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The Covid-19 pandemic was a transformative period for Sweden's upper secondary schools. During a period in social studies, teachers have not been allowed to talk about or reflect on these experiences. As future social studies teachers, we saw a need to investigate this issue. How a complex and vital subject like social studies, which is supposed to form democratic citizens, was affected by all the social changes that covid-19 contributed to in society. Therefore, we aimed to investigate how social studies teachers experienced the covid-19 pandemic, how their professional role, the relationship with the students, and the social studies subject was affected. We have used a qualitative methodological approach through a narrative interview method to interview social studies teachers at upper secondary schools in southern Sweden. The empirical work was analyzed using Pierre Bourdieu's capital- and field theory and Basil Bernstein's concepts of classification and framing. The study results show that social studies teachers' professional roles and relationships with students changed during the covid-19 pandemic. The teachers lost confidence, control and questioned their professional choice when the interaction between teachers and students deteriorated during distance learning. Consequently, the professional role changed, and the teachers have become more caring actors for the students. Social studies teaching was overcrowded and challenged by the social changes brought about by the covid-19 pandemic. The relevance of the social studies subject was strengthened and gained greater importance in a society in crisis. The school has returned to old habits as before the pandemic, and school organizations have yet to take advantage of the social studies teachers' experiences during the covid-19 pandemic.

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The overall objective of the research presented in this dissertation is to establish ways in which the Red Scare and Cold War eras impacted social studies education in Georgia from the 1930s through the 1960s. My position is that the decision by the Communist Party’s international leadership to support African Americans in the southern United States through legal defense and the organization of sharecroppers’ unions impacted white segregationists’ interpretation of subversive activity as being inclusive of racially liberal ideas. Social studies education in Georgia was affected by the policies and curriculum decisions made in the context of Red Scare and Cold War influences. An analysis of the historiography of communism in the United States reflects the changing tenor of uncertainty and fear that gripped Americans when it came to radical ideas contrary to the democratic capitalist tradition. Historians tend to agree that the Party’s efforts in the African American community had minimal impact. However, the calibration used by scholars to measure “impact” should be adjusted to look beyond changes in Communist membership numbers and whether the lives of blacks in the South improved. My focus in this study is the peripheral impact the efforts of the Communist Party had on southern white segregationists who began to equate racially liberal actions with subversive activity. Chapters in this dissertation focus on the formation of the Communist Party’s Black Belt Self-Determination Thesis and how it was carried out in the American South, national efforts to combat communist infiltration through loyalty oaths and textbook reviews, and the evolution of civic and democratic education initiatives in social studies. Georgia’s scandalous episode of the early 1940s involving Eugene Talmadge’s manipulation of the state’s educational system is presented as an example of how the concepts of subversion and racial liberalism were equated in an effort to maintain segregation in the state. These chapters provide evidence of the Red Scare and Cold War eras’ impact on social studies education in Georgia from the 1930s through the 1960s.

Change all but defines the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in American history. In the midst of these tumultuous times, America experienced a revolution of reform meant to develop and enhance all areas of life from politics to society, which led historians to call this time period the Progressive Era. However, the progress of the nation was not always the winning ideology. At times, the backlash against progressive ideas restrained innovators and caused them to disappear into the mires of history. One reformer who experienced this backlash was Fred Morrow Fling. Although he was an internationally-known historian, he remained a rather invisible history education reformer because his ideas were overshadowed by the enormous human events of his lifetime, including the work of other reformers and his unexpected death in 1934. As a trained scientific historian, Fling was a pioneer of historical method and the application of what became known as “source method” in the classroom and he espoused a radical approach to critical education that sought to embed a scientific approach into the teaching of history that has clear parallels with best teaching practices today. Thus, using traditional historical research methods and archival records from both Bowdoin College and the University of Nebraska, the author presents in this dissertation a biographical portrait of Fling’s life. Through the analysis of these historical documents and the evidence of his life recorded in publications and the public press, this portrait will serve to uncover both how Fred Morrow Fling’s conception of history education influenced his practice as a history professor and researcher and how Fred Morrow Fling’s philosophy of education formed and developed over his lifetime. Specifically, this author will consider: how can the philosophy of history education created by Fred Morrow Fling inform our current history education practices today? By investigating Fling’s life, researchers will finally be able to acknowledge Fling’s myriad contributions to history education, which are vital to composing a fuller picture of the history of social studies education.

Time and space is not regulated in the Swedish curriculum. In regard to that freedom, the aim of this study is to examine the choices teacher make when teaching social studies in primary school. The study proceed from the following questions: Which are the didactic tools, in special regard to how the tables are organized, how the time is used and other material resources? Which impact will the didactic tools have on the social relations in the classroom? Which effect does the two questions above have on the constitution of social studies as a school subject? The study is based on a qualitative method including both observations and interviews. The theoretical frame is the one of multimodal design. The results show that teachers’ choices are both conscious and unconscious. Their choices also impact on the social relations in the class and the pupils possibilities to participate. The pupils do not have as much freedom in time and space to express themselves as the teachers do. A fact teachers doesn’t seem to reflect. In what way teachers’ choices have an impact on the constitution of social studies is harder to show.

In this thesis I probe into British Columbia’s (BC) Kindergarten to Grade 12 Social Studies curriculum to determine how adequately it adheres to Canada’s international treaty obligations. I give particular attention to the duties regarding dissemination of information about, through, and for human rights principles and norms that are contained within the United Nations (UN) 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (Convention) and the UN 2011 Declaration of Human Rights Education and Training (DHRET). To accomplish this, I first develop a compliance assessment tool that is based on international human rights legal standards. This tool is then used in a normative inquiry into BC’s current Social Studies curriculum to assess the extent to which its educational aim, and its conception of the learner, learning process, learning environment, teacher’s role, and evaluation satisfies the international human rights education law requirements that are articulated in the treaties that Canada has ratified. The knowledge that is generated from this investigation is of value to BC’s Ministry of Education and members of the public who are involved in BC’s curriculum development and revision, because it creates a benchmark from which to “take more active measures to systematically disseminate and promote” (UN, 2012, paragraph 25) knowledge about international human rights in BC’s schools. / Graduate

The problem with which this investigation is concerned is the effect of work-study method instruction upon the achievement of students in fifth grade social studies. The purpose of this investigation is to determine the effects of the SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review) Study Method instruction upon the achievement of students in fifth grade social studies. The subjects ranged in age from ten years two months to thirteen years three months. Th I.Q. for the subjects ranged from 70 to 135. Of the 102 subjects involved in the study, 42 were male and 60 were female. The I.Q. score from the California Test of Mental Maturity, S Form was used to structure the subjects into three intelligence levels. Fifty-four subjects served as the experimental group, and forty-eight served as the control group. The instrument used to obtain pretest and posttest scores on the variable relating to achievement was the SRA Assessment Survey, Blue Level. Form E was used for the pretest, and Form F was used for the posttest. The subjects were assigned to four classes which were near equal. Two classes were selected by the principal to serve as the experimental group. The other two classes served as the control group. The investigator spent equal time with the control and the experimental group. The four classroom teachers rotated between experimental and control groups on an equal basis. Students in the experimental group met nineteen times during the study for a thirty-minute period. During these sessions, the experimental subjects used the SQ3R Study Method to do social studies assignments. The control group met for the same number of sessions and for an equal amount of time. They worked with the same content but without using the SQ3R Study Method. The analysis of covariance was employed with pretest scores as the covariant.

The purpose of this study is to examine teachers’ perceptions of language development in social studies. Questions that will try to be answered are: How do teachers in social studies regarding grades 4-6 account for pupils’ language development in planning, teaching and grading? What difficulties do teachers experience while working with language development? What kind of support do teachers feel that they need in order to work effectively with language development? Research has showed that language is our primary tool for learning in all subjects. A language developing education is contextual, contains scaffolding and a lot of opportunities for interaction. Teachers have an important role to play in creating context that benefits pupils’ knowledge, linguistic and personal development. Earlier studies have showed that many teachers lack competence in how to work with language and knowledge development. This study concludes that teachers take into account pupils’ prior knowledge and that they understand the importance of working with different methods based on interaction and scaffolding to develop their pupils’ subject and linguistic capability. The main difficulty that teachers reported was the difficulty in adapting the education to the pupils’ different abilities. They also acknowledged the development of the specialized school language with its abstract words as a difficulty. Teachers reported that the best support in this process was collegial learning, internal education and language development models/tools.