The study in this report focuses on four historical periods and five textbooks. The four historical periods are: (1) The European Settlement of North America (1492-1660); (2) Colonial America (1660-1763); (3) The Nation's Founding (1763-1789); and (4) The New Deal (1933-1940). Three of the 5 textbooks are intended for regular high school American…

This case examines the pressing need for systemic equity and social justice in educational structures in the society of the United States (US). The case critiques the inadequate responses to racial justice and highlights the challenges faced in enacting meaningful educational reform amidst declining patriotism and cultural schisms. Introducing…

Background: The continuing significance of race in U.S. society and culture begs the question of what role history and social studies education can and should play in preparing students to critically and constructively address race and racism in contemporary U.S. society and culture. However, research on history and social studies curriculum and…

In this interpretative case study, the researcher examined the beliefs and practices of three self-identifying culturally relevant social studies teachers related to their teaching of U.S. history at a racially and ethnically diverse urban high school. The teachers displayed beliefs and practices that were aligned with the core criteria of…

This article discusses Black teacher activism during Jim Crow through a case study of the Florida State Teachers Association. Few studies have examined the response of Black teacher associations to Jim Crow educational policies. This study examines inequities in school and teacher salaries and the FSTA's response by way of campaigns, rhetoric and…

The report looks to the future of American history education. The report grows out of national and state polls that the Foundation conducted in late 2018 on Americans' knowledge of the history of their country. The Foundation's initial poll found that two out of three Americans were incapable of passing the U.S. citizenship test and led the…

In 2015-2016, news stories from Charleston, South Carolina, and the University of Missouri, among others, motivated and inspired many people to organize against assaults on the Black community generally and Black students in particular. Similarly, Black students at Robert E. Lee High School in Virginia have come together around what they perceive…

Through an interpretive analysis of how high school American history textbooks depict the urban-riots of the late-1960s, in this article the author discusses how textbooks incorporate and abject official knowledge related to the intersections of race and poverty. Incorporation is related with Raymond Williams' theory of the selective tradition and…

Using narrative from 6 high school American history textbooks published between 1956 and 2009, this study investigated changes in how textbook authors presented the topics of agricultural science, farming, and community. Although some critical discourse analyses have examined textbooks' treatment of different population groups (e.g., African…

In this interpretative case study, the researcher examined the beliefs and practices of three social studies teachers related to their teaching of race in U.S. history at a racially and ethnically diverse urban high school. Using the theory of culturally relevant pedagogy as a lens, this study employed mixed methods, analyzing teacher interviews,…

This article concerns textbook analysis regarding the presentation of socialism in four leading high school social studies books, one in each of the following subjects: United States history, world history, United States government, and economics. Findings indicate that students relying on these texts to gain understanding of socialism and…

Understanding how to engage history teachers in effective professional development, rooted in pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), is critical with the implementation of the Common Core State Standards. In this study, we utilized Grant and Gradwell's (2010) notion of ambitious teachers, which built upon Shulman's (1986) concept of PCK, to…

In this study, the researcher examined student conceptions of "Whiteness" as it relates to past and present U.S. history. Using Critical Race Theory as the lens, this study employed mixed methods, analyzing teacher observations, classroom artifacts/student work, survey, and interview data from White students and students of color at an…

The authors extend the literature on multicultural democratic citizenship education (Marri, 2005) with a case study about how a highly esteemed high school teacher involved a heterogeneous group of students in a rigorous, engaging, critical study of U.S. History. Mr. Scott's teaching was noteworthy in its community building, thorough disciplinary…

Basic reading comprehension and summary tend to be the focus in social studies and history classrooms, if reading and writing are included at all. But such a focus inhibits a conception of history as an interpretive discipline grounded in evidence that is analyzed, not simply accepted. Understanding the past is impossible without such historical…