Browsing by Subject "social studies"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Critical Social Studies Teacher Education in Anti-Critical Times
(Texas Education Review, 2022) Robinson, Heath T.
Politicized culture war struggles in the third decade of the 21st century increasingly result in Republican-controlled state legislatures passing education policies which inhibit democratic citizenship education in social studies classrooms (e.g., Texas HB 3979). The forward to this special issue argues that university-based teacher education remains one of the few institutional sites where disrupting anti-democratic policies and curriculum is possible. Underscoring neoliberal hegemony, the transformative potential of critical, social justice-oriented social studies teacher preparation is discussed along with acknowledgments of myriad complexities and barriers influencing emancipatory possibilities. The qualitative studies featured in this special issue, and summarized in the foreword, speak to said complexities and barriers which extend teacher education research concerned with disrupting anti-democratic citizenship education in social studies classrooms.
The Fear of Harm: The Challenges Preservice Urban Teachers Have with Historical Perspective Recognition when Discussing Difficult Histories
(Texas Education Review, 2022) Baker, Mathew; Robinson, Heath T.; Joseph, Michael
This qualitative case study examined five preservice social studies teachers (PSSTs) working in an urban teacher preparation program as they learned methods of critical historical inquiry (CHI). Moving from a critical multicultural citizenship education frame, CHI supports analysis of multiple perspectives and sources to construct equitable, justice-oriented understanding of the past on its own terms. Study results detail participant conceptual (mis)understandings with CHI, difficult histories, and historical perspective recognition limited their production of social studies curriculum aligned with critical multicultural citizenship education. Findings highlight the significance of preservice teacher epistemic cognition when learning CHI while also underscoring the importance of addressing preservice teacher historical positionality and political clarity when teaching CHI. In the absence of deeper conceptual understandings of CHI and a concomitant epistemic stance, PSSTs are unlikely to overcome institutional and political barriers or strategically navigate curricular constraints which increasingly block critical multicultural education in social studies classrooms
"It's Only Right That You Should Play the Way You Feel It:" Examining the Fleeting Emotions of Preservice Teachers' Navigation of Critical Historical Inquiry
(Texas Education Review, 2022) Joseph, Michael; Baker, Mathew
This study contributes to existing literature on critical historical inquiry used in the social studies field. Furthering the research, this qualitative study examines the emotional navigation of five preservice teachers in a graduate-level methods course of a collegiate, urban-focused, teacher preparation program as they traverse learning about and the development of critical historical inquiry projects over the length of a semester. Paying particular attention to the incorporation of counter narratives into critical historical inquiry, the findings suggest that public or intrinsic discussions regarding emotion do play a role in preservice teachers' decisions to accept and then infuse such narratives into these inquiries. We assert that creating opportunities for preservice teachers to reflect and examine their emotional positions while engaging in new pedagogical practices like critical historical inquiry will lead to more integration of counternarratives, thus enhancing transformative and social justice-oriented teaching.
"The Work of Art is a Scream of Freedom'': The Power of Multimodal Arts and Humanities in Teaching Marginalized Histories
(Texas Education Review, 2022) Batt, Joanna; Joseph, Michael
This qualitative case-study looks at how one preservice teacher uses multimodal counter-storytelling to push back on dominant historical narratives in social studies teaching. It examines how the teacher conceptualizes the use of critical arts and humanities as pedagogical tools to represent historically marginalized voices and disrupt dominant narratives (counter-storytell) in social studies education, and secondly, how they engage with these critical multimodalities in order to counter-storytell in their social studies student teaching. Findings show that preservice teachers can deftly and richly use multimodalities as access for counter-storytelling towards transformative social justice teaching with their students, but that a lack of curricular support and the necessity of content knowledge create challenges which demand greater assistance for educators in this pedagogical journey.