The Social Studies Wars Revisited

Powerful Social Studies Unit Design: A Companion to Powerful Social Studies Teaching and Learning

“…Teachers who continually fashion units of this ilk become full and honored partners in the design and implementation of learning experiences (Ross 1997), thereby reclaiming autonomy and stimulating an infectious interest in content decision making. Textbooks, standards, and testing potentially minimize alternative approaches to social studies education and lead to narrow curriculum that neglects the aims of citizenship (Evans 2004)-but they do not have to. The field can still reach an end goal of student mastery of standards and ensure topical coverage without devolving to a lockstep progression, while satisfying the larger citizenship purposes of social studies education.…”

“…Rather than focusing on what content to omit within a normal course Downloaded by [Selcuk Universitesi] at 16:30 08 February 2015 structure of history or another social studies discipline (Weinland 2012), this article instead revisits the tyranny of chronological historical progression as presented in textbooks or suggested by standards and testing-a curricular organization that is not satisfactory for social studies aims and goals (Tyler 1949). A wide variety of alternative structures exist that help reshape disciplinary content organization into structures more consistent with citizenship education, including issues-centered, thematic, project-based, and reverse chronology (Evans, Newmann, and Saxe 1996;Evans 2004;Hunt and Metcalf 1955;Misco and Patterson 2009;Oliver, Newmann, and Singleton 1992;Rugg 1931). For example, the Rugg textbooks of the 1920s and 1930s organized content to prepare students to understand the conditions and problems that they would confront as citizens (Evans 2004).…”

“…A wide variety of alternative structures exist that help reshape disciplinary content organization into structures more consistent with citizenship education, including issues-centered, thematic, project-based, and reverse chronology (Evans, Newmann, and Saxe 1996;Evans 2004;Hunt and Metcalf 1955;Misco and Patterson 2009;Oliver, Newmann, and Singleton 1992;Rugg 1931). For example, the Rugg textbooks of the 1920s and 1930s organized content to prepare students to understand the conditions and problems that they would confront as citizens (Evans 2004). As such, Rugg (1931) noted that "whenever history is needed to understand the present, history is presented" (6).…”

“…In U.S. schools it exists primarily in name only. Similar to the structure of social science education of the nineteenth century, focusing on the disciplines of history, geography, civics, and economics (Evans 2004), so-…”

On Becoming a Legislative Aide: Enhancing Civic Engagement Through a Digital Simulation

“…To prepare citizens to engage in their communities, civics education has been included as a part of the American educational system since public schools were developed in the 19th century (Evans, 2004). Citizenship education, a related concept, is often cited as the chief purpose of our entire educational system (Levine, 2007).…”