Today, young people are immersed in a complicated media ecology that promotes an infodemic of disinformation and profit-driven spin while simultaneously presenting extraordinary opportunities for participatory engagement. The social studies classroom is a critical platform for preparing the next generation to cope and thrive amid this…

Teaching students to act as citizens significantly enhances preparation for college and career. It is incumbent upon the National Council for the Social Studies to provide guidance to states and local districts to develop social studies standards to achieve this goal. The recommendations presented here focus on the principle that standards…

The National Council for the Social Studies affirms the importance of teaching and learning about human rights "from early childhood through advanced education and lifelong learning." Today, as the challenges to human rights and democracy have proliferated across the globe and domestically, NCSS renews and expands that commitment,…

Author Bryan Smith agrees that critiques of Sir John A. Macdonald, and Cornwallis as unworthy of public commemoration are warranted and necessary, particularly as each was instrumental in cementing settler-colonial projects of dominion and erasure of Indigenous populations. However, he observes that each figure is but one point (or multiple) in…

With public debates surrounding the removal of historical monuments in Canada (e.g., statues of, or schools named after, John A. Macdonald) and the United States (e.g., Confederate monuments), at times the voices of those who are most directly affected by their presence can be either drowned out or left out of the conversation entirely. It seems…

The author argues that in order to create space for authentic multicultural engagement in the face of Eurocentric norms, teachers should form discussion groups that follow five basic guidelines: engage, don't enrage; be comfortable with negative emotion; watch for and change unproductive language; talk about everything; and engage in classroom…

This special issue of "Canadian Social Studies" is dedicated to Roger I. Simon. Simon's scholarship bequeaths to theorists, teachers, and curators across Canada and beyond a theory of education that opens up responsibilities to past and present others. The papers gathered for this special issue address many of the difficulties that he…

In this article, the author, a professor, muses over his educational life and the troublesome times he faced. He remarks that he was glad to have had wise voices who could call him to other possibilities, visions, and stories. Roger Simon was one of the most important wise voices he heard, and this sustained the spirit of his work. While many…

This article is a response to "The Shaky Legal Foundations of the Global Human Rights Education Project," an article written by Barend Vlaardingerbroek, in which Vlaardingerbroek characterizes current practices of human rights education (HRE) as having an overriding agenda of activism, one that can draw on an ideologically-driven…

How best to move on with life was the challenge of the families of those who died on 9/11. The choice of one family to do something positive to perpetuate the human spirit is related through creative endeavors that bring rewarding memories and encourage others to rejoice in service and understanding for individual needs and talents. (Contains 5…

The experience of 9/11 prompted a transformation in one secondary teacher's approach to teaching controversial subjects based on the relevance to today's students. Soon after that fateful day, this teacher found a purpose and rationale for developing a very demanding curriculum on 9/11, and relates how his teaching unit has evolved by expanding…

This article describes the personal and pedagogical contexts for the development of a 9/11 curriculum. The author relates his own experiences learning of the event and teaching it soon afterwards and the subsequent development of a nationally distributed 9/11 curriculum.

In light of the common mission of social studies education to prepare future democratic citizens, the field continues to be rooted in didactic and monologic practices. Finding an alibi in the current accountability movement that favors teaching about democracy instead of teaching through democracy, many social studies teachers have reneged on…

This autobiographical piece of collaborative discensus (Gershon, 2008; Gershon, Peel & Bilinovich, 2009) presents the authors' interwoven perspectives about the challenges they faced as they talked about race in a pre-service social studies class. Their work here serves two main purposes. First it is an opportunity for a teacher and two former…

When he looks back to the 1960s, the author feels sentimental about the New Social Studies movement that began very strong and then suddenly disintegrated. At the time of the genesis of the movement, there was a group of professionals, representing both the social sciences and education, who felt they had a vision of what was needed to revitalize…