Teaching Global Health in the Time of Covid-19: Key Concepts for Social Studies Classrooms

This article highlights the promise of global health approaches for social studies curricula, especially urgent in the time of the Covid-19 pandemic. Focusing on six facets that inform a global health perspective, the authors offer social studies educators an approach from this applied field of study to support lessons and curriculum on Covid-19 across sociology, geography, and other disciplines within social studies education. The authors provide select digital resources for teachers and students to use in learning and teaching about the Covid-19 pandemic through a global health perspective aligned with the National Council for the Social Studies’ Thematic Standards

“It Changes Me from Nothing to Something”: Identifying Educative-Psychic Violence in a Public Diplomacy Program for Nonelite Youths

Since 2004, the English Access Microscholarship Program, a U.S. public diplomacy initiative, has impacted at least 150,000 nonelite youths. U.S. Department of State employees created the program in response to suicide bombings committed by Moroccan youths at international sites in Casablanca. The program later expanded throughout the Middle East and then across the world, eventually operating in more than eighty-five countries for students aged thirteen to twenty. [Author’s name] examines images promoted by the program associated with the mission for students to develop an “appreciation for U.S. culture and democratic values through cultural enhancement activities” using critical concepts such as educative-psychic violence and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s description of education as a cultural bomb. Troubling content promoted by the program features students depicting themselves as lacking dignity and worth paired with portrayals of gaining dignity and worth through their participation in the program. Additionally, the program’s “cultural enhancement activities” intended to promote “appreciation for U.S. culture and democratic values” often occur in communities deeply impacted by the U.S.-led War on Terror and amid dramatic economic and military power differentials. Finally, [the author’s] analysis encourages academic engagement with policy makers on the use of education within public diplomacy initiatives.

Civic Thinking and Public Policy Analysis: A Comparative Approach to Political Decision-Making

In an effort to increase students’ preparation for and participation in civic life, teachers and schools across the United States have incorporated action civics programs into their social studies courses. These programs resemble many of the key characteristics of the public policy analysis process. However, there is little evidence suggesting that civic leaders use this process when engaging a civic issue. This study explores the processes that civic leaders in one community use when thinking aloud about two hypothetical civic action scenarios, comparing their processes with the public policy analysis process. Qualitative analysis demonstrates that civic leaders engage in the public policy analysis process but also include the crucial initial step of seeking community deliberation. This initial step makes the whole process community-based, especially in the Research, Planning, and Action phases. These findings indicate that action civics programs should consider incorporating more community awareness and involvement into the early parts of their curricula, enabling youth to work with community members rather than isolating action civics work to K-12 classrooms

Marginalization of Social Studies Teacher Preparation for Global Competence and Global Perspectives Pedagogy: A Call for Change

Few scholars have raised the question; why are teacher education programs not preparing teachers for global competence and global perspectives pedagogy? The purpose of this article is to explore this question. The study utilizes qualitative and practitioner research methodologies. Four factors marginalizing the preparation of teachers for global competence and global perspectives pedagogy in social studies teacher education are examined: a) competing pedagogical paradigms; b) lack of clarity on global perspectives pedagogy; c) neoliberal ideologies and policies, and d) complicity in new high-stakes teacher licensure assessment. The paper discusses critical implications and recommendations for preparing social studies teachers for global competence and global perspectives pedagogy in teacher education

Exploring COVID-19 in a social studies methods course: Preservice teachers harness the current pandemic to design inquiry-based WebQuests for elementary learners

COVID-19 quickly upended life in many ways, presenting teachers with the opportunity to confront the issue with their students or forge ahead in the midst of a societal crisis. Teachers can harness such current events with youth in ways that foster active democratic citizenship, but they must be prepared to implement such pedagogy. This article illuminates how preservice teachers in an elementary social studies methods course explored the global pandemic of COVID-19 to become more informed citizens and to plan for powerful inquiry-based learning of the current pandemic with young learners

Self-Regulation, Empathy, and Compassion: A Critical Triad to Develop Anti-Racist Digital Citizenship in the Time of Pandemic

The coronavirus has unleashed another pandemic - xenophobia. This article aims to counter the xenophobic narrative that affects many Asians and people of Asian descent due to COVID-19 pandemic.  To counter this narrative, we offer an anti-racist digital citizenship framework in social studies. This illustrates a critical triad of self-regulation, empathy, and compassion. Self-regulation is the ability to develop cognitive control of emotional reactivity to facilitate self-directed change. Empathy is the understanding of another person’s emotional state and the projection of oneself into the other’s situation. Compassion is taking a mindful action to alleviate the struggles and sufferings of others

Experiences of a German Girl Growing up during the Nazi Regime, the End of World War II, and Coming to ‘Amerika’: An Oral History Narrative

Abstract: This oral history describes the memories of a young German girl growing up during the Nazi Era and the end of World War II in a village in the Bavarian Alps of southern Germany. The narrative is based on her lived experiences and stories shared by her father about the horrors of the Nazi regime. Her memories include shrieking bells and imminent bombing attacks; boy soldiers inducted in the Wehrmacht; the sabotage activities of her dissident father, and the despair of villagers when death notices came for sons and husbands killed at the front. She also describes the white-flag welcome her father and grandfather gave troops from General Patton’s Third U.S. Army 10th Armored Division when they arrived at the edge of their village, and her experiences meeting White and Black soldiers who threw fruit and candy to the village children from their tanks. Concluding with her immigration to the United States at the age of 22 and her discovery of profound racism and discrimination against African Americans, this oral history gives teachers and teacher educators a rich, personal resource to use as an adjunct or alternative to textbook readings about a devastating time in Germany history

The Belize Project: A Host School Perspective

While the research literature is replete with studies on student perspectives and theirdevelopment of cross-cultural sensitivity, research on the perspectives of educators who host international preservice teachers is woefully lacking. This study seeks to fill that gap by assessing the experiences of 15 educators at an elementary host school in Belize. It draws on their experiences with hosting the Belize Project, a week-long international field experience.Our findings lead to two major conclusions. Culture and completing a field experience in a classroom in another country are two closely intertwined and difficult to disentangle experiences. It is a reciprocal process in which both participating partners, the teacher candidates and host school community, reap the benefits of both a cultural and educational exchange. Not only does it benefit the student teachers, it also contributes to the professional development of the host school community and its educators. Despite the short length of the project, the mentor teachers and administrators unanimously agreed that its benefits clearly outweigh its challenges

Unpacking Fake News an Educator’s Guide to Navigating the Media with Students

 In 2019, Wayne Journell published a book, which is called unpacking fake news that gives an overview of the issue of fake news, and how teachers can teach students to handle such fake news. This book started by showing how the fake news work and impact people's beliefs, especially in the political field. This book also gives a reader an overview of historical events of fake news and why teenagers are more susceptible to fake news. This book provides readers with assessment tools that help students to evaluate and distinguish between fake and real news and includes educational approaches and strategies that teachers can use to help their students be more critical thinkers

Social Studies Curricula: Interpreting and Using African Primary Source Documents

While many US residents like listening to African stories, hearing African stories is difficult because designing effective curricula and teaching about African contexts appear to be a major challenge in US social studies education.  Drawing on postcolonial theory, we analyzed the discourses of two contemporaneous historical documents to demonstrate the complexities in meaning making processes inherent in the indigenous Yorubas’ social practices, in the southwestern part of Nigeria.  Differential complex perspectives on Yoruba social practices are evident in both colonialist and native authored historical documents from the same time period when colonialist authority had been established but indigenous cultural practices were evident and continuing.  The Colonialist authored historical document indicate misunderstanding of the meaning of some Yoruba social practices.  The native authored historical document provides underlying meanings for social practices and ties portrayal of social practices to indigenous ways of being.  The discussion calls attention to how colonial legacies influence meaning making, meaning made from, and knowledge made available by, historical documents, as well as ways forward in addressing contemporary discourse on Africa in US social studies curriculum