Elementary Social Studies Methods for Future Societies: Activist-Teaching for a Changed World

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Five
  In Roundtable Session: Taking Action in Teacher Education (Table 10)

Abstract

This paper critically examines dominant social studies curricula and works through possibilities in teacher education towards a social studies curriculum for a changing world. Drawing on social studies methods (DeLeon, & Ross, E. W., 2010; Ross, 2017; Merchant et al., 2022), EcoJustice Education (Martusewitcz et. al, 2015), and Earth Democracy (Shiva, 2006), what emerges is a multispecies justice framework for teaching elementary social studies methods preservice teachers. Adopting the position that human/children’s rights goals are interwoven with equity, sustainability, and democracy in ways that can be learned through (re)imaging curriculum and pedagogy, this paper shares examples of social studies lessons framed by unapologetically utopian desires for just futures centered on (re)claiming democracy from enclosures of neoliberal subjectivities (Ross, 2014).

Authors

• Brandon Edwards-Schuth, Washington State University
  Presenting Author

• John J. Lupinacci, Washington State University
  Presenting Author