This study examined preservice teachers' (PSTs) epistemic beliefs and the ways these might influence their conceptions of teaching and learning. Participants were Nigerian social studies PSTs. Employing a survey design and free-text content analysis, the findings identified four epistemic beliefs and six conceptions of teaching and learning among the PSTs. Most of the PSTs favored direct knowledge transmission, a teacher-centered practice, while very few of them preferred student-centered practices. Additionally, a subset of the PSTs exhibited transitional conceptions of teaching and learning, demonstrating recursive shifts between student- and teacher-centered approaches. The strength and prevalence of these beliefs varied. PSTs with teacher-centered views tended to believe that students' ability to learn is innate, implying a skepticism toward self-directed learning of social studies for students. If PSTs' conceptions of teaching and learning are more influenced by specific dimensions of their epistemic beliefs than all dimensions combined, a more nuanced approach to developing epistemic beliefs and teaching approaches would benefit PSTs' development and teaching of social studies in diverse contexts.