Social Education
January/February 1997
Volume 61 No. 1

Teaching History in a Changing World

Guest Editors: Stephen J. Thornton and Linda S. Levstik

History Making and the Plains Indians
Jennifer Truran Rothwell
The power possessed by images makes it all the more important to understand their historical contexts.

First-Hand Study: Teaching History for Understanding
Stephen J. Thornton
The value of having students "do" history themselves gains support from both research and the classroom findings of teachers.

History-It Can Be Elementary: An Overview of Elementary Students' Understanding of History
Keith C. Barton
There is a better way to handle history in the elementary years than the abrupt transition from a "holiday" curriculum to an over-emphasis on political institutions.

How Children Explain the "Why" of History: The Chata Research Project on Teaching History
Rosalyn Ashby, Peter Lee, and Alaric Dickinson
The ability of young students to distinguish between historical causes and reasons cannot be taken for granted.

Mapping the Terrain of Historical Significance
Peter Seixas
How students view history is influenced by personal and social factors that lie beyond the purview of teacher or textbook.

Sociocultural Approaches to Young People's Historical Understanding
Terrie L. Epstein
History presented from only one perspective may obscure other agents of change and defeat the purposes of multicultural education.

Making Time for Women's History... When Your Survey Course is Already Filled to Overflowing
Margaret Smith Crocco
Viewing women's history in terms of five phases of curricular re-vision may help teachers better integrate the subject into U.S. and world history courses.

Can More Be Less? The Depth-Breadth Dilemma in Teaching American History
Bruce A. VanSledright
Classroom observation supports the view that less-when structured around powerful ideas-can be more in teaching history.

Arts Alive in the Development of Historical Thinking
Jeannette L. Groth and Maria Albert
The arts are academic... and their use in the classroom can greatly enrich how students experience history.

Little Windows to the Past
Amy Thompson Leigh and Tina Ossege Reynolds
Helping children connect with their own past provides a concrete foundation on which to build historical understanding.

"Any History Is Someone's History": Listening to Multiple Voices from the Past
Linda S. Levstik
How shall we determine what collective memory our democracy requires when there is no such thing as just the facts in history?