Elementary ELA/Social Studies Integration: Challenges and Limitations

Adding instructional time and holding teachers accountable for teaching social studies are touted as practical, logical steps toward reforming the age-old tradition of marginalization. This qualitative case study of an urban elementary school, examines how nine teachers and one administrator enacted district reforms that added 45 minutes to the instructional day and implemented a series of formative and summative assessments. Each participant was treated as a particular case and a within-case analysis was used. Through classroom observations, interviews, time journals, and official school documents, I describe underlying perceptions and priorities that were barriers to any positive impact time or testing might have afforded social studies. Findings suggest that scheduled or mandated ELA/social studies integration does not always materialize and there are reasons for this gap.