Historically there has been a relative dearth of social science research into civic education--even in political science, a discipline that had civic education as one of its founding objectives. This is partly due to the mistaken impression that civics instruction has no effect on civic and political participation, a conclusion that was once…

Explains how artifacts can be studied in the social studies classroom to help students understand unfamiliar cultures and derive meaning from personal life stories of unknown people. Main points are suggested for students to focus upon as they view an artifact. (DB)

Describes a strategy to teach research skills using U.S. census data and microcomputers. Outlines a data-entry system which can be used to verify large amounts of information. States that students will be able to learn commands for more complicated manipulation of data. May be used with any good relational database software package. (KO)

An overview is presented of research on African American teachers, addressing the large body of literature written by policy analysts, first-person narratives, and the sociological and anthropological literature. Policy research has identified the small number of African American teachers and has studied some reasons for this shortage and some of…

A review of electronic databases identified 27 research-based articles concerning LGBTQ issues in higher education between 2000 and 2003. These articles are summarized into three categories: studies of campus climate, student life issues, and college teaching. Suggestions are provided for future research on postsecondary students; faculty;…

Two papers are presented--a summary and a lengthier description of an interdisciplinary college-level liberal arts course. Both papers are intended for use by humanities and social science teachers as they develop and implement interdisciplinary and competency-based curricula. Five areas of academic competency serve as course objectives. These are…