects, this r­epresents a significant challenge. Here we briefly examine the relationship between global education and school curricula, and cite some of the organizational efforts to promote global education within the curriculum.

23.9.1  Global Education and the Social Studies The fact that this chapter on global education is in a handbook of social studies research is an indicator of the strong and historical relationship between the social studies and global education, and some see the social studies as a natural, or even the most natural, home for global education. Advocacy for global education within the social studies has a long history. In 1979 Mehlinger and Tucker argued the need to internationalize the social studies. In a presidential address to the annual meeting of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), Tucker (1988) argued that global interdependence must be given greater emphasis in the social studies curriculum of the United States. In fact, by the early 1980s NCSS (1982) had a position statement that recommended expanding the global dimension of K–12 social studies and later a position paper on the importance of global and international e­ducation (McJimsey, Ross, & Young, 2006). NCSS also published a booklet, Social Studies and the World: Teaching Global Perspectives (Merryfield & Wilson, 2005). This long‐established linkage has at least two underlying dimensions. The first is a shared focus on civic or citizen competence as an outcome. The second is drawn from a shared relationship within subject matter content that would include placement of global topics



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into social studies courses such as history, geography, civics, and economics. Since global topics and issues are rarely taught within a stand‐alone course and need a space in the c­urriculum, social studies subjects have the capacity to provide that home (Merryfield & Wilson, 2005). Thornton (2005) suggests that while there are and have been substantial obstacles to teaching about and for internationalism in U.S. schools, significant opportunities for teaching about international topics exist in the standard high school social studies curricu­ lum. Although high school social studies curriculum in the United States typically requires considerable work in citizenship, Thornton explains, it also leaves much of the selection process of topics and activities to teachers. This is particularly the case in explicitly citizenship education courses such as Civics, Government, or Problems of Democracy. Many topics in these civic courses have or potentially have internationalist elements. Thornton (2005) concludes that greater attention to internationalizing the social studies curriculum will depend on the provision of models from curriculum leaders and the exercise of educational imagination on the part of teachers. Some curriculum models do exist. As Merryfield (2008) puts it, social studies can be scaffolded for global awareness. This potential for scaffolding is reflected in the social studies frameworks designed by the NCSS. In its National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies, NCSS states that “social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of global connections and interdependence” (2010, p. 87). Further, in Dimension 2, Applying Disciplinary Concepts and Tools, the NCSS framework for social studies state standards includes standards for teaching about the global economy and global interconnections (NCSS, 2013). Yet, as Merryfield (2008) asks, how many students sitting in social studies classes today understand how the world affects them or how they and others in their community are shaping the future of the planet? The NCSS recommendations for state social studies s­tandards are voluntary, and there seems to be a large gap between the policies and recom­ mendations of this national professional organization and those of individual states in the United States. Rapaport (2009) found that in the texts of state social studies curriculum standards the term globalization was only used by 15 states, and only two states included the term global citizen. So this gap should not be surprising. Myers (2006) makes the case that the topic of globalization has not yet entered the U.S. social studies vocabulary in sufficient complexity and depth. This judgment is in stark c­ontrast to the rapid expansion of research on global education and global citizenship e­ducation in many countries around the world. Along with Myers (2006) we see this as e­vidence of the general disconnect between the social studies curriculum in the United States and contemporary academic scholarship. And this is despite, as this chapter shows, much of the research on global education has been done by social studies educators.

23.9.2  Global Education across the Curriculum Of course, it is not only social studies educators and social studies professional organiza­ tions that seek a role in global education. Given a broad conceptualization of global educa­ tion, other disciplines and subjects have a potentially important role to play in implementing global education. We thus can find recommendations for the inclusion of global education

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within other subjects beyond the social studies, as well as cross‐disciplinary approaches. With regard to attention to global education within other subjects, here we briefly cite examples from foreign languages, science, and mathematics.

23.9.3  Subject‐Based Approaches The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) has issued a Global Competence Position Statement (2014) arguing that developing global competence is a process that needs to be embedded in learning experiences in all subject areas, including the study of foreign languages. The U.S. National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) produced a special issue of The Science Educator that addressed the impact of globalization on science education. According to the issue’s editor, science educators should prepare students to think globally as the serious environmental, social, and geopolitical issues facing the planet, require a global perspective (Metz, 2007). Recognizing the rapid changes in the world brought about by increased globalization, technological advancements, and scientific innovation, in 2011 the NSTA adopted a position statement that links quality science education to 21st century skills (NSTA, 2011). The U.S. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) produced a focus issue of its publication Teaching Children Mathematics on teaching math in a flat world that sought to identify some of the skills that mathematics teachers need in a fast‐changing world (NCTM, 2010).

23.9.4  Cross‐Curricular Approaches Other professional education organizations that are not subject‐based have also given attention to the place of global education in the curriculum. In contrast to subject‐based organizations, these initiatives tend to see global education as a cross‐curricular project. The internationally oriented cross‐disciplinary curriculum organization with the most global reach is the International Baccalaureate (IB). Founded in 1968 the International Baccalaureate is a nonprofit educational foundation offering four programs of international education (primary, middle years, diploma, and career). According to its website the number of authorized IB programs worldwide in 2015 was 5,308 across 4,162 schools. Of these schools 22.9% were in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East; 15.8% were in the Asia‐Pacific; and 61.3% were in the Americas (International Baccalaureate, n.d.). Between December 2009 and December 2014, the number of IB p­rograms offered worldwide grew by 46.35%, and now serve more than one million students. According to the International Baccalaureate Office, its programs are designed to develop the intellectual, personal, emotional and social skills needed to live, learn and work in a rapidly globalizing world and to develop inquiring, knowledgeable, and caring young people who help us to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect (www.IBO.org). The IB curriculum uses transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary themes to break down traditional subject matter content with the goal of providing students with a realistic per­ spective of an interconnected world. The International Baccalaureate Organization explains that its programs are independent of governments and national systems, therefore able to



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incorporate best practice from a range of international frameworks and curricula, and that they encourage students to consider both their local and international environment. In order to teach IB programs, schools must be authorized. Every school authorized to offer IB programs is known as an IB World School. (Later in this chapter some research studies on the International Baccalaureate are reported.) The largest professional organization of educators in the United States, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) commissioned a five‐year initiative on global education in the early 1990s. This effort produced a framework for teaching and learning global understandings (C. Anderson, 1994). This framework provided rationale, activities, and assessments to integrate global education into the curriculum. The Association of International Educators (formerly NAFSA) published a paper on “Preparing Globally Competent Teachers” (Moss, Manise, & Soppelsa, 2012). This paper argues that global learning should not be considered an add‐on nor be prioritized against other education outcomes, but rather that an integrated approach to global education sup­ ports and enhances student achievement across all content areas and levels. Supporting this theme of integration the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (n.d.) cites global awareness among its five interdisciplinary themes that must be woven into all core subjects. Working with the U.S. Council of Chief State School Officers, the Asia Society has pro­ duced a booklet about educating for global competence “intended for classroom teachers, administrators, informal educators, policymakers, community leaders, researchers, parents, students, and all other stakeholders interested in preparing our youth for the 21st century” (Mansilla & Jackson, 2011, p. xiii). This document includes global competency matrices for the arts, language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, and world languages. Further, on its website (http://asiasociety.org/globalcompetence) the Asia Society offers performance outcomes and rubrics in a variety of grades and all academic subjects, including language arts, world languages, mathematics, sciences, and the arts, as well as history and social studies. In Australia with funding from the government’s Overseas Aid Program, the Global Education Project (2011) offers recommendations about integrating global perspectives within and across learning areas, and advice for teachers and school leadership teams about how to implement the framework at a school level. In Canada the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (2010), using a global education community of practice approach, created a curriculum resource guide that offers a range of classroom and school‐wide ideas and practices to consider when teaching about global themes and issues. UNESCO (2015) has developed a guide for global citizenship education built around three domains of learning: cognitive, socio‐emotional, and behavioral. Using this rubric the guide provides topics and learning objectives from pre‐primary through upper secondary schooling.

23.10  Obstacles and Opposition to Global Education Despite lofty policy statements and endorsement of global education by many govern­ mental and nongovernmental organizations, introducing global education into the curricu­ lum can be a significant challenge. Almost from its inception, challenges and obstacles to global education have been part of the discourse about it. Torney (1979) described two types of barriers to a more global orientation: those within the individual student and those originating outside the individual student in the society or among teachers who prepare

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curriculum. Within the student she identified four types of obstacles: cognitive, attitudinal, personal, and communication barriers. Another issue is that outside the individual some practices may have unanticipated and even negative consequences. Many of the common challenges of introducing global education into schools have been described by Tye and Tye (1992). With regard to obstacles to global and global citizenship education in U.S. schools, Rapaport (2015a) cites traditions of isolationism and noncritical patriotism, terminological vagueness and ambiguity, curricular instability of global education, and lack of administrative support. In order to overcome these obstacles, he argues for carefully organized curriculum pressure through the inclusion of global education concepts into curricular documents and representation of them in curriculum standards. Beyond these obstacles there also have been active attempts to deter or eliminate global education programs. Reflecting on several cases of direct attacks on global education, Schukar (1993) advised educators that challenges to global education generally result from the inherent controversial nature of global education, struggles to control the global education agenda, or a lack of balance in addressing specific global issues. Describing right‐wing attacks on global education in the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s, Tye (2009) concluded that the cumulative result of these attacks caused schools, administrators, teachers, and teacher educa­ tors to be more cautious about offering programs under the name global education. According to Tye (2014), in addition to structural forces that act to prevent or undermine attempts to develop global education curriculum and pedagogy, nationalism, neoliberalism, and confusion about meaning remain barriers to the advancement of global education. In relation to specific attacks on global education, Bunnell (2009, 2012) has detailed the case of opposition to the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. The IB’s mission is to create a better a more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect and claims to be the most international program available to schools. Although small in national terms (offered by about 2% of American public high schools), the IB has seen increased growth in the United States in the past decade. According to Bunnell (2009, 2012), the IB has become enveloped in a wider “culture war” in the United States. In this context the attacks can be understood in the historical context that sees the IB as part of a long‐term move towards ceding national sovereignty to global governance. Schattle (2008) concludes that on both sides of the Atlantic the most vociferous critics of global citizenship education are conservatives with strong nationalistic sentiments. On the other hand, while some critics tend to emerge from the political right, in other cases global education/global citizenship education have been packaged in ways that appeal to many in the political right. Global citizenship education programs often offer two distinct goals: (1) promoting moral visions of a more just, peaceful, and sustainable world, and (2) enhancing the academic achievement, competence, and economic competitiveness of graduates. Many conservatives and neoconservatives have embraced the second goal. But others, whom Bunnell (2009) calls “paleoconservatives,” see globalism and multiculturalism as part of an erosion of traditional American values. According to Tarc (2013), the IB has become a convenient target “for ideological pundits to tap into an array of worries or inse­ curities of their conservative bases” because it is seen as indoctrinating students to prefer world government to American sovereignty in a conflict‐laden world (p. 192). Tarc (2013) concludes that Bunnell’s study (2012) is a reminder that a significant and increasingly vocal minority does not see global education as a necessary or positive goal in a globalizing world, and there are groups mobilized to strongly oppose it.



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23.11  Global Education and Teacher Education In any effort to introduce global education into the school curriculum, there is no denying the central role of the teacher. Based on an analysis of student performance on OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in high achieving school systems, Barber and Mourshed (2007) found that three things mattered most: (1) getting the right people to become teachers, (2) developing them into effective instructors, and (3) ensuring that the system is able to deliver the best possible instruction for every child. This finding that teachers and teacher training are central to learning outcomes is echoed by proponents of global education. Heyl and McCarthy (2003) make the case that a key role for higher education must be to graduate future prekindergarten to Grade 12 teachers who “think globally, have international experience, demonstrate foreign language competence, and are able to incorporate a global dimension into their teaching” (p. 3). Since Zong, Wilson, and Quashiga (2008) provided a review of the literature on inte­ grating a global perspective in teacher education, there have been considerable additions to the literature on teacher education and global education. In 2007 the Teacher Education Quarterly devoted a special issue to “Internationalizing Schools and Colleges of Education— Educating for Global Awareness” (Quezada & Cordeira, 2007). There are a number of recent books as well (Cushner & Brennan, 2007; Hansen, 2011; Quezada, 2012; Shaklee & Bailey, 2012: Sharma, Phillion, Rahatzad, & Sasser, 2014). Both the Association of International Educators (formerly NAFSA, n.d.) and Educators Abroad (n.d.) provide b­ ibliographies of books, articles, and online resources for internationalizing teacher education. Calling teacher preparation for the global age an imperative, the Longview Foundation (2008) avers that while the critical role of teachers in internationalizing education has never been clearer, today’s teachers rarely begin their careers with the deep knowledge and skills to bring the word into their classrooms. According to the Foundation (2008), teacher training programs are among the least internationalized programs on American college campuses. An analysis of the transcripts of 690 licensed teachers who graduated from three teacher preparation programs in three U.S. state universities support this judgment (Heyl & McCarthy, 2003). It was found that because the majority of these students were transfers from community colleges, they had less coursework in internationally oriented subjects than four‐year students, and foreign language study was rarely pursued. They were also less likely to join study abroad programs because of the need to meet licensure requirements. Using a very broad definition of international curricula, the researchers estimated a range of 8–26% of coursework with any international relevance. In a two‐year study of the implementation of global citizenship education in English schools, Davies, Harber, and Yamashita (2005) found while student teachers valued the skill-based initial training, they would have also liked to explore actual global issues and ways to incorporate them in their teaching. Moreover, student teachers found it difficult to p­romote global citizenship education in school because they were viewed as new and inexperienced. Trying a variety of approaches to rectify this situation, Zong (2015) developed a systematic approach for working with teacher education students that integrates scholarly readings with community-based inquiries to explore the effects of globalization on local communities.

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In a retrospective essay Cook (2014) has described and analyzed a long‐standing teacher education program that linked global education and peace education that she coordinated for more than a decade. The initiative, Developing a Global Perspective for Education, began as an extracurricular project that included about 14 activities each academic year. Later an in‐class core curricular program was added to a cohort program of self‐identified preservice candidates who were exposed to a number of in‐class activities in which instruc­ tors used global and peace education resources. There was a strong service component to the program, and candidates were encouraged to develop their own peace and global curricula. From her perspective as the program coordinator, Cook identified two key c­hallenges that the faculty leadership team experienced: (1) the candidates’ understanding and place of peace education within the broader field of global education, and (2) the candidates’ capacity to design and implement “sophisticated, critical, interactive ‘peace’ pedagogies” (Cook, 2014, p. 495). Some candidates did good lesson plans and units, but these tended to  be in more in other areas of global education than peace education. Cook (2014) c­oncludes that there needs to be more work done to refine candidates’ notions of peace e­ducation, their knowledge bases, and their capacity to apply this knowledge to curriculum development. Thus, it is not surprising that researchers have argued that the integration of global content into teacher education programs will result in producing teachers with a global per­ spective (e.g., Carano, 2013). However, Poole and Russell (2015), drawing on a national sample of elementary school teachers currently employed in public schools in the United States, compared the global perspectives of teachers who graduated from their teacher e­ducation program before and after the year 2000. No significant difference was found in the global perspective of teachers based on their graduation year. They found that while there has been an increase in global content courses taken by preservice teachers since 2000, the more recent graduates were not actually more globally aware than the more e­xperienced teachers. Further, the fact that teachers who graduated before 2000 were more likely to p­articipate in cross‐cultural activities suggests that the more recent graduates may actually be less cross‐culturally competent. They conclude that global content courses may not be as successful in globalizing teacher education candidates as much of the conceptual literature suggests (Poole & Russell, 2015, p. 127). How is one to understand and explain this finding? According to Rapaport (2015a), although many preservice teachers are now exposed to the themes and discourses of global education in required courses on multicultural and international education, what is cur­ rently lacking is a combination of space and time where future teachers can connect their course knowledge and skills and translate them into global competencies. What is needed, Rapaport argues, is a locus such as a course, seminar, or set of workshops that would help future teachers look at global problems, content, and issues holistically. In Australia a Global Education and Teacher (GERT) team took a somewhat different approach by bringing together a collective of like‐minded teacher educators who developed a values‐based peda­ gogy that focuses “on teaching and learning about, for and with a global world” (Reynolds et  al., 2015, p. 178). In this multifaceted pedagogical approach these teacher educators model and immerse their preservice students in strategies that can be used to further global education when these students are in the role of a teacher. What then might be among the options for integrating global education into teacher education? Based on a review of a number of institutions that have made comprehensive



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and strategic efforts to internationalize their teacher education programs, the Longview Foundation (2008) recommends a multipronged approach to internationalizing teacher education that includes (a) recruiting and rewarding internationally minded teacher e­ducators; (b) offering globally focused faculty professional development; (c) providing international experiences for faculty; (d) inviting visiting international faculty; and (e) internationalizing professional education courses. However, if we are to find and use research‐based evidence to identify and implement best practices in preparing teachers for global education, there are significant concerns. Zong (2009b) provided a review and analysis of the growing body of literature on global perspectives in teacher education with a focus on teacher preparation. After offering a brief synopsis of the history and evolution of teacher education for global perspectives, she reviewed the existing literature to identify best practices in globalizing teacher education in the following areas: international field experiences and study abroad, the integration of technology in teacher education, faculty development for teaching global perspectives, and teacher education students’ knowledge of and attitudes towards global education. Zong found that there were significant gaps in the extant literature that consisted largely of small self‐studies of their own programs by teacher educators, and that the many small individual case studies fail to provide a strong empirical basis for making broader generalizations.

23.12  Empirical Studies of Global Education The chapter now turns to a survey of research studies of global education that hopefully will provide some guidance for future research and practice. This survey can in no way capture the entire wide‐ranging research literature on global education of recent decades. A solici­ tation from scholars in the field and an extensive literature review yielded a database of more than 200 articles and book chapters. Studies have been selected around a set of topics that are significant in the research literature and potentially can inform the design of research projects. These research topics are: ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●●

survey instruments designed to study global education large‐scale student surveys studies related to technology and digital media studies of international exchange and study abroad studies of the International Baccalaureate Program case studies of students, and case studies of teachers.

23.12.1  Survey Instruments Designed to Study Global Education Many, if not most, of the studies in the literature do not address standards of validity and reliability. However, a few scales appear with some regularity and have been subject to basic psychometric analysis. These include the World‐Mindedness Scale (Samson and Smith, 1957), the Global‐Mindedness Scale (Hett, 1993), the Global Perspective Inventory (GPI),

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and the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). These scales were initially developed for university level application, but have been adapted for use with teachers and students. More recently, scales attempting to measure global citizenship have also appeared, e.g., the scale developed by Reysen, Katzarska‐Miller, & Gibson (2013). In an analysis of scales attempting to measure a “global mindset,” Vassar (2006) con­ cluded that the World‐Mindedness Scale and the Global‐Mindedness Scale showed the most promise for future academic research. However, there were reservations on the use of the World‐Mindedness Scale, the oldest scale in continuous use. Sampson and Smith (1957) coined the term “world‐mindedness” as “a value orientation, or frame of refer­ ence apart from knowledge about, or interest in, international relations” (p. 99). Those who reflect a “world mindset” consider the utility of being global citizens rather than citizens of a particular country. World‐mindedness includes attitudes about immigra­ tion, economics, the nation, and conflict among others. Vassar (2006) and Parker, Glenn, Mizoue, Meriwether, and Gardner (1997) caution on the use of this scale because of o­utdated wording, outmoded notions of cultural diversity, and questions about its c­onstruct validity. Partly in response to limitations of the World‐Mindedness Scale, Hett (1993) devel­ oped the Global Mindedness‐Scale (GMS) to measure the extent to which university students develop a worldview in which they see themselves as connected and respon­ sible to the global community and reflect that worldview in their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. From interviews with individuals of nine nationalities, Hett (1993) devel­ oped a 30‐item Likert Scale measuring global‐mindedness covering five dimensions: responsibility, cultural p­luralism, efficacy, global centrism, and interconnectedness. All 30 items for the GMS developed were verified for their reliability using the internal consistency method, which was 0.90 and the alpha coefficient of five subscales ranged from 0.65 to 0.80. The result of factor analysis, the items loaded on a factor at above 0.35. The correlation with the Chauvinism subscale was 0.65 (when reverse scored). Hett (1993) found among the positive factors influencing global‐mindedness were gender (females tended to be more globally minded); number of globally oriented courses; participation in international programs; and number of friends from other cultures. Cui (2013) assessed preservice teachers’ levels of global‐mindedness and intercultural competence using the GMS and the Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS), and investigated the correlation between the two. The independent variables of gender (again females tended to be more globally minded), perceived competence in a nonnative language or culture, and  teaching experience were significant predictors of the preservice teachers’ levels of global‐mindedness. The GPI and the IDI are proprietary instruments (i.e., there is a cost for using them), and thus they are found less often in educational studies. The GPI was designed to measure individuals’ development of global perspectives (Braskamp, Braskamp, & Engberg, 2014), and has primarily been used in higher education. The 40‐item, five‐point Likert Scale instrument includes measures of cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal dimensions and studies differences based on demographic factors (gender, class status, faculty/staff or student status, institution type, and participation in study abroad). Poole (2014) used the GPI to study the extent to which preservice teachers in different certification areas reported participating in global content courses and cocurricular cross‐cultural experiences.



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The  study found that higher rates of participation in both global content courses and c­ocurricular cross‐cultural experiences have a significant positive association with preservice teachers’ global perspectives. The IDI was developed by Hammer and Bennett (1998) to measure an individual’s awareness of and sensitivity to cultural differences. It is based on Milton Bennett’s (1993) Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS). It includes a 50‐item Likert‐type scale. It asks individuals to frame their responses in terms of comparisons between their cultures and generalized other cultures. The result is an overall score plus scores on five subscales: denial/defense; reversal; minimization; acceptance/adaptation; and encapsulated marginality. One advantage for the use of the IDI is that it is available in many languages. Based on psychometric analyses, the IDI has been shown to be a statistically reliable and cross‐culturally valid measure of intercultural competence and a reasonable approximation of the DMIS model (Paige, Jacobs‐Cassuto, Yershova, & DeJaeghere, 2003). Yuen and Grossman (2009) used the IDI scale to compare the intercultural sensitivity of secondary teachers in three Asian cities. More recently, and coincidentally with greater attention to global citizenship educa­ tion, Morais and Ogden (2011) sought to develop a theoretically grounded and empiri­ cally validated scale to measure global citizenship. They defined global citizenship as a multidimensional construct that includes the interrelated dimensions of social responsi­ bility, global competence, and global civic engagement. Using a multifaceted approach that included the review of 12 other scales (including the GMS and IDI), they developed and tested items to  create a Likert‐type Global Citizenship Scale encompassing the three dimensions. The resulting measurement model consisted of six first‐order factors (self‐awareness, intercultural communication, global knowledge, involvement in civic organizations, political voice, global civic activism), three second‐order factors (social responsibility, global competence, global civic engagement), and one higher‐order factor (global citizenship). Van Gent, Carabain, De Goede, Boonstoppel, and Hogeling (2013) have developed an inventory that measures global citizenship among adolescents that is consistent with their theoretical constructs. The resulting Global Citizenship Inventory (GCI) includes a global citizenship behavior index and three scales measuring principles underlying global citizenship: human equality, mutual dependency in the world, and the shared responsibility for solving global issues. A promising but as yet uncompleted effort development is a UNESCO‐initiated project to make recommendations for measuring global citizenship (UNESCO, 2013, 2015). UNESCO, the Center for Universal Education at Brookings, and the Youth Advocacy Group (YAG) of the United Nations’ Global Education First Initiative have joined efforts to convene a task force whose goal is to improve the learning outcomes of all children and youth by strengthening assessment systems and the use of assessment data. This project will include exploring the different definitions and constructs related to global citizenship; identifying ways in which these constructs are currently measured, with an emphasis on educational outcomes; building consensus on core competencies of global citizenship that are relevant in all countries; and proposing new and innovative ways of assessing learning in this area. An example of the work done toward monitoring global citizenship by one of the member organizations of the task force is found in Fricke, Gathercole, and Skinner (2015).

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23.12.2  Large‐Scale Student Surveys Older studies.  An early, perhaps the earliest, large scale study specifically related to global education in the United States was conducted by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) under the auspices of what was then the U.S. Office of Education: Other Nations/Other Peoples (Pike & Barrows, 1979). It was designed to assess the interests, knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions of American public school children regarding other nations and peoples, and surveyed a national sample of fourth, eighth, and 12th graders. According to the researchers, “the results reflect a mixed bag, sometimes puzzling, often disturbing, on balance more discomforting than satisfying (p. vi).” A subsequent instrument, the Survey of Global Understanding, was used in a Council of Learning study conducted by ETS of undergraduates (freshmen and seniors) from nearly 180 campuses (Barrows, 1981). In an analysis of these data, Torney‐Purta (1982b) found that students who had taken foreign language courses and who regularly read the newspaper had higher scores on a measure of international concern and empathy. She suggested that learning or speaking another language should receive more attention for its potential contribution to global awareness. Also taking courses in history or the social sciences (and especially majoring in these disciplines) contributed to students’ global knowledge. Torney‐Purta (1986) constructed a shorter version of the ETS scale to study whether secondary students who had taken global education courses or participated in special pro­ grams on this topic had higher levels of global awareness (knowledge) or global concern (attitudes). She surveyed approximately 1,500 secondary students in nine states. An anal­ ysis showed that some but not all of the global education programs succeeded in enhancing the global knowledge and concern of students. Particularly successful were programs designed for highly selected groups of able students and a multiyear program that included intensive teacher training for teaching international topics to academically diverse groups. Short‐term programs and those focused on a single world area were comparatively less successful according to this measure. In the mid‐1980s Stanford University conducted a study (American Schools and the World, ASAW) in 13 San Francisco Bay Area high schools of students’ international knowledge and attitudes. ASAW used both a survey instrument and classroom observa­ tions. The survey included a cognitive section on knowledge of international issues of economics, peace, and conflict, and an attitudinal section drawn from the ETS instrument in combination with classroom observation and interviews. This study found that student motivation to seek information and participation beyond reading the text were critical, and fostering such motivation was seen to be a key to enhanced global education. Beyond this the researchers found that it was not primarily the frequency with which international issues were discussed in the classroom that influenced knowledge and attitudes, but how that discussion is framed. In particular, whether students felt free to express a contrary opinion to that of the teacher was significant (Torney‐Purta & Lansdale, 1986). This process dimension of a classroom environment has been called “an open climate for classroom discussion” in other studies (Torney‐Purta, Lehmann, Oswald, & Schulz, 2001). Studies using IEA data.  On an international level the International Association for Educational Evaluation (IEA) has periodically conducted cross‐national studies of civic and citizenship education using nationally representative samples of 14‐year‐olds in 1971,



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1999, and 2009 (IEA, n.d.‐a). To date these studies do not specifically address global educa­ tion in their scales, though there are indications that this may be the case in the 2016 study. However, Torney‐Purta and her colleagues have been able (and encouraged other researchers) to do secondary analyses of the data around topics that can relate to global education (Torney‐Purta & Amadeo, 2013). Among the advantages of using IEA data is that (1) it provides international comparisons of large representative samples across many countries, and (2) the researchers have used extremely robust instruments that have had to demonstrate high levels of validity and reliability. Data sets from the 1999 study are avail­ able from the Inter‐University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan (ICPSR, n.d.), and IEA has published guides for using 1999 and 2009 civic education scales and data sets (Brese, Jung, Mirazchiyski, Schulz, & Zuehlke, 2014; Sibberns, 2005). Below we cite four examples of findings related to global education derived from secondary analyses of IEA civic education data. Using 1999 IEA civic education data to study the degree to which adolescents in 27 countries (88,000 14‐year‐olds) support human rights, Torney‐Purta, Wilkenfeld, and Barber (2008) presented the results on three scales: attitudes towards citizens’ involvement in activities promoting social justice and human rights; attitudes toward rights for immi­ grants; and a sense of political efficacy. Their findings include that students’ experience of democracy at school and with international issues have a positive association with their knowledge and support of human rights. With regard to attitudes, students who had more knowledge of human rights, more frequent engagement with international topics, and more open class and school climates, held stronger norms supporting social movement citizenship, had more positive attitudes toward immigrants’ rights, and were more politically efficacious. In another study using the same IEA civic education database to study young people’s support for participatory student rights, Torney‐Purta and Barber (2011) identified five clusters of students holding similar attitudes: a cluster with strong beliefs favoring social justice; and also clusters that could be described as conventionally oriented; indifferent; disaffected; and alienated. Students who had attitudes supportive of human rights and social justice unfortunately were not particularly active in participation to support these goals. Also, a disturbingly large proportion (8–10%) across the United States and nine other countries held very negative attitudes towards immigrants and ethnic minorities. Again using the IEA data from native‐born 14‐year‐olds in 25 countries, Barber, Fennelly, and Torney‐Purta (2013) studied nationalism and support for immigrants’ rights. Adolescents in countries with more restrictive citizenship policies were less supportive of immigrants’ rights. They also found that high levels of nationalism were associated with negative attitudes toward immigrants’ rights in long‐established democracies but not in newer ones. Adolescents in countries with more restrictive citizenship policies were less supportive of immigrants’ rights, although these policies did not moderate the extent to which attitudes towards immigrants were correlated with nationalism. Finally, using the same data set from nearly 3,000 ninth graders in the United States, Torney‐Purta and Wilkenfeld (2009) studied a set of 21st-century competencies: media literacy, economic knowledge, experiences with individuals with diverse views, learning about other countries, and support for minorities’ rights. They found that students who experienced interactive discussion‐based civic education, either by itself or in combination with lecture‐based teaching, scored the highest on these 21st-century competencies that are

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increasingly valued in a globalized economy. This included working with others in diverse groups and knowledge of economic and political processes. Another large-scale student survey.  In a cross‐national research project, Beneker, Tani, Uphues, & van der Vaart (2013) compared students’ worldviews and ideas about the global dimension in their geography education in a sample of about eight hundred 15‐ and 16‐year‐olds in Finland, Germany, and the Netherlands. They used a 20‐item World‐ Mindedness Scale using items from both Samson and Smith’s (1957) World‐Mindedness Scale and Hett’s (1993) Global Mindedness Scale to assess the students’ worldview. Despite differences in national contexts, the students from each of the three countries showed very similar outcomes. The students were found to be open to the world and to possess a sense of curiosity, seeking cultural experiences and the opportunity to meet other people and see other places. At the same time, they prioritized their own and national interests over wider global i­nterests, such as sharing welfare and giving up specific rights.

23.12.3  Studies Related to Technology and Digital Media New media continue to provide expanding opportunities for global connections (Baildon & Damico, 2012). Access to technology has created a world far different from that of previous generations, and schools are challenged to constructively harness the potential of new social media to prepare citizens for an increasingly globalized world environment. Websites can aid in the teaching of the state of the planet through the use of macro‐level global and regional statistics and trends, and micro‐level data on the experiences, knowledge, and per­ spectives of other societies and cultures (Merryfield, 2006, 2007). A growing body of research explores the influence of technology on global education related outcomes (e.g., Kirshner & Middaugh, 2014; Maguth, 2012, 2014). A number of studies have exam­ ined the use of new technologies by K–12 teachers related to goals intrinsic to global edu­ cation, notably in a recent collection of cases edited by Maguth (2012). Earlier examples include Kirkwood‐Tucker (2004), Merryfield, (2008), and Zong (2002, 2009a). This chapter reports only briefly on research related to three ongoing and widely accessible international projects’ that link technology and global education for secondary students. The International Communication and Negotiation Simulations (ICONS) Project is an online computer simulation designed to teach secondary and university students about contemporary and historical political issues using web‐based tools that place students in scenarios to resolve controversial political issues. Developed in the late 1970s, ICONS’ original purpose was to enhance the experience of undergraduate students studying inter­ national relations at the University of Maryland, but in subsequent years it was expanded into summer and academic semester programs for secondary students in the United States, Canada, and other countries. Based on interviews with 30 adolescent participants, Torney‐ Purta (1996) studied the students’ cognitive representation of the international system. She  found that after the simulation experience many participants’ schemata had been restructured in the direction of more complexity in envisioning both solutions and constraints in solving international problems. Myers (2012) studied the impact of ICONS on secondary students who took part in a two‐week simulation on public health issues in sub‐Saharan Africa. Student data was



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collected from interviews and essays along three dimensions: cross‐cultural understanding and awareness, responsibility for world problems, and belief in the international system. The students demonstrated enhanced understanding of diversity on the African continent and a belief that the news media pay inadequate attention to the economic and political potential that exists in African nations. The participants began to see both benefits and bar­ riers to international cooperation on health issues. Many of the students attributed these insights to their experiences in the online simulation of foreign policy (ICONS) discussions. Similarly, Milson and Earle (2007) found that students who participated in world geog­ raphy classes using an Internet‐based global information system (GIS) gained enhanced cultural awareness and empathy for the complexity of the problems facing African peoples and countries. Started in 1988, iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) is a nonprofit organization made up of over 30,000 schools and youth organizations in more than 140 countries. iEARN enables teachers and young people to work together online using the Internet and other new communications technologies. According to the iEARN website (www.iearn.org) 2,000,000 students each day are engaged in collaborative project work worldwide. References to dissertations, evaluations, and research studies can be found on the iEarn website (iEarn, n.d.). In one example Modzelewski (2009) studied a diverse group of sixteen K–12 teachers who participated in an online course offered through iEarn and integrated an international student project in their classroom. The goal to increase the global education knowledge and skills of the participants was successful, though the degree varied among the participants. Using the iEarn platform Zong (2009a) examined preservice teachers’ conceptual understanding of global education after participating in an asynchro­ nous web‐based multinational project in which there were threaded discussions of issues related to cultural diversity and global challenges. The technology‐assisted experiences suggest that the technology experiences appear to have facilitated an enhanced level of global awareness among the participants. The Global Teenager Project (GTP) includes over 500 schools in 42 countries grouped into learning circles of 10–12 schools. The learning circles focus on a central topic. The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) conducted a study of a learning circle theme, United Beyond Our Diversity, in three Toronto area schools. The research report (Gini‐Newman, 2014) found that despite the merits of the program, the absence of explicit guidance for teaching practices and assessment to support quality limited the impact of GTP on learners: “Using technology to connect students around the world to discuss current issues can be authentic and meaningful, but in the absence of a pedagogy that is focused on nurturing students’ thinking, the potential for learning is greatly diminished” (p. 95). This finding reinforces the importance of the kind of pedagogical structure that is provided by programs such as ICONS, where students prepare for online discussions and carefully craft their messages.

23.12.4  Studies of International Exchange and Study Abroad It is often presumed that study abroad has a profound impact on students’ global awareness and understanding but this supposition has received relatively little attention from researchers. According to Cushner (2007), the lived intercultural experience is the critical

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element in gaining a meaningful understanding of other cultures as well as one’s place in an interconnected world. What is the available evidence on the impact of such programs on the participants? While most research on this topic focuses on college students, there have been comprehensive studies of the impact of secondary school student exchanges c­onducted by the U.S.‐based AFS program (Hammer, 2005; Hansel, 2008; Hansel & Chen, 2008). Hammer (2005) compared the intercultural competence of students who participated in a 10‐month international homestay with a control group of their peers who did not partici­ pate in the program. The overall findings were that the AFS participants compared to the control group had (1) higher intercultural competence; (2) greater knowledge of the host culture; (3) higher fluency in the language of the host country; (4) less anxiety in interacting with people from other cultures; (5) more friendships with people from other cultures; and (6) larger intercultural networks. Building on the results of the Hammer (2005) study, Hansel and Chen (2008) pursued an inquiry into whether these effects were long-lasting. They surveyed former AFS partici­ pants from 15 countries 25 years after their experience, drawing on a sample from a 1981– 1982 large‐scale study. Of a pool of 12,000 participants, 1,920 returned the survey. These participants were asked to nominate two others from their high school years who were not AFS participants; these (n = 511) formed a control group. Twenty to 25 years after their exchange experience, AFS alumni were significantly different from the peer control group in several aspects. They were more likely to have participated in a college study abroad program, more likely to speak another language fluently, more likely to have friends from other cultures, and to seek jobs that involve contact with other cultures. They were also more likely to encourage their children to study abroad, indicating that this type of interaction across cultures may transfer generationally. In another study of the long‐term impact of an international exchange program for high school students, Bachner and Zeutschel (2009) investigated the long‐term effects of a high school homestay experience for German and American students who participated in the Youth for Understanding (YFU) program in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. One of their study criteria was “Globalism” which they defined as a multilateral perspective and involvement since the exchange, i.e., the degree to which one’s orientation since the exchange has been other than or in addition to a host‐country specific emphasis. Among their main findings were that the German participants indicated a significantly lower degree of globalism than did the American returnees. Finally, in a different form of international exchange a small number of preservice edu­ cation programs that include an overseas teaching experience have been studied. In the United States the Consortium for Overseas Student Teaching [COST] involves 15 univer­ sities that have placed student teachers abroad since 1973. From a study of 11 program participants Doppen (2010) concluded that the overseas teaching experience helped these preservice teachers expand their personal horizons on issues of national identity and increased their awareness of a global world beyond that of their own country. OISE initiated a project that sent 14 teacher candidates for an international internship in Costa Rica, India, or Uganda‐Rwanda (Lato, Niyozov, & Wells, 2014). One key finding was the importance of experiential understanding of global issues, even for participants who began with consider­ able classroom‐based knowledge of these issues. The candidates self‐identified the positive influence of the experience on their capacity to design and deliver effective global curricula.



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23.12.5  Studies of the International Baccalaureate Program According to Michetti, Madrid, and Cofino (2015) and Solano‐Campos (2014), International Baccalaureate (IB) programs are increasingly popular in both national‐system and interna­ tional schools, and offer a starting place for cultivating qualities essential to global educa­ tion. As the most globally widespread of internationally oriented curriculum programs and perhaps because of their increasing popularity, there is an increasing research literature on IB programs, particularly in North America where the most rapid expansion has occurred. Hanover Research (2010) has provided a very useful overview of research by scholars and professional organizations examining the efficacy of IB programs. The report findings strongly suggest that participants in IB programs are characterized by high levels of academic achievement and are more frequently admitted into postsecondary institutions than peer students. It also notes that the two most commonly cited negative factors were elitist atmosphere and workload stress. In a commissioned study of the global engagement of students in the IB diploma program, Merryfield, Augustine, Choi, Harshman, and McClimans (2012) used online discussion groups in English and Spanish, and collected data from 124 teachers in IB World Schools in 43 countries offering the program. These teachers, identified as skilled in internationally minded education, were found to focus on encouraging students to adopt multiple perspec­ tives, on cross‐cultural experiences, and to consider varied and even conflicting interpreta­ tions of issues. Many of these teachers used content to help their students recognize global connections, and to develop research skills, critical thinking, and empathy and caring behaviors. The authors concluded that commitment to the goals of global citizenship edu­ cation set  these teachers apart from many teachers in their countries that see global citizenship education as too controversial. Using longitudinal student and school‐level data from 1995 through 2009, the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) did a retrospective study of the academic histories of IB students and other students in the state of Florida, the state with the highest number of IB programs in the United States (May et al., 2013). Results revealed that the selection bias associated with voluntary participation in IB programs is very large. According to the researchers, given the selection bias, comparing the IB and non‐IB students was like c­omparing apples and oranges, even when using propensity score methods to adjust for differences. The key findings include that IB students were more likely to be female, Asian, or White. They were more likely to be identified as gifted/talented. They were less likely to be English Language Learners, have a disability, or be eligible for free/reduced‐price lunch because of low family income. The strongest predictors of student participation in IB p­rograms were prior test scores, grade point averages, and previous course selection. Some school level variables were predictive of IB participation, but these relationships were g­enerally much weaker than student‐level factors. Beneker, van Dis, and van Middelkoop (2014) compared the world‐mindness of students attending regular Dutch schools and those attending international schools using the International Baccalaureate Diploma program. A questionnaire measured the students’ world‐mindedness and their evaluation of their geography education in terms of global content and pedagogy. They found that the international school students were overall more world‐minded than students attending Dutch conventional schools. The international schools aimed more towards global learning than the Dutch schools, and provided

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experiential learning and exposure to an international education environment. According to the students in the study, geography education at Dutch schools was mostly limited to learning about global issues, while at the international schools geography education also seemed to include learning for a global perspective. Solano‐Campos (2014) conducted a qualitative study of how immigrant and refugee students construct and perform citizenship in a school using the primary school program of the International Baccalaureate program. Using observations, focus groups, and individual interviews, she studied 12 fourth‐grade students (ages 9 and 10) in a public charter international school located in one of the largest refugee resettlement areas in the Southeast United States. The 12 students were refugees or children of refugees. Thus, global and local forces coexisted in the students’ constructions of national affiliations and citizenship. The findings illustrate what Solano‐Campos (2014) calls “citizenship in interaction,” which she defines “as an ongoing process of co‐constructing civic identities, civic practices and feelings of belonging through dynamic and sustained every‐day encounters with those around us” (p.151). However, Solano‐Campos also found tensions between global and local narratives that trickled down to the school and classroom climate. In particular, she found that the children’s global capital, their funds of civic knowledge, and connections to trans­ national networks did not seem to be intentionally used at the school. She suggests that there needs to be further investigation of how global–local tensions in international schools can be reconciled, and how these schools can provide resources and spaces that build upon the students’ transnational experiences and practices of citizenship.

23.12.6  Case Studies of Students Studies in the United States.  Using Nussbaum’s (2002) binary of patriotism and cosmo­ politanism as a framework, Mitchell and Parker (2008) conducted a study of high school students’ attitudes towards patriotism, citizenship, and allegiance after the events of September 11, 2001 and on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The researchers conducted group interviews involving approximately 250 students at three high schools (two private, one public) and two middle schools (one private, one public) in Seattle in 2003. From the focus group interviews the researchers concluded that some students were already i­magining and producing allegiances that were multiple, flexible, and relational, and that these allegiances did not fit neatly into a construct that forced a choice between nationalism and cosmopolitanism. In order to uncover the explanatory frameworks that adolescents use to understand the causes of world poverty, Myers (2008) interviewed 20 participants in the five‐week Pennsylvania Governor’s School for International Studies (PGSIS), a program that uses the ICONS project cited earlier. In contrast with views held by much of the American public, most of the students did not attribute poverty to individual shortcomings among the poor, but rather saw its causes as related to the levels of a country’s or region’s economic development. Sklarwitz, Fields, Seider, and Didier (2015) studied the impact of global citizenship courses upon participating students’ citizenship beliefs and attitudes in an all‐female elite private secondary school. They investigated how students in this school understood the effect of this coursework on their global knowledge, attitudes, and actions. Based on qualitative interviews



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and observations they found that the combination of the non‐Western coursework and a human rights elective provided many students with the information needed to question the national focus that remains the norm in most social studies classrooms Comparative and  international studies of  students.  Solano‐Campos (2015) conducted a qualitative comparative case study of the national identifications of youth in one multicul­ tural primary school classroom in the United States and one in Costa Rica. Both schools enrolled large numbers of immigrant or refugee students from low socioeconomic b­ackgrounds. The research included document/policy analysis, ethnographic observations, interviews, and focus groups. Children in both schools described the process of national identity construction as determined by place of birth and parental identity. However, some children noted that people can choose, negotiate, and expand their national identifications according to their cross‐border journeys. The researcher found that whereas the children in the Costa Rican school were more likely to highlight patriotic ideas of national identification, the children in the United States school were more likely to communicate cosmopolitan ideas. This finding aligned with the researcher’s observations of school‐specific curricular and pedagogical orientations. Using a mixed‐method design, Alviar‐Martin (2008) researched cosmopolitan citizenship in a comparative case study of two international schools, one in the Atlanta and one in Hong Kong. She studied the extent to which the implemented curriculum and students’ perceptions in the two schools reflected cosmopolitan citizenship education. A regression analysis of the data supported the finding that individuals can develop overlapping civic identities. Quantitative analysis also revealed that the Atlanta students demonstrated a stronger sense of global identity and more frequent experiences of global content than their Hong Kong counterparts. Niens and Reilly (2012) explored fifth‐year and ninth‐year students’ understandings of global citizenship in Northern Ireland, a divided society emerging from conflict. Using focus groups the researchers found that the students reflected some concepts of global citizenship, including interdependence and global responsibility. The researchers con­ cluded that global citizenship education will fail to overcome engrained cultural divisions locally and may perpetuate cultural stereotypes globally, unless issues of identity and interdependence are critically examined.

23.12.7  Case Studies of Teachers Studies of teachers in the United States.  Kirkwood‐Tucker, Morris, and Lieberman (2010) conducted a study of the world‐mindedness of 644 elementary and secondary social studies teacher candidates enrolled in a social studies methods course at their junior or senior year at five of Florida’s largest public universities. Using the Global‐Mindedness Scale developed by Hett (1993) and 10 demographic variables as potential correlates of world‐mindedness scores, the researchers found positive relationships between world‐mindedness and those teacher candidates who had taken the largest number of content courses with a global orientation; identified themselves as being of a “liberal” political disposition; were profi­ cient in two or more languages; possessed a high grade point average; were foreign‐born; had international experiences; and female gender. Secondary teacher candidates scored higher than elementary teacher candidates.

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Mansilla and Gardner (2007) conducted a two‐year empirical study of 12 exemplary Massachusetts high school teachers who represented a range of disciplines and served various socioeconomic and ethnic communities. With the support of peers and researchers from Harvard’s Project Zero the 12 teachers developed experimental units on globalization that were woven into regular courses to expand students’ understanding of our changing world. The methodology included teacher‐seminar discussions, supplemented with in‐ depth interviews and examination of selected student work originating from the experi­ mental units. In the process the researchers became aware of the dilemmas that these educators confronted when teaching a globalized curriculum. Based on their findings, they concluded that student learning should include more than the acquisition of knowledge about world history and cultures. Instead student learning “should be inspired by the goal of developing global consciousness, a mindful way of being in the world today” (Mansilla & Gardner, 2007, p. 48). They defined global consciousness as a disposition in which students place their immediate experience in the broader matrix of developments that shape life worldwide, construct their identity as members of world societies, and orient their actions accordingly. Merryfield (2007) studied how social studies teachers make decisions on using websites to rethink their instruction on the world and its peoples. Over a three‐year period she col­ lected data on 83 social studies teachers in 16 U.S. states who took an online world cultures and global issues courses. The data included the teachers’ autobiographies, their reviews of websites, their conceptualizations of global education, and postings on their planning of instruction from their initial ideas to the final products that they would use with students. Merryfield found that despite a commitment early on to seek out sites from other countries and world organizations, by the end of the course there was a definite preference by many teachers for American websites. In this context an unintended outcome of the study was the finding that large American websites developed by universities, media, and professional organizations had considerable influence on what these teachers and students learned about the world. There was also evidence of fear and self‐censorship, e.g., with regard to the use of Middle Eastern or Muslim websites. Based on the findings, Merryfield asks, whether the reliance on American websites can be a transformative force in global education. Rapaport (2015b) studied six experienced secondary social studies teachers in Indiana who were identified as “exemplary” in incorporating an international perspective into their teaching. He collected data from in‐depth semi‐structured interviews and observations of 40 social studies classrooms. He found that though they knew the terms global citizenship and global citizen, these teachers rarely used them in the classroom. Instead they formu­ lated their own construct, utilizing their own experiences and other familiar concepts that they believed were related to global citizenship. The terms the participants most frequently used were globalization, interdependence, and international connections. When the teachers addressed global and international issues, the most frequently used methods were lecture and comparison of different cultural aspects. He concludes that the evidence shows that little has been done to prepare teachers to be experts in this dimension of education, and that global citizenship as a framework is still in search of a place in the curriculum. These studies underscore the pivotal role of the teacher in integrating global education in the curriculum in U.S. schools. As these studies suggest, there remain some significant obstacles to the implementation of global education by teachers that include conceptual confusion and a perceived lack of curriculum resources. However, because of the nature of



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schooling in the United States, there are significant opportunities for teaching about inter­ national topics in the schools. From this research there is evidence that some teachers have used the opportunity to integrate a global perspective into their teaching, and there is some indication of the factors that influence them in this regard. However, as both Thornton (2005) and Rapaport (2015a) have argued, the expansion of global education depends both on the provision of models from curriculum leaders and the exercise of educational choice on the part of teachers. This, in turn, requires the creation of time and space for teachers to develop the relevant competencies for introducing a global perspective into their teaching. Studies of teachers outside the United States.  In a two‐year research project in 12 partici­ pating primary and secondary schools in the United Kingdom, Yamashita (2006) looked at the perceived needs of teachers and learning about global issues, particularly war and conflict. The schools were chosen to reflect a range of demographic factors. The methods employed were qualitative, using mainly group and individual semi‐structured interviews of at least two teachers at each school, and students (with the target groups being 8–11 year olds and 13–16 year olds). In addition the researchers did lesson observations and a gen­ eral observation at each school. The researchers found that teachers were reluctant to deal with an issue (war and conflict) that was of great concern to their students. The key find­ ings were (a) that students wanted to learn about complex contemporary issues, including war and conflict, and they had sophisticated understandings and questions; (b) that teachers were reluctant to teach about these issues because they felt inadequately prepared and because of stories that these issues would unsettle children and cause other problems; and (c) that teachers were also reluctant because of what was unclear and confusing legis­ lation and advice. In an effort to identify a set of citizen characteristics that would be found in a globally minded teacher, Cogan and Grossman (2009) compared findings from three cross‐ national projects. They reported on survey results from policy experts (182 experts from nine countries), preservice teachers, and in‐service teachers. They identified seven char­ acteristics as a consensus list across the three samples. Six of the characteristics were the ability to work with others in a cooperative way and to take responsibility for his/her roles and duties within society; ability to understand, accept, and tolerate cultural differences; willingness to resolve conflict in a nonviolent manner; capacity to think in critical and systemic ways; command of problem‐solving knowledge that can be implemented in everyday life; and willingness to change his/her lifestyle and consumption habits. However, only the policy experts identified the seventh characteristic, the ability to look at and approach problems and issues as a member of the global society as a priority characteristic (incidentally their highest priority). Thus, there was a tendency among both the preser­ vice and in‐service teachers to emphasize rather generic, albeit worthwhile, citizenship characteristics that featured the acquisition of skills, without including a more global perspective. MacDonald‐Vemic, Evans, Ingram, and Weber (2015) conducted a three‐year qualitative research study on educating for global citizenship from the perspectives of K–12 Canadian public school teachers in three diverse metropolitan areas (Halifax, Toronto, and Vancouver). Using questionnaires, interviews, and observation, the study investigated teachers’ learning goals, instructional practices, and orientations when educating for global citizenship. Using  non‐probability purposive sampling, 48 teachers were selected and completed the

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questionnaire phase. From these teachers eight were selected for further participation in the form of semi‐structured interviews and classroom observations. Across the regions the teachers involved in the study reported using instructional practices that were oriented to teaching for world‐mindedness, civic action, and to a lesser extent, critical literacy. With regard to the deficit in critical literacy, the researchers found that in practice the teachers placed disproportionate emphasis on teaching students that the world is harmoniously interdependent rather than on helping the students understand and question the inequi­ table consequences of interdependence and to question the impact of asymmetrical global power relations. They argue that “a focus on worldmindedness has the potential to similarly privilege and reproduce education for sameness and cohesion despite how people experience the same differently” (MacDonald‐Vemic et al., 2015, p. 112). Based on a review of the literature Veugelers (2011) distinguished three forms of modern global citizenship: open global citizenship, moral global citizenship, and social‐ political global citizenship. In an explorative study using this typology of global citizenship, he selected nine secondary teachers in the Netherlands because of their demonstrated interest in global citizenship education and interviewed them to assess their opinions about citizenship education in a global perspective. He found that the teachers tended to opt for moral global citizenship. In these teachers’ view an open global citizenship would neglect the moral dimension. At the same time they preferred not to pay too much attention to political affairs, because of the age of their students and because of the sensitivity of political issues in schools. Veugelers (2011) concludes that fear of overpoliticizing global citizenship education seems to have led to an overmoralizing of global citizenship. Among the findings here, as well as in some U.S. studies, there is evidence that teachers who implement global education tend to emphasize softer and less controversial dimen­ sions and to avoid the more critical dimensions. This evidence of a tendency to de‐politicize global education and to avoid controversial topics in favor of a focus on less contentious topics is worrisome. Addressing this finding would be a considerable challenge for professional development and would require incorporating approaches that facilitate the acquisition of relevant instructional competencies as well as the confidence to deal with controversial sociopolitical topics.

23.13  Directions for Future Research From this review of the research on global education, certain tendencies can be identified. There continues to be more conceptual and theoretical discourse than empirical research. There is more qualitative research than quantitative research (and of course some mixed methods). Debates still continue about global education as a construct, and there is a great deal of advocacy and rhetoric that tries to be persuasive. There is more focus on in‐service and preservice teachers than on K–12 students (perhaps because it affords university‐based researchers convenient samples). In a review of 1,110 articles on global citizenship and global education, nearly 50% (46%) were from higher education studies, 33% from secondary school studies, 17% from elementary studies, and 3% from early childhood studies (Reynolds, 2015). Based on the review here are some general concerns and recommendations. For the most part they are not new, and, upon checking, in many ways they echo recommendations made some three decades ago (e.g., Torney‐Purta, 1982a, 1982b; Tye & Tye, 1983).



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The first concern, because it is fundamental to the task of improving research in global education, is related to advocating the development and use of better measures of learning outcomes and/or circulation of those measures throughout the field. Many of the measures in the literature are attitudinal/perceptual, and too often the validity and even the reliability of these measures are not discussed. (Some exceptions in the large‐scale studies and instru­ mentation have been noted.) In an effort to develop a more complex picture of global‐ related learning, one should look for more attention to the cognitive dimension, and its interaction with the attitudinal. Admittedly the construction of knowledge questions for the widely dispersed notions of global education is a challenge. However, there are sources of scales that might be adapted for this purpose, see e.g., the online versions of the IEA civic education surveys (IEA, n.d‐b) the compendium of instruments collected by Torney‐Purta, Brown, and Cloud (1986), and articles that focus on evaluation methodology (Torney‐ Purta, 1998). In any case, if research in the field of global education is to advance there needs, to be more attention to the quality of the measures used. A second priority is to encourage more studies of K–12 students and teaching and learning within classroom settings with attention to the identification of effective pedagog­ ical approaches and classroom climates that facilitate global education. This is more challenging than studying preservice or in‐service teachers because of bureaucratic, logistic, and privacy issues. Still one of the persistent findings in the field of global education is that classroom climate is an important variable in both attitudinal and cognitive outcomes. While most evidence (e.g., Grossman, 2010; Losito & Mintrop, 2001) indicates that the predominant pedagogy in civic education classrooms in many countries is teacher-centered, a considerable body of research (e.g., Hahn, 1998; Schulz, Ainley, Fraillon, Kerr, & Losito 2010; Torney‐Purta & Lansdale, 1986; Torney‐Purta & Wilkenfeld, 2009) indicates that when students have the opportunity to actively engage in discussion about civic and global issues, they often develop increased knowledge of these issues and concern about them along with a more complex understanding of the international arena. A third priority is to encourage more attention to the developmental process in deter­ mining the timing and sequence of global education. For example, middle childhood has been identified as a critical period for the development of world‐centered attitudes and a global perspective (Torney, 1979). Generally speaking global education programs are most likely to be effective when they are tailored to the development level of the student. A fourth priority is to encourage more investigation of the gender dimension in global knowledge and attitudes. In general there is evidence in both global education and civic education studies of more positive results for females on both cognitive and attitudinal measures. For example, in the 1999 and 2009 IEA cross‐national studies of civic education (Amadeo, Torney‐Purta, Lehmann, Husfeldt, & Nikolova, 2002; Schulz et al., 2010), female students held significantly more positive attitudes than male students with regard to rights for immigrants. In the 2009 study females also had higher civic knowledge scores in many countries (Schulz et  al., 2010). Other studies have shown gender differences in global‐ mindedness (e.g., Cui, 2013; Hett, 1993). Too many researchers control for gender in their analyses and assume that the same educational approaches that work for males will work equally well for females. Alternatively in some cases researchers report gender differences in their results without any attempt to explain the differences. McIntosh (2005) does offer us a gender‐based perspective on education for global citizenship. She associates global citizenship with “habits of mind, heart, body, and soul that

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have to do with working for and preserving a network of relationship and connection across lines of difference and distinctness, while keeping and deepening a sense of one’s own iden­ tity” (McIntosh, 2005, p. 23). She then argues that while both men and women have these capacities, many of these qualities essential to global citizenship are gender‐related, that is, “they have been especially delegated to, conditioned in, and rewarded in women” (McIntosh, p. 24). This remains a significant issue, and we need to seek a greater understanding of what gender means for global education. Another concern is that the overwhelming concentration of research on global education is concentrated within social education/social studies. This is perhaps exacerbated now with the increasing attention to global citizenship. While there is an understandably strong affinity to social education, one might also presume that an interdisciplinary field like global education would have studies outside the social studies, in other areas of the human­ ities, arts, and sciences. This review finds relatively few studies in this regard but there are exceptions (e.g., Liew, 2013), and there are opportunities. The role of the study foreign languages identified in some of the studies here could be further explored. Also, the bur­ geoning attention to global sustainability and environmental studies creates an opportunity to link scientific issues such as climate change (e.g., Devine‐Wright, Price, & Leviston, 2015), as well as science classes to global education (e.g., Rickinson, Lundholm, & Hopwood, 2009). In recent years a number of multiple subject resource guides in global education have been developed (e.g., Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, 2010; Global Education Project, 2011). The Asia Society’s Global Competency Task Force has created global competency matrices for the arts, language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, and world languages (Mansilla & Jackson, 2011). Though the focus of this chapter has been on the formal educational environment, one must acknowledge and encourage study of the impact that nonformal education and historical events and contexts have on the political socialization of youth and their knowledge and attitudes towards global issues. Given the recent history of youth activism in both national and international political and social movements facilitated by the emerging social media, it would appear that this is an area that requires greater attention, much as in Maguth (2012) and Kirshner & Middaugh (2014). In summary, although the chapter has noted a number of large‐scale and/or comparative studies, there are, under the broad umbrella conceptualization of global education, a large and perhaps growing number of small‐scale studies, including masters and doctoral theses. Attempts to generalize about these studies, however, are very much constrained by the diverse educational and community contexts in which they are framed, as well as the quantitative and qualitative methods employed. Clearly there is room for both greater conceptual clarity and improved methodologies, more comparative studies, and more cross‐case analysis. However well‐intended, the many small individual case studies fail to provide a strong empirical basis for making broader generalizations. Finally, with insights drawn from the chapter author’s own background and career, the final recommendation is to enhance the global dimension of studies by including cross‐ national and comparative data wherever possible. Even within a literature limited to the English medium, researchers now have both the opportunity and access to test research hypotheses outside their own national context. The inclusion of cross‐national and com­ parative data also has the potential to offer a more critical perspective on our ideas about global education.



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Acknowledgments The author would like to acknowledge both Dr. Judith Torney‐Purta for her valuable assistance in the development of this chapter, and Dr. Merry Merryfield for her advice in the initial framing of the chapter. While I have full responsibility for the final product, I feel extremely fortunate to have had the help of these two eminent scholars, as well as helpful advice from the chapter reviewers.

Note 1 In 1982 in a panel session at the National Conference on Professional Priorities: Shaping the Future of Global Education (Easton, MD, May 19–22, 1982) that this author attended, Robert Hanvey, after expressing much surprise at the widespread dissemination of his article, “An Attainable Global Perspective” (1976), said that his own thinking had evolved since writing that article, and that he now considered global education a social movement. Note: This was the first national conference on global education held in the United States.

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Rapaport, A. (2010). We cannot teach what we don’t know: Indiana teachers talk about global citizenship education. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, 5(3), 179–190. Rapaport, A. (2015a). Facing the challenge: Obstacles to a global and global citizenship education in US schools. In J. Zajda (Ed.), Nation‐building and history education in a global culture (pp. 155–170). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Rapaport, A. (2015b). Global citizenship education: Classroom teachers’ perspectives and approaches. In J. Harshman, T. Augustine, & M. Merryfield (Eds.), Research in global citizenship education (pp. 119–135). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Reimer, K., & McLean, L. (2009). Conceptual clarity and connections: Global education and teacher candidates. Canadian Journal of Education, 32(4), 903–926. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed. gov/fulltext/EJ883524.pdf Reynolds, R. (2015). One size fits all? Global education for different educational audiences. In  R.  Reynolds, D. Bradbery, J. Brown, K. Carroll, K., D. Donnelly, K. Ferguson‐Patrick, & S.  Macqueen (Eds.), Contesting and constructing international perspectives in global education (pp. 27–41). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Reynolds, R., Bradbery, D., Brown. J., Donnelly, D., Ferguson‐Patrick, K., Macqueen, S., & Ross, A. (2015). A values‐based pedagogical stance: Teaching teachers for global education in Australia. In B. Maguth and J. Hilburn (Eds.), The state of global education (pp. 174–187). New York, NY: Routledge. Reysen, S., Katzarska‐Miller, I., & Gibson, S. A. (2013). World knowledge and global citizenship: Factual and perceived world knowledge as predictors of global citizenship identification. International Journal of Development Education and Global Learning, 5(1), 49–68. Richardson, R. (Ed.). (1979). Learning for change in world society. London, UK: World Studies Project. Rickinson, M., Lundholm, C., & Hopwood, M. (2009). Environmental learning: Insights from research into the student experience. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Samson, D., & Smith, H. (1957). A scale to measure world minded attitudes. Journal of Social Psychology, 45(1), 99–106. doi:10.1080/00224545.1957.9714290 Schattle, H. (2008). Education for global citizenship: Illustrations of ideological pluralism. Journal of Political Ideologies, 13(1), 73–94. Scheunpflug, A., & Asbrand, B. (2006). Global education and education for sustainability. Environmental Education Research, 12(1), 33–46. Schukar, R. (1993). Controversies in global education: Lessons for teacher educators. Theory into Practice, 31(1), 52–57. Schulz, W., Ainley, J., Fraillon, J., Kerr, D., & Losito, B. (2010). ICCS 2009 international report: Civic knowledge, attitudes, and engagement among lower secondary students in 38 countries. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. Retrieved from http://www.iea.nl/fileadmin/user_upload/Publications/Electronic_versions/ICCS_ 2009_International_Report.pdf Shaklee, B., & Baily, S. (Eds.). (2012). Internationalizing teacher education in the U.S. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Sharma, S., Phillion, J., Rahatzad, J., & Sasser, H. (Eds.). (2014). Internationalizing teacher education for social justice: Theory, research, and practice. Charlotte, NC: Information. Sibberns, H. (2005). IEA civic education study user guide for the international data base. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. Retrieved from http://www.iea.nl/fileadmin/user_upload/Publications/Electronic_versions/ CIVED_IDB_User_Guide.pdf Sklarwitz, S., Fields, S., Seider, S., & Didier, B. (2015). Changing attitudes, motivating action: Global citizenship identity among privileged adolescents. In J. Harshman, T. Augustine, & M. M. Merryfield (Eds.), Research in Global Citizenship Education (pp. 189–213). Charlotte, NC: Information Age.

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Snauwaert, D. (2012). Betty Reardon’s conception of “peace” and its implications for a philosophy of peace education. Peace Studies Journal, 5(3), 45–52. Solano‐Campos, A. (2014). Refugee children saying and doing citizenship: Global‐local tensions and common civic spaces in an international school in the United States. Citizenship Learning and Teaching, 9(2), 135–156. Solano‐Campos, A. (2015). Children’s national identity in multicultural classrooms in Costa Rica and the United States. Research in Comparative and International Education, 10(1), 71–94. Standish, A. (2014). What is global education and where is it taking us? The Curriculum Journal, 25(2), 166–186. doi:10.1080/09585176.2013.870081 Subedi, B. (Ed.). (2010). Critical global perspectives: Rethinking knowledge about global societies. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Sung, Y. K., Park, M., & Choi, I. S. (2013). National construction of global education: A critical review of the national curriculum standards for South Korean global high schools. Asia Pacific Education Review, 14(3), 285–294. Swartz, L., Warner, L., & Grossman, D. (1998). (Eds.). Intersections: A professional development project  in multicultural and global education, Asian and Asian American studies. Boston, MA: The Children’s Museum. Sylvester, R. (2005). Framing the map of International Education (1969–1998). Journal of Research in International Education, 4(2), 123–151. Tarc, P. (2013). [Review of the book Global education under attack: International Baccalaureate in America, by T. Bunnell]. Journal of Research in International Education, 12(2), 190–198. doi:10.1177/1475240913491057 Tarrow, S. (2005). Rooted cosmopolitans and transnational activists [Special issue]. Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia. Retrieved from http://government.arts.cornell.edu/assets/faculty/docs/tarrow/ rooted_cosmopolitans.pdf Tawil, S. (2013). Education for “global citizenship”: A framework for discussion (ERF Working Paper Series No. 7). Paris, France: UNESCO. Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/ 002237/223784e.pdf Think Global (n.d.). Retrieved from http://think‐global.org.uk Thornton, S. (2005). Incorporating internationalism into the social studies curriculum. In N. Noddings (Ed.), Educating citizens for global awareness (pp. 81–92). New York, NY: Teachers College Pres. Tibbitts, F., & Kirchschlaeger, P. (2010). Perspectives of research on human rights education. Journal of Human Rights Education, 2(1), 1–31. Retrieved from http://blogs.cuit.columbia.edu/peace/ files/2013/05/tibbitts_kirchschlaeger_research_hre_jhre_1_2010.pdf Torney, J. (1979). Psychological and institutional obstacles to the global perspective in education. In J. Becker (Ed.), Schooling for a global age (pp. 59–93). New York, NY: McGraw‐Hill. Torney‐Purta, J. (1982a). Socialization and human rights research. In M. Branson & J. Torney‐Purta (Eds.), International human rights, society and the schools (pp. 35–48). Washington, DC: National Council for the Social Studies. Torney‐Purta, J. (1982b). The global awareness survey: Implications for teacher education. Theory into Practice, 21(3), 200–205. Torney‐Purta, J. (1986). Predictors of global awareness and concern among secondary school students (Research report, Mershon Center, Ohio State University). Retrieved from ERIC website: http:// eric.ed.gov/?id=ED271364 Torney‐Purta, J. (1996). Conceptual change among adolescents using computer networks and peer collaboration in studying international political issues. In S. Vosniadou, E. De Corte, R. Glaser, & H. Mandl (Eds.), International perspectives on the design of technology‐supported learning environments (pp. 203–219). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Torney‐Purta, J. (1998). Evaluating programs designed to teach international content and negotiation skills. International Negotiation, 3, 77–97.



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Torney‐Purta, J., & Amadeo, J. (2013). International large‐scale assessments: Challenges in reporting and potentials for secondary analysis. Research in Comparative and International Education, 8(3), 248–258. Torney‐Purta, J., & Barber. C. (2011). Fostering young people’s support for participatory human rights through their developmental niches. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 81, 473–481. Torney‐Purta, J., Brown, J., & Cloud, J. (Eds.). (1986). Evaluating global education: Sample instruments for assessing programs, materials and learning. New York, NY: Global Perspectives in Education, Inc. Retrieved from http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007512364 Torney‐Purta, J., & Lansdale, D. (1986, April). Classroom climate and process in international studies: Qualitative and quantitative evidence from the American Schools and the World Project. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Meetings, San Francisco, CA. Torney‐Purta, J., Lehman, R., Oswald, H., & Schulz, W. (2001). Citizenship and education in twenty‐eight countries: Civic knowledge and engagement at age fourteen. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: IEA. Torney‐Purta, J., & Wilkenfeld, B. S. (2009). Paths to 21st century competencies through civic education classrooms: An analysis of survey results from ninth‐graders (A Technical Assistance Bulletin). Chicago, IL: American Bar Association Division for Public Education. Retrieved from http:// civicyouth.org/PopUps/CMS‐ABA21stCentSkillsStudyFullFinal.pdf Torney‐Purta, J., Wilkenfeld, B., & Barber, C. (2008). How adolescents in 27 countries understand, support, and practice human rights. Journal of Social Issues, 64, 857–880. doi:10.1111/j.1540‐4560. 2008.00592.x Tucker, J. (1982). International human rights education: The challenge for colleges and universities. In  M. Branson, & J. Torney‐Purta (Eds.), International human rights, society, and the schools (pp. 71–80). Washington, DC: National Council for the Social Studies. Tucker, J. (1988). Social studies for the 21st century. Social Education, 52(3), 209–214. Tye, K. (1999). Global education: A worldwide movement, a preview of a study of global education practices in 52 countries. Newsletter of the American Forum on Global Education, 150. Tye, K. (2003). Global education as a worldwide movement. Phi Delta Kappan, 85(2), 165–168. Tye, K. (2009). A history of the global education movement in the United States. In T. F. Kirkwood‐ Tucker (Ed.), Visions in global education: The globalization of curriculum and pedagogy in teacher education and schools: Perspectives from Canada, Russia, and the United States (pp. 3–24). New York, NY: Peter Lang. Tye, K. (2014). Global education: A worldwide movement. An update. Policy Futures in Education, 12(7), 855–871. Tye, B., & Tye, K. (1983). Global education research: A partial agenda for the future. Educational Research Quarterly, 8(1), 48–54. Tye, B., & Tye, K. (1992). Global education: A study of school change. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. UNESCO. (1974). Recommendation concerning education for international understanding, cooperation and peace and education relation to human rights and fundamental freedoms. Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001140/114040e.pdf#page=144 UNESCO. (2013). Global citizenship education: An emerging perspective. Outcome document of the Technical Consultation on Global Citizenship Education. Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco. org/images/0022/002241/224115E.pdf UNESCO. (2015). Global citizenship education: Topics and learning objectives. Paris, France: Author. UNICEF. (1999). Peace education in UNICEF. Retrieved from http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ files/39481/11153766813PeaceEducationUNICEF.pdf/PeaceEducationUNICEF.pdf United Nations, & United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (1992: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). (1993). Agenda 21: Programme of Action for Sustainable Development: Rio Declaration on Environment and Development: Statement of Forest Principles. New York, NY: United Nations.

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U.S. Department of Education. (2012). Succeeding globally through international education and engagement. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/ internationaled/international‐strategy‐2012‐16.pdf Van Gent, M., Carabain, C., De Goede, I., Boonstoppel, E., & Hogeling, L. (2013). The development of the Global Citizenship Inventory for adolescents. Journal of Development Education and Global Learning, 5(3), 71–86. Vassar, B. (2006). An Internal Structure Assessment of Two Measures of Worldmindedness and their Relationship with cultural pluralism, social distance, and social dominance orientation. Doctoral dissertation. Retrieved from https://shareok.org/bitstream/handle/11244/7606/School%20of%20 Teaching%20and %20Curriculum%20Leadership_318.pdf?sequence=1 Veugelers, W. (2011). The moral and the political in global citizenship: Appreciating differences in education. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 9(3–4), 473–485. doi:10.1080/14767724.2011. 605329 Westheimer, J., & Kahne, J. (2004). What kind of citizen? The politics of educating for democracy. American Educational Research Journal, 41(2), 237–269. Retrieved from http://www.mills.edu/ academics/faculty/educ/jkahne/what_kind_of_citizen.pdf Yamashita, H. (2006). Global citizenship education and war: The needs of teachers and learners. Educational Review, 58(1), 27–39. Yuen, C., & Grossman, D. (2009). The intercultural sensitivity of student teachers in three cities. Compare: A journal of comparative education, 39(3), 349–365. Retrieved from http://www. informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a902142099~db=all~order=pubdate Zong, G. (2002). Can computer mediated communication help to prepare global teachers? An analysis of preservice social studies teachers. Theory & Research in Social Education, 30(4), 589–616. doi:10.1080/00933104.2002.10473212 Zong, G. (2009a). Developing preservice teachers’ global understanding through computer‐mediated communication technology. Teaching and Teacher Education: An International Journal of Research and Studies, 25(5), 617–625. Zong, G. (2009b). Global perspectives in teacher education research and practice. In T. Kirkwood‐ Tucker (Ed.), Visions in global education: The globalization of curriculum and pedagogy in teacher education and schools: Perspectives from Canada, Russia, and the United States (pp. 71–89). New York, NY: Peter Lang. Zong, G. (2015). Globalization and teacher education: Teaching about globalization through community‐based inquiry. In B. Maguth & J. Hilburn (Eds.), The state of global education (pp. 92–110). New York, NY: Routledge. Zong, G., Wilson, A., & Quashiga, Y. (2008). Global education. In L. Levstik & C. Tyson (Eds.), Handbook of research in social studies education (pp. 197–216). New York, NY: Routledge.

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Social Studies Scholarship Past, Present, and Future Carole L. Hahn

What is the state of the art of social studies scholarship in the second decade of the 21st century? That is the question I address in this chapter. First, I situate this handbook ­historically, noting ways in which it is similar to and different from previous reviews of research on social studies teaching and learning. Second, and most extensively, I highlight points from each chapter in this volume and offer commentary on ideas emerging from them. Finally, I reflect on the future of social studies scholarship. I recognize my subjectivity and expect others would select different themes reflecting their own “ways of seeing.” This is mine, as someone who has been a consumer and producer of social studies research for half a century.

24.1  Past: Comparing across Time In 2017, this Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research is the latest in a series of reviews to ascertain the “state of the art” of social studies scholarship in the United States at periodic points in time. While focusing on recent research, reviewers acknowledge that they follow, and often build upon, earlier reviews. Each published review, including this handbook, provides an overview of contemporary scholarship for readers seeking a broad view of the field. It is important, however, to recognize that authors do not claim to include all of the research on their topic. Scholars undertaking a study will benefit from supplementing their reading of chapters in this handbook with earlier reviews to build on the cumulative knowledge base. This could address the irony that a field that teaches history is surprisingly ahistorical in its approach to scholarship. The earliest reviews tended to describe and summarize empirical studies, with little attention to theory or critique. During the 1960s Social Education, the journal of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), published annual reviews of research, including dissertations, for the previous year (e.g. Girault & Cox, 1967; Payette, Cox, & Johnson, 1970). The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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In the 1970s and 1980s, NCSS and the Social Science Education Consortium published bulletins that reviewed research on selected topics. The Review of Research in Social Studies Education 1970–1975 (Hunkins, Ehman, Hahn, Martorella, & Tucker, 1977) contained chapters on learning and cognition, curriculum and instruction, values teaching/learning, teaching and teacher education, and the diffusion of innovations (a popular topic at the time of “the New Social Studies” projects). The Review of Research in Social Studies Education 1976–1983 (Stanley, 1985) contained chapters on critical thinking and cognitive processes, elementary social studies, curriculum and instruction in the sociomoral domain, ethnographic studies, and the history and foundations of social education. In addition, the  American Educational Research Association’s (AERA’s) e­ditions of the Handbook of Research on Teaching have each included a chapter reviewing research in social studies (Armento, 1986; Barton & Avery, 2016; Metcalf, 1963; Seixas, 2001; Shaver & Larkins, 1973). In 1991 NCSS sponsored the first Handbook of Research on Social Studies Teaching and Learning (Shaver, 1991). That comprehensive volume, edited by Shaver and guided by an editorial advisory board, consisted of 53 chapters. Subsequently, Levstik and Tyson (2008) edited a second social studies handbook. The Handbook of Research in Social Studies Education consisted of 19 chapters on topics generating the most research at the time, such as social studies classroom instruction, international political socialization, service learning, and students’ historical thinking. The current handbook aims at a level of comprehensiveness and inclusion neither as extensive as the Shaver (1991) handbook, nor as focused as the Levstik and Tyson (2008) handbook. Many authors in this volume use as their starting point an earlier handbook chapter. I also refer to chapters from earlier handbooks to illustrate continuity and change in social studies scholarship. The most obvious continuity over the years is that researchers and reviewers give attention to some of the same topics—history of the field, cognitive learning, elementary education, and teacher education. Other topics reflect substantial changes in scholars’ interest. For example, early reviews gave specific attention to the affective, sociomoral, or values domain, whereas recent reviews do not. Interest in some topics that appeared in earlier reviews, such as the diffusion of innovations, social studies for gifted students, and social studies for students with disabilities has waned. The earlier handbooks also contained chapters on research in the specific disciplines that comprise social studies: h­istory, geography, civics, economics, and the behavioral sciences. In contrast, the editors of this handbook decided to organize the volume around theories and topics that t­ranscend disciplines. Technology, controversial issues, civic participation, global perspectives, cultural diversity, assessment, and accountability are topics that have been included since 1991. Additionally, critical race theory, gender and feminist theory, sexuality and queer theory, which were mentioned but not extensively discussed in the 2008 review, have their own chapters in this volume. Indeed, this handbook is distinguished from earlier research reviews by its increased attention to theory throughout. This parallels the greater attention to theory in articles published in the journal Theory & Research in Social Education, as well as other journals that regularly publish social studies research. In addition to taking theory more seriously, contemporary researchers use a wider range of research methods compared to their earlier counterparts. Through the 1990s most social studies researchers used historical or quantitative methods. In contrast, contemporary



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scholars most often use qualitative methods and the few scholars who do quantitative research use newer and more sophisticated analytic approaches than their earlier counterparts. In addition, those scholars who do historical research use a broader range of sources than did their predecessors. I highlight these and other trends as I summarize the chapters in the next section.

24.2  Present: Themes within and across Chapters This handbook opens with an introduction, followed by Section I which contains chapters on the history and foundations of social studies education research and then turns to quantitative and qualitative research methods. In the introductory chapter the ­editors, Manfra and Bolick, explain their goals for this handbook: to accurately depict the state of social studies scholarship in 2016; to represent important trends in contemporary research; to explore widely‐used theoretical frameworks; to present an overview of predominant p­aradigms; to identify emerging high quality research with a potential to inform future theory, research, and/or practice; and finally, to explore future ­perspectives on research. The chapters that follow meet those criteria. Manfra and Bolick further explain their intent to represent diverse scholarly traditions and lines of inquiry that are garnering attention. They explain that the authors focus (with a few exceptions) on research conducted, p­resented, and published in the United States. However, the profession is changing as i­nternational participants present their research at NCSS and AERA and the premier social studies research journal, Theory & Research in Social Education, increasingly publishes a­rticles by scholars from countries outside North America. Earlier handbook editors h­andled the globalization of scholarship with designated chapters on international research. In an age of the Internet and frequent international conferences, scholars seamlessly c­onverse across national borders and build on one another’s work. Nevertheless, readers of  most of these chapters need to search beyond this volume.

24.2.1  Historical Research In chapter  2, Thornton notes that historical scholarship on social studies in the United States “has ballooned” since Lybarger (1991) wrote his chapter, “Historiography of Social Studies” in the 1991 handbook. Emphasizing that contemporary historians investigate a broad range of topics with varied lenses and sources, Thornton reviews the historiography for four time periods (1890–1920, 1921–1939, 1940–1969, and 1970 to the present). In a second historical chapter, Fallace analyzes three intellectual traditions (traditional, disciplinary, and progressive) over the 100‐year history of social studies education. The “traditional” orientation focuses on the transmission of cultural heritage, the “disciplinary” orientation emphasizes discipline‐specific ways of thinking, and the “progressive” orientation prioritizes the application of knowledge to real world problems. Fallace traces the three orientations through each of three time periods, which are slightly different from the ones Thornton uses. Fallace labels these eras of reform (1890–1938), consensus (1938–1962), and of diversity (1962 to the present). Envision a table with three orientations on one axis

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and three time periods on the other where Fallace has drawn on historical s­cholarship to fill in the nine cells with a narrative. Both Fallace’s and Thornton’s chapters reinforce a point made by Cuban (1991) in an earlier review: Although there has been considerable continuity in the field of social studies over time, the changes that occurred in particular time periods have tended to be incremental, with the intent to improve instruction without disrupting the basic features of the classroom or school. There are many other points of overlap in the two historical chapters. Research in the early periods used commission reports and the writings of leading figures like Dunn, Dewey, and Rugg. Following World War II, research highlighted consensus and was followed by the disciplinary‐based New Social Studies projects of the 1970s and research from a multicultural perspective in the most recent period. There are also points of difference. On the one hand, Fallace focuses on consciously and unconsciously held beliefs of the “leading intellectuals” and “theorists” for each time period. In contrast, Thornton argues that much of the contemporary historiography has shifted from primarily examining commission reports, assertions by prominent social studies figures, and pronouncements by professional associations to examining enacted curriculum and instruction in diverse school settings. Importantly, he asserts that recent researchers reflect a “postmodern turn” by capturing different “ways of seeing” and use a greater variety of evidence than their predecessors. For example, whereas earlier historians tended to rely on biographical evidence most readily available for elite White men, contemporary scholars use more diverse sources to capture the experiences of teachers and students in specific settings. Contemporary scholars have provided information about the contributions of women to the field of social education and about the experiences of teachers and students in segregated schools in the American South. In reviewing studies of social studies textbooks and curriculum, Thornton emphasizes that content analyses of the intended curriculum can provide only a partial picture (similar to the problem with relying on commission reports). There is limited evidence about the extent to which the materials were diffused across the country or how teachers and students used them in classrooms. Noting that historians have understandably given the least attention to the period since 1970, Thornton recommends that future historians explore topics that have recently become prominent, such as LGBTQ issues, accountability and standards, technology, global education, and social studies for English Language Learners.

24.2.2  Research Methods The next four chapters in Part I focus on research methods. In the 1991 social studies research handbook, the authors of the chapter on quantitative methods reported that more than 75% of the published research articles from the previous decade used some type of quantitative methodology (Fraenkel & Wallen, 1991). In contrast, authors of the qualitative research chapter reported that only 20% of articles in Theory & Research in Social Education (TRSE) for the same time period used ethnographic methods and 13% used interviews (Preissle‐Goetz & LeCompte, 1991). The proportions have now reversed. In chapter 5 in this handbook, Dinkelman and Cuenca found a consistently accelerating proportion of qualitative research in TRSE since 1991, reaching 88% of the empirical articles published from 2011 to 2014.



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Fitchett and Heafner in chapter 4 explain this dramatic change in social studies research as a reflection of the “paradigm shift” in researchers’ choice of methods across education. They then make a strong case for preserving a balance of methods in social studies. Social studies researchers can use quantitative methods to answer important questions requiring macro‐level analyses. Such analyses can provide insights for policy making, as well as inform teaching and teacher education. They further encourage social studies researchers to conduct secondary analyses using some of the available large‐scale datasets. Recognizing that many readers may have had minimal coursework in quantitative methods, Fitchett and Heafner provide guidelines for planning and evaluating quantitative studies. In particular, they discuss the development of research questions and/or hypotheses, selecting a theoretical framework and research design, as well as methodological considerations of sampling, validity, and reliability. They point out common weaknesses in quantitative studies, as did the authors of the 1991 quantitative chapter. However, in the current chapter, the authors provide positive, rather than negative, examples from published research in social studies. While acknowledging that qualitative research has established itself as the favored methodology in social studies, in chapter 5, Dinkelman and Cuenca emphasize that qualitative methods are not a single monolithic approach. Rather, there is considerable diversity in questions explored, methods used, and interpretative lenses preferred among a broad “confederation” of qualitative researchers. Dinkelman and Cuenca explore some shared principles, concepts, and characteristics across the confederation, such as the assumption of multiple realities and the goal of capturing the meanings participants give to events. They also discuss the shared characteristics of thick description of situated activity and researcher reflexivity, citing examples from social studies research. Recognizing that each community of qualitative researchers has its own criteria for determining research quality, Dinkelman and Cuenca do not offer specific criteria. Instead, they discuss aspects of studies for researchers, reviewers, and readers to consider in making quality judgments. In concluding, Dinkelman and Cuenca ask two important questions: What has the qualitative turn done for social studies education theory, research, and practice? What might the continued use and development of qualitative methods do for social studies in the future? They argue that the greatest potential contribution of qualitative research lies in its ability to heighten sensitivities to instructional, curricular, and contextual features that might otherwise be overlooked. This can help educators see educational phenomena in deeper and more sophisticated ways. Additionally, they argue that qualitative research can stimulate social studies teachers and teacher educators to be thoughtful and reflexive about their practice. They acknowledge that many types of social studies research might have these benefits, but argue that qualitative researchers can make particular contributions. They recommend that future qualitative researchers make connections between knowledge production and potential improvements in social studies teaching and learning. Attention should be paid to policy concerns and greater understanding of both marginalized and dominant narratives of experiences with social studies. I believe these are important c­oncerns for reflection among those engaged in social studies research, regardless of their preferred methodology. Chapter 6, on practitioner research in social studies, is a departure from previous reviews of research and reflects the greater current acceptance of diverse methods and approaches. Manfra categorizes practitioner research into action research and self‐study. Both types of research privilege insider knowledge—either of classroom teachers or teacher educators—and

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both engage practitioners in systematic inquiry into questions or issues that concern them in their everyday practice. She cites studies of individual teacher educators collecting data in their social studies methods courses for preservice teachers and in professional development programs for experienced teachers. In several cases the teacher educator‐ researcher was interested in improving the historical thinking of teachers or their students. In other studies, practitioners’ goals were to help teachers and their students critically examine social justice issues. Practitioner studies can help educators to be reflective about their practice as they systematically collect and examine data on the effects of instructional approaches on their students. When the students, the context, and the instructional approaches are described in rich detail, these studies can inspire other teachers or teacher educators to undertake similar approaches to their teaching. When practitioner researchers develop qualitative case studies and relate their findings to prior research or conduct cross‐ case analyses, Manfra argues they can inform persistent issues in K–12 social studies teaching, teacher education, and professional development. If authors and reviewers think a study has applicability beyond a single setting, they can benefit from the advice contained in the chapters that precede and follow this one, on qualitative research and exemplars. In chapter 7, Avery and Barton, like Fitchett and Heafner, highlight studies to serve as exemplars for aspects of high quality research including: research questions, literature reviews, research design, data collection and analysis, and theoretical contextualization. I am reminded of the title of Engle’s (1960) classic article, “Decision Making: The Heart of Social Studies Instruction.” Emphasizing that decision‐making is the heart of social studies research, Avery and Barton help readers to reflect on issues that researchers need to consider at every step of their decision‐making process. They illustrate how powerful research questions give attention to relevant theory, concepts, and principles, as well as build on previous research and address important policy implications. They show how effective literature reviews persuade readers of the need to address a particular question in a particular way. Further, researchers need to consider advantages, limitations, and challenges when selecting among possible research designs. They illustrate those considerations in three types of study designs—experimental, design experiments, and case studies. They next discuss data collection and analysis by reflecting on a qualitative study that creatively accessed participants’ views and a secondary analysis of a large dataset that used innovative methods. Finally, Avery and Barton discuss one of the most difficult, yet important, challenges for researchers—deciding how to link their research to theory. Drawing on exemplary studies from varied countries that used differing social science theories, they show how linkage to a powerful theory can make a study relevant in a wide range of circumstances. This chapter, along with the articles Avery and Barton cite, should be used in graduate seminars in social studies education to show beginning researchers how to make wise research decisions. The chapter will also be useful to experienced researchers who judge articles and review proposals, induct new scholars, and plan their own studies. Avery and Barton conclude by reflecting on their generally positive assessment of social studies research as compared to the judgments of reviewers in earlier handbooks. They suggest that the field has become more accepting of a variety of conceptual and methodological approaches than it was previously. Additionally, I would argue, social studies scholarship has benefited from continuing discussions about how to enhance research quality—a discussion stimulated by earlier critics (Shaver, 1991, preface). Further benefits could accrue from a profession‐wide reflection on high quality models like those presented in the



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exemplars chapter, coupled with a focus on improving researchers’ decision‐making. It is unfortunate that authors of the remaining chapters did not have the benefit of reading the four methodological chapters as they reviewed research in their focus areas.

24.2.3 Theories The authors in Section  2 discuss several theoretical frameworks guiding contemporary research in social studies. In the 1991 handbook, reviewers noted the dominance of positivism and postpositivism in educational research generally and social studies research in particular. They called for greater use of critical approaches (Cherryholmes, 1991; Popkewitz & St. Maurice, 1991). In chapter 8, Cornbleth emphasizes that critical theory is a “genre of theories” that raise “questions about assumptions, implications, or likely consequences and who benefits from a situation or course of action.” Rooted in mid‐19th-­century Europe and drawing on ways of seeing from Marxism and the Frankfurt School, critical theorists in the United States adapted and extended European scholarship to raise pointed questions about social justice in contemporary society. For example, they ask: Who benefits and what is neglected or lost as social studies adopts particular approaches or innovations? To illustrate insights that might otherwise be overlooked, Cornbleth discusses three studies that demonstrate the potential of critical theories. Self‐identified critical theorists conducted two of the studies in the United States; the third scholar, who did not explicitly use critical theory, conducted her study in Singapore. Cornbleth suggests examining recent initiatives, such as tax cuts, charter schools, and culturally relevant pedagogy, to explore who benefits from the initiatives and the consequences to a democratic society of adopting them. In the past, research from a critical perspective revealed inequities by socioeconomic status and c­ontributed to a social justice agenda. Theory and research discussed in the next three chapters deliberately move issues of inclusion and social justice from the periphery to the center of researchers’ focus. Although earlier social studies handbooks gave attention to multicultural education, the topics of critical race theory, gender and feminist scholarship, and sexuality and queer theory have not been highlighted with entire chapters until this volume. In chapter  9, Navarro and Howard extend ideas touched on in previous handbook c­hapters on multicultural education (Banks, 1991), diversity and citizenship (Banks & Nguyen, 2008), and social justice (Bickmore, 2008) as themes in the social studies. Earlier reviewers cited some research on curricular effects on students’ attitudes and discussed attempts to address unity and diversity in multicultural democracies; however, they did not discuss research on the effects of teaching explicitly about race and racism, nor did they focus on theory as this chapter does. Navarro and Howard recommend Critical Race Theory (CRT), which grew out of critical legal studies in the 1980s, as a useful framework to help educators teach lessons and engage in inquiry to understand the role of race and racism in society and in social education. CRT centers on race and racism and its intersection with other forms of subordination, such as gender, class, and national origin. Further, they note CRT challenges dominant perspectives, is committed to social justice, values experiential knowledge, is interdisciplinary, and emphasizes multiple perspectives. Navarro and Howard argue CRT provides a more critical lens than multicultural education. For example, rather than asking whether racism has been

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a factor in U.S. life, CRT presupposes racism exists and asks: what role has racism played in American life, law, policy, and relations, and how can it be dismantled? Navarro and Howard call for researchers to explore race, ranging from who becomes a social studies teacher to textbooks’ treatment of race and racism. They describe an instructional unit designed to help high school students develop counternarratives to dominant narratives about the economic, social, and political impact of colonialism in Latin America and Africa. This example reflects the kind of practitioner‐oriented research suggested by Manfra in an earlier chapter. Also, while demonstrating several features of CRT, the unit reveals how difficult it can be to center race and racism and simultaneously connect with other forms of subordination. In this case, while students wrote narratives about “great men” of color they may have overlooked the meanings of colonialism to diverse women. A recent study by Woyshner and Schocker (2015) on Black women in U.S. history textbooks shows how important it is to supplement curricular materials with this broader view of intersectionality. Navarro and Howard contend that many social studies practitioners help their students to develop inclusive narratives and think critically about racial justice; however, they argue such work needs to be considered by social studies researchers. They also suggest race‐ centered research questions regarding teacher education and professional development that could connect to recommendations made by Crocco and Livingston in chapter 16. Although Navarro and Howard did not mention it, some social studies scholars are beginning to work with Critical Latino Theory (Salinas, Fránquiz, & Rodriquez, 2016; Solorzano & Delgado, 2001; Solorzano & Yosso, 2001) and Critical Asian Theory (An, 2016; Chang, 1993; Museus, 2013), which may provide fresh insights. Further, like most authors in this handbook, they restricted their discussion to scholarship in the United States. Banks (2009) and Banks and Nguyen (2008) emphasized that many multicultural and multiracial nations wrestle with questions of race and racism. Future researchers could use CRT to examine race‐centered questions in comparative perspective. As Bohan notes in chapter 10, this is the first social studies research handbook with a chapter exclusively on gender, although research on gender and social studies was reviewed in chapters in AERA handbooks on sex/gender equity (Hahn & Bernard‐Powers, 1985; Hahn, Bernard‐Powers, Crocco, & Woyshner, 2007) and combined with sexuality in the 2008 social studies handbook (Crocco, 2008). At the time of the first social studies handbook, when gender and social studies had received considerable attention for over a decade (Grambs, 1976; Hahn, 1978; Hahn & Bernard‐Powers, 1985), the editor made the unfortunate decision to ask all authors to address gender rather than give the topic a ­separate chapter (Shaver, 1991, p. ix). I and others think the results were disappointing. Twenty‐five years later, Bohan finds that contemporary researchers study a broad range of gender‐related topics, with relatively few scholars explicitly referencing feminist theory (e.g., Schmeichel 2011, 2015). The chapter traces the evolution of gender theory from essentialist notions of biologically rooted gender differences to more sociological and cultural perspectives that recognize gender as fluid and varied. Reviewing scholarship since 2007, Bohan identifies several earlier trends that continue: in the United States men outnumber women as teachers of secondary social studies; textbooks continue to give attention to only a handful of women and to stereotype both genders; and curriculum standards give little attention to gender‐related topics. Additionally, researchers explored similar topics in a few small‐scale studies conducted in varied countries.



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With respect to U.S. students’ knowledge, recent national knowledge assessments reported no gender differences in history, civics, or geography; however, differences persisted in e­conomics knowledge. Bohan found numerous articles that advocated greater inclusion of women and gender‐related issues in curriculum and instruction, making connections to  annual celebrations of Women’s History Month in March. However, she found few studies  examining how such inclusion is implemented. Similarly, Bohan found only a few  studies on gender, technology, and social studies, which she suggests needs more research. In contrast, she finds a considerable amount of historical research extending earlier scholarship from a “contributions” perspective, identifying notable U.S. women’s influence on social education. Finally, with the exception of a few studies of gay male social studies teachers and social studies teacher‐coaches, she finds little research on masculinities and social studies. She calls this a “missed opportunity,” as men constitute the majority of social studies teachers. Overall, it appears that research on gender tends to be atheoretical and descriptive with only a few new scholars using feminist or discourse theories to deepen understanding of how patriarchy and male entitlement continue to influence contemporary curriculum, teaching, and teacher education. In chapter 11 on sexuality and queer theory in social studies, Mayo (like Bohan reviewing scholarship on gender) notes that attention has moved from silence to advocacy for including topics related to sexuality (or sexual identity/sexual orientation) in social studies. He discusses a 2002 special issue of TRSE where social studies scholars identified ways social studies could and should include explicit attention to sexuality; this included political socialization research on political tolerance, countering homophobia in school, and including LGBTQ individuals, groups, events, and themes in the curriculum. Although Mayo says “LGBTQ scholarship in social studies increased significantly between 2007 and 2016,” most of that scholarship continues to be advocacy, not empirical research. Indeed, Mayo identifies only four studies that explicitly center on sexuality. These include three case studies focusing on: (1) seven gay male teachers, four of whom taught social studies; (2) a class discussion of marriage equality in which heterosexuality was assumed; and (3) a student support group, the Gay‐Straight Alliance (renamed Genders & Sexualities Alliance, April 17, 2016) at one school. The fourth study used queer discourse analysis to examine NCSS policy documents. Social studies has often been accused of following, rather than leading, social change. This is the latest example. Mayo sees promise in queer theory, which disrupts normative constructions of socially constructed binaries such as male/female and critically analyzes the meaning of identity. He argues that queer theory offers opportunities to view familiar phenomena in previously unseen nuanced ways. He calls for future researchers to continue to give voice to previously silenced queer individuals and groups; embrace recognition of intersectionalities; explore linkages between LGBTQ themes and research on difficult histories; and undertake longitudinal studies of students who participate in Genders & Sexualities Alliances and similar groups and of LGBTQ teachers across their careers. Mayo emphasizes that social studies scholarship should ultimately impact students’ lives, so that LGBTQ youth are fully included, all students celebrate diversity, and schools move closer to promoting equity and social justice. In contrast to the limited number of studies that have used queer theory, feminist theory, CRT, and critical theory, van Hover and Hicks report in chapter 12 that social constructivist theories inform “a robust body of research” in social studies. Van Hover and Hicks distinguish

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research on student learning from research on student thinking and from research on teaching. They explain that research using constructivist learning theories attends to: (a) authentic learning opportunities; (b) information processing for deep conceptual understanding; (c) deliberately extending a learner’s prior knowledge; (d) strategy instruction and scaffolding for complex learning; (e) social mediation, particularly through conversation among learners; and (f) using reflection and metacognition to develop self‐regulated learners. They illustrate these features by discussing several sophisticated studies of adolescents’ learning from controversial issues and online discussions, early adolescents’ civic learning, and young children’s learning of cultural universals. Importantly, such theoretically based studies, using varied research methods, are moving the field from surface descriptions to a deeper understanding of how social learning occurs in varied contexts. In chapter 13 Castro and Knowles discuss research on democratic citizenship education that addresses the question: How ought educators prepare future citizens for an ever‐changing, culturally complex, globally connected democratic society? They emphasize that no single theory undergirds the research in this area. Indeed, researchers in multiple disciplines bring varied ways of seeing to studies of democratic citizenship learning and use differing conceptual lenses. These include political socialization, civic engagement, enlightened democratic citizenship, political literacy, civic character, and sociopolitical development. To  bring together this diverse scholarship, Castro and Knowles propose using a “civic c­ommunities of practice” lens. Castro and Knowles find that regardless of approach, researchers recognize a gap b­etween the ideal of democratic living and the realities in school and society and share an interest in developing citizens who are willing and able to continually work toward the ideal rather than accept a narrower notion of democracy as government structures and processes. After reviewing an extensive body of recent U.S. research, they identify several trends, including gaps in civic knowledge and variations by socioeconomic level in related attitudes, a generational change in preferred civic behavior, and an emphasis on individualistic views of democracy. They also identify two underlying tensions—whether schools are or can be democratic spaces and whether U.S. citizenship education reflects a middle‐class bias. Castro and Knowles argue persuasively that because civic identities and positions within civic spaces vary considerably, it is important for researchers to pay attention to the positionality (including differential power) and intersectionality of learners’ identities (gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sexuality, and nationality and/or immigrant status). Castro and Knowles call for researchers to draw on multiple disciplines to investigate q­uestions with attention to differences across contexts and identities, and to be alert to meanings and experiences of youth from marginalized communities. Thus, they call for research that joins together democratic theories with diverse “ways of seeing” highlighted in chapters 9, 10, and 11.

24.2.4  Research Programs Section  3 contains chapters focusing on several contemporary programs of research. These are yielding valuable insights as studies build on one another. In chapter 14, Ho, McAvoy, Hess, and Gibbs review research from the past decade on teaching controversial issues. This topic is one that has been reviewed regularly since the



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first handbook on social studies research (Hahn, 1991, 1996, 1998; Hess, 2008), yet this chapter provides new insights by focusing on (1) contextual factors in different countries that affect the teaching of controversial topics and (2) instructional practices involved in teaching controversial issues. Noting that scholars use varied definitions of “controversial issues,” Ho and her colleagues distinguish between controversial topics (which some adults find objectionable and which do not necessarily have multiple sides) and controversial issues (public issues that warrant debate). They report that teachers in more centralized and authoritarian political systems and those in divided societies face differing constraints in deciding which topics to teach and how to explore them than do teachers in more open and stable societies. Cross‐nationally, teachers’ identities and beliefs influence how they handle controversy in the classroom. In recent years, U.S. researchers have tended to focus on discussion‐based approaches to teaching controversial issues, with a few examining other approaches. The recent studies provide insights to affordances, constraints, and consequences in differing contexts. Although research on controversial issues teaching has been one of the most enduring lines of inquiry in social studies education, the ways in which researchers examine this topic has changed over time. In the 1970s, most researchers used surveys to measure teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the extent, nature, and constraints on controversial issues discussions in social studies classes in the United States (Hahn, 1991). The early researchers found a positive correlation between students’ perceptions of an open classroom climate for controversial issues discussion and students’ political attitudes and expectations of participation, which is similarly found today cross‐nationally (Schulz, Ainley, Fraillon, Kerr, & Losito, 2009). Over time an increasing number of researchers conducted case studies of small samples of teachers and classrooms while others continued to conduct surveys (Hahn, 1996, 1998; Hess, 2008; Torney‐Purta et al., 2001). This chapter reflects the current dominance of qualitative methods and, unlike most chapters in this handbook, draws on research conducted in different parts of the world. Although Ho and her colleagues do not discuss the 38‐nation International Civic and Citizenship Study (ICCS), because it assessed students’ and teachers’ perceptions of issues teaching, findings from that study are relevant to this discussion (Schulz et al., 2009). The ICCS study reinforces the point that national context matters. Using nationally representative samples, the researchers found that 13‐year‐old students in Denmark, England, Indonesia, Italy, and New Zealand were the most likely to report that teachers encouraged them to explore issues, to make up their own minds, and express their opinions; the students in Malta and Korea were the least likely to report such practices. Similar to previous international assessments, the perceived climate for issues discussion had a positive correlation with civic knowledge and with a­nticipated electoral behavior; further, in a multilevel analysis average student perception of issues discussion was the one consequential school‐ level variable. Also consistent with e­arlier research, in all 38 nations female students were more likely to perceive an open c­limate for issues discussion than were male students (Schulz et al., 2009), which is an area worthy of future research. Ho, McAvoy, Hess, and Gibbs, like reviewers before them, call for needed longitudinal research to ascertain the impact of issues discussions in school on political and civic engagement over time. They also call for more cross‐national comparisons and cross‐­ disciplinary investigations, echoing Avery and Barton’s recommendations in the chapter on exemplars.

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Chapter 15, on disciplined inquiry in social studies, complements chapter 12 on social constructivist theory, with both drawing on cognitive science. Whereas van Hover and Hicks focus on student learning, Saye focuses on student thinking and on teaching that stimulates student learning. Saye notes that despite years of social studies scholars advocating inquiry teaching, disciplined inquiry remains rare in U.S. classrooms. It is for that reason that the NCSS revived an emphasis on disciplined inquiry in the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework (NCSS, 2013). The C3 Framework and accompanying lessons (NCSS, 2014) have an advantage over earlier efforts to promote inquiry because they build on the research base on disciplined inquiry in cognitive science as well as social studies. Saye discusses three principles underlying the design of supportive learning environments: (a) engage learners by increasing motivation for sustained intellectual effort; (b) attend to the role of social mediation by providing opportunities for collaborative activities and discussion; and (c) scaffold instruction by designing hard scaffolds prior to instruction and generating soft scaffolds during instruction in response to student learning. In examining social studies research, Saye distinguishes between curricular projects that promote Disciplined Inquiry (DI), Disciplined Civic Inquiry (DCI), or a mixture of the two. DI  studies emphasize domain‐specific cognition, when mastery of disciplinary concepts and processes is a valued end in itself. DCI studies, based in the social education tradition, use disciplinary knowledge and ways of thinking for the purpose of assisting citizens addressing real world problems. Saye describes exemplary studies of DI and DCI for elementary, middle school, and high school students. Such studies, whether in history, economics, or civics, extend over a substantial period of time (usually a year or more). This is because a sustained, scaffolded focus on disciplined inquiry takes time. Notably, several design‐based studies continually refined and improved treatments based on feedback from earlier iterations of the curricula and/or pedagogy. Saye recommends that future researchers conduct “longitudinal studies that follow student progression across courses and years” and “rich case studies that reveal how efforts succeed and falter.” Further, he suggests that scholars coordinate their research projects to “map how powerful teaching and learning can be most effectively realized.” Saye knows about both the challenges and benefits from collaboration as one of the few contemporary scholars who has engaged in sustained collaboration. I would add, echoing Castro and Knowles, that as DI and DCI scholars deliberately plan to build on the work of others, it is important to pay attention to the identities of the learners and the contexts of teaching and learning. This is an opportunity to learn from past mistakes. Several scholars attributed the limited impact of the New Social Studies projects of the 1970s to curriculum developers reporting positive benefits of disciplined inquiry based on project field tests in innovative, predominantly White, suburban schools. However, when the projects were diffused more broadly, they faced unexpected challenges, particularly in urban schools, many serving students of color in low‐income neighborhoods. Researchers who study the implementation of the C3 Framework and other DI and DCI approaches will need to be alert to such issues. Similarly, most of the studies Saye cites were conducted in the United States; future researchers might explore how disciplined inquiry is implemented differently across national and cultural contexts. In chapter  16, Crocco and Livingston review research on teacher education and professional development in social studies, focusing on studies with the potential to inform policy as well as practice in the current U.S. context. They repeat concerns expressed in



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similar chapters in previous handbooks that much of the social studies teacher education research consists of small‐scale studies in the researchers’ social studies methods classes, which are not generalizable beyond the particular site. Notably, Dinkelman and Cuenca and Manfra, in the earlier chapters on qualitative and practitioner‐oriented research, take a more positive view of such research. Like the reviewers before them, Crocco and Livingston call for more cumulative programmatic research focused on helping social studies teachers meet typical challenges. Such programmatic research is more common in mathematics and science teacher education. They point to promising research growing out of the novice‐ expert paradigm and Shulman’s concept of “pedagogical content knowledge,” encouraging researchers to pursue this line of inquiry in the disciplines of history, civics, geography, and economics. They identify programs of research on historical thinking, problem‐based learning, and learning progressions in geography that have implications for preparing social studies teachers to move from novice to expert teachers. Turning to professional development (PD) for experienced teachers, Crocco and Livingston highlight PD research tied to programmatic research on historical thinking and controversial issues teaching. Effective PD programs provide extensive support over an extended period of time to help experienced teachers utilize research on student learning in their own classroom instruction. Interestingly, effective PD programs use approaches similar to the DI and DCI programs described by Saye in the previous chapter, further reinforcing the importance of research that connects professional development/teacher education with research on student learning. In chapter 17 Halvorsen reviews research on elementary level social studies, focusing primarily on the period since Brophy and Alleman (2008) wrote a similar handbook chapter. In reviewing elementary research, Halvorsen reinforces points made by Crocco and Livingston and Saye in this handbook about impediments to social studies research as compared to other subjects. These include disagreements over the purpose of social studies, the differences in the integrated and separate disciplines approaches, and the lack of large‐scale funding. Similarly, she echoes van Hover and Hicks in noting that research on learning progressions in social studies is less developed than research on children’s learning in mathematics. Nevertheless, Halvorsen identifies a substantial amount of recent research on social studies discipline‐specific learning in young children. For example, researchers working in a variety of English‐speaking countries have been learning much about how children’s historical thinking develops. Additionally, a few researchers identified insights into children’s geographic understanding and skill development, particularly with respect to spatial perceptions and map‐reading skills. Only a few contemporary researchers are investigating children’s economic and political learning, compared with research on those domains in the 1960s and 1970s. However, one program of research that extended over several studies of (primarily White Midwestern) children’s understanding of cultural u­niversals provides some insights to early learning of political and economic concepts. Like previous reviewers, Halvorsen notes that the expanding environments approach to elementary social studies remains the dominant curricular approach in the United States. Despite this, she, like Brophy and Alleman (2008) before her, identifies alternative approaches being implemented in some schools to supplement or replace the traditional approach. The eight curricular alternatives Halvorsen identifies with corresponding research are: i­ ntegrative studies, cultural universals, project‐based learning, simulations, inquiry, service learning

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and civic action, justice‐oriented education, and core knowledge. Halvorsen concludes by calling for future research on improved assessment measures for elementary students, the effects of alternative curricular approaches, and the relation between social studies education and citizenship values. She emphasizes that because national assessments of U.S. students’ knowledge of history, geography, and civics consistently reveal differences by  socioeconomic status and race, researchers need to ascertain whether there is an instructional opportunity gap at the elementary level, similar to the gap identified at the secondary level. I would add that research is also needed on how some schools, teachers, and approaches are successful in developing children’s social knowledge regardless of the economic level of their family, school, or community. This echoes the call made by Castro and Knowles for research on populations that are often marginalized. Much of the research at the elementary level has not explicitly focused on such populations and scholars do not yet know how children’s social‐civic understanding varies by identity and context and if particular instructional and/or curricular approaches are most effective in specific situations. The 1991 Handbook of Research on Social Studies Teaching and Learning contained separate chapters on reading and writing, with the reading chapter primarily focused on generic teaching strategies for functional literacy development. Here, in chapter  18, “Leveraging Literacy,” Berson, Berson, Dennis, and Powell discuss the “tidal shift” in literacy research over the past 25 years, which now focuses on disciplinary specific literacy rooted in social constructivist theory. They explain that most contemporary literacy scholars take a “critical literacy” stance, viewing literacy as a means for individuals to develop the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to be active, effective citizens working to make their societies more just and democratic. They note the Common Core State Standards for English/Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies (2010) and the NCSS (2013) C3 Framework both promote critical literacy. Both documents emphasize discipline‐specific literacy, inquiry, and guided questioning to help students recognize multiple perspectives in varied types of texts and develop evidence‐based arguments using diverse texts. However, Berson and colleagues note that the recommendations rest on a limited research base in social studies, particularly for young learners. In several recent studies of middle and high school students, researchers found that students who are “apprenticed” into historians’ ways of reading diverse texts can increase their content comprehension and develop more sophisticated historical thinking. Working with primary source documents, biographies, and other types of text, as well as visual images, some social studies teachers have been successful in scaffolding instruction to connect with students’ prior knowledge and to develop deeper understanding than they might without such instruction. However, Berson and colleagues note that most early childhood and elementary level teachers have not had sufficient professional development to help them use the types of texts that support social studies as an interpretive, evidence‐based subject requiring multiple literacies. As the Common Core State Standards (2010) and the C3 Framework (2013) are implemented, there will be opportunities for researchers to study critical literacy learning and teaching in naturalistic settings, paying attention to the interaction of text, reader, and context. The literacy chapter does not provide details on the samples and contexts used in recent studies, but it is likely that findings vary for various demographic groups in differing settings.



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Chapter  19, “Emergent Bilinguals in the Social Studies,” by Salinas, Rodriguez, and Blevins represents an important departure from previous handbooks. Somewhat surprisingly, the earlier handbooks did not discuss research on the linguistic challenges many teachers and students confront daily. Although in her chapter on cultural diversity, Gay (1991) did discuss scholarship on culture traits, learning styles, participation structures, and other aspects of students’ cultural diversity that can impact social studies learning, she did not cite any studies of language challenges. Similarly, although the 2008 handbook did have a chapter on diversity and citizenship, it did not address linguistic challenges in particular. Here Salinas, Rodriguez, and Blevins argue that by 2016, the demographic imperative, legal mandates, and a critical understanding of citizenship underline the importance of addressing linguistic diversity in social studies classes. The authors chose the terms “emergent bilingual” and “second language learner” to indicate that speaking multiple languages has value. They explain that although some emergent bilinguals are immigrants, not all are. These authors and others they cite recommend practices from language acquisition research that can be helpful to social studies teachers, including visual scaffolding, vocabulary development, and providing opportunities to speak and listen in multiple languages. Salinas and colleagues note that although there is a rich body of conceptual work and advocacy, there is “unfortunately a thin body of empirical work that examines the experiences of teachers and emergent bilinguals/immigrants in the social studies.” Nevertheless, they were able to identify several case studies of exemplary teachers who developed both language and content acquisition, and capitalized on the valuable experiences that emergent bilinguals brought to the classroom. In a few studies, teachers developed historical inquiry skills using primary sources that were particularly relevant to students from immigrant backgrounds. In other research, critical geography was used to depict formerly marginalized communities in empowering ways. Clearly, social studies scholars have been slow to generate research that can inform policy, practice, and teacher education in light of the linguistic diversity in U.S. classrooms, as well as classrooms in many other linguistically plural nations. Hopefully, this chapter will serve as an inspiration for scholars to undertake research on teaching emergent bilinguals. Once again, researchers will need to provide detailed information about their samples and the sociocultural contexts of their studies, to ensure that readers will not be tempted to overgeneralize across the great diversity of emergent bilinguals. Salinas et al. also note that few scholars have investigated authentic assessment and other means to assess bilingual students’ learning. Indeed, national and international assessments in civics and other social studies subjects that use multiple choice items report that students for whom the language of the test is not their first language and immigrant students perform less well than dominant language and native born students. It is likely that bilingual students’ difficulty comprehending the language and syntax of test items prevents the test results from being a valid measure of their content knowledge. Chapter 20 on assessment varies from other chapters in this section in that the author, Grant, does not review research studies, of which he found few. Rather, he discusses issues, such as reliability and validity, related to assessing student knowledge on classroom‐ based and large‐scale, statewide assessments. In the United States, under a series of f­ ederal policies, including No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and Every Student Succeeds, states have been required to assess student knowledge annually in mathematics and literacy as a condition of obtaining federal funds for education. In addition, many states

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have adopted policies mandating large‐scale, high‐stakes tests in social studies. After years of this testing‐dominated environment, some states are resisting the introduction of new assessments aligned with the Common Core State Standards, and some p­arents are withdrawing their children from testing. It is in this context that Grant discusses assessment‐ related issues and describes four types of alternative assessment in use in some U.S. school districts. Grant concludes that although there is little research on classroom‐based assessment in social studies, “looking at the kinds of measures teachers develop may offer some clues into the possibilities for large‐scale efforts.” I would suggest that in addition to looking within classrooms, some researchers look outward to comparative studies of assessment in diverse countries. Students in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Korea traditionally have taken large‐scale, high‐stakes tests in very different cultural contexts. Examining how students, teachers, and the public perceive assessments for subjects like social studies, history, geography, and civics/politics cross‐nationally might yield insights and alternatives to taken‐for‐granted practices in the United States. In chapter 21, Stoddard and Marcus review research on the use of media in social studies instruction published since a similar chapter was included in the 1991 handbook. Whereas the earlier review primarily focused on research on the use and influence of television, this chapter discusses a burgeoning body of research on the use of films, video, and videogames delivered on computers, tablets, and mobile phones. Stoddard and Marcus note that scholars studying media use and influence draw on a variety of theoretical traditions emerging from: (a) film and media studies; (b) cultural studies and studies of race, class, and gender; (c) media literacy and critical literacy; and (d) historical thinking research. They discuss empirical research on teachers’ beliefs and practices, primarily studying the practices of small samples in a few states in the United States, as well as two samples in England and Australia. Across rural, urban, and suburban communities, the teachers in these studies reported they often used portions of Hollywood films and documentaries to deliver content and/or develop empathy; the researchers, however, reported they observed less than optimal use of the films to develop critical literacy. Research on teachers’ practices and beliefs is less well established than research on how high school students make sense of film as a text or as historical evidence. For example, studies that focused on Native American, African American, and Taiwanese American high school youth indicate that students’ identity and prior knowledge can be important ­influences in how they perceive films. Stoddard and Marcus report that studies of middle school students in two North American communities showed students benefited from history instruction that used careful scaffolding with films. Notably, one of these studies is the only study cited in this handbook that focused on a sample of students with learning disabilities. Taken together, the studies reviewed in this chapter emphasize the importance of future researchers taking account of the interaction of the film (as text), the viewer, and the context of instruction. Whereas most studies of the use of film in social studies focus on high school history instruction, one study took place in government classes. Further, although most of the research was conducted in the United States, a handful of studies were identified using samples in England, Canada, Australia, and Taiwan. Stoddard and Marcus conclude by recommending that national surveys of the use of educational technology include items on the use of film. They also recommend that more quasi‐experimental and



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design‐based research studies examine alternative approaches to developing critical media literacy and historical literacy from films. They emphasize that: given contextual and cultural factors, there will never be one model of engaging students in developing critical media literacy or historical film literacy, but larger‐scale studies (or meta‐ analyses of many case studies) would provide us better insights into which models may work best for which students in particular settings. (p. 494)

Researchers exploring instructional effectiveness of a broad repertoire of social studies teaching methods also need this awareness. In chapter 22, Bolick sought to determine what is known about the use of (computer‐ related/cellular) technology in the social studies classroom. Unlike other chapter authors, she does not, however, discuss particular studies; rather she overviews the field as a whole. She (like authors of the chapters on teacher education and global education) reports that empirical research consists primarily of case studies that tend not to build on one another cumulatively. Additionally, Bolick notes that most researchers focus on teachers’ use of technology. For that reason she calls for greater attention to student learning with technology, such as research in the constructivist vein described by van Hover and Hicks in chapter 12. She also encourages social studies researchers whose aim is the transformation of society to use critical theory (chapter 8) to examine how particular technologies might contribute to or inhibit that goal. Importantly, she argues for research that connects social studies to technology use in society, or “technoculture.” Bolick proposes applying Rogers’ social‐interaction theory of the diffusion of innovations to the spread of new technologies in social studies. This is reminiscent of research on the diffusion of the New Social Studies projects in the 1970s (Hahn, 1977a, 1977b). Bolick views technology as one innovation with the potential to be adopted by the field of social studies as a whole. I, however, would expect different technologies to diffuse at different rates. For example, in a single school, all the social studies teachers, including the “laggards,” may have adopted PowerPoint for lectures and the Internet for student research projects. At the same time, “late adopters” may have harnessed blogs, Facebook, and iTune videos for their teaching, while only the “early adopters” are using the latest social media platforms to connect classroom instruction to youth culture and social change. Similarly, social studies researchers’ adoption of varied new technologies might reveal the bell‐shaped curve of adoption as one innovation after another becomes available in the endless cycles of technology development, adoption, and adaptation. Despite the major challenge Bolick identifies of conducting research on technology and society when they are always changing rapidly, some social studies scholars are rising to the challenge with promising lines of research. For example, Kahne and colleagues (2016) in collaboration with a network of practitioners are connecting civic education to the ways social media are continually changing the world of politics and social‐political movements and Pinkney (2016a) is exploring how youth civic and political attitudes and engagement are connected to social media platforms and ever‐changing youth culture. Chapter 23 is a comprehensive review of global education since the 1970s. Like other chapter authors, Grossman finds diversity in conceptions of this topic in the literature, leading him to conclude there are many “global educations.” These include different conceptions, from competition in a globalized world to a transformative view addressing

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planet‐wide issues and social justice and emphasis on varied themes, such as multicultural, human rights, sustainability, peace, and global citizenship education. Focusing on research since 2006, Grossman discusses initiatives and research in Europe, Canada, Australia, and a few other countries, as well as the United States. It is noteworthy that he, like the authors of the global education chapter in the previous handbook (Zong, Wilson, & Quashiga, 2008) and Crocco in this handbook, finds the research on global teacher education consists of “many small case studies that fail to provide a strong empirical basis for making broader generalizations.” He identifies several other areas, however, where contemporary researchers are building on and extending previous scholarship. Unique among the authors in this handbook, Grossman cites a handful of researchers who have persisted in improving measures of knowledge and attitudes, noting that much work remains to ensure available instruments are sufficiently reliable and valid. Like the global education reviewers before him (Massialas, 1991; Zong et  al., 2008), Grossman synthesizes findings from large‐scale cross‐national studies of students’ global attitudes and research on teachers’ attitudes in varied countries. He finds a growing research base on international simulations, cross‐national project‐based learning, study abroad programs, and the International Baccalaureate program. These studies build on themes identified by earlier researchers, emphasizing the benefits to be derived from examining earlier reviews. Looking at the chapters on global education research in the three handbooks, shifts in dominant research methods and foci are evident. In the 1991 review, Massialas described primarily quasi‐experimental studies that used control groups. In the 2008 chapter, Zong and colleagues identified a few quasi‐experimental quantitative studies of students’ and teachers’ learning, but a shift to the use of more qualitative methods was clear. At the time, most researchers focused on teachers’ conceptions of global education and preservice and in‐service education programs aimed at helping teachers think and teach globally. For the recent period, Grossman finds a mix of quantitative and qualitative studies of students and teachers but relatively few quasi‐experimental studies. In suggesting needed research, Grossman echoes themes identified by global education scholars since the 1980s (and by several chapter authors in this handbook): the need for better measures of learning outcomes, more studies of classrooms with attention to both pedagogy and a supportive classroom climate for discussion, studies of the developmental process or what others call “learning progressions,” and studies that seek explanations for the gender differences consistently found in descriptive research on students’ global attitudes. Importantly, Grossman calls for research on the impact of nonformal education, social media, and current events on students’ global perceptions, though he recognizes challenges in studying these rapidly changing phenomena. He concludes, as did earlier authors of similar chapters, with a plea for researchers to include cross‐national or comparative data wherever possible, a point elaborated in the concluding section of this chapter.

24.2.5  Trends across Chapters In summarizing the reviews of contemporary research, several trends are apparent across multiple chapters in this handbook. Clearly, researchers have been giving primary attention to history teaching and learning. This could be attributed to social studies curricula focusing



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primarily on history, both in the United States and internationally. Further, in recent decades in the United States, there has been more federal funding for history teaching than other areas. Perhaps most important, research on history teaching and learning begets more research on history teaching and learning. The dimension of social studies that receives the second most attention by contemporary researchers is civic education, of which social studies is part. In contrast, only a few scholars publishing in the main social studies journals in the United States report on research in geography or economics and virtually none are looking at curriculum and instruction from the view of the behavioral sciences (unlike many of the curriculum developer‐researchers during the New Social Studies movement of the 1970s). It is possible that some researchers are publishing in economics and geography journals and reviewers did not access those publications. In the past, networks, such as the National Council on Economic Education and the Geographic Alliances, disseminated research on social studies teaching and learning and offered professional development. If those networks are no longer disseminating and generating research, the social studies research community should be concerned. The content imbalance in researchers’ attention revealed in this handbook likely reflects, in part, the fact that students are required to take more history and civics/government classes than other subjects; however, that is not all they take. Examining transcripts of high school seniors in 2005, researchers at the National Center for Education Statistics (2007) reported the following percentages of students had taken particular courses: US History 94%; Civics/Government 79%; World History, 77%; Economics 47%; World Geography 31%, Psychology/Sociology 38%. Additionally, at the elementary and middle school levels the curriculum has traditionally drawn on multiple disciplines as reflected in the 10 themes of the national social studies standards (NCSS, 2010). Thus, it appears much of social studies instruction occurs beyond the gaze of contemporary researchers. With respect to research methods, it is clear that the overwhelming majority of contemporary researchers use a range of qualitative methods. However, quantitative studies have not disappeared. Increasingly scholars are using mixed qualitative and quantitative methods to answer complementary questions. Some scholars continue to do historical research, exploring a greater breadth of topics and using more diverse sources than did their predecessors. Fewer scholars conduct quasi‐experimental studies than in the past. Rather, a few curriculum developer‐researchers are using design‐based approaches, which enable them to draw on data to revise instruction for the purpose of improvement and reassessment. Similarly, self‐study and action‐research methods are used to help K–12 classroom teachers and teacher educators improve their instruction. Contemporary scholars are most likely to use constructivist sociocultural theories. There are some indications of emerging scholars using critical race theory and its extensions (LatCrit and AsianCrit), feminist theories, and queer theory. Chapter authors note that for the topics of race and racism, gender, sexuality, and linguistic diversity, an earlier silence has been replaced by advocacy for curricular inclusion and researchers’ attention. However, they still find only a limited number of empirical studies on these topics. Several authors bemoan forces in the United States working against building an extensive social studies research base. They cite lack of clarity about the purposes of social studies. In contrast, however, Barton and Avery (2016) see diverse goals as an asset in a democracy. Multiple authors also identified obstacles including the division between supporters of an

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integrated social studies and those who prefer discipline‐specific approaches to history, geography, civics, and economics; lack of federal funding for social studies research; and federal policies that diminish attention to social studies. Given this context, various chapter authors recommend individual scholars collaborate with others to tackle larger questions through programmatic research over time. Several chapter authors also call for improved assessments not only for accountability purposes but also to facilitate research on student learning. Various authors identified a need for more research on technology and social media as they affect learning and teaching. Finally, multiple authors call for research that attends to the positionality and intersectionality of teachers and students, as well as the c­onnections among learners, content, and context. I turn to those latter points in the next section as I propose my own nominations for needed scholarship.

24.3  Future: Needed Scholarship Looking to the future of social studies education research, I think about likely changes in society, approaches to research, and education broadly that could impact scholarship. In this section I discuss five issues: the implications of globalization; disciplinary balance; evolving theoretical frameworks and research methods; contextual constraints; and scholarly humility. First, it is likely that researchers will respond to the challenges posed by multiple authors in this handbook to conduct research on the use of new technologies and effects of changing demographics in U.S. classrooms by race/ethnicity, linguistic diversity, and immigrant status, but it is less clear that research will be forthcoming to shed light on issues related to the increasing gap between rich and poor in the United States and globally. Similarly, global trends, such as political instability, conflict, economic recessions, and health crises will c­ontinue, as will the needs for sustainability and respect of human rights. It is not clear, however, that students are developing the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to address these issues. Equally unclear is whether U.S. social studies curricula, instruction, and teacher education will adequately address complex global issues. It is my hope that social studies researchers, curriculum developers, policymakers, and teacher educators of today will reflect on their current priorities and work to ensure that youth will be prepared for future‐oriented social and civic challenges. Toward that end, I envision research p­rograms that: investigate learning progressions related to understanding children’s and other human rights; provide cross‐case analyses of teacher education programs focused on global or cosmopolitan citizenship education; and explore the development of disciplinary literacy (including economic, political, and sociological approaches), perspective‐taking, and disciplined civic inquiry in classes exploring international policy issues. Closely related to the need to prepare youth to live in a globally interconnected world is the need for social studies education scholars to see themselves as belonging to a global profession. As producers and consumers of research, social studies scholars can challenge themselves to learn more about how colleagues in diverse countries approach topics similar to those they explore. To facilitate a broader vision, scholars have many opportunities not available earlier. For example, researchers in many countries are publishing their work in TRSE and other journals that publish social studies research. Increasing numbers of international scholars participate in meetings of CUFA and the International Assembly of NCSS,



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as well as the Social Studies Research, Democratic Citizenship in Education, Teaching History, and other special interest groups (SIGs) of AERA and the Citizenship and Democracy SIG of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES). Importantly, there are also international conferences of history, civic, geography, and economic educators. Social studies scholars can make deliberate efforts to search the Internet for international research on topics of interest. Social studies scholarship has benefited by the increased presence of women, scholars of color, and LGBTQ scholars who ask different questions, use diverse theories and paradigms, and explore differing sources than did the primarily White male researchers of earlier periods. In the future the field will benefit similarly from the contributions of international scholars and from thinking about U.S. research within a broader global context. The phrase “diverse ways of seeing” has permeated many of the chapters in this volume, yet, with only a few exceptions, the overall conversation overlooks cross‐national diversity. To engage in global professional conversations, scholars and practitioners alike need to recognize that social studies as a subject exists in slightly different forms in many nations. In some countries students study history and geography as separate subjects alongside religion, moral education, civic education, and/or politics and economics. Although curricula and pedagogy vary, teachers of these subjects, teacher educators, and researchers share many similar interests, challenges, and opportunities. I would like to see that represented in future scholarship. For example, teams of researchers in multiple countries could investigate learning progressions in children’s understanding of economic and political concepts and others could write comparative histories of social studies at particular time periods or treatment of particular topics over time. Teacher educators could conduct collaborative research projects on controversial issues teaching. Teacher action researchers could conduct studies on the use of social media in high school geography classes. Importantly, researchers and readers would need to recognize that teaching and learning occur in specific historic, sociocultural contexts. The goal would not be to establish some generalizations that apply everywhere. Rather, the goal would be to see how similar challenges are met in differing contexts and to become smarter (as Dinkelman and Cuenca advocate) about possible alternatives to taken‐for‐granted practices and beliefs. Second, I am concerned about the content imbalance in recent scholarship reflecting a shift in curricular focus and corresponding research focus. The NCSS (2010) curriculum standards gave equal attention to 10 themes that drew broadly from the social sciences, but the focus was considerably narrowed to four core disciplines in the C3 Framework and most of the lessons in the supporting guide drew from U.S. history (NCSS, 2013, 2014). Further, it is clear from numerous chapters in this handbook that scholarly inquiry related to history and civic education has advanced considerably in recent years, but fewer advances are e­vident in the other dimensions of social studies scholarship. Future children and youth will be the losers if social studies scholars continue to neglect the economic, geographic, psychological, sociological, and anthropological dimensions of a formerly interdisciplinary field. Third, turning to theories and research methods, it is probable that for the foreseeable future social studies researchers will continue to use constructivist sociocultural and critical theoretical approaches. Scholars will also use queer theory and critical race theories, including Latino/a Critical Theory and Asian Critical Theory in the years ahead, extending the work of contemporary researchers (An, 2016; Pinkney, 2016a; Salinas et al., 2016). Several chapter

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authors called for scholars to incorporate intersectionality theory to capture the ways gender, race/ethnicity, class, sexuality and other markers of identity interact. I  anticipate future researchers will take on this difficult challenge. I hope that in the future social studies scholars will also explore theories of transnationalism, cosmopolitan citizenship, and human rights more widely than they have to date. Further, I support Avery and Barton’s call for social studies education scholars to keep abreast of new theoretical work in the humanities and social sciences to enable them to see social studies phenomena in new and powerful ways. Looking to the future use of research methods and design, it is likely that in the near future the majority of social studies researchers will continue to use qualitative methods. However, it is also important that some scholars use quantitative and mixed methods to inform policy by providing findings that are applicable beyond single research sites. To ensure that social studies scholars can collectively and holistically investigate important questions in the future, the field needs scholars who are sufficiently versed in multiple methods to communicate with research partners whose specialties complement theirs. Toward that end, it is important that doctoral programs continue to require graduate s­tudents to have at least introductory courses in both quantitative and qualitative approaches. This will enable future scholars to judge diverse research articles, advise their own graduate students, and partner with scholars who use differing methods. In a related vein, social studies education could benefit from some scholars undertaking “practice embedded education research” (PEER), which facilitates the interconnections of research and practice (Snow, 2015). PEER, like the earlier movement for professional development schools (Holmes Group, 1994), aims to bring the wisdom and efforts of researchers, teachers, and school administrators together to address pressing concerns of practitioners. PEER advocates note that embedded research projects put emphasis on how innovations are implemented and adjustments made, seeing deviations in implementation as opportunities to inform subsequent iterations of the program. PEER is distinguished from action research in that it is programmatically focused, similar to the design‐based collaborative research teams led by Parker and Saye (Parker et  al., 2011; Saye & Social Studies Inquiry Research Collaborative [SSIRC], 2013), yet unlike the social studies collaborative approaches, PEER focuses on practitioner questions and concerns, usually within a single school district. Whereas some advocates of practice‐embedded research envision PEER replacing the basic‐applied research dichotomy (Snow, 2015), I believe all three types of research will be needed in social studies. Fourth, I reflect on issues related to the specific context of social studies research in the United States at the beginning of the 21st century. Several chapter authors bemoaned the limited research dollars available to social studies researchers, making it particularly difficult to mount programmatic research by collaborative teams. They applaud the individual researchers who have done much with limited funds from such sources as the U.S. Department of Education’s Teaching American History grants, the Spencer Foundation’s New Civics Initiative, and grants from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning (CIRCLE). If federal appropriations are made to support the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), including social studies, that would be an important beginning. However, such funds would likely be aimed at enhancing student achievement. That is indeed important for the life chances of all youth and for the future of society. But it is not sufficient. Funding also will be needed to support research on many other dimensions of social studies teaching and learning.



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Looking at the themes that garner researchers’ attention, I expect that researchers will continue to study discipline‐based inquiry (primarily history), problem based‐learning, and multicultural education—with greater attention to linguistic and religious diversity in the curriculum and the student population than in the past. In recent years the United States has experienced increasing political polarization and shifts in state and federal policies aimed at cutting public support for education and other public goods. Neoliberal policies promoting competition, “choice,” and accountability are not unique to the United States. This ethos influences the context in which many social studies educators work, as was evident from the chapter authors who referenced the low priority accorded social studies in recent years. A few new scholars are beginning to explore the effects on social studies of neoliberal policies that favor charter schools (Pinkney, 2016b; Sondel, 2015). As  new policies emerge, social studies scholars need to be vigilant, exploring the c­onsequences of policy choices, particularly on the students and teachers who are already the least well served. Finally, while vigilance is needed to monitor the outside policy context, social studies scholars also need to be vigilant within the profession by approaching research findings with humility and not making unwarranted claims. Multiple chapter authors emphasized the need to investigate questions paying attention to diverse identities and positionalities. That spirit also should be reflected in the ways researchers report and use findings. In particular, they need to constantly remember the importance of not inappropriately generalizing findings from one context to another. Toward that end, researchers and reviewers need to provide as much information as they can about the particular samples and contexts of their research. Too often in the past, principles derived from samples of middle‐class White students in one region of the country were erroneously generalized to all students. Scholars writing surveys of literature should clearly note the samples used in previous research (using summary tables, when appropriate). Utilizing advice for writing literature reviews in Avery and Barton’s chapter, they can then build a persuasive argument about how the current (or proposed) study can deepen or broaden what was known previously with particular groups of teachers or students. Future researchers should not only provide demographic information about age, gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic level, ability/ disability, and language or religion if they are relevant to the topic; they should also provide contextual information, such as location including urban/suburban/rural, region, and country, and if possible, policy or community constraints on topics and methods of instruction. Qualitative research emphasizes the situated nature of human activity and quantitative studies using Hierarchical Linear Modeling assume that learning occurs in an ecology of embedded contexts. Social studies scholars need to explicitly take those distinctions into account when they report “researchers found ….” or write a section about “implications” of a study. These points are compounded in cross‐national research. Rather than generalize findings from one setting to another, scholars can test hypotheses or ask similar questions across differing contexts. Importantly they may be able to see the familiar with fresh eyes. In the United States, NCSS has recently adopted the C3 Framework and many states have adopted Common Core State Standards. These documents promote the development of disciplinary literacy, inquiry, and civic action. As some districts implement these standards, there will be opportunities for researchers and collaborative PEER teams to explore many

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questions related to student learning, teacher pedagogy, controversial issues, the use of technology, global issues, and teacher education and professional development. As they undertake such studies, researchers will use diverse theories, methods, and contexts discussed in this handbook and others not yet envisioned. In addition, I hope some scholars will conduct comparative studies of topics explored here to examine phenomena cross‐ nationally. Then in the next handbook of social studies research, authors will be able to provide broader and deeper insights into the interaction of diverse learners and teachers, content, and context in social studies teaching and learning.

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National Council for the Social Studies. (2013). College, career, & civic life C3 framework for social studies state standards. Silver Spring, MD: Author. National Council for the Social Studies. (2014). Social studies for the next generation: Purposes, practices, and implications of the college, career, and civic life (C3) framework for social studies state standards (NCSS Bulletin 113). Silver Spring, MD: Author. Parker, W., Mosberg, S., Bransford, J., Vye, N., Wilkerson, & Abbott, R. (2011). Rethinking advanced high school coursework: Tackling the depth/breadth tension in the AP US government and politics course. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 43, 533–559. Payette, R. F., Cox, C. B., & Johnson, W. D. (1970). Review of research in social studies: 1969. Social Education, 34, 933–954. Pinkney, A. R. (2016a). The role of schools in educating black citizens: From the 1800s to the present. Theory & Research in Social Education, 44, 72–103. Pinkney, A. (2016b). “No excuse” citizens: A case study of citizenship in one charter school network. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Emory University, Atlanta, GA. Popkewitz, T. S., & St. Maurice, H. (1991). Social studies education theory: Science, knowledge, and history. In J. P. Shaver (Ed.), Handbook of research on social studies teaching and learning (pp. 27–40). New York, NY: Macmillan. Preissle‐Goetz, J., & LeCompte, M. D. (1991). Qualitative research in social studies education. In J. P. Shaver (Ed.), Handbook of research on social studies teaching and learning (pp. 56–66). New York, NY: Macmillan. Salinas, C. S., Fránquiz, M. E., & Rodriquez, N. N. (2016). Writing Latino/a historical narratives: Narratives at the intersection of critical historical inquiry and LatCrit, Urban Review. doi:10.1007/ s11256‐016‐0355‐z Saye, J., & the Social Studies Inquiry Research Collaborative. (2013). Authentic pedagogy: Its presence in social studies classrooms and relationship to student performance on state mandated tests, Theory & Research in Social Education, 41, 89–132. Schmeichel, M. (2011). Feminism, neoliberalism, and social studies, Theory & Research in Social Education, 39, 6–31. Schmeichel, M. (2015). Skirting around critical feminist rationales for teaching women in social studies, Theory & Research in Social Education, 43, 1–27. Schulz, W., Ainley, J., Fraillon, J., Kerr, D., & Losito, B. (2009). ICCS 2009 International report: Civic knowledge, attitudes, and engagement among lower secondary school students in 38 countries. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: IEA. Seixas, P. (2001). Review of research on social studies. In V. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (4th ed., pp. 545–565). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association. Shaver, J. P. (Ed.). (1991). Handbook of research on social studies teaching and learning. New York, NY: Macmillan. Shaver, J. P., & Larkins, A. G. (1973). Research on teaching social studies. In R. M. Travers (Ed.), Second handbook of research on teaching (pp. 1243–1262). Chicago, IL: Rand McNally. Snow, C. E. (2015). Rigor and realism: Doing educational science in the real world. Educational Researcher, 44, 460–466. Solorzano, D. G., & Delgado, B. (2001). Examining transformational resistance through critical race and LatCrit theory framework. Urban Education, 14, 471–495. Solorzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2001). Critical race and LatCrit theory and method: Counter s­torytelling. Qualitative Studies in Education, 14, 471–495. Sondel, B. (2015). Raising citizens or raising test scores? Teach for America, “no excuses” charters, and the development of the neoliberal citizen. Theory & Research in Social Education, 43, 289–313.



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Index

Note: page numbers in italics refer to information contained in tables, page numbers in bold refer to diagrams. 21st century competencies  543–4 AAACP see African and African American Curriculum Program AASL see American Association of School Librarians Abes, E. S.  264 “accordion problem, the”  112, 114 accountability  114, 591 and assessments  465 and controversial issues teaching  324, 332 and critical reflection  146 and the erosion of primary social studies  174 Acredolo, L.  392 ACTFL see American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages action civic  292–3, 297, 302 mediated 182 action research  133–9, 151–3, 160, 305, 573–4, 589, 590 action phase  136 brief history  135–7 collaborative  153, 154 critical 136–7, 137, 143, 152, 156 ethical issues  159 and expert teachers  377 findings in social studies  140

and history instruction  147–8, 149–50 integrated 155 methodological considerations  156–7 methodological variations  136 and mindfulness towards children  151 overview 135–7 participatory 153–5 potential limitations  158–9 power of  157 practical 136–7, 137 process 137–8 and teacher education  132, 135–6, 140, 141–7 and theory development  138, 160 activism  291, 300 Adams, C. F.  52–3 Addams, J.  237, 245, 260, 262 Adler, S.  141, 144, 360–1, 362, 363, 364, 372 Adu, E. O.  236 Advanced Placement (AP) History 403 teachers  232, 369 testing  235, 241–3, 344–5, 352 advocacy, civic  305 AECT see Association for Education and Communications Technology AERA see American Educational Research Association

The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, First Edition. Edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Index 597 “affective revolution”  28 Afflerbach, P.  424, 483 Africa  218, 219, 576 sub‐Saharan 544–5 African and African American Curriculum Program (AAACP)  155 African Americans  29, 33, 49, 584 and civic knowledge  295 and critical race theory  210, 212, 214, 217, 217–18 and democratic citizenship education  295, 297, 298, 306–7 history  152, 172–3 inclusion 19 and the media  489 and pragmatism  195 and racial segregation  51 teachers 212 women  239, 240 AFS Program  546 Agarwal‐Rangnath, R.  419 age of consensus  42–3, 48–50, 52, 54, 56, 59–60, 571, 572 age of crisis  60 age of diversity  42–3, 50–2, 54, 56–7, 59–60, 61, 571 age of reform  42–3, 46–8, 52–3, 55–7, 102, 571 agency  143, 292, 304 Agenda  21 528 agriculture 32 AHA see American Historical Association Ahmad, I.  15, 447, 448, 450 AIDS 326–7 AIW see Authentic Intellectual Work Alexander‐Shea, A.  427 alienated people  297 alignment, theory of  465 Alleman, J.  270, 279, 280–1, 340, 369, 385, 389–90, 393, 395, 397, 401, 581 Allen, R.  388 Alter, G.  263 Alton‐Lee, A.  463, Alviar‐Martin, T.  183–4, 301–2, 308, 324, 549 Amadeo, J.  79, 291, 308, 394 Amazing Race, The (TV show, 2001–2009)  481–2 American Association of School Librarians (AASL) 512 American Civil War  265 American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), Global Competence Position Statement  534 American Dream  298, 309

American Educational Research Association (AERA)  70, 501, 570, 571, 576, 589 Special Interest Group (SIG)  3, 139 American Historical Association (AHA)  14–15, 23, 24, 499 Commission on the Social Studies  18–19 Committee of Seven  53–4, 55, 58 American history  11, 16, 53, 589 and disciplined inquiry  345–6, 348 elementary  391–2, 406 and emergent bilinguals  455, 456 and expert teachers  368, 377 and gender  239, 241, 242 ignorance of  54 influence on school history  21–2 and the media  480–1 pluralism 29 progressive approach to  58 representation of women  239, 576 in the Second World War  23–4 traditional orientation to  44 American Indians  29, 199–200 see also Native Americans American Japanese  323, 454 American Legion  54 American narratives  214, 221 American Political Science Association (APSA) 15 American Revolution  148, 265, 346 American Schools and the World (ASAW)  542 American South  50, 572 Amistad (film, 1989)  480, 487 analytic reasoning  203 ancient Greece  261 Anderson, L.  518, 524 Andolina, M.  79, 291, 296, 308 Andreotti, V.  521 Andriolo, A.  394 Angell, A. V.  399 Angelou, M.  237 Anthony, S. B.  239, 262 anthropology, elementary grade  396–7 anti‐democratic regimes  48 anti‐racist pedagogy  151, 152 anti‐Semitism 200 anticolonial movements  219 Anyon, J.  192, 196–7, 199, 201–3 APCEIU see Asia‐Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding Apple, M. W.  306 APSA see American Political Science Association Arab identities  301

598 Index argumentation  327–8, 368 Armento, B.  2, 4 Arthur, J.  287 arts, integration  401 ASAW see American Schools and the World Asbrand, B.  528 ASCD see Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development Ashby, R.  57, 390–1 Ashkenazi Israelis  182–3 Asia Society  519, 535, 554 Asia‐Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding (APCEIU) 528 Asian Americans  29, 210, 211, 212, 214 Asian Critical Theory  589 assessment 583–4 classroom‐based  461–4, 467, 469, 471–2 distinction from testing  462 elementary social studies education  390–1, 392–3, 394, 395, 405–6 funded projects  470–1 goals of  468 history 425 large‐scale  461, 463, 464–72 moving forward  469–72 multi‐state consortia  470 reliability 463–4 single‐state consortia  469–70 single‐state‐level innovation  469 teacher‐designed 463 validity  464, 467–8, 470–2 value‐added  68, 80 see also testing assimilationist myths  32 Association of American Geographers  370 Association for Education and Communications Technology (AECT)  500 Association of International Educators  535 Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD)  535 Atkins, R.  295 Atlanta 29 atomic weapons  32 atomistic fallacies  79 attitudes  234, 540, 542, 543, 585 Au, W.  70, 79, 417 Augustine, T.  547 Australia  244, 487, 524, 525, 535, 538, 584 Authentic Intellectual Work (AIW)  75, 342, 343–4 authentic learning tasks  276 authenticity  332, 401

authoritarian regimes  324, 579 authorship, as situated reality  417–18 Avery, P. G.  3, 85, 132, 258, 265, 275, 295, 305, 321, 323, 328, 331, 332, 376–7, 451, 587 Bachner, D.  546 back‐to‐basics culture  31 background knowledge  421, 426–7 Bagley, William  46, 54 Baildon, M.  490–1, 493 Bailey, R. W.  263 Bailyn, B.  56 Bain, R.  368, 369, 416 Bair, S. D.  245 Bajaj, M.  529 Baker, E.  463–4 Baker, F.  526 Baker, S.  491 balance of power, and practitioner research  133, 159 Baldwin, J.  262 Bales, S.  295 Balkin, J. M.  185 Bangladesh 244 Banks, J.  28–9, 221, 288, 294, 300, 416, 421, 442, 522, 526–7, 531, 576 Banks, J. S.  60 Barber, C.  73, 76, 78, 82, 179–81, 296–7, 543 Barber, M.  537 Barnes, M. S.  55 Barr, D. J.  373 Barr, R. D.  44 Barrett, M.  389, 526 Barth, J.  44 Barton, K.  15, 16, 20, 21, 23, 44, 142, 143, 149, 181–2, 275, 325, 347, 348, 352, 367, 391, 450, 574, 579, 587, 590, 591 Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) 444 Beard, C.  15, 20, 21, 47, 48, 49, 59 Beard, M. R.  15, 20, 21, 30 Bechel Test  243 Beck, T. A.  183, 184–5, 263, 328–9 Becker, J.  524 Beckett, K. L.  138 behavioural sciences  570, 587 behaviourist learning theory  45 Behrman, E. H.  417 Beijing 324 beliefs 485–8 Bell, A. G.  388 Bell, Daniel  50

Index 599 Bell, L.  151 belonging 170–1 Beneker, T.  544, 547–8 Bennett, C.  526 Bennett, L. B.  237 Bennett, L. W.  189 Bennett, M. J.  541 Berger, P.  520, 523 Berliner, D.  6, 85, 138, 364 Berman, B.  30 Bernard‐Powers, J.  24, 230, 231, 244, 295 Berson, M. J.  500 Berthoff, A.  135 Berti, A.  340, 394 Best Practice Discussion  328 best practice research  5, 274, 375 Bestor, A.  54 Beyond the Bubble project  470–1 bias confirmation 182 selection 547 Bickford, J. H.  240 Bickmore, K.  256, 265, 288, 330, 376, 527 BICS see Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills Biesta, G.  290, 292, 293, 303 “Big History Project”  368 Big Test reform measures  114 Biklen, S. K. 97 bilinguals see emergent bilinguals binaries binary thinking  185 global education  548 racial 455 relating to the media  485 biographical material  13, 19, 20, 21, 24, 237 biographical methodology  13 Birkey, C. J.  395–6 Black history  28, 29, 49, 152, 172–3 see also African Americans, history Black people  13 black women  239, 240, 576 and critical race theory  210, 211 and elementary education  392, 393, 395 gay 266 male students  245 social class and school knowledge  201 see also African Americans Blake, A.  487 Blee, H.  530, 531 Blevins, B.  305 Bloomer, A.  237

Blount, J. M.  262 Bluestein, N.  392 Boas, F.  47 Bogdan, R. C. 97 Bohan, C. H.  14 Bolick 479 Boonstoppel, E.  541 Booth, A.  235 Borko, H.  133, 371 Bosma, K.  148 Botswana 326–7 Bourn, D.  529 Bourne, P.  245 Bousalis, R.  243 Boyer, E.  518 Boyle‐Baise, M.  155, 375, 401, 420 Bradford, K. J.  240 Bradley Commission  31 Bradley Foundation  31 Bransford, J.  138, 365–6, 369 Brantmeier, E. J.  291 Braun, H.  232 Brause, R. S.  138 Bredo, E.  47 Britton, A.  530, 531 Britzman, D.  199, 480 Brizuela, B. M.  392 Brooks, M.  418 Brooks, R. M.  290 Brooks, S.  149, 150, 350 Brophy, J.  148, 181, 270, 271, 273, 279, 280–1, 340, 369, 385, 389–90, 393, 395, 397, 400, 401, 581 Brown, A. L.  216–17, 365–6 Brown, J.  484, 553 Brozo, W. G.  419, 428 Brugar, K.  240, 401 Bruner, J.  26–7, 30, 46, 56, 57, 133, 403 Brush, T.  341, 348, 350, 377, 505–6 Brydon‐Miller, M.  159 Buchanan, L. B.  492 Buchanan‐Barrow, E.  389 Buck Institute  347 Buckingham, D.  481 Buffalo, NY  155 Building America magazine  20, 24 Bullock, S. M.  143 Bunnell, T.  536 burden of representation  480 Burkhardt, H.  510 Burns, A.  299 Burns, N.  295

600 Index Burroughs, N. H.  245 Bush, G. W.  51 Bush administration  491 business, and government policy  288 Butler, B. M.  142 Butler, J.  185, 255, 266 Byers, J. L.  509 Byers, M.  530 Byford, J.  322 Byrnes, K.  133 CAEP see Council of Accreditation of Educator Preparation Cain, K.  487 CALLA see Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach Callahan, R. M.  75, 78 CALP see Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency Camicia, S. P.  323 Campbell, D. E.  305 Campbell‐Patton, C.  308 Camperell, K.  414–15, 416 Canada  242–3, 330, 491, 524, 525, 535, 544, 551–2 Carabain, C.  541 CARE see Centre for Applied Research in Education career goals  232 Carnegie‐Mellon Slow‐Learner Project, The  28 Carrol, K.  522 Carter, C.  238 Carter, P.  232 Cary, L.J.  306 Case, R.  451 case studies  110, 176–7, 574 and educational technology  501 and emergent bilinguals  583 and global education  548–52 instrumental 176–7 Cassel, C. A.  421 Castagno, A.  525 Castañeda, M. E.  448, 449–50 Castro, A. J.  101 Catapano, S.  142 Cates, W. M.  480 Catholics 330 Catt, C. C.  238 causal relationships  79, 84, 115 Cayton‐Hodges, G. A.  392 CCSS see Common Core State Standards CCSSO see Council of Chief State School Officers

CDM see cognitive diagnostic modeling censorship climates of  323, 324 disciplining effects of  205 and the Rugg textbooks  19–20, 22 in Singaporean schools  205, 206 Center for American Progress  373 Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE)  83, 590 Center for Public Education  371 Center for Teaching Quality  361 Center for Universal Education  541 Centre for Applied Research in Education (CARE) 153 CEOs see chief executive officers Chall, J. S.  423 Chamberlain, N.  148–9 Chamorro 100 Chandler, P. T.  217 “character education” approach  388 charter schools  211 Chatterji, M.  466, 467 Chen, X.  85 Chen, Z.  546 Cherryholmes, C. H.  95, 111 Chi, B.  398 Chicago  303, 395 Chicana/o educators  217 Chick, Kay  230, 239 chief executive officers (CEOs)  227 children’s learning and understanding in their social world  385–407 curricular approaches  400–5 paucity of research on  385–6 purpose of social studies  386–9 research in children’s thinking  389–400 underfunding 385–6 see also elementary education Chile  321, 325, 332 Chin, K.  73, 76, 78 Chinese Communist Party  324 Chiodo, J. J.  296, 297 Cho, S.  441, 445–6, 452, 453 Choi, M.  547 Choi, Y.  442, 449, 450, 454 Chomsky, N.  307 Christian fundamentalists  326 Christianity  200, 244 Christie, E. M.  237 Christou, T.  143 Ciepley, D.  50

Index 601 CIES see Comparative and International Education Society CIRCLE see Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement CITE see Contemporary Issues of Technology and Teacher Education citizens democratic  42, 48, 55 duties 297 expert 421 justice‐oriented 522 literate 416 transformative 522 Citizens United Ruling  306 citizenship  15, 101 cosmopolitan  530, 590 cultural 456 different forms of  290–1 flexible 301 global environmental  528 Marxist 530 national 530 neoliberal 530 passive 299–300 youth definitions of  179 see also democratic citizenship Citizenship and Democracy SIG  589 citizenship education  42, 48, 170–1 and expert teachers  361, 365, 367 and gender  235 and sexuality  259 in Singapore  204–5 young children’s  386, 388, 393, 407 see also democratic citizenship education citizenship ideas/values  407 citizenship identity  170–1 citizenship norms  296 Citizenship Participation Study  295 citizenship transmission  44 CIVED see Civic Education Study civic action  292–3, 297, 302, 403–4 civic advocacy  305 civic agency  292, 304 civic attitudes  234 civic climates, for learning  302 civic communities of practice  291–4, 292, 301, 306, 308, 309, 426, 578 civic competence  180–1, 209, 532 civic development  288, 289, 290–2, 308 civic education  83, 179–81 and critical race theory  215–16 and disciplinary literacy  421–2

and youth participation  178–9 see also civics Civic Education Study (CIVED)  73, 76, 82, 83, 180, 278, 295, 296–7, 394–5, 553 civic efficacy  406 civic engagement  154, 170, 234, 287–91, 295–6, 298, 301, 310, 331 civic formation  289 civic gap  295, 298, 303–4 civic health of the country  174 civic identity  60, 291–4, 298–9, 301–2, 306–9, 398–9, 578 civic knowledge  234–5, 295, 298, 302, 394 civic learning opportunities  169–70, 171, 395, 406 civic literacy  416, 419, 421–2 civic outcomes  183, 292, 308 civic participation  275 children’s understanding of  398–9 and elementary education  394–5 of young people  179–80 civic practices, idealized  304 civic role models  295 civic spaces  290, 292–4, 304, 306–9 civic tests  295, 296 civic worldviews  101 civics  11, 16, 20, 578, 585, 589 assessment  406, 469, 583, 584 and critical literacy  416 and democratic citizenship education  287–310 discipline‐specific approaches to  588 and disciplined inquiry  580 elementary  387, 393–5, 406, 582 and gender issues  234–5, 241, 244, 577 and global education  533 knowledge base  113 and the media  485 and the novice‐expert paradigm  369 past scholarship  570 research depth/breadth  275 and social constructivism  278 and social media  585 and the standards movement  387 teacher education  581 see also civic education civil rights  258, 260, 261, 265, 323 Civil Rights Act  1964 238 Title VI  441 Title VII  229 Civil Rights Movement  59–60, 173, 506 and disciplined inquiry  348 and sexuality  258, 260, 261, 265

602 Index civil society, global  530 Clark, C.  364 Clark, J. S.  143 Clark, K.  51 Claunch‐Lebsack, E.  462, 471–2 Clegg, A. A.  477–8 climate change  326 Close Encounters program  330 closed systems  47 Cloud, J.  553 Coatoam, S.  420, 425–6 Cobb, P.  272 Cochran‐Smith, M.  133, 135, 136, 139, 146, 160 Cocking, R. R.  365–6 coexistence 529 Cofino, K.  547 Cogan, J. J.  551 cognates 446 cognition 273 Cognition and Instruction (journal)  369 Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA)  442, 448, 451 Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) 444 cognitive apprenticeship model  345, 362 cognitive development  275 cognitive diagnostic modeling (CDM)  73, 180 cognitive digital tools  505–6 cognitive learning theory  45 cognitive load  448, 451 cognitive psychology  272 cognitive science  274–5, 337, 338–41, 344, 345, 348, 371, 580 cognitive theory  415 Cold War  24–8, 49, 50, 60, 338, 455 Cole, D.  526 “coligatory concepts”  368 collaboration  134, 138, 153, 154 collaborative learning model, online  331 collective identities  300, 304 collectivism  48, 49 College Board  242 College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards  61, 580, 589, 591–2 and assessment  470, 471 and becoming an expert teacher  35, 361 and critical literacy  582 and disciplinary literacy  420 and disciplined inquiry  342, 343–4, 352, 353 and elementary social studies  388, 400, 403 College University Faculty Assembly  216, 221

Collier, J.  135 colonialism  219, 576 “color‐blindness”  173, 205 Columbus, C.  29, 157 Common Core State Standards (CCSS)  241, 362, 368, 371, 374–5, 591–2 and assessment  465–6, 468 and disciplinary literacy  420 for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Studies (2010)  61, 388, 401, 582, 584 and the marginalization of social studies  362, 370 communications 478 Communism  49–50, 54 Communist Party  49 Communities of Practice model  291–4, 292, 301, 306, 308, 309, 426, 578 community allegiances  299 Community Civics classes  58 Comparative and International Education Society (CIES)  589 competence, intercultural  546 competency tests  51 competitive behaviour  235 Complex Scenario Test (CST)  332, 344–5 comprehension 423–30 computer‐based games  477–8, 483–4, 493 computer‐based simulations  477–8, 484, 489, 544–5 computers 499 as students’ learning tools  505–6 as teachers’ assistants  505 Conant, J.  46, 49 confirmation bias  182 confirmatory factor analysis  76 conflation 181–2 conflict dialogue pedagogy  330 congruence 100 Conklin, H.  106, 370–1 Connecticut  487, 490 consensus  204, 205 age of  42–3, 48–50, 52, 54, 56, 59–60, 571, 572 conservatives 536 Considine, D. M.  480 Consortium for Overseas Student Teaching (COST) 546 Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) 547 constructive conflict talk  330 constructivism  272–7, 578, 580, 587, 589 and democratic citizenship education  289 dialectical 273

Index 603 endogenous 273 exogenous 273 and global education  521 learning principles  274–5 philosophical tenets  273 see also social constructivism consumer freedom  25 Contemporary Issues of Technology and Teacher Education (CITE)  502, 509 content analysis  239–40, 478, 479, 480–1, 572 content area literacy  415, 419, 421, 425–6 content irrelevance  467 content knowledge  367, 368, 369, 375 see also pedagogical content knowledge; technological pedagogical content knowledge content literacy  401 content underrepresentation  467 content validity  75 content‐based instruction models  442, 444–5, 448, 450 content‐based reading  415 context contextualizing findings with theory  181–5 learning 591 and practitioner research  134, 135 and the teaching of controversial issues  323–7, 328 and technology research  510, 513 contextual constraints  588 contingency  48, 58 Contra Costa County schools  26 “contributions model”  244–5 controversial issues  23, 321–32, 578–9 approaches to  327–31 and conflict dialogue pedagogy  330 and contextual factors  323–7, 328 and critical literacy  417, 419 and curricular contexts  324–5 definition 322–3 and disciplined inquiry  348, 350 and discussion  322–3, 327–9, 487 and emotional histories  321, 325 and expert teachers  376–7 and global education  551 and institutional contexts  324–5 MACOS controversy  30–1 and the media  487 and political contexts  324–5 and social constructivism  275–6 and teacher beliefs  326–7 and teacher identities  326–7 testing 332

controversial public issues (CPIs)  263 “conventional” view of social studies  13–14 conventionals/inclusives 296 Cook, S.  520, 527, 538 Cooper, S.  466 cooperative biographical approach  237 Core Knowledge series  404–5 Corey, S.  135 Cornbleth, C.  4, 297, 309 correlational research  73 Cortes, C.  29, 526 Cortez, C.  29 cosmopolitan citizenship  530, 590 cosmopolitanism  523, 531, 548, 549 rooted 531–2 COST see Consortium for Overseas Student Teaching Costa Rica  549 Cotton, D. R. E.  326, 330 Council of Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP)  361, 365, 377–8 Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)  361, 378, 470 Council of Learning  542 counterculture movement  59 counternarratives 576 historical 217–20 Counts, G.  48, 49 “cover and move on” approach  114 CPIs see controversial public issues CPRE see Consortium for Policy Research in Education CQS see Cultural Intelligence Scale craft knowledge  136 creativity, individual  202–3 Creswell 97 critical action research theory  136–7, 137, 143, 152, 156 critical analysis, of the media  478, 483–4 Critical Asian Theory  576 critical discourse analysis  264 critical feminist theory  100 critical geography  449, 455–6, 583 critical global education  522 Critical Latino Theory  576 critical literacy  416–19, 423, 432, 582 dimensions 417 and elementary education  418 and global education  552 and the media  584–5 critical media  479 critical media literacy  481–2, 484, 494, 585

604 Index critical professional development  220 Critical Race Theory (CRT)  209–22, 575–6, 587, 589 as framework  213–15 and going beyond the surface  221 and historical counternarratives  217–20 and race research  221 and rethinking narratives  213, 214, 218, 219, 221 and reviewing state standards  221 and social studies theory on race  215–17 and teacher preparation  220 and teacher professional development  220 why race still matters  210–13 critical reflection  144–5, 146, 156, 158–9 critical sciences  4 critical social studies education  151–3 critical theory  191–207, 575, 589 critical postmodern discourses  196, 197–9 critical social theory  196–7 evolving nature of  196–7 and fallibility  195 and gender construction in schools  232 and new criticism  195–6 and pluralism  194–5 recognition 192–3 research illustrations  199–205 since  1985 193–9 “so what?” question  192 and technology  504, 504, 506 and visual literacy  431 Crocco, M.  3, 14, 15, 154, 228, 230, 231, 242–3, 244, 257–8, 259–60, 288, 294, 295, 298, 480, 486, 586 Cronbach’s alpha (α) 76 cross‐cultural studies  406 cross‐national research  579 and diversity  589 and global education  522, 542–3, 551, 554, 586 and research questions  73 and secondary data analysis  83 cross‐sectional research  73, 74, 75 Crowe, A.  139 Cruz, B. C.  263, 445, 447, 448, 450 CST see Complex Scenario Test Cuba 218 Cuban, L.  506, 509, 572 CUFA 588–9 Cui, Q.  540 cultural artifacts  218 cultural citizenship  456 cultural diversity  15–16, 59–60 cultural heterogeneity  60

Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS)  540 cultural knowledge  448–50 cultural literacy  404–5, 442, 481–2 cultural relativism  31 cultural studies  479, 480–1 cultural tools  182 cultural universals  280, 389, 400–1, 581 culturally relevant instruction  152 culture popular 489 of poverty  219 and technology  511–13, 511 “culture wars”  51, 322, 536 Cummins, J.  444 Cunningham, D. L.  177–8 curricula  9–12, 14–22, 24–33, 42–4, 46–8, 51, 53–6, 58, 60, 588 and children’s learning  386–8, 400–5 Common Core  362, 368, 370, 374–5 content analysis  572 and controversial issues  323–5, 326, 328 and critical race theory  216 and disciplined inquiry  345 and diversity  591 dominant 400 and elementary education  386–7, 400–5, 406–7, 581–2 and emergent bilinguals  449–50, 454, 456 enacted 16 and gender  237–41, 238, 576, 577 and global education  532–6, 550–1 golden age of development  19–21 government involvement  27 hidden/null  60, 256 history focus  586–7 inclusiveness  257, 260–2 Kids Voting  142, 328, 399, 406 and LGBTQ  260–2 and the media  480, 485, 488, 493 NCSS standards  264, 266 and sexuality  256, 257, 260–2, 264, 266 standards  241, 264, 266, 324, 589 curricular‐instructional  10–11, 16, 21, 33 Curthoys, A.  244 Cushman, M.  237, 245 Cushner, K.  545–6 Cusick, P. A.  245 Cyprus  321, 325, 332 D’Adamo, L.  149–50 Dahl, R.  291 Daily Show and Jon Stewart, The (TV show, 1999–2015) 482

Index 605 Dalton, R. J.  296 Damico, J.  426, 490–1, 493 Dances with Wolves (1990)  488–9 Darfur is Dying (online simulation)  484, 489 Darling‐Hammond, L.  366, 467 Darwin, C.  47, 48 data access, democratization  83–4 data analysis  177–81 data collection  98, 177–81 databases  229, 277, 478, 479, 501, 505 searches 229–30 Davies, I.  287 Davies, L.  532, 537 Davis, C.  216–17 Davis, O. L., Jr.  10, 12, 13, 69 Davis, T.  466 Dawson, K.  504 Day, D.  245 DBQs see Document‐Based Questions DCI see Disciplined Civic Inquiry De Goede, I.  541 De La Paz, S.  72–3, 74, 424 DEA see Development Education Association decision‐making instructional 80 researcher  574, 575 decoding skills  425 deductive reasoning  71, 72, 75 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)  262 deficit thinking models  443 defining social studies  9, 228, 271–2 Delli Carpini, M. X.  296 democracy  49–50, 55, 101, 171, 308 American 195 authentic 48 authoritarian/illiberal 183–4 and critical race theory  210, 211, 216 and critical theory  195 definitions of  296, 297 discursive 304 ideal  288, 290, 291, 307, 309 illusion of  307 individualistic notions of  296–7 and marginalized peoples  209, 210 participatory  14–15, 386, 393 and the progressive approach  59, 60 real  288, 307 and sexuality  258, 259 and social studies education  209 strong 327 “thick” 291 “thin” 291 and the truth  59

democratic citizens  42, 48, 55 democratic citizenship  5, 209, 222 democratic citizenship education  287–310, 578 and civic communities of practice  291–4, 292, 301, 306, 308, 309, 426, 578 definition  288, 306 dilemmas in  291–4, 306 instrumentalist view  293, 304, 306 and research question generation  292, 292 and research trends  188–91 and sociocultural identity  293–4 Democratic Citizenship in Education  589 democratic deliberation  329 democratic education  144–5 democratic ideals  49 democratic institutions  170 democratic solidarity  304 democratization, of data access  83–4 demographics changing racial/ethnic  209, 210–12, 588, 591 and children’s understanding of social phenomena 389 data  77, 85 demographic divide  212 Denton, E.  324 Denzin, N. K.  96, 97, 99, 101 Derry, S.  138 desegregation 29 design experiments  175–6, 574 Destler, C. M.  59 Detroit 24 Developing a Global Perspective for Education  538 development ABCDEs of youth  403 civic  288, 289, 290–2, 308 cognitive 275 empathic  487–8, 491–2 moral 275 social 275 development education  529–30 Development Education Association (DEA) 529–30 Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS)  541 developmentalism 44 Dewey, J.  16, 34, 44, 46–50, 53, 54, 57–9, 117–18, 134–5, 174, 206, 245, 291, 365, 402–3, 449–50, 572 Dhal, R.  288 dialogic literacies  428–30 Diaz, C.  526 Didier, B.  548–9 Diem, R.  504

606 Index Difference Maker Project 262 difficult knowledge  199–203, 480, 486 diffusion theory, of technology  501, 506–7, 514 digital media  544–5 digital technology  502–3, 505–6, 510, 511, 512 Dimino, J.  491 Dimitriadis, G.  489 Dinkleman, T.  133, 139, 144, 145, 156, 159–60 disadvantaged students  28 disaffected, the  297 disciplinary balance  588 disciplinary literacy  343, 362–3, 368, 373, 415–31, 479 and background knowledge  421, 426–7 and civics education  421–2 and comprehension  423–30 developmental progression  423–30 and dialogic literacies  428–30 and emergent language learners  442 and the media  479 research paucity  422–3 synergistic approaches to  425–6 and vocabulary  427–8, 430 disciplinary orientation  42, 45–6, 55–7, 571 disciplinary reasoning  424 “disciplinary silos”  387 discipline advocacy  31–2 discipline‐based inequity  591 discipline‐specific approaches  56, 588 Disciplined Civic Inquiry (DCI)  343–5, 348, 350, 580, 581 disciplined inquiry  336–53, 580 and cognitive science  337, 338–41, 344, 345, 348 collaborative nature  341, 344, 346–8, 350, 353 conceptualizing 342–3 criteria for  342–3 expert‐novice research  339 historical foundations  337–8 K–12 research  343–52 laboratory studies  339–40 and learner engagement  340, 341, 344, 349–50 learning environment design  340–1 long‐term research  344–8, 352, 353 obstacles to  351 and scaffolding  340, 341, 345–8, 350–1, 353 short‐term research  349–52 supporting success  350–1 teacher challenges  351–2 Disciplined Inquiry (DI)  580, 581 disclosure  323, 327, 329, 330 discourse analysis  238

discourse theories  577 discourses critical postmodern  196, 197–9 and critical theory  195–9 dominant 263 and gender scholarship  231, 238, 241 hidden 241 politicized 198 of protection  172 Discovery 479 discrimination  298, 299 discussion and controversial issues  322–3, 327–9, 332, 579 and democratic citizenship education  305 and disciplined inquiry  348, 350–1 and qualitative inquiry  115 real‐world 332 and social constructivism  276, 280 see also classroom discussion Disney 243 “Disney effect”  483 “divergent pathways”  370 Diversi, M.  295 diversity  51, 587 age of  42–3, 50–2, 54, 56–7, 59–60, 61, 571 cultural  15–16, 59–60 and elementary education  397–8 ethnic/racial 210–13 and future research  591–2 political 183 prioritization 254 and sexuality  254–67 DMIS see Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity Document‐Based Questions (DBQs)  74, 403 DBQ‐like responses  463 documentary films  306, 479, 482, 484–7, 489–92 DOMA see Defense of Marriage Act dominant discourses  263 dominant ideologies  230–1 dominant narratives  205, 213, 214, 218, 219, 221, 576 dominant paradigms  504 domination elite 307 male  227, 234 domination‐subordination  193, 197 Donnelly, D.  487 Doppen, F. H.  546 Double the Work:… 444

Index 607 double‐binds 300 Douglass, Frederick  175 Downey, M. T.  149 Du Bois, W. E.  195, 214 dualism, sex/gender  229 Dunn, A.  16 Durst, A.  245 e pluribus unum 211 Eagleton, T.  192 Earhart, A.  239 Earle, B. D.  545 “early adopters”  507, 585 EBSCO 277 Eckert, C.  235 ecological fallacies  79 ecological validity  16, 32, 33 economic marginalization  240 economics  17, 587, 589 discipline‐specific approaches to  588 and disciplined inquiry  339, 340, 347, 580 elementary grade  387, 395–6 and gender issues  241, 577 and global education  533 and literacy  416, 423 and the novice‐expert paradigm  369 and past scholarship  570 and qualitative inquiry  103, 108 research depth/breadth  275 and the standards movement  387 and teacher education  581 Edelman, M. W.  215 Edison, T.  239, 388 edTPA  361, 365 education databases  277, 501 Education Full text database  501 Education for International Understanding (EIU) 528 education leaders  244–5 education reform, see also age of reform Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) 528 education workforce  231–6, 243 see also teachers educational achievement and democratic citizenship education  295, 298–9 gap 52 and gender  235, 241–2 inequalities in  169–70 and teachers  68, 115, 361 educational films  477

educational inequality  51–2, 235 educational psychology  235 educational reform and expert teachers  361, 363, 370, 375 see also No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act 2001 educational scams  206–7 educational technology  500, 507–9 Educational Testing Service (ETS)  361, 542 Educators Abroad  537 effect sizes  78, 85 Ehman, L. H.  69, 500, 504–5 Einstein, A.  239 Eisenhower High  297 EIU see Education for International Understanding EL see English Learners El‐Haj, A.  170–1, 301 elementary education  17–18, 581–2 and action research  147–8 and assessment  467 and children’s learning and understanding in their social world  385–407 Cold War  26 and critical literacy  418 feminine workforce of  18 focus on history  31 and gender  237 and the Hanna Social studies series  19, 20–1 and history education  147–8, 171–2 and Holocaust teachings  176–7 and intergroup education  24 and the Man: A Course of Study (MACOS) controversy 30–1 and the marginalization of social studies  385, 401 and pluralism  29 and practitioner research  142–3, 147–8 and reflective practice  142–3 and social studies marginalization  82–3 teacher expertise  364 see also children’s learning and understanding in their social world Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario 535 Eliot, C.  53 elites  288, 307 Elliot, J.  138 ELLs see English Language Learners Ellsworth, E.  194 Elwood, S.  137, 154, 305

608 Index emergent bilinguals  440–57, 583 academic vocabulary  445–6 accessing cultural knowledge  448–50 capitalizing on native languages  447–8, 455 classroom instructional practices  448–51 early production stage  443 empirical studies  453–6 intermediate fluency  443 key terms and context  443–4 making complex content comprehensible  445 methods 441–2 preproduction stage  443 providing opportunities to speak and listen  446–8, 452 in the social studies classroom  444–8 social studies‐explicit instructional strategies 450–1 speech emergence stage  443 teacher perceptions of  452–3 teaching 451–6 emerging readers  419, 424 emotion 389 empathy  399, 487–8, 491–2 historical  147, 148–50, 177–8, 487–8, 491–2 empirical‐analytic perspective  4, 5, 191, 196 see also positivism empiricism 47–8 empowerment  134, 157 enactment 370 “encyclopedia epistemologies”  391 engagement 580 authentic disciplinary  419 civic  287–91, 295–6, 298, 301, 310 and disciplined inquiry  340, 341, 344, 349–50 and literacy  419, 422 political  293, 331 see also civic engagement Engebretson, K.  230, 241 engineering  230, 370 England  390–1, 584 Engle, S.  46, 60, 574 English Language Arts/Literacy  241, 368, 374 English Language Learners (ELLs)  419, 424, 441, 443, 448, 451, 453 English Learners (EL)  443 English as a Second Language (ESL)  442–4, 452, 453, 454 Ensminger, D.  431 entitlement, male  577 environmental education  528 epistemological challenges  112

epistemology  4, 42–3, 45–53, 57–8, 69–70 of contingency  58 and the media  485–6, 493 and practitioner research  134, 136, 143 and qualitative inquiry  99, 112 and technology  504 Eppley, K.  32 Epstein, S.  418–19, 422 Epstein, T.  115 equal opportunities  51–2 equality  256, 397–8 see also inequality equity  267, 577 gender  228, 231, 234, 243–4 see also inequity ERIC database  478, 479, 501 Erickson, F.  117 Ersoy, A. F.  324 ESD see Education for Sustainable Development ESL see English as a Second Language ESSA see Every Student Succeeds Act essentialism  54, 231 essentially contested concepts  270, 271–4, 279, 281–2 ethical issues, and practitioner research  134, 159–60 ethnic minorities contribution to social studies  60 see also race/ethnicity ethnic studies  28–9 ethnography  69, 170 ETS see Educational Testing Service Eurocentric perspectives  173 European Strategy Framework for Improving and Increasing Global Education in Europe to the Year  2015 521 Evans, M.  290, 551–2 Evans, R. W.  10–11, 17, 19–20, 23, 44 Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)  246, 583, 590 evidence, historical  148–9, 485–6 evidence‐based investigations  182, 183, 470–1 evolution, theory of  47 exclusion, of the “other”  209 expanding communities approach (expanding environments approach/widening horizons approach)  55, 386–8, 400, 581 experiential knowledge  213, 214 experimental designs  74, 574 expert citizens  421 “expert” social studies teachers  360–78 and credentials  364 expertise in subject matter  364

Index 609 expertise in teaching  364 measurement 365 new landscape of educational policy  360–3 and the novice‐expert paradigm  362–71 policy context  377–8 professional development  371–6 and Shulman  361, 362, 363, 363–7 expert‐novice research  339 experts, and literacy  416, 420, 422, 426, 429, 432 exploratory factor analysis  180 expository texts  175 Exter, M.  490–1, 493 Eyes on the Prize (1991)  491 Eze, I. R.  236 Facing History and Ourselves 372 factor analysis  76–7, 540 fairness 398 Fallace, T.  10–11, 16, 21, 149–50 families 291 “fanciful elaboration”  181 Fang, F.  400 Fang, Z.  420, 421, 425–6 Far and Away (1992)  489 Fascism  49, 59 Feagin, J. R.  397–8 Federal Government  508, 588, 590, 591 federationist field  365 Feldman, A.  140 Felton, M.  424 female experience, monolithic interpretation of 229 femininities 229 feminism 13–14 second‐wave  229, 230 third‐wave 230 feminist scholarship  100, 227–47, 575, 577, 587 and curricula  236–40 and dominant ideologies  230–1 female social studies education leaders  244–5 and Global Studies  243–4 and ideologies  229–31 and instruction  236–40 and masculinities  245–7 and methodology  229–30 paradigm shifts  229 and preservice teachers  234 and standards  240–2 and students  234–6 and teacher education  231–6 and teachers  231–6 and technology  242–3

terminologies 229–30 and testing  240–2 and textbooks  239–40 Fennelly, K.  82, 543 Fields, S.  548–9 Filipino Americans  216 Fillpot, E.  431–2 film  243, 306, 584–5 for authentic learning  491–2 documentary  306, 479, 482, 484–7, 489–92 as historical evidence  482 and sense‐making  488–92 student views on film as historical source 490–1 teachers’ beliefs about practices with  485–8 film studies  479, 480–1 Fine, M.  299 “fishing expeditions”  72 Fitchett, P. G.  31, 32, 82, 83 Fitzgerald, F.  44 Flanagan, C.  296, 298, 299, 302 Flinders, D. J.  97 Fling, F. M.  55–6 Florida 465 Florida Consent Decree  452 Flynn, N. K.  305 focus groups  549 café‐style 179 Fogo, B.  375 Ford, H.  239 Foreign Policy Association  524 forgetting 200 Fortune 500 companies 227 Foster, S. J.  22, 148–9 Foucault, M.  195, 197, 231 foundations of social studies research  4, 7–186 exemplars from social studies education research 168–86 historiography of social studies  9–34 intellectual history of social studies  42–61 large‐scale analysis  68, 70, 74, 78, 80–5 practitioner research  132–60 qualitative inquiry  95–123 quantitative research  68–87 Fox, K.  402 Fraenkel, J. R.  26, 69, 71, 74, 76, 77 frameworks guiding social studies research  4–5, 189–310 critical race theory analysis  209–22 critical theory  191–207 democratic citizenship education  287–310 feminist scholarship  227–47

610 Index frameworks guiding social studies research (cont’d) gender scholarship  227–47 queer theory  255, 263–7 sexuality 254–67 social constructivism and student learning  270–82 Franck, K. C.  260 Frankfurt School  193, 575 Franklin, B.  52, 239 Fránquiz, M.  377, 442, 446, 447, 449, 451–2, 455, 456 Freire, P.  51 Fricke, H.‐J.  541 Friedan, B.  229 Friedman, A. M.  509 Friedman, T.  518 Fry, M.  431 Fuentes, D.  403–4 fundamentalist Christians  326 funded projects, assessment  470–1 funding  370, 588, 590 elementary social studies education  385–6 history 587 and quantitative research  68, 70 and technology  508 fusionist field  365 future scholarship, social studies  588–92 Galbraith, J. K.  50 Galston, W. A.  290 Galton, F.  80 games, computer‐based  477–8, 483–4, 493 Gardner, H.  550 Gardner, L.  138 Gardner, W.  540 Garrett, H. J.  108–9, 480, 482, 486 Gasman, M.  245 gatekeeping 367 Gathercole, C.  541 Gaudelli, W.  480, 486, 489–90, 525, 530 Gay Civil Rights Movement  258 Gay, G.  29, 60, 212, 583 Gay Liberation Movement  256 “gays in the military”  255, 256, 257, 261 GCI see Global Citizenship Inventory Geertz, Clifford  50 gender difference  229, 235 gender diversity  51 gender equity  228, 231, 234, 243, 244 gender essentialism  231 gender fluidity  231

gender identity  229, 294 gender imbalance discourses  241 gender issues  30, 227–47, 575, 576–7, 587, 590 and academic performance  235, 241–2 and curricula  236–40 definition 255 and democratic citizenship education  295, 298 and dominant ideologies  230–1 and education  227–8, 244, 247 and elementary education  237 and female social studies education leaders 244–5 gender performance  255 and global education  553–4 and Global Studies  243–4 and High School curricula  238 and ideology  229–31 and instruction  236–40 and levels of teacher attention  206 marginalization by social studies  228–9, 246 and masculinities  245–7 and methodology  229–30 and Middle Level Learning curricula  237–8 and preservice teachers  234, 241 rejecting gender binaries  255, 266 social construction  232, 255 and standards  240–2 and students  234–6 and teachers  231–6, 233 and technology  230, 242–3 and terminologies  229–30 and testing  240–2 and textbooks  239–40 wage gender gap  227–8, 234 gender norms  238, 245 gender roles  237, 240 gender‐free imbalance discourses  241 gendered domination‐subordination  193, 197 Genders & Sexualities Alliances (GSAs)  254, 263, 264, 265, 266, 300, 577 GENE (Global Education Network Europe) 524–5 generalizability  74, 77–8, 81 Geographic Alliances  587 geographic thinking  349, 581 geography  9, 11, 15–17, 20, 22, 587, 589 “air age”  22 assessment  406, 584 and controversial issues  326 critical  449, 455–6, 583 discipline‐specific approaches to  588

Index 611 and disciplined inquiry  339, 340, 349, 350, 352 elementary grade  387, 392–3, 406, 582 and emergent bilinguals  449, 455–6, 583 funding 370 and gender issues  241, 577 and global education  533, 544, 545 and literacy  416, 423 and the novice‐expert paradigm  370 and past scholarship  570 and qualitative inquiry  103, 108 research depth/breadth  275 and the standards movement  387 and teacher education  581 and technology  500, 545 Georgia 388 Germany  525, 528 Gersten, R.  491 GERT (Global Education and Teacher) team  538 Gerwin, D.  143, 157 Ghana  390, 391 Gilens, M.  288, 307 Gilles, C.  374 Gillie, J. M.  232 Gilligan, C.  399–400 Girl Scouts  237 GIS see global information system Glenn, A.  500, 504–5, 540 Glenn, J. E.  232 Glesne, C. 97 global citizenship education  529, 530–2, 533, 535 case studies  548–9, 551–2 cosmopolitan citizenship  530 and gender  553–4 and International Baccalaureate programs  547 Marxist citizenship  530 measuring global citizenship  541 national citizenship  530 neoliberal citizenship  530 obstacles to  536 and teacher education  537 world justice and governance  530 Global Citizenship Inventory (GCI)  541 Global Citizenship Scale  541 Global Citizenship Working Group  530 global civil society  530 global competence  519, 534, 535 Global Competence Task Force (Asia Society)  519, 554 global consciousness  550 global education  518–54, 585–6 academic rationale  520 case studies of students  548–9

case studies of teachers  549–52 common themes  522–3 critical 522 cross‐curricular approaches  534–5, 542–3 and the curriculum  532–6, 550–1 defining 520 and digital media  544–5 economic rationale  520 empirical studies  539–52 fundamental questions in constructing  523 and gender  553–4 globality 524–5 historical roots  523–4 International Baccalaureate (IB) program  534–5, 536, 547–8, 586 international exchange  545–6 lack of conceptual clarity regarding  520–1 large scale student surveys  542–4 many “global educations”  519–21 measures 553 multiple subject resource guides  554 obstacles and opposition to  535–6 particularist conceptualizations  521 rationales 519–20 social/individual change rationale  519 soft 512–2 streams within  525–32 study abroad  545–6 survey instruments  539–41 and teacher education  537–9 and technology  544–5 timing and sequencing of  553 universalist conceptualizations  521 Global Education Network Europe (GENE) 524–5 Global Education Project  535 Global Education and Teacher (GERT) team  538 global environmental citizenship  528 global identities  300–2 global information system (GIS)  545 global learning  529–30 global literacy  522 Global Mindedness‐Scale (GMS)  539–40, 549 Global Perspective Inventory (GPI)  539–40 global responsibility  527 Global Studies, and gender  243–4 Global Teenager Project (GTP)  545 globalism  531, 546 globalization  518–19, 550, 571, 588 Glory (film, 1989)  480, 487 GMS see Global Mindedness‐Scale Goetz, Rachel Marshall  19

612 Index “Gold Rush” narrative  181–2 Goldberg, T.  182–3, 350 Goldman, G.  85 Goldman, S.  425 Gonzalez, E.  79 “good citizen”  393 Goodman, J.  144 Google Scholar  478, 479, 501 Gordon Commission on the Future of Assessment in Education  469 Gordon, T.  442, 451, 454 government and critical literacy  416 elementary education regarding  387, 393–5 policy  288, 293 and the standards movement  387 government studies  533, 585 government/political science  241 GPI see Global Perspective Inventory “gradual release of responsibility” model  429 Gradwell, J.  371, 466 Graham, P. A.  11 Graham, S.  429 grand narratives  198–9 “grand theory”  121 Grant, C.  442 Grant, S. G.  371 graphic novels  143, 148 grass‐roots (“bottom‐up”) inquiry  132, 134 Great Depression  48, 49, 487 Griffin, A.  59 Griffin, P.  151 Grossman, D.  541, 551 Grossman, P.  271–2, 366 Groth, J.  390 GSAs see Genders & Sexualities Alliances GTP see Global Teenager Project Guam 100 Guevara, E.  218 Guo, S.  490–1, 493 Guskey, T. R.  375–6 Haertzel, G.  510 Haggerty, M.  522 Hahn, C.  3, 5–6, 230, 231, 234, 244, 287, 295, 296, 308, 321, 331, 332, 394, 506 Haladyna, T.  467 Halagao, E.  216 Haley, M.  245 Halpern, J.  325 Halvorsen, A.  17, 21, 23, 24, 80, 172, 173–4, 240, 369, 402

Hamerness, K.  138 Hamilton, C.  396 Hammer, M.  541, 546 Hammurabi’s Code  350 Hampton Institute  228 Hanna, Paul  20–1, 24 Hanna Social Studies series  19, 20–1 Hannover, B.  235 Hanover Research  547 Hansel, B.  546 Hanvey, R.  522, 524, 526 Harber, C.  537 Harlem Renaissance  260, 265 Harnish, J.  290 Harris, I.  527 Harris, J.  508–9, 513 Harris, L. M.  368 Harrison‐Wong, C.  32 Harshman, J.  547 Hart, A. B.  21 Hart, D.  295 Hartzler‐Miller, C.  375 Harvard Project  338, 348 Harvard University  56 Hashimoto‐Martell, E. A.  147 Hattie, J.  272 Hawkins, A.  480, 486 Hawley, T. S.  142, 154 Hawley, W. D.  371 HCP see Humanities Curriculum Project Heafner, T. L.  82, 83, 243 Heater, D.  524 hegemonic masculinity  245 Heilman, E.  102, 526 Heinecke, W. F.  504 Helburn, N.  27 Helburn, S. W.  69 Heller, R.  428 Hendricks, C.  134, 135 Henke, R. R.  85 Herdt, G.  229 Hernandez, S.  240 “heroes and holiday” approach  388 heroification  239, 240 Hertzberg, H.  10, 27, 32 Hess, D.  60, 115, 171, 262, 265, 275–6, 288, 305, 321, 323, 328, 329–32, 347–8, 374, 419 heteronormativity  255, 263, 264, 265, 300 “heterosexual matrix”  185 Hett, E. J.  540, 544, 549 Heyder, A.  235

Index 613 Heyl, J.  537 Hicks, D.  503, 505, 509, 518, 523, 524 Hierarchical Linear Modeling  82, 591 “high leverage teaching practices”  367 High School curricula, and gender scholarship 238 High School Geography Project (HSGP)  27 high socioeconomic status  390, 395, 402 high‐stakes testing  324, 466–7, 584 Hilburn, J.  32 Hiroshima 32 Hirsch, E. D.  46, 54, 55, 404–5 Hirschfield, L. A.  398 Hispanics and civic knowledge  295, 297 and critical race theory analysis  210 and elementary education  392, 393, 395, 401 historical consciousness  482–3, 488 historical counternarratives  217–20 historical empathy  147, 148–50, 177–8, 487–8, 491–2 historical evidence  148–9, 485–6 historical fiction  148 historical film literacy  483, 494 historical inquiry  430–1, 442, 450, 451, 454–5, 583 and the media  482–3, 485, 491–2 historical knowledge  489 historical literacy  368, 374–5, 585 historical method  55–6 historical research  571–2 Historical Scene Investigation (HSI)  403 historical thinking  57, 581 children’s 581 and disciplined inquiry  346, 347 and expert teachers  368, 369 and literacy  428, 429 and the media  479, 482–4 and practitioner research  142–4, 147–50 and quantitative research  75–6 using theory to contextualize findings  181–3 historiography of social studies  9–34, 571, 572 changing approaches to the history of social studies 10–14 Cold War  24–8 prelude to the social studies  1890–1920 14–16 recent history  28–32 Second World War  22–4 social studies taking shape  1921–1929 16–22 history  9, 11–18, 20–2, 53, 55, 171–2, 571, 589 advocates for  31–2 African American  152, 172–3

assessment  406, 425, 461–4, 469–71, 584 best practice  375 Black  28, 29, 49, 576 comprehension 425 and controversial issues  321–3, 325, 331 curriculum 14 and democratic citizens  42 discipline‐specific approaches to  56, 588 and disciplined inquiry  339, 343, 345–9, 352, 580 elementary grade  387, 389, 390–2, 406, 581, 582 and emergent language  445, 451, 454–5, 456 emotional  321, 325 and expert teachers  368–9, 373–5, 377 funding 587 and gender issues  234, 241, 577 and global education  533 history focused social studies curricula  586–7 history‐versus‐social sciences question  18 inclusion of women  234, 576 influence of American history on  21–2 as interpretation  171–2 learning progressions  389 and literacy  416, 422–3, 425, 429–31, 582 and the media  479–81, 482–94, 585 past scholarship  570 and practitioner research  147–50 progressive approaches to  58 qualitative inquiry into  107–8, 107 research depth/breadth  275 Shulman and  57 sidelining 18 and social constructivism  277–8 and the standards movement  241, 387 and teacher education  581 and technology  499–500 and Women’s History Month  236–7, 577 World History  217–20, 244, 368–9, 587 see also American history History Advanced Placement (AP)  403 “history and allied subjects”  11 history of ideas  43–5 history of social studies  3, 4 see also intellectual history of social studies History Ten  53 Hitler, A.  148–9 HIV 326–7 Ho, L.‐C.  183–4, 204–5, 206, 324, 326 Hobbs, R.  486–7 Hoechsmann, M.  481 Hofer, M.  403, 500

614 Index Hogeling, L.  541 Holford, J. A. K.  290 Holocaust  176–7, 199–200, 260, 349, 487, 491–2 homonyms 445–6 homophobia  255, 259–60, 265, 577 homosexuality  245, 246, 258 see also LGBTQ Hong, W.  141 Horn, C.  468 Horvath, J.  363 Houston, S.  388 Howard, T.  28, 212, 216 Howe, K.  120 Howley, A.  32 Howley, M.  32 HRE see Human Rights Education HSGP see High School Geography Project HSI see Historical Scene Investigation Hsu, M.155, 375, 401 human relations  209 human rights  543, 590 inequality  171, 173 and sexuality  258, 259–60, 262, 265, 300 see also civil rights Human Rights Education (HRE)  528–9 coexistence 529 global citizenship  529 transformative action  529 humanism 44 humanities 230 Humanities Curriculum Project (HCP)  153 Humes, W.  523 Hunt, M.  59 Huntington, S. P.  301 Husband, T., Jr.  152, 159 Hutus 376 Hyland, N. E.  144, 145, 154, 156, 158 hypotheses 71–2 hypothetical latent factor  76 IB (International Baccalaureate) program  534–5, 536, 547–8, 586 IB World School  535 ICCS see International Civic and Citizenship Study iCivics 305 ICONS (International Communication and Negotiation Stimulations) Project  544–5, 548 ICPSR see Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research idealized civic practices  304

ideals, democratic  49, 288, 290, 291, 307, 309 ideas  43–5, 57 identity 590 citizenship 170–1 civic  291–4, 298–9, 301–2, 306–9, 578 collective  300, 304 cultural 294 and democratic citizenship education  291–4, 298–302, 304, 306–8 gender  229, 294 global 300–2 LGBTQ  264, 266, 300 national  170–1, 406, 549 and sexual orientation  264, 266, 294, 300 sociocultural 293–4 teacher 326–7 ideological orientations  42–6, 48, 52–60 ideology  50, 230–1 IDI see Intercultural Development Inventory idiomatic expressions  446 IEA see International Association of Educational Evaluation iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) 545 IES see Institute of Education Sciences ILN see Innovation Lab Network imagination 399 immigrants  33, 82, 588 and critical race theory  210, 211 and democratic citizenship education  300–2, 304 and emergent language  443–4, 449, 451–2, 453, 455, 456 and global education  543, 548, 549, 553 identities 300–2 rights 543 to the United States  210, 211 youth 170–1 inclusion/inclusiveness  254, 257, 260–1, 575, 576, 577 Indiana 550 indifference 296 individual creativity  202–3 individual difference  209 indoctrination 59 inequality in educational access  51–2 in educational achievement  169–70 global 522 political 169–70 of power  171 of rights  171, 173

Index 615 inequity 306 inferential statistics  77–8 informational theory  465 Ingram, L.‐A.  551–2 Initial Stimulus Material (ISM)  154–5 injustice, global  522 inner cities  28 innovation  138, 501–2, 506–14, 585 Innovation Lab Network (ILN)  470 inquiry critical inquiry theory  423 and literacy  422, 423, 425, 429, 430–1 see also disciplined inquiry Inquiry Arcs  342, 388, 403 inquiry‐based learning  388–9, 403 insider (emic) perspectives  4, 133, 139, 573 Institute of Education Sciences (IES)  68, 70 institutional contexts  324–5 institutions, democratic  170 instruction culturally relevant  152 and emergent bilinguals  450–1 issues‐centred 331 and literacy  414–32 sociocultural aspects of  416 teacher‐and‐textbook‐centred 55 instructional decision‐making  80 instructional materials  10–11, 15–16, 19, 21, 24, 29, 32, 33 instrumentalist view  293, 304, 306 inTASC standards  361, 377–8 integrative approach  11, 400–1 intellectual history of social studies  42–61 age of consensus  42–3, 48–50, 52, 54, 56, 59–60 age of diversity  42–3, 50–2, 54, 56–7, 59–60, 61 age of reform  42–3, 46, 47–8, 52, 53, 55–6, 57 disciplinary orientation  42, 45–6, 55–7 epistemological overview  46–52 historical overview  46–52 progressive orientation  42, 44, 45, 45–6, 48, 54–5, 56, 57–60 traditional orientation  42, 44, 44–6, 52–5, 56, 57, 58, 59 intercultural competence  546 Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) 540–1 intercultural education  23 interdisciplinary approaches  213, 309 interest questionnaires  175 intergroup education  23–4 internal validity  73–4, 80

internalizing 279–80 International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA)  235, 542–2, 553 Civic Education Study (CIVED)  73, 76, 82, 83, 180, 278, 295, 296–7, 394–5, 553 International Civics and Citizenship Study (ICCS)  82, 83 International Baccalaureate (IB) program  534–5, 536, 547–8, 586 International Baccalaureate Office  534 International Civic and Citizenship Study (ICCS)  82, 83, 235, 579 International Communication and Negotiation Stimulations (ICONS) Project  544–5, 548 International Education and Resource Network (iEARN) 545 international education  520 international exchange  545–6 International Journal of Inclusive Education 245 international studies  321–32, 520 Internet 499 interpretive approach  4, 5, 134, 136–7, 206, 423, 432 and technology  504, 504, 505, 506 intersectionality theory  266, 575, 576, 577, 578, 588, 590 Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)  83, 84 interviews 389–90 multiple 177–8 object‐mediated 178 semi‐structured 391 Iowa Test of Basic Skills  405–6 Iranian women  243–4 Iron Jawed Angels (film)  243 Islam 244 Islam: Empire of Faith (2002)  491 Islamic extremists  243 see also Taliban Islamist dictatorships  244 ISM see Initial Stimulus Material Israel 197 “Melting Pot” policy  182–3 Israeli students  182–3 issues‐centred instruction  331 item response theory (IRT) software  85 Ives, B.  138 J‐Curves 518 Jacobs, B. M.  15, 22 James, J. H.  143, 144, 156–7, 171–2, 326

616 Index James, W.  47, 195 Japan  524, 525 Jarolimek, J.  17–18 Jastrzab, J.  398 JCS see Journal of Curriculum Studies Jefferson, T.  52 Jenkins, K.  296 Jensen, J.  149 Jenson, L. A.  301 Jews 200 Jim Crow racial caste system  33, 173 Joan of Arc (1999)  491 Johnson, A.  400 Johnson, D.  374 Johnson High School  297 Johnson, S.  155, 375, 401 Johnson, S. P.  245 Johnston, M.  134, 151 Joncas, M.  79 Jones, T. J.  16, 228 Jordan, J. J.  398 Journal of American History 239 Journal of Curriculum Studies (JCS)  246 Journal of Men’s Studies, The 245 Journal of Social Studies Research (JSSR)  71, 263 Journell, W.  277–8, 281, 492 JSTOR database  229, 501 Judaism 244 Jung, B.  136 Junn, J.  304 justice see social justice justice‐oriented citizens  522 justice‐oriented education  404 K–12 level  587 and disciplined inquiry  343–52 and global education  523, 532, 544–5, 551–3 marginalization of social studies at  362, 378 and practitioner researchers  574 and technology  499, 501, 513, 514, 544, 545 see also children’s learning and understanding in their social world; elementary education Kaestle, C. L.  13 Kahne, J.  169–70, 171, 290, 303, 393, 395, 522, 585 Kamehameha Elementary Education Program (KEEP) 442 Kasai, M.  522 Kasch, D.  264 Katz, J.  245–6 Katz, M.  244 Kavanagh, S. S.  378

Kazemi, E.  378 Keels, O. M.  12 KEEP see Kamehameha Elementary Education Program Keeter, S.  296 Kehle, T. J.  400 Keiper, T.  349 Keller, C.  26–7 Keller, H.  240 Keller, M.  400 Kelley, L.  148 Kellner, D.  481 Kelly, D. M.  418 Kelly, N.  290 Kelty, M.  21–2 Kennedy, K. J.  296 Kennedy, M.  370 Kessels, U.  235 “keywords” 106–7 Khrushchev, N.  25 Kids Voting USA Curriculum  142, 328, 399, 406 Kilpatrick, W. H.  47, 402 Kincheloe, J. L.  196 kindergarten  388, 392, 418, 430 King, J. T.  330 King, L. J.  172–3, 216–17 King, M. L., Jr.  173, 239, 388, 395, 449 Kiousis, S.  406 Kirchschlaeger, P.  529 Kirkpatrick 174 Kirkwood (Kirkwood‐Tucker), T. F.  522, 529, 544, 549 Kirshner, B.  554 “kitchen debate”  25 Kliebard, H. M.  44 Knezek, G.  508 Knight Abowitz, K.  290 Knight, M.  301 Knight, R. S.  414–15, 416 Knighton, B.  280 knowledge 47–8 background  421, 426–7 civic  180, 234–5, 295, 298, 302, 394 and constructivism  273–6, 279 contested definitions of  272 craft 136 and critical literacy  416 cultural 448–50 declarative 278 difficult  199–203, 480, 486 and disciplinary literacy  419–20 experiential  213, 214

Index 617 external nature  273 historical 489 internal nature  273 political  295, 298 practical 136 procedural 278 situated 101–2 and social class and schools  202–3 and social constructivism  273, 278 sociohistorical 173 visual representation  450–1, 454 see also content knowledge knowledge in action  134 knowledge bases  112–13, 119, 133 Knowles, R. T.  303, 305 Koehler, M. J.  377, 503 Kohlberg, L.  59, 399–400 Kohlmeier, J.  147, 149, 347, 350 Kolikant, Y.B.‐D.  331 Kolker, M.  525 Kortecamp, K.  147 Korth, W.  191 Kourilsky, M.  402–3 Krashen, S. D.  443, 447 Krueger, K. S.  148 Kuby, C. R.  418 Kuhn, D.  328 Kuhn, T.  50 Kwame (African immigrant)  301 laboratory studies  339–40 LaBoskey, V. K.  140 Lacey, C.  205 Ladson‐Billings, G.  213, 215, 217, 526 Lagemann, E. C.  21 laissez‐faire system  48, 49 Lampert, M.  364 Landorf, H.  529 Lang, D. E.  145, 146 language 231 language arts  241, 368, 374, 419 Lapham, S.  238 Lara, G.  237 Lare, J.  393–4 Lareau, A.  304 large‐scale analysis  68, 70, 74, 78, 80–5, 154–5, 573–5 large‐scale assessment  461, 463, 464–72 large‐scale high‐stakes testing  584 latent potentials  43, 46–7, 53, 57 Lather, P.  96, 231 Latin America  218, 219, 576

Latina/os 29 and critical race theory  210, 211, 212, 214, 217–18 Critical Theory  589 and democratic citizenship education  298 preservice teachers  454–5 teachers 212 Latsch, M.  235 Lau v. Nichols (1974)  441 Laub, C.  300 Lauckhardt, J.  289 Lave, L.  291 Laws of Motion  47 Lawy, R.  290 Learned, J. E.  426 learning active 505 civic climates for  302 definition 272 learning principles  274–9 legitimate peripheral participation  291 and qualitative inquiry  115 situated 291 social 235 and social constructivism  270–82 youth service  296 see also teaching and learning social studies learning disabilities  419, 424 Learning Forward  375 “learning from practice” model  375 learning opportunities  303 civic  169–70, 171, 395, 406 for emergent bilinguals  446–8, 452 learning progressions  370, 389, 586, 589 learning sciences  272 learning theory  45–6 LeCompte, K.  305 LeCompte, M.  95, 96, 97, 123 Lee, C.  271–2, 416 Lee, L.  100 Lee, P.  57, 390–1 Lee, S.  480, 486 Lee, W.‐O.  296 legal systems  213–14 legitimate peripheral participation  291 Leija, M.  237 Leinhardt, G.  350 Lemke, J.  273 Lennon, S.  322 Lenskaya, L.  525 LEP see Limited English Proficiency

618 Index Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning see LGBTQ lesson observation  178 Levine, P.  421 Levinson, B. A. U.  291, 303–4 Levinson, M.  60, 394, 399 Leviste, E.  183–4, 324 Levstik, L.  1, 17, 44, 149, 228, 230, 347, 348, 390, 391, 477, 570 Levy, B. L.  72–3, 76–7, 305 Levy, S. A.  295, 328 Levy, T.  238 Lewin, K.  135 Lewison, M.  417 LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning)  30, 33, 255–67, 577, 589 and citizenship  300 definition 255 identities  264, 266, 300 inclusion in the social studies curriculum 260–1 lack of literature on  258 marginalization  259–60, 266 political tolerance as LGBTQ space  258–9 and queer theory  264–5 recent LGBTQ‐focused research  262–3 space  258–9, 266 see also homosexuality; same‐sex marriage liberalism 294 liberation 218–19 Library of Congress  505–6 library science  512 Lichterman, P.  304 Lieberman, M. G.  549 Likert Scales  540, 541 Limited English Proficiency (LEP)  443 Lincoln, Abraham  368, 388 Lincoln Magnet School  297 Lincoln, Y. S.  96, 97, 99, 134 linguistic development  429 linguistic diversity  587, 588, 591 Lintner, T.  217 literacy  55, 414–32, 582 assessment 583 civic  416, 419, 421–2 constrained skills  423 content area  415, 419, 421, 425–6 critical  416–19, 423, 432, 552, 582, 584–5 critical media  481–2, 484, 494 cultural  404–5, 442, 481–2 definitions 416

evolution 414–15 and generic reading strategies  419 global 522 historical  368, 374–5, 585 historical film  483, 494 inside‐out skills  419 outside‐in strategies  419 poorly written material  422 research paucity  414, 422–3 sociocultural aspects of instruction  416 unconstrained skills  423–4 visual 430–2 see also disciplinary literacy literary studies  198 literate citizens  416 literature reviews  73, 172–4 lived experience  389 Lo, C. C.  421 Lo, J.  352, 522 Locascio, D.  403 location 98 Loewen, J.  44 Loewenberg Ball, D.  367 Logtenberg, A.  175 longitudinal research  74–5, 281, 579–80 and political participation  302 and practitioner research  154–5 and technology research  510 Longview Foundation  537, 539 Lortie, D.  232 Los Angeles  217–18 Loughran, J. J.  139 Loutzenheiser, L. W.  266 Low, Juliette  237 low socioeconomic status and children’s social studies  390, 394, 401, 402, 406 and controversial issues teaching  328 and literature reviews  173–4 and the marginalization of social studies 385 low‐educational background  295 low‐income individuals and civic knowledge  295 and critical race theory analysis  217–18 and democratic citizenship education  293, 295, 298, 299, 303–4 and educational achievement  169–70 and social class and school knowledge  201 Lundy‐Wagner, V.  245 Lybarger, M.  10, 571 Lytle, S.  133, 135, 136, 139, 146, 160

Index 619 Maastricht Declaration  524 MacDonald‐Vemic, A.  551–2 MacInnes, J.  229, 245 MacIntosh, L. B.  266 Mackey, J.  275 macro‐perspectives  68, 70, 74, 78, 80–5, 197 Madrid, R.  547 Magendzo, A.  325 Maguth, B.  261, 262, 554 Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act  324 Makler, A.  19 Malawi 244 male domination  227, 234 male entitlement  577 male students  206, 245 male teachers  232–4, 233, 245–7, 263, 577 male Whites  194 Malkus, N.  72–3 Man: A Course of Study (MACOS) controversy  30–1, 56 Manfra, M. M.  151, 377, 510 Mangram, J. A.  485, 486 Manhattan 390 Manion, C.  522 Mann, H.  52 Mansilla, V.  550 map skills  392 Marcus, A.  243, 480, 487, 490 marginalization and African Americans  173, 240 and Critical Race Theory  214 and democratic citizenship education  293, 298, 307, 309 and democratic societies  209, 210 and elementary education  582 and elementary social studies  82–3 and emergent bilinguals  446, 456–7 and gender  228–9, 240, 244, 246 and LGBTQ people  259–60, 266 and the “other”  209 and Palestinian American youth  171 and practitioner research  151 and social studies at K‐12 level  362, 378 and social studies in elementary education  385, 401 and social studies research  6 and social studies subjects areas and the media  480–1, 484 of teachers  134, 144–5 Marks, M. J.  142 Marri, A. R.  442

marriage, gay/same‐sex  184, 256, 261, 262–3, 266, 300, 328–9, 577 Marshall, H.  520 Marshall, L.  19, 31 Martell, C. C.  147, 152, 157 Martin, J. L.  245 Martin, L. A.  296, 297 Martorella, P. H.  505, 510 Marx, K.  193, 195 Marxism  193, 575 structural 197 Marxist citizenship  530 masculinities  245–7, 577 dominant/hegemonic  245, 262 and New Social Science  229 Masemann, V.  522 Mason, L.  481 mass media  478–81 Massachusetts  387–8, 486, 550 Massialas, B.  520, 526, 586 math  4, 370, 581 assessment 583 and disciplined inquiry  339 and expert teachers  367 and gender  230, 235 and global education  534 and research funding  370 and teacher education  581 Matthews  481–2, 484 May, A.  324 Mayher, J. S.  138 Mayo, J. B.  3, 98, 245, 246, 262, 263, 300 McAuliffe, K.  398 McAvoy, P.  275–6, 328, 376–7 McCafferty‐Wright, J.  305 McCarthy, J.  537 McClimans, M.  547 McComb, S.  245 McConachie, S. M.  420 McCormick, T. M.  148 McCready, L. T.  266 McCully, A.  142, 325, 330 McCutcheon, G.  136 McDevitt, M.  406 McDonald, M.  378 McGarry, L.  403–4 McIntosh, P.  291, 553–4 McKnight, D.  217 McLaren, P.  196 McLaughlin, M.  295 McLean, L.  520–1 McLellan, J. A.  292

620 Index McLeod, J. M.  298 McNiff, J.  135 meaning 292 meaning‐making and background knowledge  426 and comprehension  424, 425 and literacy  417, 426 and practitioner research  149 and social constructivism  274 and youth  289, 293–4 Means, B.  510 media  477–94, 584–5 and analytical research traditions  479–84 and content analysis  478, 479, 480–1 and critical analysis  478, 483–4 critical media  479 critical media literacy  481–2, 484, 494 and democratic citizenship education  305–6 and educational power  477 and empathy development  487–8, 491–2 and history  479–81, 482–3 literacy 481–2 mass 478–81 and research methods  478, 493 and sense‐making  488–92 and teachers’ beliefs about practices with film 485–8 and theoretical research traditions  479–84 media studies  480–1 mediated action, theory of  182 medical school model  369 Mehlinger, H. D.  532 MEIST see Multicultural Education Instructional Support Team Melchoir, A.  398 memorization 53 memory, working  279 Menand, L.  51 Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP)  246 meritocracy  204, 205 Meriweather, C.  540 Merriam, S. B. 97 Merryfield, M. M.  521, 522, 533, 544, 547, 550 meta‐analysis 429 metacognition  424, 446 Metcalf, L.  59 Metzger, S.  481, 487, 491, 492 Mexican descent, people of  216 Meyer, E. J.  255 Meyerson, P.  489, 490 Mhlauli, M. B.  326 Michigan  390, 487–8

Michigan Citizenship Collaborative Curriculum 387 micro‐perspectives 197 Middaugh, E.  169–70, 171, 395, 554 Middle Level Learning (MLL)  237–8 middle socioeconomic status  390 middle‐class schools  202 middle‐classes  293, 303–5 Miel, A.  133 Milewski, G. B.  232 Milk, H.  262 Miller‐Lane, J.  324 Mills, G.  97, 140 Milner, H. R.  212–13 Milson, A. J.  545 mind  47, 59 “nine principles of mind”  366–7 mindfulness  146, 151 “mini politics”  291 Mini‐Society 402–3 Minister of Education (MOE) (Singapore)  204 minorities and democratic citizenship education  298–300, 303–4 and elementary social studies  385, 394 and the marginalization of social studies  385 Mirel, J. E.  24 Misco, T.  100, 322, 448, 449–50 Mishra, P.  377, 503 misogyny 219 `missing discourses’  14 Mississippi Valley Historical Association  23 Mitchell, K.  137, 154, 305 Mitchetti, A.  547 Mitra, D.  403, 403–4 mixed methods research  70–1, 590 Mizoue, Y.  540 Mizrahi Israelis  182–3 MLL see Middle Level Learning Mochizuki 454 Modern World History course  217–20 Modzelewski, W.  545 MOE see Minister of Education Moje, E.  369, 420, 421, 422, 426, 442 Monaghan, M.  234, 243 Monroe, M.  239 Montanaro, E.  72–3 Monte‐Sano, C.  72–3, 239, 348, 368, 375, 424, 427, 428, 429 Montgomery, S. E.  237, 305–6 Moore, S. W.  393–4 Moore’s Law  514

Index 621 Morais, D.  541 morality  59–60, 275, 399–400 Moreau, J.  25 Morgan, G.  388 Morris, J. D.  549 Morris, P.  531 Mosely, M.  418 Moses, M.  120 Moshman, D.  273 motivation  235, 289, 465 Motivation to Read Profile (MRP)  406 Motivations for Reading Questionnaire (MRQ)  406 Mourshed, M.  537 moving pictures 477 see also film Muessig, R.  11 Mullen, A. D.  27 Muller, C.  75 multi‐state consortia  470 multicultural citizenship education  171 multicultural education  29, 235, 525–6, 575, 591 Multicultural Education Instructional Support Team (MEIST)  155 multiculturalism  51, 60, 572, 576 and democratic citizenship  288 and emergent bilinguals  440 and practitioner research  145 multilevel modelling  78, 79 multivariate analysis  78, 79, 82–3 Mundy, K.  522 museums  199, 199–201 Muslims 171 MVP see Mentors in Violence Prevention Myers, J. P.  531, 533, 544–5, 548 myths and critical theory  198–9 politicized 198 of underdevelopment  218 NAACP see National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NAEP see National Assessment of Education Progress “naive” (“lay”) theory  389 narrative texts  175, 425 narratives American  214, 221 and critical theory  198–9, 205 dominant  205, 213, 214, 218, 219, 221, 576 grand 198–9 inclusive 576 official 205

politicized 198 simplified 181–2 traditional approach  44 see also counternarratives National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP)  84, 234, 241, 295–6, 390–1, 406, 425 and the civic empowerment gap  394 and civics  394, 395 and geography  392–3 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)  24 national belonging  170 National Center for the Education Statistics (NCES)  84, 440, 587 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS)  82, 84, 85 national character  52 national citizenship  530 National Collaborative on Diversity in the Teaching Force  212 National Commission on Excellence in Education 54 National Conference on Student Assessment  470 national context  82–3 National Council on Economic Education  587 National Council for Geographic Education  370 National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS)  1, 17–18, 365, 571, 577, 591 Bulletin  193, 195–6, 199 and the Cold War  24 College, Career & Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies Standards  241, 272, 273, 274, 420 College and University Faculty Assembly (CUFA) 3 and critical race theory  216, 221 curriculum standards  1994 241, 264, 266, 589 and disciplinary literacy  420 and disciplined inquiry  342, 580 and elementary social studies  386, 387, 399, 406 and emergent bilinguals  447, 448 and gender issues  30, 228, 238, 241, 243 and global education  520, 532, 533 and intergroup education  23–4 International Assembly  588–9 and literacy  582 NCSS Strategic Plan  254, 266 and past scholarship  569–70 and the purpose of social studies education  386, 506 and the Second World War  22, 23–4 and sexuality  254, 264, 266

622 Index National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) (cont’d) and social justice  28 “Teaching the Levees Model”  150, 151 themes of  387 vision statement  264, 266 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) 534 National Council of Teachers of Social Studies  17 National Education Association (NEA) and the age of reform  53 Committee on Social Studies report  9, 10, 11, 33, 42, 43, 48, 58 Committee of Ten  53–4, 58 National Education program (Singapore)  204, 205 National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS) 84 National Geographic Society  370 national identity  170–1, 406, 549 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health 75 National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) 199–201 National Research Council  340 National Science Foundation  31, 69, 370 National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) 534 National Standards for U.S. History 338 National Writing Project  154 nationalism  531, 534, 536, 548 Native Americans  584 and citizenship  297 and Critical Race Theory  212, 214 media portrayal  482, 488–9 and sexuality  261 teachers 212 see also American Indians naturalistic research  136, 140, 348, 478 Nazis/Nazism  48, 49, 50, 59, 492 NCES see National Center for the Education Statistics NCLB see No Child Left Behind Act  2001 NCSS see National Council for the Social Studies NCTM see National Council of Teachers of Mathematics NEA see National Education Association NELS see National Educational Longitudinal Study Nelson, J.  195–6 Nelson, M. R.  10 Neo‐Marxism 193 neoliberal citizenship  530 neoliberalism 591

Netherlands 552 Nevins, A.  23 new criticism  195–6 New London Group  429 “new” new social studies  28 new social history  32 New Social Science  229 new social studies  26–8, 43, 56, 338, 572, 580, 585, 587 New York City  405 and assessment  465, 466, 469–70, 471 and critical theory  197, 201 “rainbow curriculum”  257 New York Performance Standards Consortium 469–70 New York State  27 New York Times (newspaper)  23, 54 New Zealand  390, 391 Newmann, F. M.  376, 342 Newstreet, C.  150 Newton, I.  47 Nguyen, D.  288, 294, 300, 576 Niemi, D.  371 Niemi, N. S.  329 Niemi, R. G.  329 Niens, U.  549 Nigeria 235 “nine principles of mind”  366–7 Nixon, Richard  25 NMAI see National Museum of the American Indian No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act  2001 51, 102, 236, 237, 240, 246, 371, 375, 385, 401, 405, 441, 465–6, 508, 510, 583 Noddings, N.  400 Noffke, S. E.  135, 144, 145, 154, 155, 156, 158 Nokes, J. D.  374–5, 403 Nolen, P.  235 normalization 184–5 normative constructions, undoing  263–4 norms  258, 266 citizenship 296 gender  238, 245 heteronormativity  255, 263, 264, 265, 300 homophobia as  259 North‐South Centre of the Council of Europe 524 Northern Ireland  321, 325, 330, 332, 391, 549 Northern New Jersey  201 novice‐expert paradigm  362–71, 581 NSTA see National Science Teachers Association

Index 623 null hypothesis  72, 77 Nussbaum, M.  548 Nuthall, G.  270, 279–80, 281, 463 Obenchain, K.  138, 451 Obergefell v. Hodges 256 objectivism 191 see also positivism objectivity 48 O’Brien, J.  449, 452–3 observation of lessons  178 participant  132, 478 occupational gender gap  227–8 Ochoa, A. S.  60 O’Connor, E.  524 O’Connor, J.  482 O’Connor, K.  521, 522 O’Donnell, A. M.  272–3 OECD see Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development Ogden, A.  541 OISE see Ontario Institute for Studies in Education “old education”  11 “Old Masters”  32 biographical studies  13 heterogeneity  12–13, 14 Oliveira, L. C.  445 Oliver, D.  59 Ong, A.  301 online collaborative learning model  331 online technology  483–4, 493, 544 Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) 545 ontology  99, 504 open classroom climate  305 Oppenheimer, T.  513 oppression 219 Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD), Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)  537 Ortiz, E.  403 Osler, A.  529 “other” exclusion and marginalization  209 forming a relationship with  330 gendered 238 “otherness” 170 Otten, M.  78 “Our Town” unit  148 Oxley, L.  531

“p‐hacking” 2 p‐values  78, 85 Pace, J. L.  374, 401 Paechter, C.  229 Paek, P. L.  232 Page, B. I.  288, 307 Paine, T.  264 Pakistan  240, 243 paleoconservatives 536 Palestinian American youth  170–1, 301 Paley, V.  398 Panel on Educational Technology of the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology  507–8 Pang, V. O.  216 Panther (1995)  489 Pappas, C. C.  418, 431 paradigm shifts  68, 69–70, 505, 573 and critical race theory  216 and feminist studies  229 and practitioner research  135 and women’s studies  229 paradigms alternative 136 critical theory  506 definition 504 dominant 504 and epistemology  504 interpretivist 504, 504, 505, 506 and the nature of methodology  504 and ontology  504 and technology  503–6, 504 Paris, S. G.  423, 424 Parker, C.  330 Parker, W.  3, 11, 60, 171, 175–6, 271, 288, 305, 332, 343, 344–5, 348, 352, 369, 393, 399, 400, 404, 520, 531, 540 Parks, R.  173, 239, 240 Parmenter, L.  521 participant observation  132, 478 participation 417 see also civic participation; political participation participatory democracy  14–15, 386, 393 Partnership for  21st Century Skills  535 PASS see Powerful and Authentic Social Studies Passport to Learning: Teaching Social Studies to ESL Students  443, 444 past scholarship, social studies  569–71 patriarchy 577 Patriot, the (2000)  487–8 patriotism  54, 548

624 Index Patterson, N. C.  322 Patton, M.  308 Paugh, P.  140 Paxton, R.  489, 490 Payne, Y.  299 PBHI see problem‐based historical inquiry PBL see project‐based learning PBS 479 peace education  527–8, 538 Pearson, P. D.  424 pedagogical content knowledge (PCK)  56–7, 361–5, 367, 369, 581 pedagogical dogmatism  509, 511, 513 pedagogical interpretation  58 pedagogical plurality  512 pedagogy  44, 51, 52, 56–7 anti‐racist  151, 152 and assessment  466, 468, 471, 472 and authentic intellectual work  344 and civic education  290–1 conflict dialogue  330 constructivist 277 and controversial issues teaching  322–3, 327–31 critical  194, 196 and emergent bilinguals  440, 442, 443, 444, 448, 452, 453, 456 and expert teachers  363–4, 367–9, 375, 377, 378 and gender  237, 245 and global education  538, 545, 553 liberatory 194 and literacy  417, 430, 432 and literature reviews  172, 173 and the media  479–83, 485–7, 493–4 and museums  199 peace 538 and practitioner research  139, 141, 143, 144, 146–7, 150–2 and qualitative research  69 and quantitative research  75 and self‐study  139 and sexuality  260 and social justice  152 and technology  309, 503, 511, 513, 545 transactional orientation  290 transformative orientation  290 transmission orientation  290–1 see also technological pedagogical content knowledge PEER see “practice embedded education research” Pennsylvania Governor’s School for International Studies (PGSIS)  548

Performance Assessment Review Board, Inc. 470 performance assessments  361, 362–3, 365 Performance Standards Consortium  470–1 Perin, D.  429 periphery 291 Pervez, N.  244 Peters, M. A.  530, 531 Peterson, A.  491 Petrosky, A. R.  420 PGSIS see Pennsylvania Governor’s School for International Studies phenomenology, “post‐intentional” approach to 96 Phillips, R.  154–5 Photographs of Local Knowledge Sources (PHOLKS) 450 phronesis (practical judgment)  117 physics 84–5 Piaget, J.  274, 399 Piagetian theory  389 Pianist, The (2002)  492 Pierce, B.  22 Pike, G.  518, 524 Pinkney, A.  585 Pinnegar, S.  139 Pinoy Teach 216 planetary consciousness  527 pluralism  28–9, 169 and critical race theory  211 and critical theory  194–5 criticism of  55 and democracy  50 pedagogical 512 pragmatic 194–5 pluralistic democracy  170 Plyler v. Doe 441 Po, S.  532 podcasts 305–6 political context  324–5 political discussion  183–5 political economy  197 political efficacy  289–90, 292, 304, 305, 543 political engagement  293, 331 political inequality  169–70 political knowledge  295, 298 political literacy  421–2 political neutrality  50, 52, 60 political participation  275, 295–7, 302, 304, 394 and gender  295 generational shift from traditional  295–6 and political efficacy  289 and socioeconomic status  295

Index 625 political power, access to  307, 309, 394 political process, youthful distrust of  289 political repression, victims of  325 political science and democratic citizenship education  289 and disciplined inquiry  339, 340, 344–5 and qualitative inquiry  108 political socialization  289, 291, 292, 406 political tolerance  258–9 politics  241, 589 assessment 584 and literacy  421–2, 423 and the media  491–2, 493 Pollack, S.  331 Ponte, E.  232 Poole, C.  538, 540–1 Popkewitz, T.  191, 192 popular culture  489 population growth  210 Porat, D.  182–3 positivism  47, 48, 95, 191, 230–1, 575 Posnanski, T. J.  396 Posselt, J.  347–8 Postman, N.  512 postmodernism 572 critical postmodern discourses  196, 197–9 postpositivism  230, 231, 504, 504, 575 poverty and comprehension  424 culture of  219 and democratic citizenship education  295, 298 global 548 and political participation  295 Powell, D.  142 Powell, W. C.  158 power access to  307, 309, 394 inequality 171 and practitioner research  133, 159 power race relations  214 power status, heterosexual  185 Powerful and Authentic Social Studies (PASS)  342, 343–4 Powers, D.  232 Poyntz, S.  481 practical knowledge  136 “practical turn”  378 “practice embedded education research” (PEER)  590, 591–2 practitioner research  4, 132–60, 573–4, 589 and the balance of power  133, 159 and collaboration  134, 138, 153, 154 and context  134, 135

and critical reflection  144–5, 146, 156 and critical social studies education  151–3 definition 133 and democratic education  144–5 and empowerment  134, 157 ethical issues  134, 159–60 forms of  133–8 future directions  160 and historical thinking  142–4, 147–50 and history instruction  147–50 and large group research  154–5 and longitudinal research  154–5 and methodological considerations  156–8 potential limitations  158–60 and qualitative inquiry  117 and the researcher as the intervention  156–7 significance 157–8 and social justice  140, 145, 151–3, 159 and social studies teacher education  133, 141–6 and social studies teacher professional development 146–50 trustworthiness 157–8 see also action research; self‐study pragmatism  47–8, 50, 117, 134, 194–5, 290 Praxis Inquiry  145 Praxis Performance Assessment Test  361 Preissle‐Goetz, J.  95, 96, 97, 123 prejudice  153, 216, 298 prekindergarten 211 present scholarship, social studies  571–88 preservice teachers  377, 574 and controversial issues  322, 324, 326 and critical race theory  220 elementary 401 and gender scholarship  234, 241 and global education  430, 538, 545, 546 and history education  171–2 Latina 454–5 and literature reviews  172–3 and the media  486 and the novice‐expert paradigm  368, 369 partnership with experienced teachers  154 and practitioner research  142–3, 144–6, 154, 156, 160 and qualitative inquiry  101, 107–9, 107 and technology use  502 primary sources  368 digitized 505 and emergent bilinguals  454–5, 583 inquiry 431 and literacy  425, 430, 431 and practitioner research  147, 148–9

626 Index privilege and democratic citizenship education  295, 298–9, 307 rationalization of  299 White  145, 159 problem landscapes, size of  348, 351, 352–3 problem‐based historical inquiry (PBHI)  505–6 problem‐based learning  332, 347, 348, 591 see also project‐based learning problem‐solving skills  203 problematizing texts  175 Problems of Democracy studies  58, 533 professional associations  14–15, 23 professional development see teacher professional development professors 58 progressive orientation  42, 44–6, 48, 54–60, 571 and disciplined inquiry  337, 338 and project‐based learning  402 Project Muse database  229 project‐based learning (PBL)  173–4, 344–5, 369, 387, 402 proliferation, qualitative inquiry  96, 102–11, 116 ProQuest dissertation database  501 Protestants 330 psychology 587 cognitive 272 educational 235 faculty  47, 53 functional  47, 58 and self‐study  139 psychometric analysis  468, 471, 539–40 public schools and civic education  290, 293, 303, 304, 307 and Critical Race Theory  211–12 early American  52 “published peer‐reviewed research”  116 Pugh, K.  509 purges 49 purpose of social studies  506 Pytash, K. E.  150 qualitative research  68–70, 95–123, 571–4, 586–7, 590–1 ambiguity 96 ascendency  69–70, 95, 102–19, 105, 230, 573 categories of research  106–8, 107 congruence 100 consequences of the turn towards  111–19 convergence 110–11 and critical literacy  418–19 definition 96–9, 97

and democratic citizenship education  291, 292, 301 depth of detail  99–100 development of research questions  71–3 divergence 110–11 diversity 573 dominance  95, 230 and educational technology  501–2, 508–9 and emergent bilinguals  453, 454–5 and global education  548–9, 551–2 impact on stakeholders  113–19 intrinsic ambiguity  96 knowledge base development  112–13 and literacy  418–19, 426 and the media  485, 487, 492 methods 109–11 and practitioner research  143, 151–2, 156 proliferation  96, 102–11, 116 quality in  99–102 recommendations for  119–22 and research methodology  99, 103, 106, 108–11, 110 research questions  100, 106, 108–9, 110–11 and research as a situated activity  98 role of theory  121–2 and situated knowledge  101–2 and thick description  100–1 quantitative research  68–87, 570–3, 586–7, 590–1 appropriate use of statistics  77–8 components 70–80 and democratic citizenship education  291, 292 development of research questions  71–3 and educational technology  501–2, 508–9 effect size inclusion  78 focus of inquiry  70, 71–5 and global education  549 interpretation of results  70, 78–80 and large‐scale analysis  68, 70, 74, 78, 80–5 limitations 80 methodological considerations  70, 75–8 operationalizing variables  75–7 renewed potential for  70 research design  73–5 sampling 77–8 and secondary data analysis  74, 75, 80–5 Quashiga, Y.  519, 537 quasi‐experimental research  74, 84, 586 Quaynor, L.  234, 396 “queer”  255, 256, 266 “queer citizenship”  266 Queer Theory  184–5, 228, 255, 263–7, 575, 577, 587

Index 627 Queer Youth Advocacy Day (QYAD)  300 “quiet revolution”  2 race theory see Critical Race Theory Race to the Top  583 race/ethnicity  173, 575–6, 582, 587–90 changing demographics  209, 210–12, 588, 591 children’s understanding of  397–8 and citizenship education  204–5 and controversial issues teaching  322–4, 330–1 and democratic citizenship education  295, 298, 299–300, 307 and educational achievement  169–70 and educational inequality  51–2 and elementary education  392–3, 395, 397–8, 406 lack of coverage in social studies education 209–22 and marginalized people  171 and political participation  295 and practitioner research  151–3, 159 social studies theory on  215–17 racial categorization  204 racial discrimination  297 racial diversity  51 racial domination‐subordination  193 racial equality/inequality  211, 213 racial integration  29 racial prejudice  153, 216 racial resegregation  211–12 racial segregation  50, 51, 201, 572 racial/ethnic stereotypes  396–7, 398 racism  575–6, 587 classroom 453–4 and critical race theory  209–22 institutional  173, 183, 195 lack of coverage in social studies education 209–22 structural 173 systemic 322 and textbooks  16 and White teachers  212–13 Radcliffe 245 randomization  73–4, 77, 175–6, 510 Rank, A.  189 Rapaport, A.  531, 533, 536, 538, 550–1 Raphael, C.  492 Ravitch, D.  42 Rawls, J.59 “RE‐searcher” 135 reading 235

“Reading Like a Historian” program  374 real world situations and disciplined inquiry  341, 344, 347 and the integrative approach to social studies 401 learning of content in the context of  57 and the progressive orientation  571 realities, multiple  96 reality television  481 Reardon, B.  527 reasoning deductive  71, 72, 75 disciplinary 424 Reay, D.  304 reciprocal histories  456 recitation 52–3 Reed, K.  404 reflection 134 critical  144–5, 146, 156, 158–9 reflection‐in‐action 138 reflective inquiry  44 reflective teaching  139, 142 reflective‐thinking 59 reflexivity 98 refugees  548, 549 Regents of University California v. Bakke 51 Reich, G. A.  441, 445–6, 452, 453 Reidel, M.  145, 456 Reilly, J.  549 Reimer, K.  520–1 Reisman, A.  347,368, 374, 428, 429 relationships 195 relativism  48, 49, 59 reliability 75–7 internal consistency  76 religion  244, 322–4, 326, 330, 591 Renn, K. A.  263 “replacement” question  16, 18 replication of studies  82–3 representation burden of  480 of women  239, 576 research design  73–5, 174–7 research exemplars  4, 168–86, 574–5, 579 formulating research questions  169–72 literature reviews  172–4 research designs  174–7 using theory to contextualize findings  181–5 research methodology  572–5, 587 data collection  177–81 future directions  588 and the media  478, 493

628 Index research methodology (cont’d) and qualitative inquiry  4, 99, 103, 106, 108–11, 1107 and quantitative research  4, 70, 75–8 and technology research  504 research programs  578–86 research questions  574 and democratic citizenship education  292, 292 descriptive 111 development  71–3, 169–72, 292, 292 interpretive 111 and qualitative inquiry  100, 106, 108–9, 110–11 research‐to‐practice connection  117 researcher identity  136 researcher as the intervention  156–7 resistance  145, 155, 171–2, 219 Respect for Marriage Act  2009 184 restraint, climates of  323 Rethinking Schools  404 Rethinking Schools (journal)  404 Revere, P.  239 revisionists 13–14 Reynolds, R.  524 Rich, C. W.  240 rich‐poor divide  588 Richardson, R.  524, 532 right wing movements  536 Ritter, J. K.  142, 144 Roberts, S.  238 Robinson, J. H.  16, 47, 57–8 Roblyer, M.  508 Rodriguez, H.  454 Rodriguez, M.  303 Rogers, E. M.  507, 513 Rogers, R.  418 Rogers, V.  463 role models, civic  295 role‐play  152, 451 roles 195 Roosevelt, E.  240, 245, 260 Roots (1977)  487–8 Rorty, R.  51 Rose, F.  304 Ross, B.  239 Ross, E. W.  307 “Rounds Project, The”  369 Rousmaniere, K.  245 Rubin, B. C.  293–4, 299, 304 Rudolph, J. L.  365 Rugg, H.  19–20, 43, 46, 47, 48, 49, 54, 58, 217

Rugg curriculum  337 Rugg textbooks  19–20, 21, 43, 48, 54, 58 censorship  19–20, 22 Rule, A. C.  148 rural students  297 Rush, B.  52 Russell, D. R.  429 Russell, T.  139 Russell, W.  31, 228, 300, 322, 538 Russia 525 Russian Revolution  59 Rustin, B.  260, 261, 265 Rutkowski, L.  79 Rwanda 376 St. Pierre, B.  231 St. Pierre, E. A.  96 Salako, E.  236 Salinas, C.  3, 145, 377, 442, 446, 447, 449, 450, 451–2, 455, 456, 465 Salmon, L. M.  55 same‐sex marriage  184, 256, 261, 262–3, 266, 300, 328–9, 577 samples of convenience  77 sampling  77–8, 80–1 Samson, D.  540, 544 Sánchez, R. M.  151–2 SAP see Scholastic Aptitude Test SASS see Schools and Staffing Survey Saye, J.  75, 78, 341, 348, 350, 377, 505–6, 580, 581 scaffolding  305, 580 and disciplined inquiry  340, 341, 345–8, 350–1, 353 and global education  533 hard scaffolds  341, 345, 346, 351 linguistic  442, 446 and literacy  422, 431 and the media  483, 491 soft scaffolds  341 and technology  506 visual  445, 454 scalability 176 scales  76–7, 81–2 Schafer, C. M.  234 Schattle, H.  530–1, 536 schemas, situational  280 “schematic narrative template”  182 Scheunpflug, A.  528 Schiller, K. S.  75 Schindler’s List (film)  487 Schleppegrell, M.  445

Index 629 Schlesinger, A  49–50, 301 Schlozman, K.  295 Schmeichel, M.  100, 230, 231, 238, 482 Schmidt, S. J.  230, 238, 264–5, 266, 300, 303 Schmitt, T.  396 Schocker, J. A.  576 Schocker, J. B.  240 Schoenfeld, A.  271–2, 510 “scholarcentrism” 32 scholarly humility  588 Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAP)  241 Schön, D.  134 school delinquency  235–6 school enrollment  52, 211 schools affluent‐professional 202–3 age of reform  48 and censorship  205, 206 and changing racial demographics  210, 211 and civic development  290 and critical race theory  210, 211 and democratic citizenship education  290, 293, 294, 302–6 as democratic spaces  290, 293, 294, 302–6 executive elite  203 and knowledge and social class  201–3 middle‐class  202, 293, 304 and Palestinian American youth  170–1 political nature  275–6 and racial resegregation  211–12 and racial segregation  201, 572 and sexuality  256–8, 265 Singaporean  204–5, 206 as spaces of hierarchy and control  303 working‐class 202 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS)  82, 84, 85 Schug, M.  395–6 Schukar, R.  536 Schutz, A.  304 Schwarz, B. B.  182–3 Schweber, S.  176–7 science 174 affinity with social studies  370 and disciplined inquiry  339 and gender  230 and global education  534 and research funding  370 and teacher education  581 Searchers, The (1956)  488–9 Secolsky, C.  471 second language learners  583

Second World War  22–4, 59, 454 secondary data analysis  74, 75, 80–5, 573, 574 breadth of items  81–2 and the democratization of data access  83–4 multiple analyses  82–3 potential pitfalls  84–5 quality of scales  81–2 replication of studies  82–3 sampling strength  80–1 secondary school social studies  17 secondary teachers  364 Sedition Act  324 Seely Flint, A.  417 Segall, A.  102, 196, 197–201, 238 Seider, S.  548–9 Seixas, P.  482, 483, 488–9, 490 Selby, D.  524 selection bias  547 self‐efficacy, teacher  372–3 self‐study  133–5, 151–3, 155, 573–4 and empowerment  157 findings in social studies  140 history and overview  138–40 methodology 140 potential limitations  158–50 and teacher education  132, 138–43, 145, 147, 360 sense‐making  385, 389, 488–92 Seow, T.  326 Serriere, S.  155, 375, 401, 403–4 service‐learning/civic action approach  403–4 sex differences  229 sex discrimination  232 Sexas, P.  368 sexuality  30, 33, 184–5, 228, 254–67, 575, 576, 577, 587, 590 and citizenship  300 definition 255 rationale 255–7 silence regarding  259, 261 trends over time  257–63 Shanahan, C.  424 Shanahan, T.  424 Share, J.  481 shared research paradigms  134 Shaver, J.  1, 2, 3, 32, 46, 59, 69, 70, 228, 360, 361, 477, 479, 499, 500, 514, 570 Sheer 444 Sheina, I.  525 Sheldon, S.  509

630 Index Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP)  442, 448, 451 sheltered language instruction  442, 448, 455, 456 Shermis, S.  44 Sherrod, L. R.  298 Shoenfeld, A.  366 Shohat, E.  480 Shulman, L.  56, 361–7, 370–1 Siegel, B.  489–90 SIFE see Students with Interrupted Formal Education Sigel, I.  232 SIGs see special interest groups Silbereisen, R.  295 Simmons, A. M. M.  295, 328 simulations, computer‐based  477–8, 484, 489, 544–5 Singapore  183–4, 575 and citizenship education  204–5 and school censorship  205, 206 and teaching controversial issues  324, 326 SIOP see Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol situated activity  98, 573 situated knowledge  101–2 situated learning  46, 291 Skinner, A.  541 Sklarwitz, S.  548–9 Sleeter, C.  213, 361, 442 Slekar, T. D.  108 Smith, B.  303 Smith, D. B.  347 Smith, H.  540, 544 Smith, J.  374 Smith‐Johnson, J.  491 Smyth, E. M.  245 Soares, L. B.  418 social bonds  235–6 social class and democratic citizenship education  293, 295, 298–9, 303, 304, 305, 307 and political participation  295 and school knowledge  201–3 social conservatives  30–2 social constructivism  5, 389 blending  271, 278 definition 273 as essentially contested concept  270, 271–4, 279, 281–2 and gender identity  229 learning principles  274–9

“shadow effect”  276–7, 282 and student learning  270–82 social context  98, 135 social development  275 social education  44 social studies as  271 Social Education (journal)  24, 195–6, 243, 263, 504, 529, 569 social efficiency  44 Social Identity Theory  182–3 social justice  28, 419, 574 and citizenship education  171 and Critical Race Theory  213 and critical theory  193, 196, 197, 575 and democratic citizenship education  296, 298–9 and gender  245 and global education  522, 543 and practitioner research  140, 145, 151–3, 159 and sexuality  254, 267, 577 social justice‐oriented education  404 social learning  235 social media  500, 502, 585, 589 social mediation  340, 341, 580 social meliorism  44 social mobility  298, 309 social science  44, 55, 56, 108, 387 apolitical 50 disciplinary approach to  56 and qualitative inquiry  108 and self‐study  139 social studies as  271, 338 Social Science Education Consortium  570 social studies, as social science  271 Social Studies Committee report  1916 337 Social Studies Curriculum, Assessment, and Instruction (SSACI)  470 Social Studies Curriculum Center, Carnegie‐ Mellon University  28 social studies movement  11, 27 Social Studies Research  589 Social Studies Research and Practice 71 Social Studies and the Young Learner (journal) 237 social theory, critical  196–7 social worlds, children’s learning and understanding in their  385–407 social‐interaction theory  585 socialization political  289, 291, 292, 406 and sexuality  258, 259, 265, 266

Index 631 sociocultural aspects of instruction  416 sociocultural identity  293–4 sociocultural school contexts  134 sociocultural theory  389 socioeconomic domination‐subordination  193 socioeconomic status  582 and access to political power  394 and children’s social studies  385, 390, 394–5, 401, 402, 406 and democratic citizenship education  295, 298–9, 303–4, 305, 307 and political participation  295 see also high socioeconomic status; low socioeconomic status; middle socioeconomic status sociology  17, 396–7, 587 sociopolitical development theory  289 Socratic seminars  149, 219, 347 Solano‐Campos, A.  407, 547, 548, 549 solidarity, democratic  304 Song, K. H.  142 South Korea  524 Southern Poverty Law Center  404 Soviet Union  26, 49, 54 space civic  290, 292–4, 304, 306–9 democratic  290, 293, 294, 302–6 hegemonic representation  154 LGBTQ  258–9, 266 “space race”  54 spatial reasoning  393 Speak Your Piece program  330 speaking 428–30 special interest groups (SIGs)  3, 59, 139, 589 Spencer, H.  47, 53 Spencer Foundation, New Civics Initiative  590 Spinath, B.  235 Splaine, J.  478, 481, 492, 493 sports coaching  233–4, 233, 236, 246–7 Sputnik satellite  54 SQUARSS see Supporting Quantitative Understanding, Analysis and Research in the Social Studies Squire, K.  484, 493 SSACI see Social Studies Curriculum, Assessment, and Instruction stage theory  389, 399 Stages of Cultural Development Typology  527 stakeholders, and qualitative inquiry  113–19 Staley, L.  78 Stalin, J.  49 Stallones, J. R.  20

Stamm, R.  480 standards movement and elementary social studies  386–8 and the erosion of primary social studies  174 and gender scholarship  240–2 see also Common Core State Standards Standish, A.  519 Stanford History Education Group, “Beyond the Bubble” 406 Stanley, W. B.  44, 117–18, 193–4, 196 Starkey, H.  529 state  221, 324–5 State Collaborative on Assessments and Student Standards 470 static essences  46–8, 53, 58 statistical power  77 statistical software  82 statistics, inferential  77–8 status competition  185 status quo  43–4, 48, 50, 206, 298–300 Staudt, J.  237 Steeves, K. A.  147 Steinmayr, R.  235 Stenhouse, L.  153 stereotypes, racial/ethnic  396–7, 398 Sternberg, R.  363 Stevenson, C.  463 Stewart, D.  155, 375, 401 Stigler, J. W.  78 Stimpson, C.  229 stimulation approach  402–3 Stockdill, D.  426 Stoddard, J.  306, 329, 480, 485–7, 487, 490, 491–2 Stodolsky, S. S.  15 Stonewall riots  1969 258, 261, 265 Stout, M.  371, 372 strategic compliance  205 Structured Academic Controversy model  327–8, 345 “struggle” debate  11–12 student‐centred approaches  56, 400 students children’s learning and understanding in their social world  385–407 and disciplined inquiry  340, 341, 344, 349–50, 352–3 and gender scholarship  234–6 and sexuality  256, 259, 265 thinking 271 Students with Interrupted Formal Education (SIFE) 443 study abroad  545–6

632 Index Subedi, B.  453–4 suffragists, Second Generation  238 Suh, Y.  487 Summers, L.  227 Supovitz, J.  465 Supporting Quantitative Understanding, Analysis and Research in the Social Studies (SQUARSS) 86 Supreme Court  51, 256, 328 Surowiecki, J.  81 Survey of Global Understanding  542 Survey on the Status of Social Studies  84 sustainability 528 Swalwell, K.  298–9, 307 Swan, K.  403, 500 Swing Kids (1993)  492 Sykes, G.  372 Sylvester, P. S.  403, 404 symbolism theory  465 Szpara, M. Y.  447, 448, 450 t‐tests 78 Taba, H.  24, 26, 135 taboo topics  258, 321, 326–7 TAH see Teaching American History Taiwanese Americans  584 Taliban 227 Tani, S.  544 Tarc, P.  536 Taylor, N.  261, 262 teacher education  574, 580–1, 589 and action research  132, 135–6, 140, 141–7 becoming an “expert” social studies teacher 360–78 and critical race theory  220 and critical reflection  144 and gender scholarship  231–6 and global education  537–9, 586 paucity of research on  360 and practitioner research  132–3, 135–6, 138–47, 157, 160 qualitative inquiries into  106 and self‐study  132, 138–43, 145, 147 Teacher Education Quarterly (journal)  537 teacher evaluation schemes 373 teacher orientations  134 teacher practice  362, 366–7 teacher preparation  360, 361–4, 367, 369 teacher professional development  170, 371–6, 580–1 and critical race theory  220 and disciplined inquiry  344, 345–6, 347, 349 and practitioner research  146–50, 154

teacher researchers  133, 135–6, 138, 155, 347 “teacher thinking”  136 teacher‐centric approaches  55, 114, 400, 425 teachers agency 367 and assessment  461–73 attention of  206 beliefs  326–7, 485–8 and controversial issues teaching  322–32, 579 and critical social studies education  151 decision‐making  364, 367, 485–7 and democratic citizenship education  289, 290, 302, 303, 304, 305, 307–8 and disciplined inquiry  344, 347, 349–52 disclosure  323, 327, 329, 330 and educational achievement  68, 115, 361 and emergent bilinguals  451–6 empowerment  134, 157 ethnic minority  454 and ethnic/racial diversity  212–13, 216, 220, 454 and film  485–8 gay  263, 265–6, 577 and gender scholarship  231–6, 243 and historical empathy  177–8 identities 326–7 knowledge  362, 363 and literacy  427–9, 432 male 232–4, 233, 245–7, 263, 577 marginalization  134, 144–5 performance assessments  361, 362–3, 365 and practitioner research  132–6, 138–51, 155, 157–60 and qualitative inquiry  113–15, 119 and quantitative research  71–5, 78–82, 84 and self‐censorship  324 sense of purpose  326–7 and sexuality  256, 259–63, 265–6 and social constructivism  271, 276, 278–80, 280, 281 and technology use  502 uncertainty 184 see also “expert” social studies teachers Teachers College, Columbia University  56 Teachers College Record (journal)  246 Teaching American History (TAH)  147 Teaching History  589 teaching and learning social studies  5–6, 319–592 children’s learning and understanding in their social world  385–407 classroom‐based assessment  461–73 controversial issues  321–32

Index 633 critical reading  414–32 disciplined inquiry  336–53 emergent bilinguals  440–57 “expert” social studies teachers  360–78 global education  518–55 large‐scale assessment  461–73 media and social studies education  477–94 and social constructivism  271–3, 277–81 social studies scholarship past, present and future 569–92 and technology  499–514 Teaching Social Studies to English Language Learners  443, 444 Teaching Tolerance  404 Teaching Works project  366 technocentrism  508–9, 511, 513 technoculture 511–13, 511, 585 technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK)  377, 503 technology  494, 499–514, 585, 588 adopter categories  507, 585 adoption  506–7, 513, 514 computers as students’ learning tools  505–6 computers as teachers’ assistants  505 and democratic citizenship education  305–6 description in the field  502–3 and diffusion of innovation  511–12, 511, 514 and diffusion theory  501, 506–7, 514 and funding  508 and gender  230, 242–3 and global education  544–5 guidelines for teacher use  502–3, 503 and innovation  501–2, 506–14, 585 methodology 501–2 new model for technological integration 511–13, 511 as “oversold and underused”  509 paradigms and representations  503–6, 504 research critique  507–11 and research models  511, 511 and social constructivism  277 and technoculture  511–13, 511 and the technology agenda  511, 511 and theory‐driven research  510–11 technology reviews  500 television  478, 481–2 TerraNova assessment  405 Terrell, T.  443, 447 terrorism  170, 171, 491 testing 462 civics  295, 296 and controversial issues teaching  332 and gender scholarship  240–2

high‐stakes  324, 466–7, 584 see also Advanced Placement (AP) testing; assessment; National Assessment of Education Progress Texas 388 textbooks 572 and African American history  173, 576 age of consensus  54 Cold War  25 critical evaluation of  201–2, 205 and critical race theory  217, 218 dependence of social studies on a single text 424 elementary social studies  387 and gender scholarship  238, 239–40, 576 Hanna Social Studies series  19, 20–1 for historical sourcing  15–16 history 425 influence of American history on  21–2 and LGBTQ issues  30 and pluralism  29 Rugg textbooks  19–20, 21, 43, 48, 54, 58 and sexuality  256, 265 and teacher education  367 teacher‐and‐texbook‐centred instruction  55 texts lack of neutrality  416–17 use of multiple  417–18 Theobald, R.  303 theory  575–8, 588 contextualizing findings with  181–5 hostility to  192 linking with research  574 and qualitative inquiry  121–2 and quantitative research  72, 73 relevance to social studies  191–2 and technology  510–11 see also constructivism Theory & Research in Social Education (TRSE) (journal)  69, 71, 103–10, 105, 107, 110, 116, 121, 196, 216, 217, 230, 231, 238, 246, 257–8, 263, 264–5, 368, 376, 501, 502, 509 Special Issue: Social Education and Sexual Identity  257–8, 263, 264–5 thick description  100–1, 573 Thiede, K.  303 Think Global  530 thinking children’s 389–400 student 271 see also historical thinking Third World, liberation  218–19

634 Index Thomas‐Brown, K.  150 Thorndike, Edward  47, 53 Thornton, S. J.  3, 23, 44, 231, 257, 258, 260–1, 262, 271, 367, 375, 445, 447, 448, 450, 533, 551 Tibbitts, F.  529 Title IX  232, 238 Tobin 272–3 Toledo, M. I.  325 Toomey Crockett, R. B.  300 Torney‐Purta, J.  73, 79, 82, 179–81, 287, 289, 290, 291, 292, 296–7, 308, 310, 394, 535–6, 542, 543, 544, 553 Torre, M. E.  299 Torrez, C.  462, 471–2 totalitarianism  49–50, 54, 59, 487 TPCK see technological pedagogical content knowledge traditional historical narratives  214, 221 traditional orientation  42, 44–6, 52–5, 56, 57, 58, 59, 132, 571 blending  271, 278 traditional values  536 Trafford, B.  302 transactional orientation  290 transformative action  529 transformative citizens  522 transformative orientation  290 transgender  231, 255 “transitional history” curriculum  10–11 transmission of information/content  44–5, 52–5, 271, 278, 290–1 transnationalism  301, 590 transparency 79–80 Trecker, J. L.  238 triangulation 177–8 “trickle‐up influences”  328 “Trojan horse” agenda  509 Trotsky, Leon  449 TRSE see Theory & Research in Social Education (TRSE) (journal) truth civic 304 and democracy  59 positivistic  230, 231 Tubman, H.  173, 239 Tucker, C. J.  298 Tucker, J.  532 Turkey  235, 240, 324 Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology 243 Tutsis 376

Two Spirit individuals  261 Tyack, D. B.  12, 15 Tye, B.  536 Tye, K.  524, 528, 530, 536 Tyson, C.  1, 152, 215–16, 228, 477, 570 uncertainty, teacher  184 underdevelopment 218 UNESCO  528, 530, 535, 541 Recommendation  1974 527 UNICEF 527 United Beyond Our Diversity program  545 United Kingdom (UK)  524, 551 United Nations (UN)  528 Conference on Environment and Development  1992 528 Global Education First Initiative (GEFI)  530, 541 United States  43–4, 49, 569, 571, 576, 578, 590–1 and assessment  465, 466, 469–70, 471, 584 and the Cold War  25–6 and controversial issues  579 and critical race theory  209–22 and critical theory  575 and disciplined inquiry  344–6, 580 and elementary education  385–8, 390, 391–2, 396–9, 405, 582 and emergent bilinguals  440–1, 444, 455 expunging the negative history of  200, 202–3 and gender issues  228, 231–2, 234–6, 238–43, 576–7 and global education  519–20, 524–5, 531–3, 535–8, 542, 544, 546–51 heterogeneous nature  52 and history focused social studies curricula 587 honesty regarding the difficult knowledge of 203 and Japanese Internment  323 and the media  486–7, 492, 584 rich‐poor divide  588 and same‐sex marriage  184 and the Second World War  23 and teacher education  580–1 and teacher professional development  580–1 and teaching controversial issues  323, 324, 326–9 United States Census Bureau  210, 211, 440 United States congress  228 United States Council of Chief States School Officers 535

Index 635 United States Department of Education  211, 508, 519 Teaching American History Grant program  385–6, 590 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 199–201 Universal Declaration of Human Rights  528 universal laws  47 universals, cultural  280, 389, 400–1, 581 Uphues, R.  544 Urdanivia‐English, C.  450 Urietta, L.  216 URT (item response theory) software  85 Ustinova, E.  525 Vagle, M. D.  96 Valencia, S. W.  425 validity 75–7 construct 467–8 content 467–8 ecological  16, 32, 33 face  75–6, 467–8, 470–2 internal  73–4, 80 statistical 76 Valle, R.  216 Valli, L.  371, 372 value conflict  59–60 value‐added assessment  68, 80 Van Ausdale, D.  397–8 van Boxtel, C.  175, 349 van der Linden, J. L.  349 van der Vaart, R.  544 van Dis, H.  547–8 Van Drie, J.  349 Van Gent, M.  541 van Hout‐Wolters, B.  175 Van Hover, S.  372 Van Ingen, L.  245 Van Manen, M.  4, 44, 136, 146, 151 van Middelkoop, D.  547–8 Van Sledright, B.  369 Van Sluys, K.  417 VanFossen, P. J.  77 VanSickle, R. L.  77 VanSledright, B.  57, 148, 149, 159, 181, 346, 391, 403, 406, 483 variables demographic 77 dependent  76, 292, 292, 308 independent 292, 292, 308 operationalizing 75–7 and secondary data analysis  81

Vasquez, V. M.  418 Vassar, B.  540 Verba, S.  295 Veugelers, W.  552 victims 325 Vietnam: A Television History (1983)  480, 486 Vietnam War  59, 480, 486 Vinson, K. D.  307 violence, and gender  246 Virginia  388, 441, 452 visual arts, integration  401 visual literacy  430–2 visual representation of knowledge  450–1, 454 vocabulary  427–8, 430, 445–6 volunteerism 296 von Davier, M.  79 Vygotsky, L. S.  274, 389 Wade, R.  145, 157–8, 159, 257, 258, 404 wage gender gap  228, 234 Wagner, K. A.  393–4 Wallen, N. E.  69, 71, 74, 76, 77 Wang, Y.  374, 447, 453 Warneken, F.  398 Warschauer, M.  499 Washington, G.  52, 388 Washington, H.  327 Washington State Office of Public Instruction (OSPI)  469, 470–1 Watras, J.  14–15, 19, 29, 31, 32 Wave, The (1981)  491–2 Web 2.0 tools 503 web‐based technology  242–3 Weber, B. R.  245 Weber, C. A.  16 Weber, N.  551–2 Webley, P.  396 Webster, N.  52 Wei, J.  238 Weiler, K.  232 Wells, C. W.  189 Wells, I. B.  237 Wells, S.  305 Wenger, E.  291 Wertsch, J.  182 West, C.  195, 214 West Wing, The (1999–2006)  492 Westheimer, J.  290, 393, 522 WGBH  480, 486 Whelan, M.  14 When the Levees Broke:… (2006)  480, 486 Whitcomb, J.  133

636 Index White, H.  50 White, M.  47 “white flight”  51 White males  194 White people  194, 210–13, 216 White privilege  145, 159 Whitehead, J.  135 whiteness  194, 201 Whitlock, A. M.  402 Whitman, W.  260, 264 Whitson, T.  364 Whitworth, S. A.  500 Wieman, C.  84–5 Wiesner‐Hanks, M.  244 Wilkenfeld, B.  289, 543 Williams, F. J.  237 Williamson, I.  297 Willingham, D.  366–7 Wills, J.  181, 182, 504 Wilson, A.  519, 537 Wilson, S.  364 Wineburg, S.  239, 243, 364, 368, 423, 482, 483 Winfrey, O.  239 Wisconsin 487 “wisdom of crowds”  81 Wise, H.  477 Woelders, A.  491 Wolfe, M.  425 Wolk, S.  417 Womanhood, Cult of True  238 women African American  239, 240, 576 contributions to social studies  13, 60, 572, 577, 589 and education  227–8 marginalization  228–9, 240, 244, 246 representation  14, 239, 240, 241, 246 teachers 232–4, 233 Women’s History Month  236–7, 577 women’s movement  232, 243, 258, 265 women’s rights  241, 244 women’s studies  28, 229 Wood, B. E.  178–9, 181 Wood, K.  418 Woodson, C.  49, 217

Woodward, J. A.  78 working memory  279 working‐classes  202, 304 World History  217–20, 244, 368–9, 587 world justice and governance  530 world studies  520 World‐Mindedness Scale  539–40, 544, 547–8 Woyshner, C.  10, 13, 33, 228, 230, 231, 237, 240, 245, 295, 576 Wray‐Lake, L.  296 writing 428–30 Xanthopoulos, J.  526 xenophobia 454 YAG see Youth Advocacy Group Yamashita, H.  537, 551 Yarrow, A. L.  25 Yates, G. C. R.  272 Yates, M.  292 YFU (Youth for Understanding) program  546 Youniss, J.  291, 292, 295 Yousafzai, M.  227, 229, 243, 247 youth  584, 585, 588, 589 ABCDEs of youth development  403 activism 554 and civic participation  178–9, 289 and democratic citizenship education  287–8, 289 immigrant 170–1 Youth Advocacy Group (YAG)  541 youth service learning  296 Youth for Understanding (YFU) program  546 Yuen, C.  541 Zehler, A.  440–1, 443 Zeichner, K.  136, 138, 146, 158, 360, 521, 522 Zeutschel, U.  546 Zhang, T.  73, 76, 78, 179–81, 278, 281 Zhao, Y.  509 Zimmerman, J.  322 Zinn, H.  44 Zola, J.  374 Zong, G.  519, 537, 539, 544, 545, 586 Zukin, C.  296 Zumeta, W.  343