Instructional time spent on elementary social studies is often marginalized due to the emphasis placed on other content areas. Therefore, social studies teachers must employ meaningful instructional strategies that will engage students while promoting content acquisition. This quasi-experimental study responds to this challenge by guiding a sample…

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…

Meaningful source work is at the heart of social studies learning, but often a tall order for elementary-aged students. In this article, the authors describe the construction and implementation of a fifth grade inquiry on the Suffrage Movement using a focused version of the Inquiry Design Model (IDM) Blueprint. Using source analysis scaffolds…

This study aims to determine the ways how the 5th grade (ages 10-11) students interpret historical knowledge based on historical sources. To study this student were given a worksheet containing historical sources and an open-ended question based on the historical sources. The data of this study is collected through one of the answers provided to…

Social studies continues to be marginalized in elementary grades, yet the "C3 Framework" and its Inquiry Arc offer possibilities for high-quality elementary social studies instruction. However, the "C3 Framework" requires that teachers possess an adequate understanding of how to implement inquiry within the various social…

This article introduces the fifty states project, a year-long study of the United States that uses crowd sourcing to bring authentic materials into the social studies classroom. The project started five years ago, when author Kelly McPherson decided that she wanted to have a care package sent from all 50 states to help students learn about the…

In this article, the authors introduce a series of interconnected, inquiry-based activities from a fifth grade social studies curriculum, "My Place in Time and Space," which was developed in part through a Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Regional Grant Program--Eastern Region. These activities are designed to…

The purpose of this intrinsic, collective case study was to learn what skilled practitioners do to engage elementary students in the disciplinary literacy of reading like historians. Four high-implementation cases were selected to learn what is "possible" rather than what is "typical" behavior when teaching elementary students…

Problem Statement: Contrary to traditional historiography, which mainly focuses on men's experiences and ignores the women, historiography today includes all people, genders and social groups. Accordingly, school history also needs to regard female actors of the past in order to present a more gender-balanced past that makes visible not only the…

In order to be well-educated citizens in the 21st century, children need to learn computing in school. However, implementing computing education in schools faces several practical problems, such as lack of computing teachers and time in an already overloaded curriculum. A solution can be a multidisciplinary approach, integrating computing…

This mixed methods study explored students' learning following an intervention unit, which focused on discipline-specific practices in elementary social studies/history. The research questions were: To what extent does students' learning in social studies/history change following their participation in a unit emphasizing disciplinary-specific…

The benefits of the flipped classroom (FC) model in students' learning are claimed in many recent studies. These benefits are typically accounted to the pedagogically efficient use of classroom time for engaging students in active learning. Although there are several relevant studies for the deployment of the FC model in Science, Technology,…

School segregation and inequity are deep-rooted realities in U.S. society. Despite historical efforts at integration, too many schools are de facto segregated, and those serving mostly students of color are routinely under-resourced when compared to those servicing mostly white students. Teachers and students can struggle to talk about this…

This study attempted to determine whether students participating in a summer camp learn more about a fifth grade history concept of social studies, the Reconstruction Era, via a theater arts production. Data collected for this qualitative study included pre- and post-test drawings, scripted comments, student interviews, teacher interviews, daily…

In this qualitative research project, I investigated curricular decision making and the relationship among teacher philosophies, textbook materials, and classroom practice. Participants included 5 experienced 5th-grade teachers who used a comprehensive social studies textbook package, "History Alive! America's Past". Information was…