Promoting Adolescents' Comprehension of Text (PACT) is a text- and discourse-based set of instructional practices that engage students with disciplinary texts as a means of building content knowledge and improving reading comprehension. PACT)s "efficacy" has been the subject of extensive previous trials. The purpose of this study was to…

We discuss an original study and two replications conducted over 18 years examining the impact of Teacher Study Group (TSG) in Vocabulary, a professional development (PD) approach for improving pedagogy and student learning. Study 1 focused on the design and development of the PD and included a small-scale randomized controlled trial to assess the…

Shifting to an inquiry-based practice can be challenging. How should teachers get started? How many times should teachers plan for inquiry? What do teachers do when students struggle with inquiry? How long does it take for students to buy in to the inquiry process? These kinds of questions, and the concerns that underlie them, can create an…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation's Report Card, is the most comprehensive measure of student learning, and is widely considered the gold standard for empirically measuring trends in student achievement outcomes in the United States. The NAEP data for 2018, which were released on April 23, 2020, offer…

In this article, we describe a collaboratively developed information literacy curriculum that was embedded into three core 8th grade subjects: Algebra, American History, and English Language Arts. The curriculum was rooted in the concept of generalist literacy and supported students as they developed their curiosity, skepticism, commitment to…

Race shapes the policies and history of the United States. Current research shows that state-approved social studies content standards are written in a non-racial and colour-evasive whiteness language that reinforces racist policies and practices in education. This qualitative framework analysis study examines the language of social studies…

Examining the connections among teacher characteristics, instructional decision-making, and student learning in social studies education are both complicated and contentious. In the current study, we shed light on middle grades social studies teaching and learning--a black hole of research in the subject area. Using data from the National…

With the implementation of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy, as well as the onset of the C3 framework from the National Council of Social Studies, social studies teachers are tasked with integrating content and writing instruction in thoughtful and relevant ways. A middle school social studies teacher…

This study analyzed three types of visual representations (graphs, maps, & graphic organizers) in the most widely used eighth-grade U.S. History textbooks. The analyses included how each visual was constructed and used within the context of text narrative. Purposeful sampling techniques were used to select a representative sample of varied…

This study examined how U.S. entry into World War I and related pedagogical reforms of the early twentieth century impacted elementary social education at a local level. Analysis of state curriculum guides, records from the collection of a rural school educator, report cards, and daily attendance registers for four counties indicated that…

The purpose of this qualitative, single case study is to investigate how teacher-created curricula addresses key Native American events in early U.S. history and to determine if such curricula provided students with accurate representations of Native American content. To do this, we used discourse analysis to consider the meanings of words and…

The purpose of this study was to utilize an ethnically homogeneous design to examine Black female student U.S. History content-specific knowledge. The study aims to elucidate the importance of singlegroup analyses as an alternative to between-group comparative designs. The present study utilized a critical, quantitative, descriptive research…

In response to the widening academic achievement gap between Native American students and other students in the United States, a culturally responsive approach was used in a Native American social studies class with positive results. Eighth-grade Oglala Lakota students in an American History classroom experienced a unit infused with lessons that…

Although the popularity and use of graphic novels in literacy instruction has increased in the last decade, few sustained analyses have examined adolescents' reading processes with informational texts in social studies classrooms. Recent research that has foregrounded visual, emotional, and embodied textual responses situates this qualitative…

This case study investigated how two 8th-grade teachers planned for, delivered, and reflected on their teaching of the 2016 Presidential Election. Data sources included classroom observations, teacher interviews, and lesson plans. Despite integrating student-centered lessons about the election with social and political events in US History from…