During the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-Asian violence in the United States has risen significantly. Many Asian American students have been disproportionately harassed in schools and fear resuming in-person learning. Thus, educators must resist returning to the old normal. Instead, they can reimagine the pandemic as a portal to justice for Asian…

World history curriculum in the United States is Eurocentric. By downplaying contributions from non-Western societies, state standards of world history in the modern era create a narrative of the West as a driver of progress and Europe as the primary protagonist of global events. Research further shows social studies teachers rely on such state…

Research indicates that social studies classrooms, as they currently exist, are a site of suffering for Black students. This is largely because social studies curricula limit Black experiences to oppression and liberation. In this article, we propose implementing and centering Black joy in social studies classrooms to help social studies education…

This article presents a qualitative practitioner research study designed to understand how a morally complex Israel curriculum impacts the nature of secondary school students' relationships with Israel. The research was conducted with 31 students enrolled in an elective about Israeli society at a Jewish high school in Canada. At both the start and…

In this article, the authors discuss how to explore the agency of ordinary citizens using local institutions to combat Jim Crow segregation laws during Freedom Summer. Primary sources from Miami (OH) University website about Freedom Summer and Susan Goldman Rubin's trade book ground the inquiry. Through the series of activities discussed, middle…

A quarter of a century has passed since lawmakers enacted the New Jersey Holocaust education mandate, and it seems responsible and timely to ask if it, the original Holocaust education mandate, actually encouraged substantive learning about the Holocaust. Despite repeated fanfare about the mandate and its inclusion in educational curricula…

This essay is a critical analysis of elements of the Social Studies Toolkit and related materials developed by the New York State Education Department. It addresses misunderstandings of historical theory and method and the presentation of historical knowledge and information by department staff and affiliates, the consequences of which puts…

The emergence of the Times Up and the #MeToo movements has sparked a conversation in the United States uncovering the grim realities that many women face. As the focus on gender equity and power dynamics between men and women continue to garner national attention, the authors of this article were curious to see if this progress manifested itself…

Youth are an ever-present component of conversations about culture, interconnectedness, and its effects, especially characterized as readily consuming all that globalization has to offer them. However, opportunities to acknowledge and legitimize the civic experiences youth have and the contributions they make to society have been overlooked in our…

The Wake County Public School System (WCPSS), in the state of North Carolina, has gone through considerable recent effort to revise, support, and assess their seventh-grade social studies curriculum in an effort to serve three goals: comply with the Common Core State Standards (Common Core), comply with the North Carolina Essential Standards…

In this historical study, the author reexamines the relationship and role of social efficiency and scientific curriculum making in the early years of the social studies (1916-1929). The author argues that historians have applied the term "social efficiency" too bluntly to label and ultimately dismiss a variety of educational reformers in…

This article addresses how far educational institutions have come in designing authentic and meaningful curricula for teaching the Holocaust at the secondary level. Examined in this article are the historical development of Holocaust education in the United States, with a focus on the state of Illinois as a case study, what contributes to the…

Social studies education plays an important role in preparing students for a diverse, pluralistic democratic citizenry (NCSS 2010). While the field has made some gains in addressing the needs of various marginalized communities within the curriculum, there has been very little progress in incorporating LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender,…

Drawing on a three-year multimethod study of civic engagement within "Dewey Elementary," this article identifies the contextual supports of civic efficacy. In particular, it works to map the role of the teacher in supporting the civic action and efficacy of six fifth-grade girls who requested changes to the school's existing lunch plan.…

Given the current national debate over immigration reform and the plethora of anti-immigrant policies, practices, and laws, school curriculums should include materials that will allow students to learn about, and reflect on, the impact this debate has on the lived realities of those most impacted. Specifically, teachers and their students will…