This study explored how world history teachers think about the United States and the world in their practice. The purpose of this study was to understand how teachers make decisions about including the United States in their world history instruction and how those choices position the United States in relation to the world. The study sought to…

In this reflective essay, the author recalls his socialization to White Supremacist ideology as a child in Virginia in the 1950s as a way to consider how racist perspectives are perpetuated across generations.

Puzzled by the shrugs and unimaginative responses of his students when asked certain counterfactual questions, James Edward Carroll set out to explore what types of counterfactual questions would elicit sophisticated causal explanations. During his pursuit of the 'gold standard' of counterfactual reasoning, Carroll drew upon theories of academic…

This article examines the ways in which "Hamilton: An American Musical" can be read less as a historical account and more as a prediction of a future immigrant, who is called upon to (re)define US nationhood. Keeping with the tempo of the musical as well as the broader issues of time, space and identity it attempts to address, this…

In this article, the authors focus on a one-week research project examining Frederick Douglass's civic actions to challenge racial discrimination African Americans faced before and after the U.S. Civil War. Our one-week research project was implemented at a free public charter school in amid-sized Southern city. Our project connects to the…

This study was designed to explore preservice elementary teacher understanding of The First Amendment and religious freedom in public schools in the Southeastern United States. Participants of the study were 160 preservice elementary teachers enrolled in the teacher preparation programs of 3 universities across 2 states located in a region…

Examining the connections among teacher characteristics, instructional decision-making, and student learning in social studies education are both complicated and contentious. In the current study, we shed light on middle grades social studies teaching and learning--a black hole of research in the subject area. Using data from the National…

In this article, we advocate for integrating select graphic novels into curricula for English language learners and emergent bilinguals to push against the dominant and harmful narratives that tend to be found in traditional history texts and curricula. We use "Vietnamerica" by Tran and "Escape from Syria" by Kullab et al. as…

In schools similar to the one in this study, where over 75 percent of the students were non-White, students come to their classrooms having lived experiences with racism, and yet, in many classrooms, racism is never discussed or it is relegated to the past. This means, in many classrooms, there are White teachers who are unwilling or unable to…

In the Bible, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are said to usher in the end of the world. That is why, in 1964, Judge Ben Cameron gave four of his fellow judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit the derisive nickname "the Fifth Circuit Four"--because they were ending the segregationist world of the Deep…

Background/Context: This study deals with an intersection of educational history, queer history, and labor history involving the activities of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) teachers. The history of LGBT teachers, particularly before the 1990s, has been addressed by only a handful of historians. The prior research most relevant to this study is…

This article explores Alexander von Humboldt's influence on the education of young women in early nineteenth-century America. In the past decade, the English-speaking world has seen a resurgence of interest in Alexander von Humboldt. To date however, scholars have devoted relatively little attention to Humboldt's influence on American education,…

This article explores the ways in which social studies classrooms can explore the history and status of U.S. territories as "unincorporated." We focus on the "Insular Cases" and in particular "Downes v. Bidwell" (1901), examine the construct of colonies as anathema to democracy, and explore the precedents court case…

This article examines the life and work of Mary J. Serrano (1840-1923), a successful translator and popularizer of Spanish literature in late nineteenth-century United States. It provides a short biography of Serrano and focuses on her work for the Spanish Legation in in Washington D.C. during the Cuban War of Independence (1895-98), a period of…

Because of a long tradition of children's literature depicting enslavement, elementary teachers have an expansive assortment of books from which to choose. These books, however, can be filled with inaccuracies, troubling illustrations, and dubious interpretations of the "peculiar institution." The recent controversy over "A Birthday…