The study of history as part of the social studies curriculum is an important component of K-12 education. Yet, past research suggests that students perceive history as less important than other subjects (Brophy et al., 1992; Schug et al., 1984), find it boring and without purpose (Zhao & Hoge, 2005), and are unable to articulate why they learn about it in school (VanSledright, 1997). This suggests that students do not perceive history as relevant to them or their lives outside of school and these beliefs may lead to less engagement and motivation to learn the subject than other core subject areas. However, there is little current research examining students' perceptions of history and history relevance (Chiodo & Byford, 2004) as much of the recent focus in educational research has been on STEM classes (Wigfield et al., 2017). To address this gap, this study examined students' overall perceptions of history education, students' perceptions of the relevance of history education, and how the classroom teacher, instruction, and environment contributed to students' perceptions. One eighth grade social studies teacher and 47 students in her five classes participated in the study. Surveys were collected from the students and analyzed using quantitative methods. Student focus groups and a teacher interview were conducted and analyzed using qualitative methods. Quantitative results from the student surveys suggest there may be group differences with respect to gender in affective appreciation and for students' race/ethnicity in behavioral appreciation. Qualitative analysis of the focus group data suggested that students do perceive history to be boring in general but may have more nuanced perceptions of the day-to-day content and instruction in their history class. Furthermore, students indicated that they did perceive history to be relevant to their own lives and that both the content and instructional approach in class influenced these perceptions. Taken together, the results confirm previous findings regarding students' perceptions of history education. However, they also extend our knowledge of how students perceive the relevance of history education and the important role of the teacher in selecting both content and instructional methods. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]