"The Great Limbacle": Exploring Elementary Teacher Decision Making in an Election Year

• In Event: 18.072 - Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: 18.072-13 - Addressing Social Justice and Democracy in the Social Studies

Abstract

This qualitative multicase study explores the curricular-instructional decision making of three fifth grade educators when teaching about the 2016 presidential election. All of the teachers reported a significant increase in disagreement and tension among students, requiring the teachers to decide how they will address the election and its polarizing effects in their classrooms. Preliminary findings suggest that the teachers’ personal beliefs regarding the aims and purposes of civic education, though different from each other, had the greatest influence on their curricular-instructional decision making.

Author

• Alice Miriam Sullivan, University of Texas - Austin