Annals of Social Studies Education Research for Teachers

The Many Jobs of Jean Nicolet

Kate Van Haren — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 00:00:00 -0600

Textbooks provide valuable source material for primary school students studying historical research processes. By studying changes of the same event in multiple textbooks, students developed an understanding of how historical research and scholarship changes over time. Fourth graders studied multiple retellings of the experiences of Jean Nicolet, a French diplomat when he landed in Wisconsin in 1634. After reading the most up-to-date information, students were able to identify the flaws in past textbooks and popular artwork depicting the event. Using their new knowledge, students wrote letters and drew reinterpretations of Nicolet’s journey that advocated for broader teaching of the new information.

Trust Me I Need Complexity

Jessica Ferreras-Stone — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 00:00:00 -0600

Elementary social studies can and should be taught through an age-appropriate lens of complexity which includes multiple perspectives that students evaluate in order to form evidence-based claims. Social Studies textbooks have often been critiqued for oversimplifying historical events with sanitized versions of the past (Calderón, 2014; Ladson-Billings, 2003; Loewen, 2008; Peterson, 2008). The tendency in elementary social studies has been to smooth over conflict (Cowhey, 2006; Peterson, 2008). To help elementary teachers disrupt sanitized versions of social studies, I urge that we start trusting students to grapple with complex narratives. First, I demonstrate the prolific existence of sanitized stories in social studies textbooks. Next, a rationale for and descriptions of complex narratives are provided. Lastly, a ‘Complex Questioning Framework’ is presented to help educators identify sanitized social studies in order to add the necessary complexities.

Teaching history as an interpretation, by using textbooks in a diachronic perspective

Karel Van Nieuwenhuyse — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 00:00:00 -0600

History textbooks play an important role in the social representations of the past circulating within a society. Research shows, however, that textbooks often present their account of the past as 'the truth’: as a representation of what really, actually happened, leaving no room for different interpretations. This is at odds with the essence of history as being a matter of substantiated interpretation and construction, based on historical source analysis and considering multiple perspectives. If we want young people to deal critically with historical representations, it is necessary that they learn to use history textbooks in a critical manner. This article first reports on a diachronic narrative analysis of 20 secondary school history textbook series in Belgium since 1945, specifically focusing on the representation of the Belgian-Congolese colonial past. Afterwards a concrete didactical model is presented about how to transfer the results of this research into educational activities in the secondary school history classroom. It shows how history can be taught as an interpretation, and students can gain a deeper understanding of the constructive and interpretive nature of historical knowledge and interpretations.

‘Reading’ Textbooks

Kate Angier — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 00:00:00 -0600

This paper demonstrates how history textbooks can be used in high school classrooms as ‘primary’ as well as ‘secondary’ sources, to develop learners as critical and curious readers of history. History textbooks, like any other historical account, are a form of discourse which present a selected and ideologically constructed interpretation of the past; however, school learners tend to view them uncritically as 'the truth'. Simple strategies of ‘annotation and tabulation’ provide scaffolding which enable learners to deconstruct the textbook extracts (literally and figuratively) and identify the similarities and differences between accounts given of the same event. This in turn make more visible the ideological construction of school textbooks and the authorial positionality of the writers, encouraging learners to ask questions about their provenance and purpose. The classroom activities described in this article encourage learners to consider the effect and affect of telling the stories of the past in different ways, and help them to develop their disciplinary skills of reading and thinking like a historian.

A Critical Approach to History Textbook Images

Pranitha Bharath — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 00:00:00 -0600

The use of textbooks as critical learning and teaching resources is reinforced in South Africa by the Department of Education’s Revised Annual Teaching Plans for Social Sciences, Term One. In Week One of Grade 6, the 2021 plan states that each learner must receive a Social Studies textbook and be taught the importance of taking care of them (DoE, 2021, p. 1), reinforcing the status of the textbook as an authority on history content and learning. Consequently, research into history textbooks is important. This study produced data about some textbook images which could potentially challenge learner’s ability to construct historical narratives and to think historically. This challenge lies in the way in which these images are used as they form part of the repertoire of historical evidence. Through different time periods we have seen how images and photographs have recorded the past. While images are used to assist leaners understand the past, not all the images are historical evidence. Some are presented as real but are actually drawings of an event, artefact or person. Textbook authors do not distinguish clearly between what is real or not, with some scenes ‘staged’ to create a sense of reality for understanding. The general audience or readership may be under the impression that all the contents of a history textbook are authentic but there should be an awareness of these tendencies. Teachers then know how to move learners when the images are unclear or unsupported in their contexts. Proper captioning and provenance is strongly recommended so that images which are evidence can be classified as historical sources and not just generic representations of the past.

Making Good Use of Textbooks

Johan Wassermann, Scott L. Roberts — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 00:00:00 -0600