Thomas Wartenberg offers his book as a guide that will provide elementary school teachers what they need to facilitate philosophical discussions with children. My concerns are centered on the nature and role of philosophical discussion, the level of philosophical acumen needed for facilitating such discussion, and the role of character development…

This short commentary offers praise for Tom Wartenberg's book "Big Ideas for Little Kids" and raises questions about who is best qualified to lead a philosophy discussion with children, and how we are to assess the benefits of doing philosophy with children.

Home geography was the principal means by which primary students in the United States learned about the social world from the 1890s through the 1920s. This subject was rooted in the German subject of Heimatkunde, and it reflected the changing nature of the academic discipline of geography in the late nineteenth century. Its content focused on…

This study investigated the degree to which beliefs about democratic theory and practice taught in a social studies methods course would persist after the transition to in-service teaching. The 27 participants were pre-service teachers at initial data collection and first-year in-service teachers at final data collection. Data were collected…

This article presents a portrait of practice of one social studies methods professor engaged in teaching his course and analyzes the choices the professor makes during the semester. These choices are linked to his philosophy of social studies education with particular attention paid to his passionate belief in the American story as the core of…

In response to the growing concern of the marginalization of social studies education, members of the North Carolina Professors of Social Studies Education (NCPSSE) organization began a longitudinal study in 2003 to examine elementary social studies education. This study is part of a statewide initiative among six universities in the North…

Very little information exists about children's prior knowledge and thinking (including misconceptions) about transportation, a topic commonly taught in elementary social studies. To develop such information, individual interviews were conducted with 96 K-3 students, stratified according to grade level, achievement level, and gender. The students…

The objective of this historical analysis is to determine the origins of the American elementary history/social studies curriculum and to determine how nationalism affected the curriculum as it progressed in the early twentieth century. The Committee of Eight (Co8), established by the American Historical Association in 1905, created the first…

Because moral, value, and character education often seem marginalized in pre-service secondary social studies education courses, I sought to determine if and how moral education is addressed at the elementary level. In this article, I examine both elementary social studies methods instruction and literature through a moral education lens and argue…

Examines how the reading of two revisionist history text accounts concerning U.S. President Andrew Jackson influenced the historical interpretations and understanding of two prospective elementary teachers. Suggests that rhetorically powerful revisionist history texts may have the capacity to re-narrativize the thinking of prospective teachers…

Examines current research in the field of educational telecommunications through the lens of the social studies methods course. States that the findings reveal the benefits and drawbacks of using computer mediated communication in methods courses between two universities. Provides recommendations for effective future implementation and includes…

Describes the experiences of fifth and sixth grade elementary students and their teachers (n=3) who taught a social studies unit using the Engle-Ochoa Decision-Making Model, an issues-centered instruction model. Examines the reactions of the teachers and students. (CMK)

Shows how a curriculum focusing on the concept of conflict was tied tightly to social studies and other subject area learning goals and woven around global as well as interpersonal problems. Presents analysis of descriptive vignettes selected to represent evidence of the curriculum process and content and students' developing understandings of…

Presents an historical case study on the transplanting of curricular and instructional practices to Queensland (Australia) from the United States. Focuses on two eras of curriculum development and reform from 1969-71 and 1981-89. Finds that curriculum workers in the 1980s were more distanced from the efforts in the United States. (CMK)

Examines the problems that elementary school teachers perceive in teaching social studies in the Eastern Caribbean. Reveals that respondents identified nine problems; the most often mentioned were a lack of resource materials, invariability in teaching strategies, lack of administrative support, and negative attitudes of teachers and students…