Given the growing cultural and economic diversity of today’s students, this qualitative case study investigates how 4 social studies preservice teachers taught for critical multicultural citizenship during their student teaching semester. The tenets of critical citizenship emerge out of the intersection of critical pedagogy and multicultural education. These tenets for critical multicultural citizenship education include seeking out and challenging gaps in democracy, promoting critical reflection and consciousness, and advocating for collective action to transform institutional injustices. This case study traced perspectives held by participants about the nature of democracy and citizenship and explored how these preservice teachers enacted these views in their classroom teaching. Data collection measures included five observations, reflective journals, three interviews, and other assignments related to the participant’s student teaching coursework. Findings suggest that these participants, all preservice teachers of color, adopted views and teaching practices that aligned with critical multicultural citizenship; however, participants struggled to overcome constraints in their student teaching contexts in order to teach for this kind of citizenship. / text

This critical case study investigated the experiences of ten White preservice social studies and language arts teachers as they learned about race and racism during the first semester of an urban-focused teacher preparation program. Through observation, interview, and artifact data, this inquiry analyzed how the preservice teachers engaged with the topic of race through the conceptual framework of critical Whiteness studies. This theoretical lens seeks to identify the normalized, oppressive practices of Whiteness with the goal of reorienting those practices in antiracist ways. The author identified two broad themes of transgressive White racial knowledge and conventional White racial knowledge to characterize the progressive and problematic aspects, respectively, of the preservice teachers’ engagement with race. The participants displayed transgressive White racial knowledge through the way they combatted deficit thinking toward urban students and through their knowledge of the mechanics of Whiteness and structural racism. They displayed conventional White racial knowledge through their stories of early experiences with racial difference, their use of subtle resistance discourses during race conversations, and their tendency to misappropriate critical racial discourses. As a whole, the racial knowledge of the ten White preservice teachers points to conflicted, ambivalent feelings at the core of their racial identities. Their desires to talk about race and to develop an antiracist teaching practice were mediated by competing desires to maintain their identities as “good Whites” and to protect their investments in Whiteness. The complex ways that these White preservice teachers engaged with critical racial discourses have significant implications for critical Whiteness studies, teacher education, and social studies education. Their willingness to explore race in a critical fashion should push teacher educators to resist homogenizing, deficit views of the antiracist potential of White teachers. However, their problematic engagement with race points to the importance of viewing White identity as conflicted. If antiracist pedagogies begin with this understanding of White racial identity, they can encourage profound shifts in the ontology, epistemology, and methodology of Whiteness. These shifts can help White teachers to develop racial literacy and to build an antiracist teaching practice. / text

This qualitative multiple case study focused on how three African American women social studies teachers conceptualized and taught notions of citizenship. By using a Black feminist conceptual framework, the author explored how the multiple intersections of the teachers’ identities impacted how they understood and taught notions of citizenship. As a result of their lived experiences and situated knowledge, the participants rejected the dominant narrative of citizenship because it was not inclusive of diverse perspectives or histories. Instead, the participants taught a notion of citizenship that centered on valuing notions of community and working towards racial and community uplift. This study hopes to shed light on how African American women teachers’ alternative notions of citizenship may provide a framework by which reconceptualized views of American citizenship may be presented. / text

In the social studies classroom, using technology, students may gain access to expansive knowledge, broaden their exposure to diverse people and perspectives, and engage in critical thinking activities necessary for citizenship education (Berson, 1996; Berson & Balyta, 2004; Berson & Berson, 2003; Bolick, McGlinn, & Siko, 2005; NCSS, 1994, 2006; Risinger, 1996; Whitworth & Berson, 2003). 21st Century Skills are valuable for students as they examine vast amounts of content relating to historical events, figures, societies, technological growth and examine the relationship of the content to today's global interactions. Research indicates that there remains a call for documentation of exemplary uses beyond that of research and basic presentation tools (Berson & Balyta, 2004; Bolick, McGlinn, & Siko, 2005; Kopkowski, 2006; NCSS, 2006; NEA, 2004; Technology Counts, 2006; U.S. Department of Education, 2004, 2005; Whitworth & Berson, 2003). The continued need for research in the field should address the intersection of content, current effective technology practice, and pedagogy of innovative uses of technology in the classroom while offering a model or steps for use (Berson, 1996; Berson & Balyta, 2004; Berson, Lee, & Stuckart, 2001; Bolick, McGlinn, & Siko, 2005; Braun, 2002; Bull et al., 2007; CUFA Opening Session, 2005; Diem, 2000; Doolittle & Hicks, 2003; McGlinn, 2007; Mishra & Koehler, 2006; NCSS, 2006; Shulman, 1986; Whitworth & Berson, 2003). This study examined the types of technology being used in secondary World History classes and how they are being integrated. The study utilized a mixed-method approach using a survey instrument, Perceptions of Computers and Technology, designed to measure the types of software and integration of technology use in classrooms. Written responses and follow-up of randomly selected cases served to provide complementary data to elaborate and clarify results from the quantitative portions of the analysis (Hogarty, Lang, & Kromrey, 2003; Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004; Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2003).

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The general aim in conducting this research is to investigate the teaching and learning of Social Studies in Nigeria and to understand how it is taught and its role in fostering tolerance and appreciation for cultural differences. However, teachers of Social Studies often adopt different methods. Hence, it is important to understand how their teaching impacts upon the day to day lives of Nigerians. This study is made up three discrete studies, each building upon the one before, but all three studies tell a story. Several types of data collection methods were used to obtain the findings. These included interviews, questionnaires and a class-based study. The first study explored qualitatively how ex-students have used the knowledge they gained in Social Studies in their daily lives. The second study was conducted to examine the challenges that teachers’ faced in the delivery of the Social Studies curriculum while the third study focused on the effectiveness of a scaffolded approach in the teaching and learning of Social Studies. The findings revealed that there is a tension in the curriculum between how participants perceived Social Studies and the purpose of Social Studies as defined by the Government in Nigeria. The aims and objectives of the current Social Studies curriculum jar with the issues that some participants identified as being relevant to their daily lives. It also revealed that not all the teachers are Social Studies specialists, there are some non-specialist teachers teaching Social Studies. This may have accounted for diversity of teaching methods and opportunities. It was also reported that the curriculum content in Social Studies is not adequate for addressing the social issues and problems that face Nigeria today. The findings also show that using a scaffolded approach seems to have promoted students’ learning around issues relevant to their lives in Nigeria. The findings from this study revealed that there is a tension in the curriculum; it is my contention that it can be improved by using a scaffolded approach and by ensuring that Social Studies specialists deliver the content.

This qualitative multiple case study conducted from an interpretive epistemological stance, focused on three novice social studies teachers decision making practices in regards to the use critical historical thinking. In seeking to understand teacher’s decision making practices, this research explored the bodies of knowledge that influence social studies teachers’ use of historical thinking in more critical ways. The theoretical framework guiding this research centered around three major frames: (1) the roots of teacher knowledge, including such things as teacher beliefs, teacher education experiences, and teacher content knowledge, (2) the bodies of teacher knowledge informed by these roots including official knowledge, and emancipatory or counter knowledge, and (3) how these bodies of knowledge lead to curricular enactment of critical historical thinking. Data analysis revealed four results that shaped teachers’ decisions and ability to use critical historical thinking in their classroom. The first three results highlight the bodies of knowledge teachers’ utilized in their decision-making practices, including their experiential knowledge, such as their familial and K-16 schooling experiences, content knowledge, both their knowledge of official and subjugated narratives, and pedagogical content knowledge. The final result explores how these bodies of knowledge interact with teachers’ schooling contexts. Findings suggest that historical positionality shapes not only the learning process, but the teaching process as well. A teachers’ historical positionality influences the way they are able to engage students in more critical renditions of the past. Teachers’ personal experiences inform their historical positionality, including their rationale and commitment to choose particular curriculum and pedagogical practices that address issues of race, class, and gender. Additionally, teachers’ critical content consciousness or the degree to which they are able negotiate the distance between their academic content knowledge and their beliefs about the past also shape their decisions to use critical historical thinking as a regular pedagogical practice. Finally, the last finding highlights the complex process teachers’ engage in as they navigate the external factors that press in on their daily teaching practice in ways that are critically ambitious. As such, the findings from this study have implications for both preservice and inservice teacher preparation. / text

This work traces the relationship of individual persons to national economic phenomena associated with consumer finance. The work follows the assemblage of individual consumer credit/debt agents through credit reporting and credit scoring, through to the aggregation of these agents in student loan-backed securitization and credit ratings. The work focuses on the unique technico-cultural constructions produced when human subjects are operatively conjoined to other related discursive and material objects, including related legislation, private corporations, and governmental bodies. The work explores how these unique constructions form stable networks connecting individuals to larger socio-economic settings: networks at once revealing the profoundly distributed nature of both ‘agents’ and their ‘agency,’ and at the same time intimating alternative approaches to questions of individual and collective agency outside the agent/structure dichotomy. The work concludes by addressing the place of this research in consumer finance generally, and the role of consumer finance in contemporary US economics broadly.

The content area of social studies has not been given as much attention as its counterparts despite its inclusion in the state wide TAKS exam in Texas. All students in grades 8, 10, and 11 are required to take the social studies portion, and must pass it in order to graduate. The consequences of such a test and the importance of social studies in the everyday lives of students make this content area important. In addition, since ESL students constitute a considerable segment of the student population in our schools nowadays, it is essential that educators understand the challenges these students face and the experiences they go through in such content areas and tests; thus, their performance in the TAKS exam is examined in this study. The purpose of this study was to analyze the performance of ESL students in the social studies TAKS exams in grades 8 and 11 in relation to content (represented by the five objectives of the test), and question item format (limited to two text-enriched question types: excerpt-based, and bullet-point questions). The study also sought to find the effects of demographic variables on student performance. The results of the study can further familiarize educators with the challenges ESL students face in social studies to be able to assist them succeed in their classrooms and on standardized tests. This study utilized secondary data analysis with a set of data provided from the Texas Education Agency. The data included information of the students who took the Spring 2003, 2006, and 2009 social studies TAKS exams, which allowed the researcher to conduct longitudinal analysis to further support the results. Overall, the study was non-experimental and descriptive in nature. A statistical significant difference was found between the percentages of correct answers by objective. ESL students performed better on objectives 3 (economics) and 5 (social studies skills), while lagging behind in objective 1 (history). The results were also confirmed in the longitudinal study that showed that although ESL students’ performance increased in all five objectives, there was statistically significant difference in the performance of ESL students among the objectives. In relation to question type, ESL students chose more correct answers for the bullet-point questions than they did for the excerpt-based questions with statistical significance. Longitudinal analysis of excerpt-based questions only showed that ESL students who took the exam in 11th grade three years after taking it in 8th grade, achieved higher. Finally, the results of the study show that the three demographic variables of gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic status had an effect on the performance of ESL students. Overall, males scored higher than females, economically non-disadvantaged students outperformed disadvantaged students, and Hispanic ESL students had the lowest scores of all the ethnic groups.

One of the enduring characteristics of history and social studies curricula in the past century has been their continuous recycling of previous trends. From the progressive educators at the turn of the century to the "new social studies" movement in the 1960s and 1970s, the social studies curricula continued to demonstrate a lack of awareness of its own history. This trend continues today, but with a new twist. The culture wars have brought about an awareness of content that is different from past curricula. History has evolved over the course of the twentieth century from the grand narrative to an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the past. This has migrated into secondary classrooms as teachers' help students grapple with various interpretations of historical events. The purpose of this dissertation is to review these historical changes, and to investigate what is being taught in American classrooms today. To learn this, I surveyed a group of teachers involved in a program sponsored by the College Board entitled Vertical Teams Social Studies (VTSS), a multi-grade approach to building student skills and content mastery to prepare them for the rigors of an Advanced Placement course in high school. One finding indicated that the issue of content versus process remains potent today. A second finding demonstrated that the teachers surveyed have strong reactions to standards-based testing. A third finding indicated that middle school teachers, with an academic background in history, were more likely to identify with the multi-disciplinary approach to history than their high school counterparts, who viewed their work more in terms of a federation of social sciences. Finally, the teachers surveyed raised questions about teacher education, and particularly what combination of disciplines secondary teachers should be trained to teach: history or social studies? Although sixty percent of the teachers surveyed claim they are social studies teachers, they are teaching more history (fifty-nine percent) than social studies (thirty-two percent). Because the culture wars appear to be far from over, the findings also provide fertile ground for future research as we strive to understand what is being taught and learned in American classrooms.