The result of a three year state-led collaborative effort, the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards was developed to serve two audiences: for states to upgrade their state social studies standards and for practitioners--local school districts, schools, teachers and curriculum writers--to strengthen…

Background/Context: Over the past quarter-century, many historians, politicians, and educators have argued for an increase in the amount of history taught in schools, for a clear separation of history and social studies, and for an emphasis on disciplinary structures and norms as the proper focus for the subject. Unfortunately, discussions of…

This study illustrates the processes by which 8 pairs of adolescents in Northern Ireland struggled to come to grips with tensions between school and community history. Findings are based on data collected through open-ended, semi-structured interviews with students from a variety of backgrounds. Although these students appreciated the attempt by…

Background: Research on historical understanding has sometimes depicted adolescents and adults as either appropriating or resisting particular narrative accounts, and resistance seems to be especially common when school-based narratives differ from those encountered outside school. In Northern Ireland, however, school history does not present an…

Discusses history education in the United States and Northern Ireland, examining: differing approaches (learning stories of the national past and studying other times and places); differing ideas about history (the nature of historical change, why life has changed over time, and reasons for learning about the past); and rethinking priorities…

Classroom observations and interviews with 60 children, aged 6 to 12 years, in Northern Ireland and comparisons with previous U.S. research show the extent to which specific forms of historical representation shape understanding of change over time. As was consistent with differing historical representations, children in Northern Ireland are less…

This paper presents preliminary findings from a study of the historical understanding of secondary students age 12-15 years in Northern Ireland. The study investigated the ideas students had about history, the sources of those ideas, how those ideas related to their sense of identity, and how school history compared to other, less formal…

Using primary sources in history classes is all the rage. But if teachers are not reflective about the best use of such materials, they may engage students in exercises that are neither historically nor instructionally sound. In this article, the author points out common misconceptions about primary sources and suggests ways to maximize their…

This study used open-ended interviews and classroom observations to examine the development of children's understanding of historical time in Northern Ireland. Even the youngest made distinctions among past times, and these differentiations became increasingly numerous with age; students also were able to sequence historic time periods with a high…

Because students should not only know stories about the past, but also understand the interpretive nature of historians' work, this study sought to discover whether instruction can develop elementary students' ability to engage in some aspects of historical interpretation. The study focused on fifth grade students. The research consisted of direct…

This paper reports on a study that represents a new approach to understanding early and middle grade children's development of historical time awareness. The study sought to embed children's time awareness in a sociocultural framework, and to move beyond linguistic symbol systems to incorporate visual data sources. The researchers began with three…

Discusses the teaching technique, "authentic instruction," in which students learn to analyze historical documents. Describes how to teach elementary students to analyze historical photographs. Explains how teachers can locate historical photographs using the World Wide Web or family photographs. (CMK)

This study examines the historical understanding of 22 fourth-graders and 11 fifth-grade students in two classrooms in a suburban community near Cincinnati (Ohio). The classes were homogeneous racially, with no students of Hispanic, African-American, Asian, or Pacific Island descent in either class. The school reflects primarily middle and…

This study examines the ability of students to develop empathy for peoples of the past and to avoid the belief that people in the past were no different than today. The paper reports the results of a year-long qualitative investigation of fourth and fifth graders' attempts to understand the values, attitudes, and beliefs of people in the past. The…

This study investigated Catholic and Protestant students' ideas about historical significance in Northern Ireland. The research was conducted in two secondary schools in a medium-sized rural town, and data were derived from a ranking task and semi-structured interview with 40 students, aged 12-17, equally divided between the two communities.…