Browsing by Subject "Social studies education"
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Item Enacting critical historical thinking : decision making among novice secondary social studies teachers(2011-05) Blevins, Brooke Erin; Salinas, Cinthia; Adler, Susan; Obenchain, Kathryn; Field, Sherry; Brown, Anthony; De Lissovoy, NoahThis 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.Item Hidden in history : examining Asian American elementary teachers’ enactment of Asian American history(2017-05) Rodríguez, Noreen Naseem; Salinas, Cinthia; Franquiz, María E; Philip, Thomas; Payne, Katherina; Cooc, North; Brown, Anthony LCompared to other groups of color, Asian Americans are arguably the most invisible ethnoracial group in the traditional narrative of U.S. history that pervades K-12 schooling. In contemporary scholarship about teachers of color, Asian Americans are also largely ignored. This qualitative case study examined how three Asian American elementary teachers enacted Asian American historical narratives in their classrooms through an Asian Critical Race Theory (AsianCrit) framework, with particular attention to their understanding of the dominant narrative of history, their use of Asian American children's literature, and their conceptualizations of citizenship. The teachers' racialized and hybrid experiences as 1.5 and second generation immigrants deeply informed their approaches to teaching Asian American history through multiple interpretations of resistance to the dominant narrative. This study revealed the complexity of teaching more critically conscious histories of groups that have long been excluded from social studies textbooks while demonstrating the transformative possibilities of such work with diverse young students.Item History teachers’ use of online primary sources to promote historical thinking skills(2019-04-30) Scordino, Robert Matthew; Resta, Paul E.; Liu, Min; Bias, Randolph G.; Brown, Christopher P.; Salinas, Cinthia S.This dissertation entailed a qualitative case study on Internet technology’s impact on history education in the middle grades. Specifically, the focus of this study investigated how teachers use technology to foster historical thinking skills. Through the examination of four middle school history teachers’ implementation of Online Primary Sources (OPS) and associated technology, three major themes emerged. The first described technology use in the history classroom by both teachers and students. The second highlighted barriers to teachers’ promotion of historical thinking via OPS. The third theme exposed teachers’ beliefs on history education and how the participating teachers used their position to encourage development of skills adjacent to historical thinking and technology. Four findings arose. First, rudimentary historical thinking skills were fostered in the middle school classes. Second, teacher selection of technology to support history education was influenced by both internal and external factors. Third, student background and abilities add complexity to implementation of OPS to support historical thinking. Fourth, adaptability of teachers is important to overcoming barriers. Implications are discussed for both teacher preparation and instructional designers for K-12 history resources. These included the (1) impact of state standards and time limits for teachers, (2) understanding the varying backgrounds of students, (3) understanding that classrooms incorporate a mix of hardware, including student-owned devices, (4) the importance of incorporating teacher input for developing resources intended for their use, and (5) the continual need to focus on the pedagogical underpinnings of historical thinking in teacher education.Item The battle for possession and interpretation of collective memory : the canon debate and history wars of the 1980s and 1990s(2017-09-15) Robinson, Heath Tyler; Brown, Anthony L. (Associate professor); Salinas, CynthiaDrawing from the theoretical lenses of sociocultural analysis, imagined communities, cultural memory and narrative theory, the author analyzed the struggle between conservatives and progressives for the possession and interpretation of society’s collective memory during the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s in the United States. Focusing specifically on the canon debate in higher education and the history wars in public schools, the author described and analyzed efforts made by competing interests to control curriculum through the implementation of discourses, texts, and artifacts promoting the development of collective memory reflecting ideologies linked to each group’s vision of American society. Drawing on the politics of memory literature, the author further examined how through educational institutions competing interests engaged in a struggle not only to define the narrative of the past, but also to control the narrative for ends defined in the present. The author argues that collective memory’s central role in the construction of individual and collective identity and the formation and maintenance of societal organization make it a contested site where dominant cultural interests seek social reproduction of their preferred norms and values through hegemonic processes such as securing nationalist consensus narratives in the school curriculum. In order to challenge the dominant narrative and the norms and values that foreclose educational possibilities for students, the author argues for critical historical inquiry and transformative approaches in the classroom to encourage students to become active and conscious participants in the ongoing battle for the possession and interpretation of collective memory.Item When and where we enter : African American women teachers and communal notions of citizenship in the social studies classroom(2015-05) Vickery, Amanda Elizabeth; Salinas, Cinthia; Brown, Anthony L; Brown, Keffrelyn D; Knight-Manuel, Michelle; De Lissovoy, Noah; King, LaGarrettThis 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.