Talking Inequality? A Mixed-Methods Study Examining Whether and How Social Studies Teachers Address Economic Inequality

• In Event: Learning About Inequality

Abstract

While disputes remain over the causes and possible remedies for growing economic inequality, the public has a clear interest in better understanding these issues. General theories of democracy and democratic education suggest that citizens should be prepared to assess evidence about contentious problems so that they can participate in consequential decisions about economic and political life (Gutmann, 1995). Yet, to date, there has been little empirical study about how issues of economic inequality are addressed in high school social studies classes. (Examples of related research include: Mistry et al. 2011; Flanagan, 2013).

This paper reports on a mixed-methods study to examine whether, how, and why U.S. high school social studies teachers address economic inequality. Data for this paper come from two sources. First, in Spring 2015, our research team conducted a survey with 775 social studies teachers nested in 295 public high schools and 30 elite private schools. The public school sample was stratified by student demographics, school enrollment, and school geography and is representative of U.S. public high schools generally. Survey questions explored curriculum and instruction related to economic inequality, school and community context, teacher background and beliefs, and other topics. Second, in Summer 2015, our research team is conducting 50 follow-up interviews with social studies teachers who participated in the survey. Each 30-40 minute interview examines in depth one of the teacher’s lessons about economic inequality. The interview sample is stratified by school SES and teacher self-reported political ideology.

We analyze this rich data set to explore three questions: 1) How frequently do high school social studies teachers teach about economic inequality? 2) When teaching about economic inequality, what topics or themes do social studies teachers address and what instructional strategies do they use? 3) How do high school social studies teachers conceive the goals of teaching about economic inequality and what challenges do they encounter in trying to advance these goals? For each of these three questions, we consider how responses vary across a number of dimensions, such as course type, student ability level, SES of the school, political ideology of the surrounding community, teacher training, and teacher political ideology.

A few topline findings from our survey highlight areas of interest that we will explore in far greater depth in our paper.

•Almost all high school social studies teachers report addressing issues of economic inequality at some point during the school year; a little more than 1/2 report addressing this issue at least weekly.

•More than 4/5 of social studies teachers addressed topics such as the distribution of wealth and income, unemployment, and social welfare.
•7/10 of social studies teachers report that they teach about economic inequality because it is an important theme in their curriculum and ½ said these lessons often or always fulfilled a content standard.

These aggregate responses tell just part of the story. Our paper will use statistical analysis to examine how these responses vary along several dimensions as well qualitative analysis of interviews to examine how teachers make sense of this work.

Authors

• John S. Rogers, University of California - Los Angeles

• Joel Westheimer, University of Ottawa