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  Drawing on postcolonial theory, we analyzed the discourses of two contemporaneous historical documents to demonstrate the complexities in meaning making processes inherent in the indigenous Yorubas’ social practices, in the southwestern part of Nigeria.  Differential complex perspectives on Yoruba social practices are evident in both colonialist and native authored historical documents from the same time period when colonialist authority had been established but indigenous cultural practices were evident and continuing.  The Colonialist authored historical document indicate misunderstanding of the meaning of some Yoruba social practices.  The native authored historical document provides underlying meanings for social practices and ties portrayal of social practices to indigenous ways of being.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calls attention to how colonial legacies influence meaning making, meaning made from, and knowledge made available by, historical documents, as well as ways forward in addressing contemporary discourse on Africa in US social studies curriculum

Early childhood social studies

xiv, 251 p. : il.; 24 cm

Teachers' conceptions of successful elementary mathematics pedagogical practices of African American students

This study investigated elementary school teachers' conceptions of their beliefs and expectations of African American students, their pedagogical practices, and the rationale for choosing the pedagogical practices for grades 3 through at Star Maker Elementary. The researcher employed a mixed methodology. The Math Teacher of African American Students Inventory (MT-ABSI) served as the quantitative method. Frequency analysis was employed to analyze the survey. Qualitative methods included two focus group interviews and lesson plans analysis. The researcher employed thematic coding to analyze the qualitative methods. Although the results from the MT-ABSI indicated that teachers had low level beliefs and expectations of their African American elementary students' ability in mathematics, the teachers professed to have high beliefs and expectations and communicate them to their students by using real world experiences in their mathematics classes, providing extra help outside of the mathematics class, and expressing their expectations verbally and non verbally. Further results of the survey indicated that teachers professed to implement some best practices in mathematics classroom than other. These best practices included the use of manipulatives and informing students of state standards. Overall, this is in agreement with the focus group interviews and lesson plans with special emphasis on differentiating instruction, professional development, and lesson plans cycle. There rationale for choosing the pedagogical practices included building background, learners' preference, and reinforcement and advancement of skills. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Long-term impact of undergraduate science reform courses on the pedagogical content knowledge of kindergarten through sixth grade inservice teachers

This study explores the long-term impact of faculty-created reformed undergraduate science courses on the pedagogical content knowledge of kindergarten-6th grade inservice elementary teachers who took these reform courses during their undergraduate programs. On-site case studies were completed with 35 faculty instructors teaching entry-level undergraduate science courses at 20 higher education institutions, and 91 elementary inservice teachers. The sample was selected from a national population of diverse colleges and universities that had undergone reform in one or more of their undergraduate science courses. The data collection protocol involved classroom observations, interviews, artifact analysis, semi-structured interviews, and field notes from multiple instruments and sources. Data were collected during on-site visits from instructors and their graduated students. Quantitative and qualitative analysis identified variations in faculty instructors', as well as inservice teachers', perceptions and observations of the intended and enacted teaching goals, instruction, student difficulties, and rationale for teaching a specific science concept in observed science lessons. These perceptions and observations, identified as science pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), varied significantly among both faculty instructors and inservice elementary teachers who experienced the undergraduate reformed science courses taught by these same faculty instructors. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

The role of family and community partnerships in social studies education: practices of K-3 National Board Certified Teachers

Despite the importance of engaging parental and community support in social studies education as outlined in the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) (2001) and National Council for the Social Studies Task Force on Standards for Teaching and Learning in the Social Studies (2008), there is little research reported on the teaching practices used by early elementary (NBPTS) teachers in social studies education. Hence, the problem of this study is, theoretically, there is the assumption that National Board Certified Teachers are acknowledged as experts when it comes to engaging families and communities in their social studies teaching, however, there seems to be a disconnect between family and community involvement practices and social studies teaching. Survey and interview data were collected from a sample of early elementary National Board Certified Teachers to determine philosophies and perceptions towards family and community involvement in social studies as well as teaching practices used to teach social studies in the early grades. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Critical race theory in elementary social studies: exploring racial identity and stereotype threat for black males

Despite the vast research by various education specialists regarding the state of emergency as it relates to the Black male student and his success, little is known about the effects the social studies can have on their lives. Much of what is published about Black male students’ academic and personal lives, portrays these young men as defiant, unengaged, undereducated, and socially bankrupt. This study attempted to provide a voice for these young men through a transformative mixed method approach. The students and their social studies teachers completed a survey that examined their attitudes and beliefs of the social studies and how it could be used to instill a positive self-identity within this group of students. The students also took the Multidimensional Inventory Survey, developed upon a phenomenological view of the correlations between a person’s self-identity and his or membership within a particular race (Rowley, Sellers, Chavous, & Smith, 1998), to gain sight into how they believed they identified as males within the Black race. The students and teachers were then interviewed to triangulate the quantitative findings. The analysis of the data yielded the following: 1) Black boys enjoyed the social studies particularly when presented in a culturally relevant format, 2) Black boys possessed high levels of Black identity and closely aligned with teachers who viewed them as individuals and identified with the issues they encountered, 3) Teachers of these Black boys held them to high standards and did not compromise these expectations, 4) Teachers insinuated a culturally relevant social studies curriculum yielded increases in their Black male students’ self-identities, 5) Black boys wanted a space to feel valued, and the social studies classes in which they were enrolled, provided this positive valuation of them, which improved their own self-identities. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Case study of a creative writing program and the interaction of white instructors' and African American students' social and cultural backgrounds

This case study investigated the implementation of a non-scripted, creative writing program designed by two English Education instructors from a large university in the southeastern region of the United States with collaboration from the Screen Actors Guild from Los Angeles, California, and the National Council of Teachers (NCTE) of English Research Foundation. The main focus was to observe the implementation of the creative writing program, referred to as "We the Children: A Symphony of Lives," and the interaction of participants' social and cultural differences. Participants included ninth-grade African American students in an English Language Arts classroom directed by two white instructors and one white English teacher as they engaged in discussions, writing, and sharing of autobiographical writing. Data collection occurred during the spring semester of the 2007-2008 academic school year in a high school similar to many high schools across the United States struggling for higher achievement outcomes and dealing with a student population defined by factors such as segregation, high poverty, a high dropout rate, a low graduation rate, and low student achievement. The study analyzes the manner in which the creative writing program worked to achieve its goals and the resources used which included visiting experts, the instructors' expectations for students, and the incorporation of what was termed "culturally-central pedagogy" by the instructors. The reality of more and more white English educators teaching students from social and cultural backgrounds much different from their own is a challenge for the English classroom of the 21st century. In order to fulfill a need for examples of best practices for English teachers entering the classrooms, the study explored not only the specifics of the writing program but also the interplay of instructors' and students' social and cultural differences. Case study methodology guided the research, and a total of 14 weeks was spent in the field collecting data which included fieldnotes from observations, personal reflections, student artifacts, and interviews with students and the instructors. I used the constant-comparative method to generate frequent patterns and themes across the students, their teacher, and the instructors' interactions. I identified literacy events in which socio-cultural differences among the instructors and students occurred. However, the differences in the participants' backgrounds did not pose visible difficulties that could be linked to racial differences so much as the appearance of typical differences encountered by teachers and students from the same sociocultural backgrounds with regard to teacher expectations and student outcomes. With regard to the concept of culturally-relevant pedagogy, many instances were recorded when the instructional practices and instructional talk reflected tailored curricular selections for the dominant African American class population, but more research needs to be conducted on the successes of using these type of literary interventions compared to the standard curriculum of most ninth-grade English classrooms. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries