Grounded in the assumption that our worlds are inherently spatial, this conceptual article offers an invitation to meaningful dialog about how critical approaches to, and understandings of, space in the theorization, design, and purpose of social studies education research might offer another path forward (or productively sideways) for justice-centered scholarship. We aim to highlight the potential of spatialized ontologies, outline the spatial turn in education research, and articulate the relevance and potential of spatial justice for social studies research. The spatial justice invitation we offer entails four "entry points" (epistemological positions and theoretical perspectives, research questions and methodological approach, methods of data collection and analysis, and research representation and dissemination) alongside one reflexive "center point" (ontology and positionality) for social studies researchers to consider when employing spatial justice in their scholarship. Using the "case" of classroom censorship laws, this article offers generative ways of thinking about social justice in social studies educational research by providing novel directions for inquiry into pervasive issues. To this end, we argue that critical spatial frameworks are poised to invite inquiry and analysis of the social studies disciplines (e.g. economics, geography, history, political science) to advance both dialog and praxis of the liberatory aims of social studies research, teaching, and practice.
Drawing on a year-long study, this article explores the pedagogical practices of a U.S. secondary social studies teacher working with refugee-background students. Framed by Critical Refugee Studies, a theoretical approach that critiques dominant humanitarian, saviorist, and assimilationist discourses while centering refugees as active agents of political and social critique and as producers of their own epistemologies, this study examines how the teacher engages refugee-background students in his social studies classroom and how the ideas of Critical Refugee Studies are reflected in his instructional and pedagogical approaches. The findings highlight several key dimensions of his practice: foregrounding historical and contemporary forms of oppression and injustice relevant to refugee-background students' lives; challenging colonial discourses and U.S. saviorism in global displacement and refugee production; and leveraging refugee-background students' lived experiences and their historical and socio-cultural knowledge while foregrounding their agency and resilience. Ultimately, this study calls for a reimagining of refugee education that moves beyond discourses of trauma, victimization, and rescue-liberation and instead embraces more critical, empowering, and transformative pedagogies in secondary social studies classrooms.
In this study, social studies preservice teachers encountered Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series, an artistic interpretation of the Great Migration. We aimed to analyze student responses to this seminal piece of art, focusing on how they conceptualized Black migration in this racialized context. Using the Black Historical Consciousness framework and aspirations-capabilities migration framework, we analyzed data from 88 social studies methods students over six semesters. Overall, students responded to the Migration Series by conceptualizing four patterns of migration and displacement of Black migrants from the U.S. South and four patterns of arrival and acculturation in migrants' new urban spaces. This research highlights the pedagogical potential of art to teach Black histories, especially Black migration. Specifically, teaching the Great Migration through art as part of a longer arc of the Civil Rights Movement opens space for educators to add depth and complexity to Black histories in the United States.
In this qualitative content analysis of K-12 social studies standards, researchers examined how, and in what contexts, the idea of "fascism" is represented, and how and if instantiations of American fascism, such as the demise of Reconstruction, invite examination of fascist politics and stand to disrupt American exceptionalism. The findings revealed that with few exceptions, states that mention "fascism" ultimately reinforce a master narrative of American exceptionalism by representing fascism as confined to interwar Europe, as "Un-American," and as metastatic. Yet, there was variance in how the standards' treatment of Reconstruction named and invited interrogations of fascist politics. This study builds on the extant research on state social studies standards and highlights the need for curriculum writers and social studies teacher educators to rethink when and how fascism is discussed and taught through their work.
This article introduces and analyzes new, quantitative measures of inquiry-based and culturally responsive learning opportunities and finds that they are strongly related to students' civic commitments, interest in diverse perspectives, and emotional engagement with their social studies classes. It draws on a unique panel dataset of public middle- and high-school students in Chicago (N = 41,880 students from 603 schools) conducted in 2022 and 2023. We also find that these learning opportunities are not distributed equally. For example, Latinx and Asian American youth report significantly lower levels of exposure to culturally responsive learning opportunities than Black youth. In addition, English language learners are less likely to receive inquiry-based instruction than other students. Differences such as these raise important questions as to why these inequalities exist and highlight the need for reform to ensure greater and more equitable access for all students.
Discussions around religion in public schools have grown in pace and intensity over the past few years. Various states are enacting legislation that requires the Ten Commandments to be posted in public school classrooms as well as greater emphasis on Christian teachings in public classrooms creating classrooms that propagate Christian norms and values. In this study, we sought to examine how religion is currently treated in state history standards. We identified 988 standards from secondary history education that related to religion. We coded each standard to identify which religion(s) it was about (e.g. Hinduism, Christianity), what aspects of religion it addressed (e.g. Origin, Texts), and time period(s) reflected in the content. We found that standards tended to present religion as an ancient topic and if it were present in modern history, religion was connected to violent conflict and politics. Throughout the standards, there was a greater emphasis on Christianity than other religions. We conclude with suggestions for what teachers should consider when they implement the standards related to religion as well as what standards writers should consider when creating new standards.
How should teachers respond when students make dignity-undermining comments during discussions of politically sensitive issues? This qualitative, transnational study examines how 13 secondary teachers in France and Quebec (Canada) maintain impartiality while protecting student dignity in response to unacceptable student speech. Drawing on a thematic analysis of in-depth interviews, we identify three key findings. First, teachers report using a spectrum of responses ranging from dialogical to silencing strategies, which they modulate based on the perceived extremeness of the speech. Second, teachers use impartiality deliberately as a pedagogical tool to challenge unacceptable views. Third, participants promote respect for dignity adaptively via the "political criterion," treating it as a mandate to intervene only when dialogical strategies fail. These findings refine existing theories of teacher impartiality, disclosure, and controversial issues education, while offering transnational insights into how teachers navigate tensions between fostering open dialogue and protecting human dignity in classroom discussions.
This article explores how contextual factors, teaching conditions, and teacher beliefs about civic education influenced pedagogical decision-making leading up to, and in the aftermath of, the 2020 U.S. Presidential election. Participants include a sub-sample of 46 teachers from a larger survey (N = 1723) on teaching about the 2020 election. We explore how participants taught about the election and its aftermath, including the "big lie" and the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. We explore how these events represent a moral and ethical trap. We found that contextual factors, such as administrative support and teacher-community value alignment, influenced pedagogical decision-making when placed in this trap. Teachers responded to stolen election claims and the events of January 6(th) in four ways: actively avoiding the issue, passively avoiding it or engaging minimally, engaging students in inquiry activities and guided discussion, and taking an explicit direct stance. Implications for teachers, administrators, and policymakers are explored.
At the center of a marginalizing curriculum are deliberate attempts to diminish narratives that reflect diverse communities and the intrinsic relationship between culture and citizenship. Diverse children's literature provides opportunities to conceptualize civic counternarratives that affirm student experiences and heighten an understanding of how Latina bilingual teachers reconceptualize citizenship. This critical case study contends that using diverse children's literature and teaching social studies provides optimal space for multifaceted counternarratives that center issues vital in bilingual Latine civic spaces. Drawing from LatCrit, this study highlights the use of diverse children's literature to present culturally authentic narratives for Latina elementary bilingual preservice teachers and their students. Findings show that the participants' book selection aligned with their resolve to bring civic counternarratives that honored their bilingual/bicultural students' cultural wealth; diverse children's literature and quality pedagogy provided space for the students to strengthen their civic voice as a community; and language was important as a means to understand civic identity for the Latine community. This study offers implications for the field of social studies education by illustrating the need to include greater attention to diverse children's literature as a platform to conceptualize and consequently access and affirm civic experiences, knowledge, and practices prevalent in the Latine community.
Schools are tasked with preparing children to become engaged citizens, and yet children already act civically every day. To see how young children in preschool settings do civic action (i.e. acting with and on behalf of their communities), we observed, documented, and analyzed how Black and Latine preschoolers acted civically-without adult direction-in everyday school settings. Through video-cued multi-vocal ethnographic data, we offer a typology that identifies and describes nine primary instantiations of children's civicness as seen through their civic actions. We ground this typology in sociocultural theories of learning and development, embodied learning, and communal-participatory citizenship. Ultimately, child-focused civicness allows us to see young children's everyday inclusive, care-driven means to take civic action.
This study examines the demographic imperative in the field of K-12 social studies education, focusing on the composition of social studies teachers in the United States over 15 years (2007-2021). Utilizing quantitative research and a critical demography framework, the study uses national survey data to explore the extent to which the social studies teaching force has diversified in response to an increasingly diverse student population while also addressing the disparities in certification pathways and regional differences in teacher demographics. The findings reveal significant racial disparities and highlight the limitations of recruitment efforts alone in achieving true diversification. Ultimately, this work calls for a paradigm shift in teacher education and policy, aiming to create a more equitable and representative teaching workforce that reflects the diversity of the student population and promotes social justice in education.
This article seeks to describe a critical historical inquiry (CHI) based on a systematic review of articles reporting on empirical field studies published between 2000 and 2022. During that period, CHI emerged as an increasingly popular framework for empirical classroom research in North America, particularly the United States. To be included in this review, articles had to: describe pedagogy in a secondary history class as "critical," report on classroom instruction and/or student learning or student voice vis-& agrave;-vis that pedagogy, and focus primarily on history rather than civics instruction. We used a grounded, meta-ethnographic approach to analyze the collection of 40 journal articles. That analysis yielded a set of descriptive categories and further identified meaningful differences within those categories. Overall, we found that CHI seeks to encourage students to develop a critical historical consciousness in which present conditions of inequality are explained through histories that counter the master narrative. CHI researchers justified curricular concerns in explicitly political terms and, in the aggregate, presented a clear theory of history. These authors identified student alienation from school and from civic engagement as a major problem faced by teachers of marginalized students. They argued that CHI approaches affectively engage students in historical study that informs civic dispositions.
Social studies discussions trust youth to be deliberators on public issues and support them to become citizens in a democratic society. However, teacher education settings rarely include youth as stakeholders who can weigh in on the kinds of discussions they desire. We draw on situated perspectives to frame teacher learning in a community of practice and critical perspectives which position youth as knowledgeable about teaching. We investigate what youth want when novice teachers rehearse social studies discussions. Constructivist grounded theory analysis of 93 youths' feedback to 30 novice teachers in 34 discussion rehearsals across three teacher education settings elucidates what youth want regarding: central questions; facilitation; multiple perspectives; participation; safety; teacher participation; and spanning past, present, and lived experiences. These findings affirm many perspectives in the field in youths' own emic language, introduce novel insights into scholarly conversations about disclosure and presentism, and spotlight youths' insistence on being taken seriously as thinkers in classrooms and citizens in society to advance the democratic project of social studies. We conclude by imagining how "Youth Participatory Teacher Education" might, in parallel, democratize social studies teacher education.
This study investigates the affective strategies employed by Greek-Cypriot teachers when engaging with the emotionally charged history of the 1974 war-commonly referred to in the Greek-Cypriot community as the "Turkish invasion"-in the context of school commemorations marking its 50th anniversary. Based on qualitative data from 15 primary and secondary school teachers, the analysis is organized around two central categories: approaches to commemorating the 50th anniversary and the affective strategies teachers mobilized in these commemorative practices. Two key strategies emerged: the elicitation of emotions aligned with the dominant national narrative and the balancing of emotional expression with professional and pedagogical responsibilities. The study shows the complex emotional terrain of teaching difficult histories in divided societies and highlights the significance of recognizing teachers' affective strategies in navigating contested historical narratives. The analysis offers pedagogical and policy insights for how school commemorative practices can be approached in more critically reflective ways.
This qualitative study describes how seven middle-level and secondary social studies teachers engaged in pedagogical reasoning and decision-making in anticipation of students' emotional potentialities when studying difficult histories. Findings indicate that participants' primary considerations related to students' cognitive- and affective-developmental trajectories, as well as their individual and cultural identities and commitments. Related to the spaces in which students learn, teachers considered social-interactional conditions in their classrooms and the cultural characteristics of the communities in which their schools exist. The article reveals specific ways in which teachers think through and act in response to challenges associated with students' emotional engagement when teaching difficult histories, including evaluating social-interactional and individual emotional risks among students when learning about difficult subject matter and judging what distinguishes emotional responses that foster constructive interaction from potentially harmful responses that might interfere with learning.
Classroom dialogue on controversial issues in post-conflict contexts is widely advocated but very difficult to achieve. This article examines a gradient of controversy approach to deliberative dialogue with preservice teachers in Bosnia and Herzegovina and South Africa. Based on qualitative research at three universities, the article illustrates different enactments of deliberative dialogue on a school murals controversy from the United States. It analyzes uptake of multiple perspectives and resonance in these dialogues as well as in students' written reflections and interview data. The description and analysis of data illuminate the benefits and potential challenges of using a gradient of controversy approach, specifically distancing/comparative study. This study contributes to our understanding of bringing discussion of controversy into post-conflict and other contentious settings in non-threatening ways that connect with students' lives and local contexts.
The Inquiry Design Model (IDM) is a lesson-planning framework designed to implement inquiry for social studies educators as conceived in the C3 Framework. For this study, we drew on scholarly literature to assess 311 IDMs published online for their functionality. Functional IDMs were (a) framed by a compelling question that avoided potentially harming students by ensuring their question is both open and ethical for classroom discussion; (b) constructed cohesively by providing students a balance of sources in response to the compelling question, aligning their internal components, and avoiding false binaries that unnecessarily limited students' answers; and (c) included a compelling question that is both debatable and social to facilitate what we term civic inquiry. Using these criteria, we determined that slightly less than half of IDMs exhibited at least one design flaw with one-tenth IDMs being potentially harmful, one-fifth misconstructed, and almost three in ten not meeting either the debatable or social criteria for civic inquiry. While we recognize that personalized inquiries and question-based seminars can constitute quality lesson design, they do not meet these refined criteria. This theoretical clarity should support both scholars and practitioners as they determine which lessons are most appropriate for diverse educational contexts.
