Teenagers’ Internet Use and Family Rules: A Research Note

The Internet poses challenges to parents who want their children to take advantage of online resources but also want to protect their children from questionable content. Using data from 749 dyads of American parents and their teenage children with Internet access, this study finds that the majority of parents report regulating their teenage children's Internet use, but parents report more monitoring (61%) than teens report (38%). Multivariate regression analyses indicate fathers, younger parents, parents who use the Internet with their children, and parents with younger teens engage in a higher level of parental monitoring. This study provides a first look at parental monitoring of children's Internet use and points to the need to study family rules from both parents’ and children's perspectives.     

Instructional Materials

Discussion has long been identified by many in the field of social studies education as one of the most important elements of social studies instruction. However, many classroom teachers face several challenges in implementing the strategy. As a way to combat these challenges and encourage the use of discussion in American's classrooms, the Coalition of Essential Schools (2007) developed a strategy called the “Chalk Talk,” or silent discussion. Nonetheless, the Chalk Talk strategy has unique limitations as well. This article offers social studies teachers an alternative approach to incorporating silent discussion in the classroom by using the Google Docs program. Although the program remedied some of the limitations of the Chalk Talk strategy, new ones developed with its use.     

Science,Invention and Society

Social studies teacher educators highlight the importance of oral stories and histories in the social studies classroom, leading social studies learners to seek multiple perspectives and encourage historical thinking in the classroom. However, preservice teachers are given few opportunities to internalize this idea. In this article, the author examines the collection of oral stories and creation of performances in a social studies methods course. The process involves preservice teachers conducting oral history interviews, choosing material to explore, creating and performing stories, and sharing their representations with peers. As preservice teachers become storytellers of someone's history, they are made aware of their own subjectivity.     

The Thread That Binds: Building on the Stories of Adolescent English Language Learners in Mainstream Social Studies Classrooms

This article draws on current research in the areas of storytelling and social studies to present a practical, culturally responsive storytelling model for Grades 7–9 social studies teachers to use to better engage English Language Learners (ELLs). Integrating the proven effectiveness of storytelling from a scientific and social perspective, with common themes explored in a typical social studies classroom, this model provides teachers with a concrete strategy to weave the rich, personal stories of ELLs into their classrooms. Based on a holistic understanding of storytelling, this model serves as a way for teachers to supplement traditional teaching methods used in the social studies classroom with personal stories shared by students, teachers, and experts during the introduction of key concepts. Future research potential exists to examine the effectiveness of this model if put into practice.     

What Does It Mean To Be Patriotic? Policing Patriotism in Sports and Social Studies Education

Authors discuss the relationship between social studies education and patriotism. The authors share two lesson plans (one elementary and one secondary) that examine the racialized and politicized experiences of three professional athletes, Gabby Douglas, Colin Kaepernick, and Megan Rapinoe. Drawing on tenets of critical race media literacy and conceptual understandings of critical patriotism, this article presents two model lesson plans designed to assist teachers in guiding students toward an understanding of patriotism that is critical in nature through promoting informed action inside and outside the classroom.     

“They Always Ask What I'm Doing and Who I'm Talking to”: Parental Mediation of Adolescent Interactive Technology Use

Burgeoning technology provides instant access to information and communication. Responsible adults are concerned about the material accessed by adolescent technology users. From an ecological system's lens, using a mixed-methods design, the current study identified adolescent and parent perceptions of parental mediation of adolescent interactive technology use (i.e., cell phones, Internet). Eighty adolescents (16–18 years of age) and their parents (n = 113) participated in the study that identified generational differences in perceptions of parental mediation, techniques for mediating interactive technology (i.e., monitoring data and usage, active mediation, rules, restriction), and adolescent perceptions of the process of parental mediation. We used the results to propose principles for parental mediation of adolescent interactive technology use and provide directions for future research.     

Comfort Women: Enhancing Students’ Global Awareness through Human Right Education

Abstract

Teaching about the comfort women of World War II offers a compelling case study for the social studies classroom and human rights education. The topic will educate students to become knowledgeable about the larger world and its dark histories that have been omitted or scarcely mentioned in U.S. history textbooks. This article provides high school social studies teachers with the historical background of comfort women, rationales for including this topic in social studies curriculum, and teaching strategies and resources that teachers can use in their classrooms.     

Apps-olutely Perfect! Apps to Support Common Core in the History/Social Studies Classroom

The inclusion of technology in the classroom is an increasingly important feature of effective instruction. The implementation of Common Core Standards in many states also requires teachers to consider new pedagogical strategies to support meaningful learning. This article explores the intersection between technology demands and curricular change by examining apps that can be used to support Common Core State Standards instruction in history/social studies. Specifically, the authors highlight several apps that they presented at a professional development workshop for six to twelve history/social studies teachers and discuss the teachers' feedback regarding the strengths and limitations of apps to support their instruction. Conclusions are drawn and recommendations for history/social studies teachers using apps in the classroom are provided.     

Anarchy in State Government Is Not Democracy

In 2009 the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) released a position statement calling for the implementation of media literacy in social studies education. NCSS argues that if today's students are to become engaged citizens as adults, they must acquire the skills and knowledge associated with media literacy. Using this position statement as foundation, I developed a media literacy framework for use in the social studies classroom that applies prevailing theories on media and cultural studies. For consumers of media to engage in the practice of citizenship they need to acquire the tools needed to negotiate the waters of the many media texts that are produced. For a consumer of media texts to negotiate the meaning and influence of those texts, that consumer must use a framework that applies approaches that are historical, empirical, interpretive, and critical. As we shall see, these approaches are necessary if citizens are to engage effectively in a democracy that is flooded with such texts.     

News and Comment

This article tells the story of a classroom teacher's journey with her elementary students as they attempt to understand and define citizenship. The narrative highlights the process of using an emergent curriculum, creating a democratic classroom, and facilitating an active citizenship project led by students. The authors provide steps to help classroom teachers implement a social action curriculum, and they also include children's literature connections.     

Utilizing Social Media to Promote Civic Engagement in the Social Studies Classroom

The United States of America's government relies on the people. Unfortunately, research illuminates a gradual decline in the civic and political participation among youth, ages 18-29, in the U.S. since the 1970s. While the decline takes shape in multiple forms other than voting, this article argues that teachers can improve students' civic engagement through the aide of social media. In order to achieve that goal, the article begins by defining civic engagement, especially within context of a digital age. Then describes three prominent classroom techniques for using social media found in the literature: micro-blogging, backchanneling, and virtual social networks. Finally, the article provides classroom-tested examples of how teachers can utilize the three techniques to promote the kind of civic and political engagement first defined.     

Preservice Teachers and Religion: Serious Gaps in Religious Knowledge and the First Amendment

Recognizing the influence of religion on people's worldview and daily lives, we wondered if elementary and secondary social studies preservice teachers knew enough about religions not only to be culturally responsive in a classroom but also whether they knew enough to teach about these religions within the appropriate curriculum. We used questions from previously tested surveys to ascertain the students’ knowledge about world religions, the First Amendment's religion clauses, and the application of religion in schools. Our findings suggest that preservice teachers’ knowledge about all religions, including their own, and about the First Amendment's intent, is lacking.     

Understanding the Impact of Using Oral Histories in the Classroom

Oral histories are a powerful pedagogical tool in developing historical understanding and important learning skills simultaneously. Teachers use firsthand accounts of historical time periods and/or events to help develop students' sense of history. In addition to gaining historical understanding, students are able to bring history alive by capturing personal stories and connecting with individuals to better understand their experiences and point of view. The purpose of this interpretive case study was to explore in depth how classroom teachers can develop knowledge of the social studies by engaging students in collecting oral histories of local residents. In addition, this case study explores how these strategies impact students' perception of learning social studies and their historical understanding.     

Comparing Ourselves to Others: International Knowledge and Attitudes

The authors focus on the collaboration between a university methods professor and two classroom teachers in teaching social studies methods as a way of bridging the gap between university preparation for teaching social studies and putting that preparation into practice in elementary classrooms. The teachers offer recommendations from their own teaching experiences for how preservice teachers can find time for powerful social studies teaching despite pressures to meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind in literacy and mathematics. They integrate social studies with literacy and math, use "teachable moments" and transitions between subjects, and incorporate social studies research with computer and media skills. In addition, they employ class meetings to practice the democratic processes of collectively setting and revising class rules, accepting responsibility for those rules, and working together to solve classroom problems. Informal feedback from the preservice teachers reflects their appreciation of advice from classroom teachers with current experience in addressing the challenge of making time for powerful social studies teaching.     

Enhancing Learning and Learner Satisfaction Through the Use of WebCT in Social Work Education

Emerging technology has produced changes in the ways that social workers learn, practice, and interact. As communication and educational innovations have increasingly involved the use of ever-improving technologies for social work practice, so too has social work education evolved to incorporate these advances in the classroom setting. This article describes and evaluates various aspects of one particular type of web-based learning environment, WebCT, and its incorporation into five face-to-face foundation courses in a bachelor's and master's level social work program. The authors utilized an online survey to assess frequency of access of the web-based course management system and perceptions of the features. Results of this online survey assessing student use and perception of hybrid courses are shared along with implications and recommendations.     

Social workers as teacher consultants: Helping teachers in groups to meet special needs in ordinary schools

Abstract

The paper argues in favour of school-based consultation for teachers by psychodynamically informed social workers, in the light of increasing awareness and demands that every teacher should become able to respond appropriately to the many children in ordinary classrooms deemed to be in need of special understanding at some stage during their school career. The paper tries to show that to enable them to help children with special emotional difficulties in school, teachers need access to some of the expertise, principles and practices with which professionals outside the school system manage to meet such children's special needs; and that the skills and understanding of social workers would appear to be well adaptable to the requirements of such inter-professional consultancy, provided some basic conditions are understood. These conditions are highlighted, and illustrated by a case discussion.     

Adolescent Substance Use Prevention Interventions Outside of Classroom Settings

Substance use prevention programs empowering individual adolescents to resist substance use through education and skills training are crucial to reducing substance use within this population. However, existing programs of this type are designed primarily for classroom use, and may not meet the needs of social workers intervening with adolescents outside classroom settings. A literature review identified six programs that have demonstrated statistically significant reductions in substance use when implemented outside the classroom. The current study describes these programs, identifies their common characteristics, and draws on additional prevention research to outline recommendations for practitioners seeking to apply the field’s most current knowledge base in community settings.     

Multicultural Democracy and Inquiry Pedagogy

This paper is an examination of the intersections between the concepts of multicultural democracy, inquiry pedagogy, and classroom-based use of the Internet. Data from research on a professional development project is used to illustrate the ways in which the central tenets of multicultural democracy, as set forth by Marri, can be addressed through the use of inquiry pedagogy. In addition, the benefits of the Internet as a classroom tool are explored in relation to the goals that multicultural democracy and inquiry pedagogy share. The vital role of the teacher in formulating and presenting lessons consistent with these goals is emphasized throughout. "It falls into my whole philosophy of social studies education, how I think children can learn the social studies. You really have to be a part of it -- it's not a bunch of information. It's social. It's how people interact and a process like [inquiry] makes learning content and learning about old ideas and new ideas a social thing. That's why the classroom is here -- to do things like that. Inquiry allows for it and encourages it." (Tom W, teacher participant in a professional development project on technology-supported inquiry)