The most important third-party movement in American history emerged out of the social and economic chaos brewing in the Great Plains in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. The maelstrom, labeled Populism, contained a powerful, indeed a truly revolutionary message--that man was his brother's keeper. This concept proved to have…

History teaching in schools has long been in a state of deep crisis. Students do not like history nor do they know it. This dismal state of history teaching has required the attention of experts in the realm of school history instruction and curricula design who have made a large number of proposals to improve its standing in schools. These have a…

A recent report from EdChoice documents two staffing trends in public schools. After a temporary pause during the Great Recession, school staffing in the U.S. resumed an upward trajectory, and hiring tilted toward non-teaching personnel as compared to teachers. The report concludes that staffing growth outpaces enrollment growth and that there has…

For a long time, Advanced Placement and other advanced-level U.S. history courses at the high school level were modeled after the collegiate survey course. However, the last two decades or more have seen some significant changes in the teaching of U.S. history at undergraduate and high school levels. Many of these changes at the high school level…

State and national educational initiatives have increased expectations for students' historical thinking and civic involvement. Guidance for relevant, purposeful classroom experiences with age appropriate, rigorous content has never been clearer, yet teachers still feel unprepared. Towards these ends, the authors direct attention to the antecedent…

University instructors preparing prospective sixth- to twelfth-grade history teachers often realize it can be difficult to condense the extensive information these individuals need for their future profession into one or two courses. Teacher preparation programs are forced to juggle requirements for program accreditation with their ethical…

After an accomplished military career leading up to and during World War II, Truman Smith (1893-1970) was seemingly forgotten. His name was seldom mentioned after the war until his memoirs were published posthumously in 1984. History shows Smith to be an astoundingly successful figure in military intelligence. This article provides a biography on…

This chapter details how slavery, segregation, and racism impacted the educational experiences of African Americans from the colonial era to the present. It argues that America has yet to be a truly post-slavery and post-segregation society, let alone a post-racial society.

English learners are best supported when they receive culturally relevant content-area instruction in their first language. Numerous studies (e.g., Lindholm-Leary 2001) support this approach, and bilingual and dual language teachers in the community of Austin, Texas, have called for curricular resources. In response, a group of researchers,…

The service of blacks in the U.S. military can be traced back to the Revolutionary War. However, up to the end of World War I, African Americans in military branches were relegated to cooking and cleaning duties. As the United States prepared to enter World War II, pressure to admit African Americans into full service in the military increased due…

In this mixed-methods study, we use a postcolonial framework to investigate how state standards represent Indigenous histories and cultures. The research questions that guided this study include: (a) What is the frequency of Indigenous content (histories, cultures, current issues) covered in state-level U.S. history standards for K-12? (b) What is…

Although children's literature has long alluded to cultural connections between Africans and African Americans, very few texts establish clear lines of influence between particular African ethnic groups and African American characters and communities. Joyce Hansen's "The Captive" (1994) and Sharon Draper's "Copper Sun" (2006)…

Jamestown is at the heart of any teaching and learning of colonial American history. Stories of John Smith and Pocahontas are learned by elementary and secondary students across the United States. In Virginia, Jamestown is first taught in third grade and revisited five more times from historical, political, economic, and geographic perspectives.…

This paper focuses on how shifting conceptions of youth underpinned young people's activism in the 1950s and 1960s. This paper specifically examines conceptions of youth as it changed throughout the twentieth century. G. Stanley Hall articulated a distinct notion of "adolescence" in the early twentieth century. But the "Scottsboro…

The day-to-day appraisal of the state of the nation is understandably dominated by the stories in the headlines. In "Coming Apart" (Murray, 2012), the author attempted to step back from today's headlines and take a longer view of where the nation is heading. Murray's conclusion was that we face a much more ominous long-term problem than…