Tag Archives: anti-racism

Insurgent Social Studies

 

Insurgent Social Studies: Scholar-Educators Disrupting Erasure and Marginality has just been published by Myers Education Press.

The collection brings together contributions from a “new(er)” generation of social studies scholar-educators who take as one of their starting points a social studies curriculum that is “designed to erase or otherwise marginalize voices, bodies, and experiences not accepted by or created for the benefit of white supremacist society.”

The project was inspired by Wayne Au’s conception of pedagogy of insurgency. Au describes this kind of pedagogy as requiring:

  • Bravery and risk, as rebellious educators take the step of fighting back against social and educational injustice in public and visible ways.
  • Allies, accomplices, and solidarity, as educators and community members come together across different identities in order to build a more broad-based and effective movement for educational justice. This, in turn, also helps to mitigate risk.
  • Understanding organizing, protest, and demonstrations as a valuable and worthwhile form of pedagogy and curriculum in itself.
  • Using critical analyses of power as a central approach for teaching and learning about social and educational injustice.
  • Developing a curriculum of insurgency for educators, students, and the community to engage in critical analyses of power in schools and society.
  • Embracing schools as sites of both oppression and liberation, and in the process also reimagining the role that schools can play in broader social change.
  • Connecting to broader social movements, as educators, students, and community see and understand that their own struggles for justice and liberation are part of broader, historic traditions in the fight for change.

The editors, Natasha Hakimali Merchant, Sarah B. Shear and Wayne Au, argue that “taken as a whole, a pedagogy of insurgency seeks to understand and at least partially explain the ways that teachers have the power – through pedagogy, curriculum, and community activism – to actively resist injustice while also working towards a more radically just world.

This is a path-breaking work in social studies education and anyone who is engaged and the political/pedagogical struggles for social justice in schools and the larger society will benefit from reading this collection.

I want to thank the editor for inviting me to write a brief Afterword.

Table of Contents

Introduction – We Won’t Wait Any Longer: An Introduction and Invitation to Insurgency for Social Studies
Natasha Hakimali Merchant, Sarah B. Shear, and Wayne Au

1. Insurgence Must Be Red: Connecting Indigenous Studies and Social Studies Education for Anticolonial Praxis
The Turtle Island Social Studies Collective

2. Solidarity Is a Verb: What the Black Lives Matter Movement Can Teach Social Studies About the Intersectional Fight Against Anti-Black Racism
Tiffany Mitchell Patterson

3. The Audacity of Equality: Disrupting the Distortion of Asian America in Social Studies
Noreen Naseem Rodríguez and Esther June Kim

4. “Existence Is Resistance”: Palestine and Palestinians in Social Studies Education
Hanadi Shatara

5. Insurgente: A Familia in Conversation About Latinxs Voices in the Field of Social Studies
La Familia Aponte-Safe Tirado Díaz Beltrán Ender Busey Christ

6. Unsatisfied: The Conceptual Terrain of De-Essentializing Islam in Social Studies
Natasha Hakimali Merchant

7. Queer Worlding as Historical Inquiry for Insurgent Freedom-Dreaming
Tadashi Dozono

8. Democracy Is Interdisciplinary: The Case for Radical Civic Innovation Across Content Areas
Antero Garcia, Nicole Mirra, and Mark Gomez

9. Cultural Bombs and Dangerous Classes: Social Studies Education as State Apparatus in the War on Terror
Jennice McCafferty-Wright

10. Whiteness and White Responsibility in Social Studies
Andrea M. Hawkman

Afterword – Insurgent Social Studies and Dangerous Citizenship
E. Wayne Ross

New edition of “The Social Studies Curriculum: Purposes, Problems, and Possibilities” in production

I’m very pleased to announce that the Fourth Edition of the The Social Studies Curriculum: Purposes, Problems, and Possibilities is now in production at The State University of New York Press and will be available in 2014.

This fourth edition includes 12 new chapters on: the history of the social studies; creating spaces for democratic social studies; citizenship education; anarchist inspired transformative social studies; patriotism; ecological democracy; Native studies; inquiry teaching; Islamophobia; capitalism and class struggle; gender, sex, sexuality and youth experiences in school; and critical media literacy. Chapters carried over from the Third Edition, which was published in 2006, have been substantially revised and updated, including those: on teaching in the age of curriculum standardization and high-stakes testing; critical multicultural social studies; prejudice and racism, assessment; and teaching democracy.

As with previous editions——the first edition of The Social Studies Curriculum was published in 1997 and the Revised Edition was released in 2001——the aim of this collection of essays is to challenge readers to reconsider their assumptions and understandings of the origins, purposes, nature, and possibilities of the social studies curriculum.

A fundamental assumption of this collection is that the social studies curriculum is much more than subject matter knowledge—a collection of facts and generalizations from history and the social science disciplines to be passed on to students. The curriculum is what students experience. It is dynamic and inclusive of the interactions among students, teachers, subject matter and the social, cultural, economic and political contexts education. The true measure of success in any social studies course or program will be found in its effects on individual students’ thinking and actions as well as the communities to which students belong. Teachers are the key component in any curriculum improvement and it is our hope that this book provides social studies teachers with perspectives, insights, and knowledge that are beneficial in their continued growth as professional educators.

I am very appreciative to all the authors who wrote chapters for this and previous editions of the book, including: Jane Bernard-Powers, Margaret Smith Crocco, Abraham DeLeon, Terrie Epstein, Ronald W. Evans, Linda Farr Darling, Stephen C. Fleury, Four Arrows (aka Don T. Jacobs), Kristi Fragnoli, Rich Gibson, Neil O. Houser, David W. Hursh, Kevin Jennings, Gregg Jorgensen, Lisa Loutzenheiser, Joseph Kahne, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Christopher R. Leahey, Curry Stephenson Malott, Perry M. Marker, Sandra Mathison, Cameron McCarthy, Merry Merryfield, Jack L. Nelson, Nel Noddings, Paul Orlowski, Valerie Ooka Pang, J. Michael Peterson, Marc Pruyn, Greg Queen, Frances Rains, David Warren Saxe, Doug Selwyn, Özlem Sensoy, Binaya Subedi, Brenda Trofanenko, Kevin D. Vinson, Walter Werner, Joel Westheimer, and Michael Whelan. Each of one of these contributors are exemplary scholars and educators and their work has had a tremendous impact on my own thinking and practice as well as many other educators.

Contents
The Social Studies Curriculum: Purposes, Problems, and Possibilities
(4th Edition)

Preface

Part I: Purposes of the Social Studies Curriculum

1. Social Studies Curriculum Migration: Confronting Challenges in the 21st Century
Gregg Jorgensen, Western Illinois University

2. Social Studies Curriculum and Teaching in the Age of Standardization
E. Wayne Ross, University of British Columbia
Sandra Mathison, University of British Columbia
Kevin D. Vinson, The University of the West Indies

3. Creating Authentic Spaces for Democratic Social Studies Education
Christopher R. Leahey, North Syracuse (NY) Public Schools & SUNY Oswego

4. “Capitalism is for the Body, Religion is for the Soul”: Insurgent Social Studies for the 22nd Century
Abraham P. DeLeon, University of Texas, San Antonio

Part II: Social Issues and the Social Studies Curriculum

5. Dangerous Citizenship
E. Wayne Ross, University of British Columbia
Kevin D. Vinson, The University of the West Indies

6. Teaching Students to Think About Patriotism
Joel Westheimer, University of Ottawa

7. Ecological Democracy: An Environmental Approach to Citizenship Education
Neil O. Houser, University of Oklahoma

8. Native Studies, Praxis, and The Public Good
Four Arrows, Fielding Graduate University

9. Marxism and Critical Multicultural Social Studies Education: Redux
Curry Malott, West Chester University
Marc Pruyn, Monash University

10. Prejudice, Racism, and the Social Studies Curriculum
Jack L. Nelson, Rutgers University
Valerie Ooka Pang, San Diego State University

11. The Language of Gender, Sex, and Sexuality and Youth Experiences in Schools
Lisa Loutzenheiser, University of British Columbia

Part III: The Social Studies Curriculum in Practice

12. Making Assessment Work for Teaching and Learning
Sandra Mathison, University of British Columbia

13. Why Inquiry?
Doug Selwyn, SUNY Plattsburgh

14. Beyond Fearing the Savage: Responding to Islamophobia in the Classroom
Özlem Sensoy, Simon Fraser University

15. Class Struggle in the Classroom
Greg Queen, Fitzgerald Senior High School (Warren, MI)

16. Critical Media Literacy and Social Studies
Paul Orlowski, University of Saskatchewan

17. Teaching Democracy: What Schools Need to Do
Joseph Kahne, Mills College
Joel Westheimer, University of Ottawa

Part IV: Conclusion

18. Remaking the Social Studies Curriculum
E. Wayne Ross, University of British Columbia