The Discursive Construction of Teacher Learning to Teach Difficult Histories in a Professional Learning Community

• In Event: Critical Conversations About Identity and Equity in History Education

Abstract

This study reports how seven secondary social studies and history teachers negotiated the meanings of teaching a difficult history, such as the history of school desegregation, in a context of a six-month long professional learning community. The primary data sources include video recordings of small group sessions where each teacher brought in initial lesson ideas for feedback from the group members. To discover meanings teachers constructed through the discussion, Gee and Green’s (1998) framework of social building tasks and two conceptual orientations of teaching history were used. Findings illustrate the participating teachers’ desires and struggle to build students’ identities through historical sources from families and communities and contextual variables that determine what and how they teach about difficult histories.

Authors

• Yonghee Suh, Old Dominion University

• Brian J. Daugherity, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Joseph Smith, Nelson County Public Schools