{"id":27279,"date":"2023-06-02T20:07:46","date_gmt":"2023-06-02T20:07:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/news\/?p=27279"},"modified":"2023-07-10T21:50:59","modified_gmt":"2023-07-10T21:50:59","slug":"social-studies-meets-social-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/news\/2023\/06\/02\/social-studies-meets-social-justice","title":{"rendered":"Social studies meets social justice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Social studies education and research in the United States must fully embrace social justice and equity and abandon the dangerous myths of white, male-dominated manifest destiny and American exceptionalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the powerful thesis of a book of essays conceived and edited by three professors in the University of Washington Bothell\u2019s School of Educational Studies<\/a>. The book has now been honored by a national education association.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
(l-r) Book co-editors from the School of Educational Studies: Natasha Hakimali Merchant, assistant professor; Sarah Shear, associate professor; Wayne Au, interim dean<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Published in June 2022 by Myers Education Press, \u201cInsurgent Social Studies: Scholar-Educators Disrupting Erasure and Marginality\u201d<\/a> was edited by Dr. Wayne Au, Dr. Natasha Hakimali Merchant and Dr. Sarah B. Shear. The three are faculty experts in multicultural and social studies education, and each has also spent time teaching social studies in K-12 schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accurate and inclusive<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The book offers critiques of longstanding problems in social studies education, as well as useful interventions for educators working to make social studies pedagogy more accurate and inclusive, said Shear, an associate professor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSocial studies curriculum has largely and problematically amplified white settler supremacist ideology. In this book, we demonstrate why this continues to be harmful to students and communities,\u201d Shear said. \u201cWe also demonstrate how social studies can change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three editors state their case plainly in a co-written introductory chapter titled \u201cWe Won\u2019t Wait Any Longer: An Introduction and Invitation to Insurgency in Social Studies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe social studies problem is a violent act of white settler supremacy that is repeated generation after generation in classrooms across the United States from kindergarten through graduate school and in media spaces too many to list,\u201d they write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlthough there have been movements of resistance and to varying degrees successes, to address these crimes, social studies education is still largely a curriculum designed to erase or otherwise marginalize voices, bodies and experiences not accepted by or created for the benefit of white supremacist society.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Activism themes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The book\u2019s 10 chapters each take up an aspect of the overarching theme, starting with an essay by the Turtle Island Social Studies Collective<\/a>, of which Shear is a member, titled \u201cInsurgence Must Be Red: Connecting Indigenous Studies and Social Studies Education for Anticolonial Praxis.\u201d Praxis is defined as practice, apart from theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The essay titled \u201cUnsatisfied: The Conceptual Terrain of De-Essentializing Islam in Social Studies\u201d aims to \u201cunearth some of the complexities in various approaches to teaching about Islam in social studies,\u201d said Merchant, an assistant professor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merchant said the piece then asks: \u201cIf we shift our understanding of these base-categories themselves \u2026 if we try to understand Islam outside of colonial conceptions and logics, how then can we imagine a pedagogical approach to it in the social studies?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other chapters explore topics such as learning from the Black Lives Matter movement, amplifying Latinx voices, correcting distorted views of Asian Americans, clarifying the role of Palestine and Palestinians, social studies education as a state tool in the War on Terror and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book\u2019s final chapter, \u201cInsurgent Social Studies and Dangerous Citizenship,\u201d returns to the theme of educator as reform activist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outstanding book award<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The book has been met with praise and positive reviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe call for a more radical social studies has been clear since even before the field\u2019s existence,\u201d wrote LaGarrett King of the University of Buffalo. \u201c\u2018Insurgent Social Studies\u2019 is building from the radical tradition of scholars and teachers who have used the classroom to challenge how humanity is defined. \u2026 This book forces us to rethink and reconsider what is social studies education.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, the Society of Professors of Education has honored \u201cInsurgent Social Studies\u201d with a 2023 Outstanding Book Award<\/a>. This national organization, formerly called the Society of College Teachers of Education, was formed in 1902 to provide a forum for addressing issues facing the discipline and vocation of education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In choosing the awards, reviewers consider how texts show \u201cthe relationship between education and the social complexities in which schools are contextualized\u201d as well as how they foster inquiry into the history and future of teaching and learning. The book awards were announced on April 15, during the society\u2019s annual convention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Education reform<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Au, interim dean of the School of Educational Studies, said the idea behind the book came from a concept he termed a \u201cpedagogy of insurgency\u201d that views teachers as active players in reforming and reframing education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project then came into clearer focus during conversations with Shear about problems with social studies research, education and teacher training, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A \u201cpedagogy of insurgency,\u201d the editors write, \u201cseeks 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 toward a more radically just world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gathering material for the volume was relatively easy because the contributors are all committed to moving the field of social studies education forward, Au said. The biggest obstacle, if any, was the pandemic. \u201cIt just made everybody\u2019s work slower. The project took two and a half years to fully come together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critical perspectives<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Who is the book\u2019s audience? Au said it is primarily \u201cfuture social studies teachers who might be sitting in a graduate classroom or even undergraduate classroom \u2026 but I think current social studies teachers, in the classroom now, could definitely benefit from this as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merchant said the editors agreed on \u201cwanting to prioritize those perspectives which are under the threat of erasure of being diluted by dominant forces of white supremacy culture within social studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe wanted to highlight the work of contemporary scholars who, despite considerable resistance, have unabashedly called attention to discomforting truths that force change in thought and practice,\u201d Merchant said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Au summed up, \u201cIt feels like this project has been done in a way that will really push the boundaries of how we understand social studies, and I think that\u2019s really important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a moment to fight for the actual truth in the complexity of United States history. And we want to encourage teachers \u2014 current and future \u2014 to take up that fight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three professors upend manifest destiny myth, receive award for 2022 book, \u201cInsurgent Social Studies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"page-templates\/news-article-tertiary.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_is_archived":false,"_archived_contact_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[202,229,211,197],"tags":[],"school":[418],"class_list":["post-27279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campus-news","category-faculty","category-honors-and-awards","category-news-releases","school-school-of-educational-studies"],"acf":{"related_links":{"toggle_visibility":false,"link_1":null,"link_2":null,"link_3":null,"link_4":null,"link_5":null},"highlight_box":{"toggle_visibility":false,"title":"","content":"","button":null,"button_style":"angled-purple-button","button_screen_reader_text":""},"contact_type_1":{"toggle_visibility":true,"contact_title":"","email":"","phone":"","box":"","address_line_1":"","address_line_2":"","location":""},"contact_type_2":{"toggle_visibility":false,"contact_title":"","email":"","phone":"","box":"","address_line_1":"","address_line_2":"","location":""},"social_media":{"toggle_visibility":false,"facebook_url":"","instagram_url":"","linkedin_url":"","twitter_url":"","youtube_url":""},"blog_archive_sidebar_visibility":false},"yoast_head":"\nSocial studies meets social justice - 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