Michael Bird and Thomas Wilson focus their attention directly on the voices of pupils, in dialogue with their teacher and with each other, as they draw inferences from differing sources about the Norman legacy in Chester. By carefully examining dialogue stimulated by these sources, Bird and Wilson demonstrate not only the role that prior knowledge…

This paper invites the reader to consider the notion of the 'local in primary history' and the impact of placing the child at the heart of all primary history, thus considering 'the child as the local'. It argues for children to be engaged, inspired and empowered in their learning, a move is needed from the traditional approach of 'local history'…

Matt Jones wanted to harness the power of local history to help his students understand the profound social changes experienced across Britain in the first half of the twentieth century. While he hoped that the personal stories of six families in Birkenhead would help to humanise abstract concepts such as the Great Depression, he was taken aback…

Social studies teachers have to design classroom instruction to prepare students to be future democratic citizens. This means that middle school students need learning opportunities to grapple with issues of racism in our country's past and present. In this article, I discuss a six-day research project implemented in a sixth-grade U.S. history…

This article outlines the development of a leadership programme for senior students involved in co-leading a Year 9 cross-curricula "Festival of Learning" known as Hui Taurima. The focus is on the Maori student leaders' perspectives of a place-responsive approach to developing leadership that drew on the expertise of school staff, mana…

The aim of this study was to document the impacts of an environmental education program with adolescents and older adults on attitudes about old age, and to investigate possible associations of these attitudes with age group, economic class, residing with grandparents, and grandparents' contribution to parenting. We investigated adolescents…

This paper draws on a multimodal notion of metrolingualism to discuss playful T-shirt displays of Galician and Basque language, culture and identity. They invite the audience to reflect on notions of Galicianness and Basqueness by mixing localising resources such as minority language and cultural heritage with globalised resources of fluidity,…

This paper provides an introduction to Lakurumau, a previously undescribed and undocumented Oceanic language of Papua New Guinea. The first part of the paper is a guide to the Lakurumau documentation corpus, deposited in the ELAR archive. The participants and the content of the deposit, the technology used for recording, and the ethical protocols…

This co-authored qualitative case study explores the problem of teachers connecting with their students especially at the middle school level. While research has established the need for teachers to better understand the background experiences of their students, more research is needed to explore the value of place-based professional development…

The history of Indianapolis' Near Westside, its residents, and the Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis (IUPUI) campus, demonstrates how disenfranchisement, economic injustice, and spatial injustice intricately intertwine higher education institutions and residential communities. Where homes once stood, now stand institutions of…

Middle school students learned about their community when they created documentaries as part of a state bicentennial celebration. Students gathered multiple primary and secondary resources and worked with community members to interview them for their perspectives through video presentations as part of the inquiry process. Students work with local…

This article offers a trans-Tasman critique of approaches to the teaching of history in New Zealand and Australia. Taking knowledge out of place and time and presenting it in textbooks is a conflicted task for schooling in both countries. The disembodiment of knowledge in history books has led students to the proclamation that the teaching of…

Significant research has documented the benefits of using primary materials in the classroom, and for a long time, textbook authors and scholars have collected such materials for in-class student use. Teachers and researchers regularly engage with physical and digital archives as resources for their own research and for classroom materials. At the…

The authors share design principles from a middle school social studies unit that explored questions of local history and engaged students in extended work with complex texts. The unit involved constructing a problem space for students to explore multiple historical texts. Within that problem space, students had opportunities to develop focal…

This co-authored qualitative case study explores the challenge of teachers connecting with their students at the middle school level, especially when White teachers serve predominantly African-American students in large urban metropolitan areas like St. Louis, Missouri. While research has established the need for teachers to better understand the…