Chapter 6: Toward an Inclusive Social Studies Classroom

As we began the 21st century, O’Brien (2000) painted a telling picture regarding research on disability and social studies: “Research on students with LD learning social studies is akin to a marriage between ‘who cares?’ and ‘so what?’” (p. 196). The work of Passe and Beattie (1994) and a special issue of Social Studies in 1998 represented much of the research during the 1990s regarding the relationship between social studies and students with disabilities. Recently, a few articles, generally found in special education literature, have begun to explicitly focus and examine instructional strategies and scaffolds used to support students in social studies classrooms (see Boon, Burke, Fore, & Spencer, 2006; Connor & Lagares, 2007; De La Paz, 2005; De La Paz & MacArthur, 2003; De La Paz, Morales, & Winston, 2007; Fontana, Scruggs, & Mastropieri, 2007; Mastropieri, Scrugs, Graetz, Norland, Gardizi, & McDuffie, 2005; Okolo, Englert, Bouck, & Heutsche, 2007). Such research illuminates the instructional approaches and scaffolds used to help, not just students with disabilities, but a wide range of students acquire content and concept mastery, while developing important self-determination and self-advocacy skills within a more inclusive classroom environment.