The purpose of this study is to investigate and analyze some of the current objectives and recommended teaching procedures in the social studies at the adolescent level to determine the relationship, if any, existing between them.

The specific purpose of this study is to endeavor to find a method of teaching social studies in order for it to contribute to intelligent problem solving in democratic living. To meet this challenge, the method must be democratically, psychologically, and sociologically sound. The purpose is to select and test some type of courses of study most commonly used or suggested by the helpful educators in the social studies field.

The purpose of this study is to make a comparative analysis of the adopted textbooks for the sixth and seventh grades in social studies in the public schools of Texas from 1913 until the present time, 1949, to determine changes in concepts of presenting and teaching social studies during this time.

The purpose of this study is to examine literature and thought in the field of elementary social studies curriculum, to establish criteria for determining the adequacy of a fourth-grade social studies program and to examine, analyze and evaluate the fourth-grade social studies programs of ten Texas public school systems in order to determine how effectively they meet these criteria.

The purpose of this study is: (1) to determine a criteria for evaluating proposed social studies programs; (2) to review fifth grade bulletins in social studies from five widely separated school systems in the United States, to make an analysis of their aims, methods, and materials, and to determine whether they meet accepted professional standards; (3) to make suggestions for improving the fifth grade social studies as a result of this analysis.

The problem of this study is to establish criteria of psychological factors that should be included in a social studies educational program of the elementary grades to measure the program planned for the social studies of the elementary grades of the Houston, El Paso, Fort Worth, and Amarillo, Texas, public schools.

The purpose of this study was to investigate factors influencing teachers' decisions to use textbooks in United States history classrooms. Textbook use was investigated in terms of planning and preparing classroom instruction, student assignments, teachers' attitudes toward reading and student comprehension abilities, textbook quality, and alternative resources. A chi-square analysis was conducted to determine significant relationships between factors.

The EL (English learner) population is rapidly growing in the United States. ELs most often are finding themselves placed in classrooms without ESOL trained teachers. In the social studies curriculum, United States History often is regarded as one of the hardest courses for newly arrived immigrants due to the unfamiliarity of the content (Dunne & Martell, 2013). The absence of culturally relevant instruction also contributes to the potentially overwhelming nature of the social studies curriculum for ELs. The purpose of this study is to determine the extent teachers’ and tutors’ use of culturally relevant biographies during social studies instruction fosters engagement in social studies instruction among Latino English language learners. The research study was inspired by the work of Margaret Peters, retired Dayton, Ohio United States History teacher and author. In 1969 Peters wrote a book entitled, Striving to Overcome, Negro Achievers. The book featured twenty-one short biographies and pictures of African Americans who had impacted the history of the United States. Peters’ purpose for creating the book was to “free” young Americans from prejudice (Watras, 2012). In significance to this study, eight culturally relevant biographies were available to the participants. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the value of incorporating culturally and linguistically relevant biographies into ESOL social studies instruction. The study answered two questions: (1) How do ESOL teachers and tutors perceive culturally relevant biography integration during United States History instruction? and (2) How does the use of culturally relevant biographies impact teacher and tutor reported student engagement with EL Latino students? The following research methods were employed: participant interviews, field notes, observations, and participant reported student engagement questionnaires. The findings of this study showed benefit for student engagement among Latino ELs. The participant base largely echoed that studying historical individuals relatable to students was better than studying historical events. Participants all said they would use culturally relevant biographies in future instruction.

The present study used Nardi and O’Day’s (1999) information ecology theory, along with activity theory (Wertsch, 1998), social learning theory (Wenger, 1998), and situated learning theory (Lave, 2009; Lave & Wenger, 1991) to examine the informal professional learning of a high school social studies department. Existing literature is just beginning to attend to the potential of informal professional learning, so this exploratory study used a single-case study of a high school social studies department made up of 12 teachers. Data included observations of scheduled and spontaneous collaborative learning activities, department meetings, and in-service meetings; semi-structured interviews; and relevant documents to consider how high school social studies teacher participants navigate their own informal professional learning. Supporting research questions included: (1) How do high school social studies teacher participants choose what to do to individually and collectively meet their professional learning needs? (2) What actions do participants take to meet their professional learning needs individually and collectively? (3) How do participants evaluate their professional learning growth individually and collectively? (4) How do participants interact with one another and with the environment as they navigate their own professional learning? Results indicated that participants valued their informal professional learning experiences, engaged in reflection throughout their informal professional learning, were influenced by departmental leadership, and experienced successes and failures in their informal professional learning goals. The department’s informal professional learning was important but also imperfect. Further consideration of teachers’ informal professional learning may offer new ways to support teacher growth.

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