This article focuses on ten U.S. history textbooks, all in common use across the nation. This study adopts a historical narrative analysis, which aims to determine the manner in which textbook narratives may promote "de facto national mandates." This method allows for the comparison of textbook narratives to historical works, looking for…

Voter participation in elections is the cornerstone of U.S. democracy, yet there is a history of voter suppression and intimidation tactics that specifically target Black Americans which did not cease in the twenty-first century, it merely transformed. Teachers can help students get ahead of voter suppression efforts by making sure students…

Political history lends itself to traditional patterns of teaching and learning in social studies such as students memorizing facts presented in lectures or textbooks. This article presents a recurring activity structure for teaching U.S. political history--Consensus Circle Presidential Rating (CCPR)--which requires students to read across…

Online educational marketplaces such as TeachersPayTeachers.com (TPT) have become popular among teachers, but the quality of materials offered is inconsistent. This descriptive study explored quality indicators for site materials. Examining a sample of TPT's 100 best-selling 11th-grade U.S. history activities, we compared overall quality scores…

Current 11th grade U.S. History textbooks are Eurocentric and tell a biased portrayal of the country's history. This study analyzed the four most frequently used history textbooks in the most 25 populated school districts across the State of California using a mixed-method design, to show the degree to which they are Eurocentric. The four…

The authors analyzed three Advanced Placement U.S. History textbooks' narratives of U.S. 20th century social democratic policies (e.g. New Deal, G.I. Bill, pro-suburbanization policies) using Lipsitz's "possessive investment in whiteness" as a theoretical framework. The authors found texts portrayed the exclusion of Black populations…

Data visualizations, including timelines, maps, and graphs, are often used to present social and political information in the media. Students need to learn how to make sense of data visualizations and recognize when they are being used to mislead, or when they advance white supremacist views. In this study, we used critical race analysis to…

No single story can represent fully and comprehensively a complex historical movement such as the Civil Rights fight for freedom and social justice. Learning about this movement through multi-perspective biographical young adult graphic novels cultivates in students a nuanced understanding of this historical struggle, making it more concrete and…

The C3 Framework prompts middle school and high school students to assess the ways people have worked to promote the common good. The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework. It also summons students to take informed action. One way that Wendy Harris, a high school social studies teacher at a Deaf school in Saint Paul, MN, advance this goal…

This report evaluates the quality of the K-12 civics and U.S. History standards adopted by the fifty states and the District of Columbia as of May 1, 2021, based on their content, rigor, clarity, and organization. Reviews were conducted by a bipartisan team of veteran educators and subject-matter experts with deep knowledge of civics and U.S.…

In the aftermath of the Capitol Insurrection, many states sought to bolster civic education through efforts such as the South Dakota Civics and History Initiative (SDCHI). This study examined the SDCHI through a Critical Policy Analysis and Critical Race Theory lens to understand how the initiative and related rhetoric reflected, protected, and…

Many civic education initiatives have developed across the United States in order to help prepare students for civic engagement in school-based settings. At the same time, research shows that quality of school-based civic learning opportunities remains insufficient, inconsistent, and inequitable. In this article, we propose a framework of civic…

The United States Constitution is the bedrock upon which government and society rest, yet its precepts remain generally unfamiliar to contemporary college students. Considering the extent of its impact and the misinformation regarding its purpose, content, efficacy, and limits, the authors provide suggestions for civic learning based on this…

Museums are everywhere. Along the Northern Rail Trail in Franklin, New Hampshire, the author came across an old train yard with an interpretive sign indicating, "the granite blocks you are looking at are all that remains of this eighteenth-century railroad table." Of course, trains did not cross the region until the nineteenth century.…

It is important to prepare middle level teacher candidates with the dispositions, content knowledge, and pedagogy needed to implement justice-oriented practices in middle level curriculum. This article explores using "Hateful Things," a traveling exhibit curated by the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, to integrate issues of…