TE 853E

There are so many quality journals available; however, two more I would recommend for your research include:

Brugar, K. A. (2023). The possibilities of teaching the past: fifth grade teachers’ instructional choices. Social Studies Research & Practice, 18(3), 181–197. https://doi.org/10.1108/SSRP-12-2022-0035

The purpose of this study is to explore decision-making of elementary teachers (n = 5) specific to US/American history content and curricular resources. More specifically for this study, the author asks the following broad research question: When presented with a collection of social studies instructional resources, how do elementary teachers describe the choices they do make/may make? Design/methodology/approachIng this comparative case study, fifth-grade teachers were interviewed using verbal protocol methodology, they discussed their curriculum, teaching, and instructional decisions as each was presented with history/social studies resources associated with newly adopted state standards. Findings indicate these elementary teachers have professional freedom to make instructional decisions in the ways they interpreted the standards, design instruction and select materials for social studies. This study contributes to and extends the research in elementary social studies. Teachers' voices and decisions are presented as intellectual and pedagogical actions associated with teaching elementary school social studies.

Burnett, Lydia and Cuevas, Joshua Dr. (2023) "Using Historical Thinking Strategies for Improving Elementary Students’ Content Knowledge and Attitudes Towards Social Studies," Georgia Educational Researcher: Vol. 20: Iss. 1, Article 2. DOI: 10.20429/ger.2023.200102

Available at: https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gerjournal/vol20/iss1/2
Instructional time spent on elementary social studies is often marginalized due to the emphasis placed on other content areas. Therefore, social studies teachers must employ meaningful instructional strategies that will engage students while promoting content acquisition. This quasi-experimental study responds to this challenge by guiding a sample of 44 fifth grade students to use the historical thinking skills of sourcing, contextualizing, and corroborating that encourage engagement with a variety of primary sources through the lens of Jerome Bruner’s learning theories. The control group used traditional instructional methods including close-note taking, vocabulary review, and independent reading from social studies texts. Both the control and treatment groups were assessed prior to and after the study on content knowledge, attitude toward social studies, and critical thinking skills using the Cornell Critical Thinking Test. Students in the treatment group showed significant differences in their content knowledge over the control group.

Ciullo, S., Falcomata, T., & Vaughn, S. (2015). Teaching Social Studies to Upper Elementary Students With Learning Disabilities: Graphic Organizers and Explicit Instruction. Learning Disability Quarterly, 38(1), 15–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/0731948713516767

The authors report the efforts of a single-case, multiple-probe design investigation for students with learning disabilities (LD) in Grades 4 and 5. Seven students classified as LD and with persistent difficulty with informational-text comprehension from two elementary schools participated. The study compared social studies learning across two conditions: a text-based summarization baseline and a treatment that used graphic organizers and explicit instruction. Results suggest the manifestation of a functional relation for all students on daily content quizzes and minimal performance overlap between conditions. On a pre/post social studies measure, students at both schools improved, but students at School B made greater gains at posttest. Results suggest that treatment components that have been effective for students in secondary school are promising for enhancing learning with social studies text in students with LD in Grades 4 and 5.

Conrad, J., Gallagher, J. L., & Chan, W. (2024). Getting critical with compelling questions: Shifts in elementary teacher candidates’ curriculum planning from inquiry to critical inquiry. Theory & Research in Social Education, 52(4), 532–574. https://doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2024.2340496

While recognized as a foundational practice, social studies educators struggle with enacting inquiry-based instruction. With critical inquiries that examine sociopolitical and other injustices, developing aligned compelling questions represents a challenge, particularly for elementary teachers. Informed by four lenses of criticality from social studies scholarship, this design-based mixed methods research follows 28 elementary teacher candidates from two universities and regions as they formulated compelling questions for critical inquiry units together. Data sources included audio transcriptions of group discussions, course assignments, curriculum planning documents, and reflections. Qualitative and quantitative findings show that candidates created more critical questions with the intervention scaffold, suggesting a new criterion for determining open questions: identifying ongoing issues of empirical injustice. Most still struggled with identifying implicated social groups and clarifying relationships of interdependence. Group members’ positional awareness of sociopolitical identities appeared to support more critical collective question design trajectories through understandings of structure, agency, and place relative to the content. Results suggest the importance of scaffolding critical inquiry question development—with special care to support teacher candidates’ sociopolitical consciousness and consider their and K-12 students’ implicated identities in power systems, situated in specific teaching contexts.

Cornett, A., & Piedmont, E. (2024). Developing notions of place in an undergraduate elementary social studies methods course. Social Studies Research & Practice, 19(2), 239–256. https://doi.org/10.1108/SSRP-10-2023-0056

Place-based, social studies teaching and learning has the potential to foster engaged citizens connected and committed to improving their communities. This study explored the research question, “In what ways do classroom and field-based experiences prepare teacher candidates (TCs) to make connections between place-based education and elementary social studies education? “Design/methodology/approach. This qualitative case study examined how elementary TCs learned about, researched, curated and created place-based social studies educational resources related to community sites. Data collection included TCs’ Pre- and Post-Course Reflections as well as Self-Evaluations, which were analyzed using an inductive approach and multiple rounds of concept coding. Several themes emerged through data analysis. Findings: The authors organized their findings around three themes: connections (i.e. place becomes personal), immersion (i.e. learning about place to learning in place) and bridge building (i.e. local as classroom). The classroom and field-based experiences in the elementary social studies methods course informed the ways in which TCs learned about and connected to the concept of place, experienced place in a specific place (i.e. downtown Statesboro, Georgia), and reflected upon the myriad ways that they could utilize place in their future elementary social studies classrooms. Originality/valueTCs (as well as in-service teachers and teacher educators) must become more informed, connected and committed to places within their local communities in order to consider them as resources for elementary social studies teaching and learning.

Doornbos, L., Whitlock, A. M., Halvorsen, A. L., Lo, J. C., & Demarse, M. (2024). Diving into elementary social studies instruction: What teachers report is happening. Theory & Research in Social Education, 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2024.2441869

This mixed-methods analysis explores the self-reported instructional practices of elementary social studies teachers through a statewide survey of Michigan elementary teachers and administrators. We focus specifically on how much instructional time teachers report devoting to social studies compared to how much they would ideally like to teach and how the reported amount of instructional time varies across grade levels and school contexts. Using a framework of teacher-decision making, we analyze teachers’ responses about how and what to teach in social studies education. Lessons from the study help surface challenges, barriers, and opportunities for elementary social studies education. We found that while teachers often cite “lack of time” as the central reason for neglecting social studies, other factors tell a more complete story. We conclude with implications for practice and policy for this critical subject area.

Hughes, R. E., & Marhatta, P. (2023). Learning to ask their own questions: How elementary students develop social studies inquiry questions. Teaching and Teacher Education, 127, 104094-. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2023.104094

Although asking questions is the most frequently named disciplinary practice included in the C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards, little is known about how elementary-aged students learn to develop inquiry questions. In this study, we analyzed how 19 third-grade students in the U.S. Midwest Region developed questions related to economics, geography, history, and political science across five months during the 2017–2018 school year. We found that students were generally successful with developing questions related to the disciplines, but their questions were most often closed-ended. We provide implications for supporting students’ learning as they generate inquiry questions.

White, E. S. (2024). Preservice Elementary Teachers and Future Civic Teaching. Journal of Social Studies Research, 48(4), 261–273. https://doi.org/10.1177/23522798241252939

To strengthen civic education in elementary schools, research is needed to understand preservice teachers’ ideas about civic teaching. The current study examined the degree to which elementary preservice teachers’ civic competencies (i.e., civic awareness, dispositions, and interpersonal skills) and the grades they plan to teach are associated with expected future civic teaching. Survey data were collected from 235 undergraduate students majoring in early childhood or elementary education. Results from hierarchical multiple regression showed that greater civic awareness and lower levels of trust in the American promise were associated with expected future teaching about politics, while greater civic awareness, stronger commitment to social issues, and better interpersonal skills were associated with expected future teaching about community engagement. Additionally, those who plan to teach the upper elementary grades (third–fifth) were more likely to report that they will teach about politics and community engagement in their future classrooms when compared to those who plan to teach younger grades (PreK–second). Practical implications for preservice teacher preparation are discussed.

Zeybek, F. (2023). Digital Social-Emotional Learning: An Explanatory Sequential Mixed-Methods Study of Elementary School Teachers’ Experiences in Teaching Social-Emotional Learning with Digital Technology. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.

This mixed-methods study explored how elementary school teachers in the United States experience integrating digital technology into social-emotional learning (SEL) instruction to support elementary students' emotional well-being and academic success. The study was grounded in the CASEL framework and consisted of quantitative and qualitative phases. During the first phase of the study, a nonprobability sampling method was used to gather quantitative data from 350 elementary school teachers across the United States through a closed-question survey. In the second phase, purposeful sampling was employed to conduct semi-structured interviews with ten teachers via Zoom to collect qualitative data. The findings suggested that teachers value integrating digital technology into SEL education, and they believe it promotes students' emotional well-being, academic success, equity, and engagement in learning. However, the study highlighted that teachers require ongoing training and support which are essential for managing teachers' workload and ensuring sufficient time for SEL education in elementary schools. The study also indicated that teachers need more suitable and practical digital SEL resources for younger students and training in balancing digital and in-person SEL interaction to support students' emotional and academic success. Overall, the study provided valuable digital tools for SEL education and important insights into how digital technology can be integrated into SEL effectively and highlighted the need for continued support and resources for teachers in elementary schools.