The late 1800s have been noted as a major transitional period for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When the beleaguered pioneers first arrived in Utah they were isolated from the influence and expectations of the United States. During that time, leaders of the Church became influential in every aspect of life in Utah. By the end of…

This report documents and compares two cases of pre-service elementary teachers' beliefs about democracy and education for democracy in the USA and Bosnia and Herzegovina along with contextual factors influencing the similarities and differences among these beliefs. Findings suggest that US pre-service elementary teachers have a self-proclaimed…

This article discusses contributions of women to the emergence of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Using network analysis, the author studied affiliations between African American and White women who signed "The Call," a petition calling for a national conference to obtain civil rights for African…

The art of history teaching is at a crossroads. Recent scholarship focuses on the need to change the teaching of history so students can better learn history, and insists that history teachers must move beyond traditional structures and methods of teaching in order to improve their students' abilities to think with history. This article presents…

Challenging histories of male-dominated composition instruction during the nineteenth century, this article recovers composition practices at the Cherokee National Female Seminary, locating the practices at the intersections of gender, race, and colonization. Through Indigenous storytelling and archival research methods, the author asserts that…

Historians of education have probed into the involvement of Social Reconstructionists' with issues of racial justice and have argued explicitly that Social Reconstructionists, while "interested" in racial problems during the Depression, actually did little to carefully study the role of race or race relations in America. The authors…

This dissertation offers a history of white college students' relationship with alcohol between 1820 and 1933. The years that frame this study represent a long crisis regarding alcohol in the United States. A dramatic rise in alcohol consumption began around 1800, the negative consequences of which led growing numbers of Americans, for the first…

The purpose of this study was to analyze the sociocultural influences on dialogues about race of undergraduate students from various racial backgrounds at a Predominantly White Institution (PWI). This qualitative study included 16 undergraduate students from various racial backgrounds at a small, private university in the Midwest who participated…

In the sixties, student-led protest movements transformed university and college campuses across the United States. The 1969 takeover at the City College of New York had arguably the most far-reaching consequences of all of the protests of this period. As the flagship campus of the City University of New York system, City College had a well-known…

With the triumph of Tea Party candidates and other conservatives in 2010, many in the new Congress are pressing to get the federal government out of education. Eliminating or curtailing federal involvement in education would be a wrong-headed, simplistic move for several reasons: (1) It ignores the nation's history; (2) It would erode the state…

The digital environment has had an immense effect on American society, learning, and education: we have more sources available at our fingertips than any previous generation. Teaching and learning with these new sources, however, has been a challenging transition. Students are confronted with an ocean of digital objects and need skills to navigate…

The last 50 years have seen a massive increase in the federal role in public education in the United States and a marked increase in the tension between the federal government and the states with respect to control over education. This article investigates the history of education in America, particularly with respect to federal versus state…

Professor Howard Zinn was arguably America's best-known historian, despite the dismissive if not caustic response his book, "A People's History of the United States," elicited from historians. In Zinn's narrative the protagonists of history are "blacks, Indians, women, and working people of all kinds ... ordinary people trying to…

Critical thinking is defined more by what it is not than what it is. It is not rote memorization of dates, facts, and events. Instead, it involves delving into the meaning of historical developments--interpreting, comparing, theorizing, and evaluating--often with the aid of primary sources and multiple secondary sources. Students learn to ask…

In teacher's idealized history classroom, students are abuzz with questions. They are eager to jump into a serious analysis of primary sources. They relish additional opportunities to engage historiographical debates. They are, as teachers like to say, "thinking historically." While there are few easy ways to create these idealized…