Feminist practices can provide firm theoretical grounding for the kind of social studies that scholars promote, especially in relation to efforts to include women in the curriculum. However, in P-12 social studies education, neither women nor feminism receive much attention. The study described in this article was a discourse analysis of 16…

Recent education literature and research has focused on identifying effective core teaching practices to inform and help shape teacher education and professional development. Although a rich literature on the teaching and learning of history has continued to develop over the past decade, core practice research has largely overlooked…

Amid the recent proliferation of teacher-led movements resisting high-stakes testing across the United States, the authors identify how a "failing" elementary school reclaimed local discourse by taking political action against top-down measures. Framed as competing modes of school reform, the authors offer the sociocultural framework of…

The author explores significant points of intersection between foundational tenets of the social studies and the lessons learned by students in the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) at one Midwestern high school. He suggests new ways social studies researchers and teachers might conceptualize the ideas and themes promoted in GSAs and apply them directly…

Globalization has unleashed profound changes in education. These include positivistic international school comparisons, a singular focus on schools as drivers of economic development, and the adoption of neoliberal market principles in school. These changes, however, generally go unexamined within the field and literature of global education.…

Social studies researchers across a wide geographical area assessed the degree of authentic intellectual challenge present in a diverse sample of U.S. classrooms, investigated whether students from different social and academic contexts were more likely to encounter authentic pedagogy than others, and examined how the level of authentic pedagogy…

This study explores the implementation of a Holocaust curriculum, designed for Latvian schools through the method of curriculum deliberation, five years after its enactment. By exploring the complexity of implementation, the study provides a generative knowledge base for curriculum proposals, symposia, and other initiatives that seek to disrupt…

Numerous critics of the social studies have argued that the four-year pattern of chronological history courses in place in most U.S. schools was suddenly and pervasively replaced by interdisciplinary courses recommended by the NEA Committee on Social Studies report in 1916. In this historical study, the author challenges this view. By drawing upon…

This document-based historical study explores the nature of the Jewish social studies curriculum in American Jewish schools in the early 20th century (c.1910-1940), a period of significant growth and reform in the modern American Jewish education enterprise. "Jewish social studies" refers to school programs in which Jewish history, Jewish…

This article explores preservice teachers' resistance to elementary history teaching that makes explicit and accessible the construction of historical knowledge for students. Using qualitative data from a 3-semester-long critical action research study, the author examines two themes of resistance voiced by a majority of 70 preservice teachers:…

As we engage our students in social studies topics--whether at the college level or the secondary level--we are charged with promoting habits of mind and thought that produce our country's citizens. If we are doing our jobs, we are insistent about finding ways to connect the democracy in our classrooms with the democracy in our culture, and thus…

Scholarship on globalization suggests that new forms of democratic citizenship and politics are emerging, yet the U.S. educational system remains resistant to global perspectives in the curriculum and continues to favor national identity and patriotism over learning about the world. A national approach to citizenship, which is the norm in U.S.…

There are at least two good reasons to pay serious attention to the latest skirmish in the social studies wars. First, it is one of the most prominent examples of "movement conservatism" to involve established social studies researchers; and secondly, it provides an opportunity for social educators to scrutinize the fundamental dilemma embedded in…

Global education constitutes a pedagogy of peacebuilding citizenship education for the purpose of empowering teachers in building a more just and peaceful world. In this self-study, I examined simulations of the United Nations General Assembly conducted in a graduate elective course attended by 53 preservice and inservice teachers during three…

The call for support of beginning teachers has ebbed and flowed over the years with the tide of educational reform. Recently, the call has taken on a more urgent and distinct tenor, focusing on specialized support for secondary teachers. This paper reviews social studies education literature in view of making the case for specialized support…