As a graduate student in a teacher-training program, I saw firsthand the gulf between the methods suggested by my professors and classroom practices that are didactic and lack depth. My concern over these issues has led me to examine research related to them, and the findings suggest that the perception that social studies is in trouble is very…

Many scholars, teachers, parents, as well as others, are concerned with the decline of civility in public discourse and public schools. The sharp differences among various ideological groups, exacerbated by media incivility, are contributing factors to rising incivility. This ideological divide currently manifests itself in bitter partisan…

Set during the Cold War and space race, this historical role-play focuses on Wernher von Braun's involvement in and culpability for the use of slave laborers to produce V-2 rockets for Nazi Germany. Students will grapple with two central questions. Should von Braun have been allowed to emigrate to the United States given his affiliation with the…

In this article, the author investigates the controversial curricular and instructional aspects of teaching about Islam in social studies courses. Specifically, the author discusses pedagogically sound approaches to teaching about "jihad" and "Shari'ah" law, two of the most important and controversial concepts in Islam that often generate intense…

How can teachers effectively use documentary film to teach history, and toward what goals? This article addresses these important questions by: (1) exploring what we know about secondary teachers' practices with documentary film and secondary students' beliefs about documentary film as a source of knowledge about the past, (2) proposing a…

Critics charge that social studies education often fails at the most rudimentary level because there is a tendency to "play it safe" by focusing on general abstractions while avoiding discussion of specific--and often times controversial--topics. In this article, the author argues that one way in which social studies teachers can overcome such…

Roswell has long been synonymous with aliens and UFOs, and people have been arguing over what happened that night in 1947 for many years. It is a topic left out of most textbooks and neglected in many social studies classrooms. However, Roswell has found a permanent place in American culture, and teaching about Roswell can be valuable to social…

The question of why students think there are two kinds of American history taught--one in the K-12 system and one in the university system--can be examined critically using Emile Durkheim's (1973) description of the sacred and the profane. The history taught in K-12 classrooms often focuses on idealized accounts of the past that protect the status…

A model which secondary social studies teachers could apply to their content area suggests an interplay between the inductive and the deductive--where students first identify a proposition from an examination of evidence and then test the proposition to assess its power in helping students understand the complex nature of social reality.…

Because of the pressure to increase test scores in reading and mathematics, content areas such as social studies are being eliminated from many elementary schools' curricula. It is critical that teachers find ways to integrate social studies into reading and mathematics. Social studies and mathematics may not immediately come to mind when…

History instruction should teach students about the processes through which history is made and understood. Students need to learn skills in historical analysis and interpretation, study people of the past and present involved in making history, and study historical principles that cultivate humane values. (AM)

Suggests that building a sound rationale for dealing with controversial issues in the classroom will prevent unnecessarily adversarial relationships between teachers and administrators or the public. Discusses involving students in real problems in both public and private issues. States that effective rationale building depends on involvement in…

Discusses the debate about the presentation of world problems in textbooks. Argues that teachers need to be informed about the issues and the depth that can be provided by an interdisciplinary inquiry. Suggests that most mathematics and social studies teachers should take part in a mutual inquiry of world problems. (DK)

The study of history as a means of emphasizing the role of the past as a contributor to general education is examined. Eight guidelines are provided which contribute to the general education goals of knowledge of the world and exposure to a process of self-discovery. (DE)

An alternative to the survey approach for teaching history is the team-taught humanities course, that has enjoyed considerable success at Illinois State University, in which history is integrated with art, music, and literature. (Author/ND)