According to John Adams, the real American Revolution occurred "in the minds and hearts of the people" long before the armed conflict ever began. This shared anti-British sentiment in prewar colonial America was largely fostered by committees of correspondence. Formed a decade before the revolution, the committees were the first…

This dissertation study examined how secondary social studies teachers in an ICT setting plan and teach as they adapt their instruction to prepare students for the new social studies Regents examination framework in New York State. Utilizing a qualitative approach, the researcher asked teachers to complete a survey. Sixty-three participants…

This article is an initial exploration of possibilities opened up by considering trust relations as central to the teaching of history in schools. It is an extension of an investigation into epistemological problems to see whether "trust" is a more fruitful concept to use than "truth" in dealing with those problems and is based…

This article examines representations of imperialism, anti-colonial nationalism, and decolonization in US textbooks for American and World History courses between 1930 and 1965. Broadly speaking, 1930s and early 1940s texts lauded imperialism and associated European colonialism with American imperialist activities. Authors extolled the benefits…

Just a few months after the Supreme Court decided in "Brown v. Board of Education" that segregation in public schools was "inherently unequal" and unconstitutional, a principal from a New York City suburb invited students from several southern schools to see an integrated school in action. Principal Willis Thomson of New…

Heather Fearn was intrigued by the factors that might have led her higher-performing students to talk in historically mature ways about unseen sources without any prior knowledge of the topic in hand. She began to wonder if what she was hearing was not best accounted for by a content-free disciplinary aptitude, but rather that it might be the…

Discussions of diversity in American librarianship usually focus on gender or ethnicity, but historical studies also show a lack of diversity in educational and disciplinary backgrounds. Librarians traditionally hail from the humanities, especially English and history. But as current educational attention shifts to science, technology,…

This article introduces Jörn Rüsen's concept of narrative competence as a useful pedagogical framework for operationalizing a remedial narrative tool designed to help make room for Quebec's English-speaking minority in the teaching of school history. Developed through empirical research and representing a schema-like narrative structure, the…

This paper focuses on the development of history teaching in West Germany from the 1970s onwards. When in the early 1970s the relevance of history -- both as an academic discipline and as a school subject -- was challenged, this led to fierce debates as a multitude of new concepts were being developed. One of these was Annette Kuhn's revolutionary…

This study aimed to analyse the text and context of history textbooks that established Dutch colonialism as a determinant factor in the New Order era and later. Two research questions were postulated: (1) Why was the discourse of colonisation maintained in textbooks after the proclamation of independence in 1945? (2) How was the colonial discourse…

National History Day (NHD), a non-profit organization based in College Park, Maryland, is widely known for the National History Day Contest, in which students conduct historical research and submit their projects at local and state levels, with top students invited to the National Contest. Participation in NHD demonstrates that students learn…

This action research study examined the impact of the Historical Thinking Method (HTM) on how students interacted with actual and virtual historical sites and museums. From September 2017 to May 2018, students engaged in analysis and evaluation of online exhibits and actual sites in the Washington, DC, and Columbia, South Carolina, areas using the…

Current literature has suggested that despite scholars in other fields gleaning vast amounts of experimental data to use to hone curriculum decisions and support their disciplines, researchers in social studies education have failed to look at Significant Life Experiences (SLEs) of Historical Preservationists (HPs) for the same benefit. The…

Fundamental knowledge of natural history is lacking in many western societies, as demonstrated by its absence in school science curricula. And yet, to meet local and global challenges such as environmental degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change, we need to better understand the living and non-living parts of the natural world. Many have…

The topic of this article is how Swedish primary school students aged 12-13 use causal reasoning when they explain a historical event that is usually considered the "origin of the nation". The study is based on student texts about the rise to power of Gustav Vasa, who is traditionally portrayed as the "founding father" of…