Ross, E. Wayne. (2001). The Social Studies Curriculum: Purposes, Problems, and Possibilities (Revised Edition). Reviewed by Patrick McQuillan, Lynch School of Education, Boston College

Ross, E. Wayne. (2001). The Social Studies Curriculum: Purposes, Problems, and Possibilities (Revised Edition). Albany: State University of New York Press. Pp. 350. $59.50 (Cloth) $19.95 (Paper)     ISBN 0-7914-4961-0. Reviewed by Patrick McQuillan Lynch School of Education, Boston College July 6, 2001 Related review As a recent participant in the university-state legislature version of culture wars, I have begun to think that the education community writ-large is too often polarized between conservative and progressive factions. Neither side seems willing to abandon its ideals or to listen seriously to what the other has to say. I therefore thought that more dialogue and greater consideration for the other's point of view might foster greater understanding, more cooperation, and ultimately improved schools for all students. With this idea in mind and as a university methods instructor with a progressive inclination to my teaching and research, I decided to now read the professional literature as if I had a miniature William Bennett perched on my shoulder saying, "You know, there's another way to look at this matter." This is one way I have personally tried to address the progressive/conservative educational divide, and it was this lens that I brought to reading The Social Studies Curriculum: Purposes, Problems, and Possibilities. The book is a collection of essays by an array of educational theorists and practitioners aimed at illuminating and enriching social studies curricula, with the overarching assumption that "the teacher [is] the key factor in curriculum development and change" (Ross, 2001a: 7). It is organized into four sections. The first, "The Purposes of the Social Studies Curriculum," looks at some longstanding tensions within social studies education. E. Wayne Ross begins with an historical overview of the field that uses three central questions, "What is the social studies curriculum?", "Who controls the curriculum?", and "What is the teacher's role?" as heuristics for understanding the historical evolution of the social studies. Michael Whelan explores an issue the discipline has grappled with since its inception--whether social studies is a unified field or a cluster of separate disciplines. Ultimately, he maintains that history should serve as the core to social studies curricula. Kevin Vinson concludes the section by considering the oppressive and anti-oppressive possibilities of various curriculum models for citizenship education. The second section, "Social Issues and the Social Studies Curriculum," examines how educators can integrate a range of social issues into the classroom, with an emphasis on diversity and inclusion. The section begins with a discussion by Sandra Mathison, E. Wayne Ross, and Kevin Vinson as to how standards-based reforms have influenced the field of social studies, offering a largely negative appraisal of their overall effect. Rich Gibson and J. Michael Peterson present a case study of a school reform initiative focused on community partnerships, authentic instruction, and broad inclusion in terms of ethnicity, socioeconomic status, ability, gender, and age. Viewing the social studies classroom as a public arena within which students can examine and challenge inequality, David Hursh puts forth a series of examples for how adopting a multicultural point of view can help students and teachers develop more sophisticated understandings of the social studies disciplines as well as their own lives. Juxtaposing the rhetoric of equality and inclusion with the reality of racism and prejudice in U.S. society, Jack Nelson and Valerie Ooka Pang (2001) focus on strategies for how social studies education can address issues of racism and prejudice and thereby "provide an education that bridges this gap [between rhetoric and reality]" (p. 148). Chapters by Nel Noddings and Jane Bernard-Powers conclude the section. Both draw on feminist and gender perspectives to inform social studies curricula and provide provocative examples for how teachers might employ these often ignored perspectives in the classroom. The third section, "The Social Studies Curriculum in Practice," outlines various lenses through which one might reconceptualize social studies education. Gloria Ladson-Billings, for instance, presents a rationale and strategy for promoting culturally relevant social studies. In turn, she uses brief case studies of two exemplary teachers from low-income, African American communities, both of whom happen to be White women, to clarify what such teaching can look like in practice. Alluding to current trends toward authentic assessment, Sandra Mathison discusses the potential of such reform to enhance student learning but also notes the dilemmas and limitations of such practices. With students and their work as the focus of her chapter, Terrie Epstein describes an arts- based approach to social studies education that offers students an alternative way to understand history as well as to represent their understandings of history. Arguing that an appreciation for the social nature of science is critical to determining who will participate in "the discourse about the future direction of society" (p. 255), Stephen Fleury (2001) articulates how such knowledge can be integrated into the social studies curriculum. Merry Merryfield and Benaya Subedi begin their chapter by asserting that provincial and colonialist assumptions pervade social studies curricula. They then discuss various strategies for helping teachers "decolonize the mind" of their students and thereby promote more effective, accurate, and equitable approaches to global education. In the last chapter of this section Ronald Evans presents a rationale, sample lessons, and fairly specific guidelines for how to implement an issues- centered curriculum. In the "Conclusion," E. Wayne Ross (2001b) seeks to interweave the ideas and themes presented throughout this collection to "provide an effective starting place for educators who believe social studies should help children and young adults learn to understand and transform their world" (p. 14). Regardless of whether one had a miniature William Bennett perched on his shoulder, it would be hard to deny that this edited collection has a distinctly progressive orientation. Either implicitly or explicitly, social justice is a prominent concern for every author, as they consistently promote conceptions of social studies founded on critically assessing the nature of history and the social sciences as well as critiquing and challenging the status quo. Ronald Evans' (2001) words essentially apply to the entire collection: "This approach to social studies education is not neutral. It has its origins in the tradition of progressive reform which aims to improve society" (p. 295). While the work never loses the reader in neomarxist language, it bears the distinct imprint of critical theory and feminist thinking, among other left-leaning theories. Kevin Vinson's (2001) chapter on anti-oppression education, for instance, criticizes a citizenship education curriculum that "includes a number of relevant themes, questions, goals, and performance expectations, [because] none explicitly recognizes the existence and impact of exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, or violence as characteristic of contemporary society" (p. 71). In a similar vein, David Hursh's (2001) proposal for using the social studies curriculum as a context for challenging inequality in the larger society entails considering "how we all are racialized, gendered, and classed subjects who, because of who we are and our previous experiences, have come to see the world in particular ways" (p. 128). From a feminist point of view, Jane Bernard-Powers (2001) maintains that schools should examine gender bias in any citizenship education curriculum since it "is part of the fabric of our society and it's part of the fabric of students' lives" (p. 190). As I read, I imagined my miniature William Bennett shaking his head in dismay. Nonetheless, I eventually decided that this work isn't as radical as it might appear to some. In fact, the authors aren't radical; it's social studies that is radical. Regardless of your political stance, one can't deny that social studies is about people and what they do. And humans have consistently acted in inhumane, oppressive, and discriminatory ways. Not to say this is the sole legacy of humankind, nor to suggest that inhumanity, oppression, and discrimination should be the sole focus of social science curricula (and the authors certainly don't advocate this). But given the subject matter, it seems incumbent that social studies educators acknowledge this reality while still engaging students in relevant, important, and authentic matters. Indeed, stepping back from the more political dimensions of these proposals reveals that the concerns these authors raise either have a prominent legacy in U.S. history or they are common to contemporary society, or both. Moreover, isn't social justice, a matter inextricably linked to educational opportunity and therefore every chapter in this collection, the ultimate goal of any true democracy? By connecting their proposals to matters of historical and social prominence, the authors collectively make a convincing case for a progressive social studies curriculum. That said, let me offer two miniature William Bennett-inspired critiques. First, this collection seems to assume teachers can effectively control what they teach, that they can avoid the influence of standards and high-stakes testing. I don't think this is true. The essays might therefore be more useful for classroom teachers if greater effort were made to balance the effect of standards-based reforms with a commitment to the broad range of social justice issues laid out by the authors. In this work standards and the associated language of accountability are bad words. Yet it may well be that the authors' progressive goals are more likely to be realized if they make some concessions to this conservative policy. Second, some articles focus on the political to such an extent that they sacrifice the rich description that might lead to more practical understandings of specific proposals. For example, Rich Gibson and J. Michael Peterson critique high-stakes testing and the standardized curriculum but then offer less discussion of the schools involved in the reform they focused on. The glimpses they provide are intriguing but for me they raised more questions than they answered. The chapter by Stephen Fleury seemed much the same. He devotes considerable space to explicating the extant American power structure and consequently has less opportunity to discuss how science could assume a more prominent position in social studies curricula. From my point of view, appreciating the political context is important but a clear understanding of how such rich ideas can be put into practice is more valuable. Yet in certain respects the book does honor more traditional approaches to social studies education, although this is not usually made explicit. For instance, in raising questions such as, "[H]as the picture of women as peaceful . . . contributed to the devaluation of women?" or "[H]as female authorship been used as a reason for rejecting proposals for peace and social justice?" (p. 165), Nel Noddings (2001) essentially poses perhaps the most fundamental question for any social studies curriculum: How is history, as both lived and written about, created? Likewise, Ronald Evans' issues- centered curriculum asks students to pose hypotheses and support their thinking with evidence, an intellectual skill common to many fields. When the opportunities arise, however, these matters are framed mainly in terms of social justice. With a modest shift, they could reinforce an understanding of the more traditional "disciplinary" approach to social studies education (Barr, Barth, & Shermis, 1977) and perhaps be linked to relevant standards. This too would represent something of a compromise with the neoconservative educational agenda but would not in my view compromise the ideas themselves. In many ways, this work is a thought piece, a provocation for educators to rethink what is taught in the social studies classroom. Most chapters advocate a particular stance toward some aspect of social studies education (e.g., authentic vs. performance assessment, history as the bedrock to social studies, employing culturally relevant pedagogy, etc.) and outline both the rationale behind such an approach and what a curriculum might look like, often detailing particular areas of study or questions for organizing relevant units. I can easily envision how this collection could help educators with an intuitive grasp of what and how they teach enrich their pedagogical and curricular beliefs and understandings. To a lesser degree this is a how-to book. A few chapters, notably Terrie Epstein's look at how she enacted an arts-based curriculum and how students responded to her efforts, Ronald Evans' sample inquiry lesson that includes focus questions, hypotheses, conclusions, and practical applications, and Gloria Ladson-Billings' glimpses of culturally relevant teaching in practice, include relatively rich discussions of how to implement these ideas in real classrooms. But overall more time is spent outlining the rationale behind these progressive curricula and describing the benefits for students, teachers, schools, and society. Because this is more of a what and why than how-to book, I would not use this as the primary text for a social studies methods course. While I enjoyed this work and will use some chapters with my social studies methods classes, I tend to focus on basic skills first, such as developing assessment strategies and lesson plans, and expose students to the more political dimensions of teaching and learning through selecting specific articles. This is not to say that political factors don't affect the lives of educators but to acknowledge that one can't teach everything of importance in a course and that attending to policy matters seems more appropriate for experienced educators. I also found this work somewhat lacking in that students receive relatively little attention. While the authors promote a conception of social studies education that is attendant to issues of equity and social justice and that helps students understand their place in contemporary society, they say much less as to what it might mean for students to actively realize the goals and ideals they allude to. There are a few chapters in which student work is presented and teacher-student interactions are used to make analytic points but overall one hears little from students or about students. Of course, no book can keep everyone happy but my experience in schools is that the student role in too many classrooms is passive and subordinate. Certainly, the authors promote ideas that would begin to remedy this condition. But to bring their ideas to fruition in real classrooms it would help to go beyond outlining curricula and to consider how one would make students more active and engaged in their classes. Overall, this is a fine collection. There is a true coherence to this work. The chapters all fit within the overarching themes and are of comparably high quality. In fact, contrary to most edited works, the authors even acknowledge their similar foci and often allude to one another's work within their chapters. Moreover, the chapters I found somewhat lacking were not lacking because of any ineptitude by the authors. They were merely less attentive to matters of concern to me. Whether one views the world of education through the neoconservative lens or progressive lens, or some combination thereof, the authors give you a good deal to think about. References Barr, R.D., Barth, J.L., & Shermis, S.S. (1977). Defining the social studies. Washington, DC: National Council for the Social Studies. Bernard-Powers, J. (2001). Gender in the social studies curriculum. In E.W. Ross, (Ed.), The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems, and possibilities. Albany: State University of New York Press: pp. 177-197. Evans, R.W. (2001). Teaching social issues: Implementing an issues-centered curriculum. In E.W. Ross, (Ed.), The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems, and possibilities. Albany: State University of New York Press: pp. 291-311. Fleury, S. (2001). Reclaiming science for social knowledge. n E.W. Ross, (Ed.), The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems, and possibilities. Albany: State University of New York Press: pp. 255-276. Hursh, D.W. (2001). Multicultural social studies: Schools as places for examining and challenging inequality. In E.W. Ross, (Ed.), The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems, and possibilities. Albany: State University of New York Press: pp. 127- 42. Nelson, J. and Pang, V. O. (2001). Racism, prejudice, and the social studies curriculum. In E.W. Ross, (Ed.), The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems, and possibilities. Albany: State University of New York Press: pp. 143-162. Noddings, N. (2001). Social studies and feminism. In E.W. Ross, (Ed.), The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems, and possibilities. Albany: State University of New York Press: pp. 163-175. Ross, E.W. (2001a). Social studies teachers and curriculum. In E.W. Ross, (Ed.), The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems, and possibilities. Albany: State University of New York Press: pp. 3-15. Ross, E.W. (2001b). Remaking the social studies curriculum. In E.W. Ross, (Ed.), The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems, and possibilities. Albany: State University of New York Press: pp. 313-327. Vinson, K. D. (2001). Oppression, anti-oppression, and citizenship education. In E.W. Ross, (Ed.), The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems, and possibilities. Albany: State University of New York Press: pp. 57-84. About the Reviewer Patrick McQuillan, a cultural anthropologist, is an Associate Professor in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. He works in urban secondary schools and his current research interests focus on school reform, with an emphasis on the impact concentrated poverty has on educational achievement. His publications include Reform and Resistance in Schools and Classrooms: An Ethnographic View of the Coalition of Essential Schools (Yale University Press, 1996; co-authored with Donna Muncey) and Educational Opportunity in an Urban American High School: A Cultural Analysis (SUNY Press, 1998).