This document-based historical study focuses on history/social studies teacher education in the decades immediately preceding and following the National Education Association’s landmark report, The Social Studies in Secondary Education, which commonly is credited with establishing social studies as a school subject. The article interrogates how teacher preparation programs contributed and/or responded (or not) to this curriculum reform and to what effect. This study is the first of its kind to center primarily on the history of teacher education in the social studies.
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This article explores and criticizes the ascendancy of skills thinking in Higher Education. Drawing on the experience of the United Kingdom and Europe it argues that the focus on skills acquisition in universities is paralleled by a tendency to devalue the intellectual content of academic subjects. Frequently this instrumental turn of education also leads to trivialization of the meaning of a skill.
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Non-tenure track faculty now make up two-thirds of the faculty, but we have very little research on this growing population. What little we know is that they often have poor working conditions. Some leaders are beginning to alter policies and practices on campus to better support these faculty. The question addressed in this particular article is: How do NTTF construct an understanding of support within their department? The results showcase individual and institutional conditions that uniquely shape their views, dispelling the notion that they are a mostly homogenous group. Practical implications for improving departmental and institutional life are also offered.
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This commentary explores the disconnect between recent educational reforms and Americans’ beliefs about teachers and teaching.
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This article presents and analyzes a variety of approaches that teachers in a struggling urban school used after a violent teacher attack ushered in a culture of chaos and fear throughout the school. As this paper suggests, many of these approaches failed to generate the authority necessary to restore student engagement and the relational trust between teachers and students that they had lost following this incident. At the same time, one teacher implemented an approach that allowed him to reclaim his authority, repair the teacher-student relationship, and increase student engagement in his classroom. Drawing on various theories about power and authority in schools, I argue that the degree to which these different approaches created engaging learning environments and restored a meaningful teacher-student relationship depended on whether students recognized a teacher’s authority as legitimate.
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This commentary discusses what teachers' metaphors reveal about current struggles in urban schools. The author argues for a reconceptualization of metaphors of teaching and a better understanding of teachers' challenges stemming from contemporary policies and politics.
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We are not responsible for the contents of the scripts we were handed at birth as Americans—as teachers, but we are responsible for the edits. Reality exists in our minds and nowhere else. It is not out there, but inside us. Progress begins simply by changing our minds. Teachers make a difference in urban education. White female middle-class teachers represent 84 percent of Americas’ teachers. For teachers who are willing to change their minds, their cultural narrative about themselves and their students’ school success is possible in urban America. Create and tell a life-affirming story.
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