High School Students' Social Trust and Use of Evidence

• In Event: Roundtable Session 34
  In Roundtable Session: Influences of Inquiry on Secondary Students' Learning in the Social Studies

Abstract

At a time when developing skills around evidence and argumentation is frequently promoted in schools due to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), this paper reports on a study concerning high school students’ use of evidence in considering public policy issues. We present diverse forms of evidence commonly deployed in supporting arguments in social studies classrooms to gauge students’ perceptions of what constitutes “good evidence.” We posit that student’ views of what constitutes good or persuasive evidence may differ along socio-cultural identity lines as well as social trust. The paper reports on the relationships found between students’ social trust, social-cultural identity, and their evaluation of evidence on a “settled” (Hess, 2008) public policy issue—school desegregation.

Authors

• Margaret S. Crocco, Michigan State University

• Anne-Lise F. Halvorsen, Michigan State University

• Rebecca Jane Jacobsen, Michigan State University

• Avner Segall, Michigan State University