This study examined the learning trajectory of five US humanities teachers when navigating learning to teach the difficult history of school desegregation within a context of a six-month inquiry-based professional development. The research questions were: What do teachers frame as problems when teaching difficult histories? How do they…

This study examines world history teachers' attitudes regarding teaching U.S. presidential elections. During interviews with nine teachers, participants emphasized that the competing demands of their classrooms negatively influenced their willingness to teach about the U.S. presidential elections generally, and the 2016 Election specifically. The…

Standardized testing is a top priority in schools, with conversations around teaching and learning reduced to raising student test scores. Often any other conversations about how schools should serve students are eliminated or pushed to the periphery. The central questions raised here are the following: how are student-teacher relationships…

Students and the professor of a doctoral-level class, titled Educational Reform, studied eight philosophical traditions in the West that have had great influence on the preparation and development of teachers and administrators in the US. The eight philosophical traditions that we studied included (a) perennialism, (b) essentialism, (c)…

This manuscript describes the patriotism taught and not taught by nine teachers to the children of soldiers near a military base in the American South. The nine teachers, all participants in a qualitative study, detail the pressures endured and the pedagogical and curricular decisions made as result. The teachers experienced social and political…

This qualitative case study explores how an African American woman social studies teacher made sense of the construct of citizenship utilizing historical and experiential knowledge. The multiple intersections of the participant's identity affected the ways in which she understood and taught citizenship to her high school students. She chose to…

Civics education in America is in crisis, and Americans should recommit themselves to the teaching of civics in the classroom and at home. As students understand how the past connects to the present, they will come to safeguard the sanctity of the American idea and appreciate the validity and relevance of its ideals to all Americans, especially to…

Analytical reading and writing are embedded in a disciplinary approach to history instruction and present opportunities to extend students' literacy practices. U.S. educators and researchers have come to rely on the Document-Based Question (DBQ) to assess and develop students' historical knowledge and argument writing. However, this task has been…

This study investigated how racism was represented in a unit on civil rights in three 11th-grade U.S. history classes. Using qualitative methods, I observed classroom lessons in three teachers' classes, collected curriculum and student work, and interviewed teachers and students to document and explain how racism was represented during the Civil…

Difficult histories that may contradict national values are rarely taught in elementary schools. This comparative study of two elementary educators examines their pedagogical approaches to the teaching of Japanese American incarceration as difficult history. Framed by Asian American critical race theory, the teachers' practices revealed challenges…

In this article, we investigated the level of transfer of authentic pedagogy among 12 classroom teachers after participating in a three-year professional development project using scaffolded lesson study. We met with teachers for 2 weeks each summer and provided historian-led content sessions and teacher educator facilitated model pedagogy…

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…

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…

Children's literature provides elementary teachers and students the opportunity to critically engage in the world around them. However, too often teachers choose not to engage students in discussions of complex social issues out of a sense of fear or discomfort. In this paper, we explore the reflections of 11 teachers who chose to engage their…

High school social studies teachers play an important role in fostering the civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions that students need to thrive after graduation. These efforts can also help counter Truth Decay--the diminishing role of facts and analysis in American public life. Although several factors, such as state standards and assessments,…