This article examines the data collected from the semi-structured interviews of nine Quebec elementary pre-service teachers in a practice teaching context. The paper exposes the educational goals inherent in the teaching of Social Studies, the place that this school subject occupies in the pre-service teacher’s practices, and its contribution to the development of the three-part mission of the Quebec school system (to instruct, socialize, and qualify). Even though Social Studies are considered by the (...) participants of this study to be a less important school subjects, they nevertheless remain significant. This importance refers mainly to the contribution of Social Studies to the development of socially acceptable attitudes in the student. It also refers to the development of an understanding and knowledge of history and of the functioning of society with the ultimate goal of adapting to this society. Sur la base des données issues des entrevues semi-dirigées réalisées auprès de neuf futurs enseignants du primaire en contexte de formation en milieu de pratique au Québec, l’article met en exergue les finalités sous-jacentes à l’enseignement des sciences humaines et sociales, la place que cette discipline occupe dans leurs pratiques ainsi que ses contributions au développement de la triple mission octroyée à l’école québécoise (instruire, socialiser, qualifier). Bien que les sciences humaines et sociales soient considérées par les participants à l’étude comme étant une discipline secondaire, elles restent somme toute importantes. Cependant, cette importance serait axée principalement sur la contribution des sciences humaines et sociales au développement chez les élèves d’attitudes socialement acceptables ainsi que sur le développement d’une connaissance et d’une compréhension qu’ils se font de l’histoire et du fonctionnement de leur société dans le but de s’y adapter. (shrink)

The U.S. Civil Rights Movement (CRM) is a relevant K-6 topic to learn foundational concepts of social justice and participatory citizenship. Year after year, though, U.S. elementary school lessons typically focus on a Martin Luther King, Jr.-Rosa Parks centered narrative, adapted for character education. This qualitative inquiry invited 66 pre-service teachers to explore social justice education embedded at the core of existing K-6 historical topics. Examining pre-service teachers' knowledge, beliefs, and what and how (...) they plan to teach their future students revealed dated educational philosophies. They held limited content knowledge and sociopolitical critical thinking needed to teach the CRM's civic significance and were conflicted by wanting to both empower students and withhold information. This study describes actions designed to model replicable, justice-oriented lessons and help K-6 pre-service teachers reflect on pedagogical choices and ideologies they adopt. It also calls attention to the challenges of K-6 teacher education and school reform when teachers lack content knowledge and political/cultural awareness. (shrink)

It is vital that social studies be an integral part of the elementary (Kindergarten-6) curriculum to prepare all children to participate in increasingly diverse democracies. This study's purpose was to investigate how nine planned and implemented social studies professional development activities, outside traditional classrooms, could impact five volunteer K-6 pre-service teachers’ beliefs about their emergent professional identities as social studies educators. This case study explored research questions primarily through qualitative methods. Research implications contribute to (...) possible solutions for (1) helping pre-service teachers understand how professional educators, outside their local areas, create and learn public scholarship to educate diverse democracies, (2) helping pre-service teachers recognize relationships between high quality professional development, networking, organization membership, and professional identity, and (3) sense of belonging as one treatment for U.S. novice teacher attrition rates. (shrink)

This study aims to explore the level of information and knowledge 150 Spanish kindergarten and elementary school teachers in pre-service training have about human rights. We compared two groups of students: students with no specific training and students with specific training (the students with specific training study with the new training teaching programme that includes a compulsory subject related to citizenship education). The contents are organized around three thematic areas. Human rights are included in the first area (...) ‘Basic concepts to promote equality and participation in Elementary Education’; the other two areas are: ‘Learning to participate at Elementary School’ and ‘Building a civil school that promotes equality and participation at Elementary School’. It is a one semester subject with 3 h of teaching per week. The main hypothesis is that a specific training on human rights will lead to an important improvement not only in student’s level of knowledge but also in the way they categorize this specific content. We have administered a questionnaire designed for the study. In general, our results show that students of both groups have a basic and limited knowledge about human rights. The group with specific training shows a higher level of knowledge than the other group and a different way of organizing it. This would go in the direction of other studies of supporting and reinforcing the inclusion of specific training on human rights during the initial teacher training programmes at the university. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to ascertain perspectives from pre-service and in-service elementary teachers on whether edTPA impacted their preparedness to teach social studies. Major findings show that while study participants found some benefits from edTPA for preparing to teach social studies, pre-service and in-service elementary teachers face significant challenges including time constraints, marginalized emphasis on teaching social studies, facilitating conversations about current events and contemporary issues, and accessing (...) relevant professional development that can support their teaching of content-specific topics with inquiry-based pedagogies such as the National Council for the Social Studies (2013) College, Career, and Civic Life Framework. Recommendations for future studies include examining how partnerships between colleges of education, school districts, and local educational agencies can support pre-service and in-service elementary teachers’ ambitious social studies teaching by focusing on content that highlights contributions of underrepresented historical figures and events, implementing curriculum that promotes inquiry skills, and applying knowledge of the contexts in which they teach to meet the diverse needs of students. (shrink)

This study explored pre-service teachers’ (N = 37) perceptions about teaching controversial global and local topics. Additionally, it examined participants’ level of preparedness, motivation and perceived hindrances to teaching controversial issues. To do so, the study used a interpretive phenomenological approach (IPA). Data from written reflections and semi-structured interviews showed 80 percent of participants lacked exposure to college work that examined controversial issues prior to taking Social Studies Methods course. However, after taking the course, participants were able (...) to identify controversial topics, but they still displayed limited critical awareness and conceptualization of teaching controversial issues. Other findings pointed to the benefits of teaching controversial topics in a planned and intentional manner. (shrink)

The consequences of a trend to marginalize social studies in the early grades are complex and widespread, as a new wave of novice teachers and K-6 students are receiving a message clearly implying that social studies education is unimportant. Convincing them of the value in teaching and learning social studies is progressively becoming more difficult for social studies methods instructors. The purpose of this study was to examine pre-service teachers’ observations of the extent (...) to which social studies is being marginalized, possible barriers involved, and the impact that this phenomenon has on pre-service teachers and K-6 students in the classroom. Through a mixed-method design, 88 pre-service teachers were asked to report their classroom observations. Over half observed social studies instruction. Of those who observed social studies instruction, about a third indicated that teachers taught 5–15 min per day. Pre-service teachers reported personal success in planning and teaching social studies lessons during their practicum experiences; likewise, K-6 students were motivated by pre-service teachers’ student-centered activities in the lessons. The results of this study provide one form of current documentation regarding the effects of social studies marginalization in K-6 schools. (shrink)

Teachers and teacher educators in the US struggle with conflicting needs. They must think critically and adaptively in response to the rapidly changing demographics of their students and adjust to a policy climate that emphasizes standardization, measurement, and disregard for teachers as professionals. Embattled pre-service teacher education programs in institutions of higher education have traditionally sought to develop teacher candidates’ knowledge, skills, and dispositions. The authors argue that in the current climate pre-service teachers also must (...) appropriate conceptual frameworks to support their development as responsive professionals. While dispositions are beliefs and attitudes the origin and teaching of which remain in dispute, concepts like social justice, political-economic equity, and formative assessment are abstract ideas or concepts that inform practice. Conceptual tools, i.e., concepts, theories, and frameworks, guide novice teachers in making decisions in response to the growing and rapidly changing student populations they will teach as well as the policy contexts that constrain their teaching practice. The appropriation of conceptual tools contributes to development of vision and adaptive expertise required by responsive teacher professionals. Using an activity theory framework developed by Wartofsky that draws in particular on the classification of artifacts, or tools, this article frames and critically examines teachers’ need for conceptual tools, the appropriation of those tools, and a mixed methods study of that appropriation. The study demonstrates that teacher candidates do appropriate conceptual tools, but that measurement of that process, though desirable in the current policy context, requires the development of a systematic and replicable methodology. (shrink)

Developing informed and participatory citizens is one of the aims of the National Council for the Social Studies’ (NCSS) vision of civic education. However, when aspiring to meet the call for meaningful civic education, teachers may find themselves at odds with other goals of accountability-driven school environments, creating contexts in which ambitious teaching becomes the answer to instilling democratic citizenship in students. The purpose of this study is to document the experience of such an ambitious teacher, chronicling a (...) fifth-grade teacher's quest for ensuring her students’ access to civic education in an urban, highly-structured, and accountability-based school environment. Through describing her teaching philosophy, instructional strategies, and experience with administration hampering her ability to promote civic education, a pattern of ambitious social studies teaching commensurate with existing literature is supported and questioned. (shrink)

Highlights • Historic site-based laboratory work should be an essential part of the preparation of pre-service teachers. • Integrating historic sites into teacher education programs does not require significant outside funding or massive program overhauls. • Provides models for integrating history laboratory work into existing teacher education program structures.

This exploratory mixed-methods study considers what motivates pre-service social studies teachers to pursue a career in teaching, and the extent to which those motivations are connected to a desire to promote democratic citizenship. We seek to put pre-service social studies teachers’ motivations into a broader context by comparing them to those of pre-service teachers in other certification areas. Using surveys and open-ended responses, we analyzed the motivational factors of 218 pre-service (...) class='Hi'>teachers using the FIT-Choice Scale and Westheimer and Kahne's categories of citizen-types. Our findings suggest that being civically motivated is not a phenomenon unique to social studies teachers. However, participants’ responses to the open-ended prompts suggest a greater likelihood of pre-service social studies teachers articulating a more nuanced vision of “good” citizenship than their peers in other certification areas. Our findings offer implications that extend beyond social studies teacher education to the structure of teacher education programs more generally. (shrink)

As social studies receives less instructional time in elementary classrooms, elementary pre-service teachers (PSTs) observe little social studies instruction in their field placements. Social studies integration is one way to counteract the devaluation of social studies in elementary schools. This multiple case study examines the extent to which nine elementary PSTs were able to integrate social studies into lessons during an alternative field placement, an integratedSTEM camp. The findings show (...) variance across and within participants in their ability to integrate social studies in a quality way. Implications for elementary social studies methods course instructors are discussed. (shrink)

This study examines how one student teaching seminar employed collective critical observation and reflection of an experienced high school social studies teacher's pedagogy using a multimedia representation of teaching. Pre-service teachers watched this teacher implement two full class lessons and reflections on teaching about freedom of speech. This study's pre-service social studies teachers exhibited a developing ability, through collective observation, to critically reflect on their individual methodological and philosophical goals, social studies teaching and (...) learning, and professional and curricular visions in relation to their student teaching experiences and future practice. The study's findings offer implications for how pre-service social studies teachers critically reflect on their practice, while also developing knowledge of learners, subject matter, and teaching social studies. (shrink)

This study reports on a longitudinal inquiry into professional identity construction among six novice cross-border English language teachers from mainland China, who completed their pre-service teacher education in Hong Kong (HK) and began their teaching practice in local HK schools. The findings indicate that the participants navigated obstacles in teaching by deploying their own multiple languages as a cultural and linguistic repertoire. The findings also show that the teachers experienced difficulty legitimising their professional identity in the teaching (...) community, where contextual issues and power interplays mediated the process. Furthermore, it is found that the participants? commitment to teaching was negatively influenced by their non-legitimate position in the teaching community and the discordance between their teaching beliefs and the norms and values of their workplace. This study suggests that complex inter-relationships between marginal status in and legitimate membership of the community, between historical and cultural background, present practice, and future expectations, between social discourse and personal location, are involved in the process of identity construction. Measures to legitimate these teachers? position and to transform the linguistic and cultural repertories of these teachers into valuable resources of the local schools are suggested. Implications for future research are outlined. (shrink)

Over the past decade, heightened attention has been placed on integrating literacy strategies into the social studies. The content literacy movement, as it has become known, began with the passing of No Child Left Behind and has continued with the newly implemented Common Core State Standards. In light of this movement, many states required the pre-service social studies teachers to take courses to teach them how to integrate content literacy into their field in spite of the (...) fact that research has shown that these types of courses can lead to heightened opposition. This study examines the process of change that pre-service social studies teachers experienced as they completed a content literacy course designed to model the principles of content literacy, provide opportunities to struggle with the application of content literacy, and support attempts at implementation. (shrink)

Recently, teacher emotions have become the focus of research in teacher education. Teacher emotions not only affect teachers themselves but also have an impact on their students. However, pre-service teachers’ emotions have been neglected. This study is based on a qualitative analysis of online emotional diaries related to emotional experience expression by 120 Chinese pre-service teachers before, during, and after teaching practice. The results in this study show three characteristics of pre-service teachers’ emotional (...) experiences: the overall positive emotions are higher than negative emotions; “caring” and “nervous” are the most typical emotions and variability in emotional experience across gender and internship schools. Then, it is surprising that pre-service teachers’ emotional trajectories are complex and dynamic, positive emotions are decreasing, and negative emotions increase as time goes by. Finally, from the perspective of emotional experience sources, organizational factors affect the emotional experience, personal factors, and background factors. (shrink)

Social studies’ explanations of race can marginalize educators of color, due to a lack of focus in the curriculum or conversations in the classroom. This article addresses the problem through composite counter-narratives, created from collaborations between the author and current social studies teachers of color. Two teachers, Charlie Smith and Rosita Hernandez, describe their experiences learning and teaching social studies through the lens of community. Current research positions counter-narratives as a pedagogical tool for pre-service (...) teachers resisting majoritarian narratives or as a curricular tool for elementary social studies teachers challenging mainstream historical texts. However, a gap exists on in-service social studies teachers using community to create counter-narratives. Composite counter-narratives serve as a starting point in addressing this gap. This article aims to provide scholarship space for the voices of teachers of color while situating the community as a significant influence in teaching social studies. (shrink)

Over the last 30 years, colleges of education across the nation have examined and deliberated how best to educate pre-service history teachers for the challenges of the modern classroom. Specifically, they sought to create and refine teacher preparation programs that foster within the pre-service history teacher the propensity to use authentic teaching practices once they are licensed and instructing independently in the classroom. Using a situated learning theoretical framework, this research study adds to the literature on this (...) topic by examining how a semester-long pre-service residency at a historic site, archive, library, or museum influences in-service history teacher pedagogy. Utilizing an ex post facto qualitative research methodology with a questionnaire, interviews, and analysis of lesson plans, this study pursued the objective of evaluating the nuances of a residency and how those experiences influence in-service pedagogical dispositions. The findings of the study conclude pre-service history teacher residencies offer valuable and unique learning spaces for the pedagogical development of pre-service history teachers by promoting authentic-based teaching models that participants carry into their in-service teaching. (shrink)

The goal of this study was to determine if the level of preservice teachers’ economic literacy might serve as a gatekeeper to teaching economics competencies. The participants ( n=84) were teacher candidates in an elementary education program in their final methods courses prior to their teacher internship. The findings supported the intuitive belief that elementary teachers lack the economic literacy and confidence needed to teach economics concepts in the elementary curriculum. This deficit can serve as (...) a gatekeeper to teaching economics competencies leading to curricular disjuncture between the established curriculum and actual practice in the classroom. (shrink)

ObjectiveThe aim of the study was to explore the relationship among gratitude, meaning in life, career calling, and career goal self-efficacy of the pre-service teachers in the Free Teacher Education program in China and the internal mechanism of action.MethodsIn this study, gratitude, MIL, career calling, and CGSE questionnaires were used to investigate 801 pre-service teachers. IBM SPSS 25.0 and AMOS 24.0 were used for data processing, and SPSS macro program Model 6 was used for the mediating (...) mechanism.Results Gratitude was positively correlated with MIL and career calling. MIL was positively correlated with career calling. Gratitude, MIL, and career calling were significantly and positively associated with CGSE. Gratitude influences pre-service teachers’ CGSE mainly through the independent intermediary of MIL and career calling, and the chain intermediary of MIL→career calling, three indirect effects.ConclusionGratitude indirectly predicts CGSE of pre-service teachers not only through the independent intermediary of MIL and career calling but also through the chain intermediary of MIL and career calling. (shrink)

The educational reform movement in social studies has focused on constructivist and inquiry-oriented approaches to the teaching of history. Since many social studies teacher education students have had little experience with such approaches in their own schooling, special attention needs to be given to these topics within teacher preparation programs if they are to be implemented in schools. One pathway for accomplishing this is through investigations of local history. This article presents an exploratory qualitative research study investigating (...) pre-service teachers' understanding of inquiry and the impact of a set of lessons in a methods class using local history in the service of inquiry-oriented learning. The results suggest that local history can be an effective tool for stimulating interest in and a deeper understanding of inquiry-oriented teaching. (shrink)

Hitherto, the contribution of philosophers to Neuroscience and Education has tended to be less than enthusiastic, though there are some notable exceptions. Meanwhile, the pervasive influence of neuromyths on education policy, curriculum design and pedagogy in schools is well documented. Indeed, philosophers have sometimes used the prevalence of neuromyths in education to bolster their opposition to neuroscience in teacher education courses. By contrast, this article views the presence of neuromyths in education as a call for remedial action, including philosophical action. (...) The empirical basis of this article is a survey, conducted over a period of three years, involving a total of 1144 first-year pre-service student teachers, which revealed alarming levels of belief in five common neuromyths related to children and learning. This study also attempted to probe the origins of these mistaken beliefs and why they gain traction. The findings suggest an urgent need in teacher education to address the problem of neuromyths, not simply because they are mistaken, they often misdirect valuable resources and mislabel children. The article calls for a compulsory unit on neuroscience and education in all courses of teacher education. Moreover, teaching neuroscience in education cannot be left to specialist neuroscientists, philosophers must be involved. (shrink)

This study explored and compared the perspectives of Taiwanese in-service and pre-service high school mathematics teachers regarding ideal teaching behaviours; the perspectives of a nationwide sample of students were taken as the baseline. Fourteen factors contributing to ideal teaching behaviours were identified through exploratory factor analyses. Nine factors, including idea explanation and speedy lecture, were rooted in traditional Chinese culture; five factors, including concrete representation and student activities, were influenced by Western cultures. Three teacher profiles were identified (...) through k-means clustering analysis. The perspectives of in-service teachers were dominated by a painless meaning-emphasised profile; these teachers emphasised meaningful learning for students and avoided the fast pace and demanding requirements that can cause distress in students, whereas pre-service teachers were dominated by an all-round profile, revealing their openness to all factors. Compared with... (shrink)

Today's pre-service teachers grew up attending schools where high stakes testing and teacher accountability were the norm. Despite a substantial body of research focused on the influence high-stakes testing on the practices of novice social studies teachers, a gap exists regarding the accountability movement's influence on novice social studies teachers. This study focused explicitly on the influence high-stakes testing and the culture of accountability had on two pre-service social studies teachers during (...) their student teaching experience. Our findings highlight the ways the accountability culture of public schools served a narrow gatekeeping function, limiting what participants learned during student teaching. Rethinking gatekeeping during student teaching within the current era of accountability and oversight positions teacher educators to confront the constricting nature of student teaching today. Student teachers must learn to recognize the gatekeeping aspects of the accountability culture and to make sense of the contradictions embedded in the student teaching experience. (shrink)

Although there are differences among critical thinking (hereafter CT) theorists about aspects of critical thinking, there is consensus about its importance in education. Several Saudi scholars argue that there is a lack of CT among Saudi students at high school which is attributed to the lack of teacher knowledge and practice of CT. This qualitative case study based on Paul’s theoretical framework (1992) investigates the implementation of CT at two secondary preservice teacher education programs in Saudi Arabia. The results reveal (...) that none of the lecturers taught CT, either explicitly or implicitly. While they all acknowledged the importance of CT, most maintained that they have never been instructed, advised or encouraged to teach CT. This study aims to build on the CT literature and address the gap in this literature in the Saudi context. (shrink)

There is widespread agreement that an adequate understanding of the nature of science (NOS) is a critical component of scientific literacy and a major goal in science education. However, we still do not know many specific details regarding how students and teachers learn particular aspects of NOS and what are the most important feature traits of instruction. In this context, the main objective of this review is to analyze articles from nine main science education journals that consider the teaching (...) of NOS to K-12 students, pre-service, and in-service science teachers in search of patterns in teaching and learning NOS. After reviewing 52 studies in nine journals that included data regarding participants’ views of NOS before and after an intervention, the main findings were as follows: (1) some aspects of NOS (empirical basis, observation and inference, and creativity) are easier to learn than others (tentativeness, theory and law, and social and cultural embeddedness), and subjective aspects of NOS and “the scientific method” seemed to be difficult for participants to understand; (2) the interventions most frequently lasted 5 to 8 weeks for students, one semester for pre-service teachers, and 1 year for experienced teachers; and (3) most of the interventions incorporated both decontextualized and contextualized activities. Given the substantial diversity in the methods and intervention designs used and the variables studied, it was not possible to infer a pattern of more-effective NOS teaching strategies from the reviewed studies. Future investigation should focus on (a) disentangling whether a difference exists between the easy and difficult aspects of learning NOS and formulating a theoretical explanation for distinguishing the two types of aspects and (b) assessing the effectiveness of different kinds of courses (e.g., history of science, NOS or informal) and strategies (e.g., hands-on vs. drama activities; SSI vs. HOS). (shrink)

As ethical agents, teachers regularly must decide whether compliance to rules and norms is in the best interest of their students. Yet, teachers in the United States are educated to be passively obedient. In this paper, I argue that part of pre-service teacher education ought to learn ways of resisting. I describe one approach to verbal resistance, what Michel Foucault calls Truth-Telling. Building on a qualitative self-study with pre-service teachers, I explain how a form of (...) team-teaching called Interruptions can promote Truth-Telling. (shrink)

Evidence is limited on how elementary social studies preservice teachers make sense of museum settings and the use of museum artifacts for instruction, especially while consumed with learning how to teach. This study explored 81 elementary preservice teachers’ dispositional thinking toward museum pedagogy in a teacher education program. Objectives were to determine an overall dispositional thinking profile and also investigate possible distinct dimensions. The study employed descriptive and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to establish systematically reliable (...) factor solutions representing a profile of preservice teachers’ dispositions. Results indicate preservice teachers’ museum pedagogy dispositional thinking can be measured with three dimensions and one overall generic form of dispositional thinking. Representing the dimensions are these factor structures: (a) willingness to use museum settings and their artifacts to support social studies teaching, (b) capacity to interact with museum artifacts for K-6 social studies teaching, and (c) recognizing the prospect of museum pedagogy as an approach to enhance K-6 social studies education. Based on the factor structures, we introduce a conceptual framework to represent elementary social studies preservice teachers’ dispositional thinking about museum pedagogy. Engaging in preliminary work to first understand preservice teachers’ thoughts and dispositions, before creating or adopting curricula, may deepen and strengthen their agentic growth in museum education for social studies teaching. (shrink)

This study investigated contributions of pre-service teachers’ endogenous and exogenous instrumentalities, their intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, and their use of self-regulation strategies to explain the extent to which they used strategies to purposefully integrate their knowledge across courses. With a total of 254 pre-service teachers’ survey-responses, results of a hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated that their endogenous instrumentality of their current coursework, their use of metacognitive strategies and their use of deeper cognitive learning strategies contributed to (...) explaining their use of extensive knowledge integration strategies for completing coursework. Our results suggest that to develop pre-service teachers’ teaching expertise, they may need to have a strong understanding that the current course conte... (shrink)

To gain an insight into how those entering the teaching profession regard cyberbullying, two focus groups were conducted with nine pre-service teachers. Thematic analytical approach revealed...

It is common practice for social studies in the elementary school day to be integrated into other subject areas, especially language arts. Also common in an elementary school day are unstructured spaces such as snack time or recess. In this paper, we present findings from a larger study on social studies integration within various subject areas to explore how two teachers (first and fifth grade) integrated social studies into unstructured spaces. These teachers integrated (...) social studies concepts and experiences into morning work, community building, snack time, and after-lunch reading to varying degrees. This study provides an inroad for conversation among researchers, teacher educators, and practicing teachers about the ideals and reality of elementary social studies with the hope of deepening students’ experiences. (shrink)

This paper addresses whether, how, and to what extent social studies student teachers who have been introduced to inquiry-oriented teaching (as manifest in the National Council for the Social Studies C3 Framework) in their secondary social studies methods course incorporate this approach into the planning for their practicum experience. Based on analysis of lesson plans used in the practicum and follow-up interviews with a small subset of student teachers, this paper analyzes the factors that promote (...) or inhibit use of this approach to teaching in their practicum experience. Results indicate the C3-oriented teaching approach, as taught in the methods course, did appear in the student teachers’ lesson plans. A small subset of student teachers used the framework competently while two smaller subsets were less adept in their application. The degree of application was affected by student teachers’ perceptions of their school placements and students’ needs. (shrink)

So far little are the studies that have focussed on exploring school principals’ self-conception of their distributed leadership competencies in relation to their managerial and teaching experience. To do so, an exploratory research was carried out with a sample of 163 pre-service and in-service school principals studying a Master’s programme in School Management, Innovation and Leadership at a Spanish University. Data were obtained by using an Ad hoc questionnaire of 7 units of competence and 5 proficiency levels for (...) each unit, based on an existing rubric to analyse students’ self-conception of their development of leadership competencies. The findings of this preliminary study show statistically significant differences in the self-perception in all dimensions associated to Managerial Experience and Teaching Experience in schools. Study participants with ME showed statistically higher levels than those who had non-ME in four of seven dimensions: lead the school organisation, address the needs of the students, manage the organisation of the school organisation, and manage administrative work. Similar results were obtained in relation to TE versus non-TE were statistically significant differences are found in six dimensions: manage pedagogical and didactic resources, attend to the needs of students, manage didactic strategies, manage the organisation of the school organisation, manage the link between the school organisation and the community, and lead the school organisation. This study shows the importance of teaching and professional experience to acquire leadership competencies in education, therefore the school principal should also be a teacher. This preliminary study provides insights into the relevance of providing pre-service or in-service school principals with training and professional development programmes on sustainability distributed leadership that enable them to genuinely engage the school community, develop innovative pedagogies and lead the process of change toward building more sustainable schools. (shrink)

Using a framework of conceptual and practical tools ( Grossman et al., 2000 ), this study explores ways in which a social studies methods course affected beginning teachers’ beliefs and pedagogical approaches for meaningful social studies instruction in elementary grades. Participants included 75 preservice teachers who completed open-ended questionnaires before and after the course, and again one year later as student teachers. Three participants were observed teaching social studies lessons during student teaching to (...) determine how the methods course impacted their nascent instructional practices. The study adds to our understanding about “what sticks” in teacher education and offers insights to researchers and to teacher educators who aim to equip future teachers for “powerful and purposeful” ( NCSS, 2009 ) social studies instruction. (shrink)

Adding instructional time and holding teachers accountable for teaching social studies are touted as practical, logical steps toward reforming the age-old tradition of marginalization. This qualitative case study of an urban elementary school, examines how nine teachers and one administrator enacted district reforms that added 45 min to the instructional day and implemented a series of formative and summative assessments. Through classroom observations, interviews, time journals, and official school documents, this article describes underlying perceptions and priorities (...) that were barriers to any positive impact time or testing might have afforded social studies. Two recommendations emerge from results: 1) time structures need to provide space for the teaching of and planning for social studies; and 2) testing can have positive outcomes, but these are limited when assessments structures are hierarchical, misaligned, and poorly communicated. (shrink)

In a context of high-stakes accountability in teacher education, concerns are emerging about challenges to the already tenuous position of elementary social studies teacher education. In this case study, the author administered a survey to elementary social studies teacher educators in Georgia and conducted follow-up interviews focusing on the impact of edTPA on elementary social studies teacher education and the ways in which they are navigating the new context of teaching elementary social (...) studies methods. The findings reveal the possibility of further decline of social studies in elementary teacher education programs due to elementary edTPA's singular focus on literacy and math content pedagogy along with the high-stakes nature of edTPA process. Implications for future research on edTPA and elementary social studies education are discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Teacher as Public ArtSheila Wright (bio)I entered the public art arena as an idealist optimist. Now, two decades later, I am a pragmatist realist. How did my dream of a populist marketplace turn into a nightmare?—Richard Posner, Artist vs. PublicLike Posner, many faculty members enter the academy as idealists, optimistic that their goals for and the promise of higher education will be fulfilled and their quest for knowledge inspired, (...) only to discover years later that they have become pragmatist realists.1 For many, change is necessary for survival, career success, and fulfilling dreams. At what point, however, might otherwise idealistic, visionary, and highly capable people become oppressed, disillusioned, and/or marginalized as professors? Under what conditions do professional dreams of transforming education and critical pedagogy become frustrated by rigid adherence to the status quo? How might initial aspirations of achieving a higher education become politicized and racialized as seemingly inescapable nightmares?For some faculty—particularly those of color and, especially, women working in historically white institutions—the assault on dreams occurs not only in nightmares during sleep but as monochrome, white-mares while awake.2 So, what does it mean just to be a professor in an environment where the simple quest to teach, conduct research, and serve can be frustrated by faulty, stereotypical, and often hostile assumptions, attitudes, and reactions to gender and skin? How might professors in these circumstances [End Page 83] respond to social constructions that manifest as body politics and racialized consciousness while simultaneously celebrating their identity, inner spirit, and cultural self—their ideals and visions? How do professors in these situations respond to institutional policies and practices and the social, cultural, and political nuances of place? Further, how can professors learn from their experiences and strive for meaningful transformation without the risk of being viewed as an "other," "unorthodox," an "activist," or worse?In this article "teacher as public art" is used as a metaphor to describe and explain the all-too-common perceptions and experiences of professors of color, especially women, within the academy. More specifically, this article reports findings from a qualitative study focused on what it means to be a woman of color in the academy. The findings presented are consistent with those encountered in a growing body of literature on the topic. Like other work in this area, an analysis of historical contexts can provide a critical link to understanding the cultural nuances framing the formation of professors' work identities. Triangulated data for this study included a visual art exhibition, personal reflections on the experiences of teaching in higher education, and formal research involving women faculty of color. Data were analyzed and interpreted based on literature defining the three worlds of professorship (scholarship, teaching, and service). The presentation of results and findings included here is intended to encourage further conversation regarding the retention, promotion, and tenure of faculty of color.Information and PerspectiveHighlighted throughout this discussion are (1) the relevance of locating self within the context of people and place; and (2) the importance of bringing meaning, authenticity, and credibility to teaching and research through continued reflection, self-assessment, and inquiry. The case presented is essentially a first attempt to accomplish these goals using self-study, personal experience, and public knowledge as an integrated vehicle for professional transformation. As both the researcher and a participant, the process required that I be simultaneously subjective and objective in order to examine the multiplicity of dialogues related to the professional self. In other words, the process required that I honor the voice of the person within—for example, artist, professor, woman, person of color—while, as a researcher, at the same time honoring the voices of those who participated in the study. As someone who came late to the academy (I was forty when I received my first tenure-track position), I drew for this study not only upon my prior experience and identity as a professor and educational researcher but also upon a myriad of pre-academy experiences and identities as, for example, an artist, art educator, administrator, and aspiring social reformer. The dynamic relationship [End Page 84] between those various identities facilitated and sustained a more cohesive... (shrink)

The implementation of inclusive policies is largely dependent on teachers´ willingness to accommodate students with special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream classrooms, which is affected by their perceived competence and attitudes. This study investigated attitudes of pre- and in-service teachers toward students with two types of SEN: challenging behavior and learning difficulties. The three components of attitude (affective, cognitive, and behavioral) were assessed using indirect and direct measures. Results revealed that teachers held negative implicit attitudes (...) toward challenging behavior and learning difficulties, however implicit attitudes did not vary as a function of the type of SEN. Ratings of the stereotypical dimensions warmth and competence and overall ratings of scholastic achievement were affected by professional status and type of SEN. Professional status, implicit attitudes and stereotypical knowledge together explained 52 and 43% of the variance in teachers´ ratings of academic proficiency for students with challenging behavior and learning difficulties, respectively. Results are interpreted within the theoretical framework and implications for teacher training are discussed. (shrink)

Teachers’ social-emotional competence is considered important to master the social and emotional challenges inherent in their profession and to build positive teacher-student relationships. In turn, this is key to both teachers’ occupational well-being and positive student development. Nonetheless, an instrument assessing the profession-specific knowledge and skills that teachers need to master the social and emotional demands in the classroom is still lacking. Therefore, we developed the Test of Regulation in and Understanding of Social (...) Situations in Teaching (TRUST), which is a theory-based situational judgment test measuring teachers’ knowledge about strategies for emotion regulation and relationship management in emotionally and socially challenging situations with students. Results from three studies (N = 166 in-service teachers, N = 73 in-service teachers, N = 107 pre-service teachers) showed satisfactory internal consistency for both the emotion regulation and relationship management subtests. Furthermore, confirmatory factor analyses supported the differentiation between the two facets of social-emotional competence. Regarding convergent validity, results from Study 3 revealed a positive association between the profession-specific TRUST and pre-service teachers’ general emotional intelligence. Furthermore, small to moderate correlations with the Big Five personality traits provided evidence for the discriminant validity of TRUST. In Studies 1 and 2, we found evidence for a correlation with external criteria, that is, teachers with higher test scores reported providing more emotional support for students and having better teacher-student relationships. For teachers’ occupational well-being, we found a link with symptoms of depersonalization and job satisfaction, but none for emotional exhaustion. We will discuss the use of TRUST in research, for the evaluation of interventions, in teacher education, and professional development and will illustrate ideas for enhancing the tool. (shrink)

Since the advent of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, classrooms in the U.S. have experienced a steady decline in the amount of time teachers spend on social studies, with the elementary grades suffering the highest level of decline. There is currently a need to understand how teachers perceive the problem of insufficient social studies instruction time and gain their perceptions of curriculum integration as a solution. The purpose of the qualitative case study (...) was to explore how 14 elementary social studies teachers in Grades 3 to 5 integrate social studies throughout the curriculum. In addition, another aim was to evaluate the outcomes of employing an integrated social studies curriculum on teaching civic competence to students. This qualitative case study included interviews and focus group discussions; data were then analyzed using a thematic analysis. It was discovered that teachers believed that by increasing instructional time for social studies, students’ understanding of the subject and its concepts should also increase; however, the key disadvantage was the need to have adequate time and planning to integrate the subject. The interviewed teachers shared that the best method of integration is by incorporating social studies concepts in classroom projects and activities. From the results, it is then recommended for the integrated curriculum theory to be strongly considered by the key educational decisions makers in the country. The results can help the schools determine how to best increase social studies instructional time, improve quality of social studies education, and the positive effects of instilling civic competence among their students. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Teaching General Music in Grades 4–8: A Musicianship ApproachKatherine StrandThomas Regelski, Teaching General Music in Grades 4–8: A Musicianship Approach ( Oxford: Oxford University Press 2004)In this recent addition to the world of texts for secondary methods classes, Teaching General Music in Grades 4–8: A Musicianship Approach, Thomas Regelski takes a new look at the challenging task of teaching the pre-adolescent and adolescent age group. This text brings (...) together many of Regelski's earlier writing on topics such as the professionalism of music teaching practice, music education as praxial education, and the operationalization of critical theory in music education. His thoughtful work offers insights and challenges to pre-service and in-service teachers.In the Introduction, Regelski provides a brief history of critical theory in education and describes how he applies critical theory to the profession of music teaching and the experience of musical learning. In this "new view" of education, teachers should seek to be transformative rather than simply transmitting a cultural status quo through status quo methods of teaching. Critical theory in teaching criticizes both the methods and the content in the light of context, student learning needs, praxis, and the situatedness of learning. He argues, as in earlier articles, against what he calls methodolotry: the tendency to adopt a method and follow that method unquestioningly. Rather, he proposes that teachers [End Page 121] should adopt a stance of reflective practitioner, becoming informal action researchers by questioning the value and effectiveness of instructional strategy and curricular content. (Sadly, once introduced, there is no more information about how to engage in action research, nor any encouragement to learn more about the subject.)Educational content should be based on critical theory which, as Regelski argues:... seeks to study the past, but in terms of its implications–positive or negative–for the present and, especially, as a basis for improving society and the individuals who constitute society.... [T]he past is evoked "critically" and selectively and new practices that will become traditions of the future will be initiated.1The job of the teacher is to help students make critical judgments regarding music and the "good time" the musical experience contributes to the students' lives.2 Music classrooms should be considered music laboratories in which children learn through thoughtful, investigatory experiences. Music education should promote life-skills relevant to the student's world, teach functional musical skills, incite interest in unfamiliar musical experiences, and address the pre-adolescent and adolescent student's "need to achieve."3In the first chapter, Regelski argues for "action learning," or learning in which the student is the principal actor. To support his argument, he cites findings in cognitive psychology, philosophical trends of pragmatism, utilitarianism, and humanism, transfer of learning theory, authentic learning and assessment, and constructivist learning theories. This myriad of ideas combine to form the essence of his argument: children in this age group need to develop intentionality in music-making to have a "good time" and instruction should always connect in-school musical learning with a student's real-world musical experiences. The value of action learning lies in the transfer of learning from the classroom to life after school:It advances the skills predictably useful to typical adults throughout life: for example, recreational singing, music reading sufficient to church and community choirs, "making sense" of music and enjoyment through listening, and the like. It is not a survey of disconnected musical generalities, a superficial sampling of music "in general"; boiled down theory, history, appreciation: or the introduction to the "discipline" of music as a "subject" of study for its own sake. Instead, it promotes the broad musicianship skills and positive attitudes for "breaking 100" [as in bowling, the level at which one calls oneself a "musician"] that enable students to be musically independent and active outside of class and after graduation, and to want to be musically active as part of the life well lived [italics added].4 [End Page 122]In the second chapter, Regelski provides an excellent summary of the physical, cognitive, and social development of children from age 9 to 14. Age categories are broken into upper elementary grades 4–6... (shrink)

Multicultural education, in some capacity, is a part of nearly every teacher education program in the country. Studies have shown, though, that this multicultural education does not often include issues of gender non-conformity and sexuality as a part of the instruction. Given these experiences in teacher preparation programs, we wanted to investigate pre-service and in-service social studies teachers' sense of self-efficacy in working with LGBTQ youth, teaching LGBTQ content, and addressing LGBTQ bias in school context. Using (...) a Likert-scale we assessed the self-efficacy of 47 pre-service teachers. We found that the teachers had the highest sense of self-efficacy working with LGBTQ students and families. The participants reported a lower sense of self-efficacy teaching LGBTQ content and the lowest sense of self-efficacy addressing bias against LGBTQ individuals in commercial teaching materials and school contexts. The results of this study reveal the need for social studies teacher educators to be purposeful in the inclusion of these topics in their teacher preparation courses. (shrink)

This descriptive study explores the elementary school computer teachers’ attitudes and awareness regarding ethical computer use in classrooms and the differences in teachers’ attitudes and awareness in terms of demographic variables including gender, teaching experiences, pre-service/in-service education about ethical computer use. In order to measure computer teachers’ attitudes, awareness, and teaching practices regarding computer ethics, an adopted version of Cyberethics Questionnaire (CEQ), originally developed by Yamano (2004), was used in this study. The CEQ was (...) administered to 150 teachers working for elementary schools in Hatay, Turkey. After incomplete and erroneous forms were discarded, a total number of 141 questionnaires completed by 60 female and 81 male computer teachers were considered for analysis. Results show that the opinions of male and female teachers are significantly different. (shrink)

With an increasing number of international schools, traditional EFL teaching methods may not satisfy students’ needs. This study aims to investigate perceptions of social media technologies and willingness to adopt such technologies to collaborate and communicate in multicultural classrooms among novice EFL schoolteachers in the Czech Republic. The participants were 100 novice EFL schoolteachers in Prague and the South Moravian regions of the Czech Republic. The study used a mixed research method consisting of a survey and a semi-structured interview. (...) The survey examined the participants’ appraisal and concerns of using social media technologies to collaborate and to communicate as well as the level of willingness to use social media technologies. A hierarchical cluster analysis using participants’ responses regarding their attitudes and behavioural tendency towards using Web 2.0 social media technologies in language classrooms identified three clusters of teachers. The teachers who were most likely to adopt social Web 2.0 technologies were those who had the highest ratings on both appraisals and concerns regarding the use of social media in language classrooms. The results from the semi-structured interviews were consistent with those from the survey. Together, the results from the two stages demonstrated that most pre-service teachers favoured using Web 2.0 technology for collaboration and communication among colleagues and stakeholders in a broader community, but they displayed contrasting levels of appraisal of and concerns towards using social media technologies. Participants believed that this might be due to their different levels of ICT proficiency, workload, and working environment. The political and practical implications in K-12 education in the Czech context are also discussed. (shrink)

This study examined the approaches used by two preservice elementary school teachers as they designed and taught antiracist social studies lessons about civil rights history during a community-based field experience. Using a theoretical framework of racial pedagogical content knowledge (RPCK), we identified three domains of RPCK needed to enact antiracist elementary social studies teaching and analyzed how these domains surfaced during lessons and interviews. Our cross-case analysis revealed that both preservice teachers struggled to balance (...) presenting civil rights events as historically significant while also calling their legacy into question. However, the preservice teacher who fostered dialogic and student-centered discussions was ultimately more successful with antiracist teaching. We provide implications for supporting elementary school teachers in developing social studies lessons that embody antiracism and teach the long civil rights movement. (shrink)