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This article examines the literature related to the marginalization of social studies through the lens of elementary social studies teacher education. This study presents the case of two different states wherein one state, Virginia, tests social studies in elementary schools and another state, North Carolina, where social studies is not tested until middle school. The data gathered from both states were originally analyzed to shed light on the question of testing's effect on teacher preparation and subsequent curriculum enactment. Data collected from the study suggest that factors such as field experiences, programs of study, and methods instruction impact teacher education in elementary social studies in more important ways than student testing.

This qualitative inquiry reports the ways in which three graduate-level preservice elementary teachers conceived of the relationship between diversity and democracy, and explores how their understandings of this relationship informed their planning for democratic citizenship education with young learners. Findings indicate while the participants exhibited a certain measure of variance in their thinking about diversity and democracy, all of them planned their lessons at a lower level of multicultural support than their views suggested they would. This primarily highlights the ongoing lack of understanding regarding what it might mean to teach democratic citizenship through its practice as well as its study.

This qualitative research explores factors that influence social studies teachers’ issue-selection for classroom discussion. Four high school teachers—three from an urban setting and one from a suburban high school—participated in the study. Data were gathered over three months via interviews, classroom observations, and field notes; all were analyzed using the constant comparative technique of the grounded theory approach. Two claims are made: Teachers’ social positioning influences their curriculum choices, and media influences social studies teachers’ issue-selection.

This paper presents an overview of what we have learned about the state of academic freedom in the public schools. It includes a rationale for the place of academic freedom in social studies classrooms, a perspective on the court system as recourse for teachers, and a call for action to protect our freedoms by alternative means. Based on a National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) presentation by American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyer Fritz Mulhauser, the paper provides a thematic summary of case law and precedent as they stand at present, including speech outside of school, classroom materials and content, classroom discussion, and expression through dress. Finally, the paper offers suggestions of how to exercise academic freedom successfully in the classroom.

The Sociology of Education Abstracts project, funded by OSTI (Office for Scientific and Technical Information of the Department of Education and Science), is a three‐year project, now, after eighteen months, entering its second phase. The first phase has been concerned with (a) an analysis of SEA practice with regard to selection and abstracting, (b) consultation with specialists over questions relating to the dissemination of information in the sociology of education, and (c) experimentation with selected methods of subject indexing.

The purpose of this paper is to explore an approach to epistemology which allows a portion of library and information science (LIS) to coherently explain its social and intellectual contributions, and to overcome some of the problems of epistemology that LIS encounters.

Literature based conceptual analysis of the problems of epistemology in LIS and the productive approach of Deweyan Pragmatism.

LIS’ problems with epistemology come from a variety of sources: epistemology itself, the combining of librarianship with information science, and the search for a common grounding of the information professions, their tools and their institutions. No such theoretical foundation is possible, but Deweyan Pragmatism offers a sensible, practical explanation for the historical development and practices of librarianship.

Pragmatism has been deployed in portions of LIS, but the full implications and the “fit” of Dewey’s ideas for librarianship and its epistemology are productive explorations.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between theory and history, or more specifically the role and use of theory in the field of history of education. It will explore the following questions: What is theory, and what is it for? How do historians and, in particular, historians of education construe and use theory? And how do they respond to openly theoretical work? The author poses these questions in light of ongoing discussions in the field of history of education regarding the role, relevance, and utility of theory in historical research, analysis, and narratives.

The explicit use of theory in historical research is not altogether new, tracing an intellectual genealogy since the mid-1800s when disciplinary boundaries among academic fields were not so rigidly defined, developed and regulated. The paper analyzes three books that are geographically located in North America (USA), Australia, Europe (Great Britain) and Asia (India), thereby offering a transnational view of the use of theory in history of education. It also examines how historians of education respond to explicitly theoretical work by analyzing, as a case study, a 2011 special issue in History of Education Quarterly.

First, the paper delineates theory as a multidimensional concept and practice with varying and competing meanings and interpretations. Second, it examines three book-length historical studies of education that employ theoretical frameworks drawing from cultural, feminist poststructuralist and postcolonial approaches. The author’s analysis of these manuscripts reveals that historians of education who explicitly engage with theory pursue their research in reflexive, disruptive and generative modes. Lastly, it utilizes a recent scholarly exchange as a case study of how some historians of education respond to theoretically informed work. It highlights three lenses – reading with insistence, for resistance, and beyond – to understand the responses to the author’s paper on Foucault and poststructuralism.

Setting theory to work has a fundamentally transformative role to play in our thinking, writing and teaching as scholars, educators and students and in the productive re-imagining of history of education.

The purpose of this paper is to flesh out a truncated line of analysis in library and information science (LIS) of language analyses of power in the field.

Literature-based conceptual analysis of the problems engendered by neoliberalism in LIS and the productive approach of language analysis of Austin, Habermas, and Smith that allows us to account for neoliberalism’s effects in language and practices – doing things with words.

LIS has engaged a productive postmodern analysis of power relations that reflects social and economic progress, but Austin, Habermas, and Smith offer a sensible, practical explanation for the operation of neoliberal hegemony on the practices of librarianship.

Postmodern analyses are now being deployed in portions of LIS, but they fail to account for the full implications of the dominant public language (and policy and practices) of neoliberalism for librarianship. This is productive exploration of those implications to correct and round out those analyses.

The purpose of this paper is to explore female teachers and vice principal’s leadership on girls attendance and learning, safety and security issues in rural girls’ schools experiencing Boko Haram insurgencies. The secondary purpose is to recommend innovative educational policy initiatives at the school, community and state levels, so as to ameliorate girls and teachers’ challenges, and to sustain girls in schools.

Qualitative educational research orientation and an ethnographic-narrative research design were used for the study. Purposeful sampling procedure was adopted through the selection of female teachers and a vice principal. Soft qualitative oral data (SQOD) were collected from structured interviews and focus groups and participant observation data. Data analysis engaged hand data analysis (HAD) for transcription, while the coding and theming process involved qualitative computer software data analysis (CSDA) of NVivo 8.0. The measures of validity involved the qualitative process of member checking, while ethical issues of anonymity with participants were addressed in the process of data collection, and reporting.

Major findings revealed a symbiotic relationship between female teacher’s moral leadership and the application of law of tort in the girls’ school; teachers’ adopted spiritual leadership and moral decision making process on girls’ safety, and learning motivation; and improved school community collaboration for security and safety of the girls and effective communication.

Educational policy options are prescribed. They include the training of teachers and girls on fire safety and conflict crisis; recruitment of female school counsellors; housing incentives for female teachers; support grassroot initiatives on school security; and sustaining school-community/parents involvement.

Boko Haram’s impact on teacher and school leadership in girls’ school(s) has not been studied so far. The paper is the first, thereby filling the gap of the literature on girls’ rural education and terrorism.

John Dewey is well known for his progressive ideas and was credited by many historians as the father of progressive education, but where are the mothers? Dewey did not develop his ideas in isolation. Four women from Chicago were highly influential in assisting John in initiating and refining his theories. Ella Flagg Young, Jane Addams, Alice Chipman Dewey, and Anna Bryan deserve to be recognized for their contributions as “mothers” of the progressive movement and for their championing social justice issues during the late 19^th and early part of the 20^th centuries.