...Arthur Joseph Lewandowski; Joanna Corinne Weaver; Nancy Patterson Purpose Increased classroom volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (Hadar et al., 2020; Pace and Stoddard, 2025) has heightened the need for social studies educators to be competent in the soft skills integral...

...Alexander S. Butler; Cathy A.R. Brant Purpose The United States of America continues to have a social studies problem. Social studies knowledge and skills have been on the decline in recent years (National Center for Education Statistics, 2023). This should not be a surprise given that elementary...

...Julie K. Muhlenfeld-Johnson Purpose This article is a part of a larger study which focused on the educational experiences that contributed to social studies teachers' racial lens, consciousness development and how this understanding may impact their curricular decisions. Since educators have...

... Emerald Publishing Limited 2025 Emerald Publishing Limited Licensed re-use rights only Secondary Social studies SOURCES Framework Historical thinking Primary sources Disciplined inquiry In Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, James...

...Amy Allen Purpose The purpose of this paper, a notable trade book lesson plan, is to pair National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) notable trade books with a new strategy, C-OPTIC, to encourage critical visual literacy of picture book illustrations with elementary students. Design...

.... Originality/value Interest convergence within both social studies and core practices has not been well-studied, so we examined the role it played in the curricular and pedagogical decisions of pre-service teachers. Mathew Baker can be contacted at: mbaker@georgiasouthern.edu 27 09 2024 22 06...

...Melanie Waller Purpose The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore how high school social studies teachers perceive and address controversial topics in politically polarized suburban classrooms. Research indicates that political polarization significantly affects both teachers and students...

...Mathew Baker; Michael Lee Joseph Purpose Examine how social studies preservice teachers conceptualize and enact critical historical inquiry. Design/methodology/approach Critical qualitative case study. Findings Differing conceptual understandings and had trouble infusing their practice...

...Cathy A.R. Brant Purpose This study aims to explore the self-efficacy of social studies teacher education working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) preservice teachers, teaching LGBTQ content in their methods courses, and helping the preservice teachers they teach in those...

...Cathy A.R. Brant; Ross Stanger Purpose In this article, the authors, a university elementary social studies methods faculty member and a district social studies supervisor, discuss the creation of sustained professional development (PD) for elementary teachers on integrated social studies...

...Kate Van Haren; Abigail Stebbins Purpose Film has long been an instructional tool in social studies education; however, most research and methods for using film to teach social studies are situated at the secondary level. As such, the purpose of this study was to extend and expand what is known...

...Jason Fitzgerald Purpose The purpose of this paper is to illuminate for social studies teachers and teacher educators the ways in which students' disciplinary writing is scaffolded within the context of the inquiry design model; trends in such scaffolding are called “the learner's pathway,” since...

...Matthew C. McParker Purpose Preservice teachers (PSTs) typically have few opportunities to observe social studies instruction in PSTs' elementary field placements. To practice effective integration as a pathway to include more social studies instruction, PSTs developed a unit plan based on inquiry...

... with a collection of social studies instructional resources, how do elementary teachers describe the choices they do make/may make? Design/methodology/approach In this comparative case study, fifth-grade teachers were interviewed using verbal protocol methodology, they discussed their curriculum, teaching...

...Michelle Bauml Purpose With connections to history, culture, and religion, many holidays have potential for inclusion in early grade social studies curriculum. However, opportunities for meaningful content are frequently passed over in favor of holiday crafts that can trivialize content...

...Adam Huck Purpose This study sought to identify teachers' overall experiences in teaching social studies, the considerations they make in planning and implementing social studies lessons in the absence of mandated curriculum, approaches to social studies instruction and the role of legislation...

...Elizabeth C. Barrow; Taylor Norman Purpose The purpose of this manuscript is to reveal how a White social studies teacher educator attempted to go from being a non-racist educator to an anti-racist educator (King and Chandler, 2016) and build her racial pedagogical content knowledge (RPCK...

... that the data visualizations are relevant to the task a student is trying to perform (Norman, 2012 ; Roberts et al., 2015 ; Strobel et al., 2018). Recent research indicates that teachers recognize teaching data literacy in social studies is important (Shreiner and Dykes, 2020). Yet...

...Oluseyi Matthew Odebiyi Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore the dynamics of critical thinking for informed action within the frame of six sample US states’ Kindergarten-5 social studies content standards. Design/methodology/approach This study used quantitative content analysis...

... the thinking and practice of teaching the Utah fourth grade social studies curriculum. As a team of researchers, teachers and administrators, the authors brought differing perspectives and experience to this shared project of curriculum design. The understanding was enhanced as the authors reflected on authors...