Honors Program Theses

Award Winner

Recipient of the 2018 Mary Ann Bolton Undergraduate Research Award, Third Prize.

To go to the Mary Ann Bolton Undergraduate Research Award page, Click here

Year of Award

2018 Award

Award/Availability

Open Access Honors Program Thesis

First Advisor

Sarah Montgomery

Keywords

Social sciences--Study and teaching--United States; Curriculum change--United States;

Abstract

There are four core subjects taught in American public schools today: math, English language arts, science, and social studies. For years, the social studies have been receiving less instructional time when compared to “more important” subjects such as reading, language arts, and math. This has especially been the case since the legislation of No Child Left Behind which placed English language arts and math as the two main pillars of a child’s education. The goal of this study was to figure out how teachers are adapting to this lack of social studies instruction time and to see if there have been any student misconceptions popping up as a result of this lack of time in the classroom. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with experienced teachers about how they approach social studies, changes they have made in recent years as a result of reduced social studies instructional time, and any misconceptions that they have seen in the classroom. Major themes that were found in these interviews include social studies being a personal subject, social studies seen as “not a high priority,” as well as misconceptions and other concerns that teachers discussed in the interviews.

Year of Submission

2017

Department

Department of Curriculum and Instruction

University Honors Designation

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the designation University Honors

Date Original

2017

Object Description

1 PDF file (44 pages)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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