In this piece, the authors unpack a heuristic developed by the Great First Eight curriculum for helping young children to recognize and act on injustice. First, they explain the rationale behind the heuristic, known as ReAD, and the inspiration behind its creation. They then detail a series of seven practical principles that can help to…

Using the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U-Test to analyze 128 survey responses from K-12 teachers, this paper considers how value-added measures (VAM) impact educators' decisions to include Latinx topics in their social studies lessons. The authors found that VAM teachers are more likely to rely on district/state curriculum standards whereas non-VAM…

As states, school districts, and teachers continue to adopt the inquiry-based principles of the College, Career, and Civic (C3) Framework, social studies teacher education must engage in a concomitant instructional shift to focus its efforts on preparing inquiry-based educators. One possible approach is to organize social studies teacher education…

Despite pressures to narrow the curriculum and focus only on testing, there are teachers who continue to work social justice issues into their elementary lessons through the subject of social studies. These teachers speak of education as an instrument for the public good. In this day and age, it can be hard to find teachers with such…

This article discusses a relatively new trend in assessment in American history education which offers interesting opportunities to inject the arts into mainstream education in ways that could provide a catalyst for engagement with social justice issues. Document-based questions (DBQs) on statewide social studies assessments afford art and social…

For new educators, the obstacles of high-stakes testing, curricular mandates, and their own inexperience and self-doubt can render teaching for justice and equity overwhelming, seemingly impossible ideals. However, as students are increasingly tied to prescriptive curricula and academic performance standards, the goals of social justice and…

This publication offers the 56th Yearbook of the National Reading Conference (NRC). This Yearbook begins with a preface and presents profiles of three awardees, Michael C. McKenna, Douglas K. Hartman, and Michael Kamil. Included in this Yearbook are the following papers: (1) What's It All About? Literacy Research and Civic Responsibility (Victoria…