Purpose The purpose of this paper is to allow students to explore the role of volunteerism in their communities as they become community helpers through a service learning project to engage in action within their local areas. This lesson introduces various social studies concepts of civic...

Purpose Existing research suggests that preservice elementary teachers tend to believe “good” citizens are people who follow laws and help others rather than people who embrace a more active model of citizenship that includes working to improve society. The purpose of this paper is to...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of scaffolded lesson study on the content knowledge, conceptions of curriculum, and classroom practice of 22 elementary and secondary history teachers in four school districts. Design/methodology/approach Teachers, teacher...

Purpose Democracy is learned through doing, not telling. The purpose of this paper is to report the findings from an action research project where a group of fourth-grade students participated in a simulation that explored the possibilities and the constraints of acting democratically, while...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to use Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation , by Duncan Tonatiuh, along with other materials on school segregation to address the question, is separate ever equal? Design/methodology/approach Students compare and...

Purpose Education initiatives require substantive changes for history, social studies, English, and language arts teachers of any grade level. History and social studies teachers are to integrate multiple texts from diverse perspectives, which increases teachers’ uses of trade books and...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to focus on the political attitudes, experiences, and habits of young adults in the USA, with particular focus on their voting habits. Since young adults are just beyond Kindergarten-12 (K-12) schooling they are the voting segment arguably most affected by...

Purpose Financial literacy is lacking across all age groups, but less than one-third of young adults have even basic financial knowledge. Research has demonstrated that online learning is effective. As such, online learning strategies may be a useful tool for improving the financial literacy of...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present results from three years of a longitudinal “Assessment Attitudes and Practices” survey collected from a large school district in the Southern USA. Design/methodology/approach This paper focuses on both formative and summative “assessment...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide secondary social studies practitioners with a research-based adaptable lesson plan aligned with the National Council for the Social Studies Thematic Strands and its C3 Framework incorporating the digitized collection of the National Gallery of Art...