The field of social studies is unique and complex. It is challenged by the differing perspectives related to the definition, goals, content, and purpose of social studies. Contemporary Social Studies: An Essential Reader discusses the contemporary issues surrounding social studies education today. Contemporary Social Studies: An Essential Reader…

This handbook was developed for high school teachers looking for new sources of timely information and ways to make courses more engaging and relevant to students. The American Community Survey (ACS) provides a wide online array of social, economic, and demographic information about the nation, states, and local communities. These data can be…

This article examines the ways in which the poetry strand of literacy instruction can help teachers infuse geography into the elementary classroom. Teachers can use poems to target important aspects of reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. When the poems contain substantive geography…

The discipline of geography in the United States has not done a good job of attracting people, other than Asians, from underrepresented ethnic groups. This article examines undergraduate geography programs in the United States to understand better the status of their ethnic diversity, particularly regarding Hispanics and African Americans, and to…

A new regionalism has been much documented and researched for metropolitan areas; this article documents that there is a new rural regionalism as well. In the United States, these groups appear most likely to emerge in areas that are challenged by outcomes characterizing globalization's effects on the rural condition: namely, exurban or…

This paper reports the findings of a survey conducted to investigate students' knowledge of geography, such as an accurate understanding of the basic vocabulary and essential concepts associated with the representative geographic locations, described here as "spatial landmarks". The factors that influence their learning, and how their…

This paper reports on a small-scale pilot study undertaken at a secondary school in England, exploring how children learn about and construct distant places. Using drawings, concept mapping and interviews, the research examines the process of learning about Brazil over a period of formal learning, and how teaching and resources influence…

This paper presents findings from research into students' perceptions and experiences of geography fieldwork. The study focused on Year 9 students (13-14 years) from three state secondary schools in urban northern England. Geography fieldwork, depending on its conceptualisation and implementation, has the potential to provide students with a wide…

Outdoor education practice around the world occurs in diverse circumstances, environments and cultures. The application of outdoor education to specific cultural and environmental issues in particular places and communities has received little attention in research. While research in fields such as cultural geography has addressed the…

Since 2005, the English government has adopted a policy of regenerating disadvantaged neighbourhoods by reconstructing them as mixed communities, in which schools appealing to higher income residents are a key feature. This creates some difficulties for those concerned with social justice, who support the notion of integrated schools and…

The American economy has had the fastest and most dramatic development of all the world's major economies. Four hundred years ago, the economic output of the area that became the United States was negligible by world standards. Yet only 250 years later, the U.S. economy had become the largest in the world, surpassing all other countries, including…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the Images for All digitisation project at the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and lessons learned from it. Design/methodology/approach: This paper describes the background to the project and collections held. It focuses on the development of the project web site, the digitisation of 100…

German Geography textbooks are structured using the principle of "Systematic Geography based on a regional example" that is predominant in Germany. Compared to other macroregions such as Europe, North America, Africa, or Asia, however, Australia is presented less frequently in school textbooks. Those textbooks which deal with Australia…

When teaching geography to students in the primary grades, teachers should provide firsthand experiences that young children need to make meaningful sense of their world. David Sobel, author of "Mapmaking with Children: Sense of Place Education for the Elementary Years," suggests that teachers in the early grades adopt a small-world approach to…

This paper is about how rural landscape is experienced according to combinations of practical engagements with land and the ways meaning is made in relation to it. It presents the case of the ambiguous position of the Orkney Islands within categorisations of Highland and Lowland landscapes in Scotland. Through a discussion of the physical and…