Social Studies and Diversity Education

What We Do and Why We Do It

Elizabeth E. Heilman, Ramona Fruja, Matthew Missias, Elizabeth E. Heilman, Ramona Fruja, Matthew Missias

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781135231156
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The preparation of social studies teachers is crucial not only to the project of good education, but, even more broadly, to the cultivation of a healthy democracy and the growth of a nation's citizens. This one-of-a-kind resource features ideas from over 100 of the field's most thoughtful teacher educators reflecting on their best practices and offering specific strategies through which future teachers can learn to teach, thus illuminating the careful planning and deep thinking that go into the preparation of the social studies teachers. While concentrating on daily teaching realities such as lesson planning and meeting national, state, or provincial standards, each contributor also wrestles with the most important current issues on educating teachers for today's increasingly diverse, complex, and global society.

Features of this unique teaching resource include:

• 
  
  

• Volume sections that are arranged by both disciplinary organization and approach or activity.

• 
  
  

• Thoughtful introductory section essays that conceptualize each theme, providing a conscientious theoretical overview and analysis of each individual section.

• 
  
  

• Rich and concrete examples of best practice from some of the field's most diverse and highly regarded scholars and teacher educators

• 
  
  

• An index that identifies the appropriate teaching level and teacher education context and links the strategies and ideas that are presented in the essay to the relevant INTASC and NCSS standards for quick reference in classroom planning as well as institutional development and implementation.

A much-needed addition to the field, this comprehensive volume will be of value to any teacher interested in social studies or diversity education across age groups and educational contexts.

SECTION 1
Purposes, Beliefs, and Contexts for Social Education

Introduction

Elizabeth E. Heilman

In this opening section of the book, teacher educators write about how they imagine the nature of social studies teacher education to be and how they engage future teachers in thinking about their deepest beliefs and the contexts in which they will be enacted. This includes reflecting on the experiences they have had so far in their lives, what they have come to believe, how they interact with others, their intended effects as teachers, as well as thinking about power and knowledge and how social studies contributes to citizenship, democracy, and justice. Britzman (1991) explains “…learning to teach constitutes a time of biographical crisis as it simultaneously invokes one’s autobiography” (p. 8). Research on teachers tells us that teaching involves both professional and personal experiences, and makes reference to the past as we reflect on present challenges and keep in mind our future hopes and expectations (Clandinin & Connelly, 1995; Heilman, 2001; Holt-Reynolds, 1992; Knowles, 1992; Knowles & Holt-Reynolds, 1991; Miller Marsh, 2002; Van Manen, 1991; Vinz, 1996).

In Bruner’s (1960) view, one still held by many educators’, disciplinary expertise is most important in teaching. As Bruner asserted, “The experience of the past several years has taught at least one important lesson about the design of a curriculum that is true to the underlying structure of its subject matter. It is that the best minds in any particular discipline must be put to work on the task” (p. 6). Donald Schon (1983, 1987) challenged the idea of an expert truth about curriculum and believed that through the intellectual and professional practice of thinking about teaching, teachers could create important teacher knowledge. For Schon, teacher knowledge was generated through a reflective problem-posing and problem-solving process. Schon believed that teacher knowledge could be very diverse depending on classroom situations, school conditions, and the reflective skills of the teacher. Lee Shulman (1986) extended the debate about teacher knowledge in a different way, arguing that not only should the curriculum reflect the disciplines, teachers needed both content knowledge and also pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Many selections throughout this book describe the interaction between teachers’ content knowledge and their pedagogical content knowledge that Shulman described. And yet many contemporary educators believe that while this knowledge is necessary, even more is required. As Barton and Levisk explain (2004), based on a review of many studies (e.g., Ross, 1987; McDiarmid, 1994; Thornton, 1991, Vansledright, 1996):

Teachers’ goals appear to have more impact on practice than their pedagogical content knowledge. Unless they have a clear sense of purpose, teachers’ primary actions continue to be coverage of the curriculum and control of students, no matter how much they know about history, teaching, or the intersection of the two…. (p. 156)

Without a sense of purpose that is clearly thought out and articulated, teachers may fall prey to each new fad or harebrained instructional program, or they may find themselves adopting the practices of their peers by default. But on this score, the research evidence is encouraging. Teachers who have a clear sense of purpose can resist the temptation of conformity, and they can implement practices consistent with their aims. (p.164)

The writers in this section believe that sophisticated disciplinary understanding, rich conceptions of pedagogy, and a portfolio of instructional skills certainly are important in teachers’ practice, but that this is not enough. Effective social studies teachers also need to work from a base of well thought out purposes for social studies education that are rooted in their identity and practiced with reference to well-developed personal, pedagogical, and social values. Deeply held beliefs and particular purposes for their teaching are what motivate teachers and inspire their practice, especially when faced with difficult settings and choices.

There are a range of purposes that can motivate good teaching, yet teachers are apt to construct purposes for social studies teaching by default or at the behest of their methods instructor without fully claiming their own vision. With this in mind, in chapter 1, William Gaudelli explains why he focuses on future teachers’ beliefs and describes how an assignment in which future teachers articulate their pedagogical creed in increasingly sophisticated ways, unfolds over a semester. Research suggests that preservice teachers are strongly influenced by their own K-16 experiences (Lortie, 1975) as well as by metaphors, images, and experiences derived from families and popular culture about the nature of work in general, about what teachers are and what they do, and about what curriculum is and should be.

In chapter 2, Margaret Crocco describes metaphors as conceptual constructs that drive the way we think, and she explains how she asks future teachers to surface and explore the implications of their metaphors for teaching.

This collective experience and cultural knowledge, what Lortie calls “the apprenticeship of experience” often suggests that the purpose of social studies education is to teach facts and disciplinary concepts about history, geography, economics, and government. A traditional approach also called the “citizenship transmission tradition” refers to authoritative, foundational knowledge, while in the social science tradition, social studies as a subject is concerned with procedural knowledge and techniques of gathering, analyzing, and applying information. But these are not the only ways that social studies can be taught. The reflective inquiry tradition (also called progressive and constructivist) emphasizes personal knowledge and students’ abilities to make reasoned and contextualized decisions based on critical reflection, while the critical tradition explores the ways in which cultural and economic forces and schools in particular, can oppress people and create, recreate, and legitimate an unequal, unjust, undemocratic society. Critical pedagogy makes use of these conceptual critiques as the motivating understanding for emancipatory knowledge, a hopeful pedagogy that aims to foster a more just society. Finally, a pragmatic and poststructural way of thinking allows for the exploration and interplay among these diverse ideas about knowledge and society. Throughout this book these various approaches are featured.

Some social studies methods instructors explicitly situate their teaching in one of these traditions, while many others expose students to multiple purposes. Thomas Fallace, in chapter 3, explains his choice to engage students in exploring three different belief systems or orientations to the social studies: the traditional, disciplinary, and progressive strands. He says, “If I want my students to be critical thinkers and reflective practitioners, I must allow them the opportunity to construct their own pedagogical position. I believe that such an approach will also provide my students with the skills to be critical consumers of educational theory and research in the future.” And yet he worries, “I am ambivalent about my students who choose the traditional strand.” In chapter 4, Ronald Evans describes a similar dilemma leading him to explore four approaches. Both Evans and Fallace experience a contradiction between their own authority as teachers and their interest in giving students authority as constructivists. Robinson describes yet another method for helping students critically conceptualize the social studies field. He requires that students collect an array of resources (books, activities, videos, etc) but his deeper intention is for them to conceptually organize the materials. He asks them to consider frameworks other than a subject based approach and to explain the reasoning behind heuristics. Power is also the topic of E. Wayne Ross’s reflection as he describes in chapter 6 how he uses the film Clockwork to help future teachers “consider how the principles of scientific management shape learning and teaching in schools as well as conceptions of curriculum, knowledge, and social relations in school, a critical pedagogy.” The formal social studies curriculum has power as its subject, and yet it is taught within contexts that are themselves laden with power. Coming to terms with teacher authority and the power and authority inherent in institutional contexts are basic struggles all social studies teachers face.

In chapter 7 Conklin offers insight into the full enactment of her class in which she weaves her reflective teaching about the different purposes for which social studies may be taught with a consideration of instructional practices, contexts, and the sorts of complex realities described by Ross. Similarly, Powell and Hawley in chapter 8 describe how they “present their own teaching as a learning process.” This chapter provides a rich articulation of the vision behind their use of various texts and experiences with the aim of developing future teachers’ professional and intellectual autonomy. These teacher educators worry about how to balance support and challenge, and how best to fulfill their commitment to intellectual freedom and honest discovery.

All teachers have a teacher identity and all social studies teaching has a purpose. The important question this section has explored is not does one have purpose, but rather how does one come to have a purpose and what might this be? The educators writing here help teachers consider whether their purposes are reflexive and merely inherited (even from the professor) without true judgment, or are purposes that reflect their best selves and best thinking.

References

Barton, K. C., & Levstik, L. S. (2004). Teaching history for the common good. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Britzman, D. (1991). Practice makes practice: A critical study of learning to teach. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Bruner, J. S. (1960). The process of education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Clandinin, J. D., & Connelly, M. F. (1995). Teachers’ professional knowledge landscapes. New York: Teachers College Press.

Heilman, E. (2001). Teacher’s perspectives on real world challenges for Social Studies education. Theory and Research in Social Education, 29(1), 696–733.

Holt-Reynolds, D. (1992). Personal history-based beliefs as relevant prior knowledge in course work. American Educational Research Journal, 29(2), 325–349.

Kagan, D. M. (1992). Implications of research on teacher belief. Educational Psychologist, 27(1), 65–90.

Knowles, J. G. (1992). Models for understanding preservice and beginning teachers’ biographies: Illustrations from case studies. In I. Goodson (Ed.), Studying teachers’ lives (pp. 99–153). New York: Teachers College Press.

Knowles, J. G., & Holt-Reynolds, D. (1991). Shaping pedagogies through personal histories in preservice teacher education. Teachers College Record, 93(1), 87–113.

Lortie D. (1975). Schoolteacher. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

McDiarmid, G. W. (1994). Understanding history for teaching: A study of the historical understanding of prospective teachers. In F. James Voss & M. Carretero (Eds.), Cognitive and instructional processes in history and the social sciences (pp. 159–186), Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Miller Marsh, M. (2002). Examining the discourses that shape our teacher identities. Curriculum Inquiry, 32(4), 453–469.

...