Barton, Keith C. (Ed.). (2006). Research Methods in Social Studies Education: Contemporary Issues and Perspectives. Reviewed by Sohyun An, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Barton, Keith C. (Ed.). (2006). Research Methods in Social Studies Education: Contemporary Issues and Perspectives. Greenwich: CT: Information Age Publishing, Inc. Pp. vii + 242 $22.01 (Papercover)   ISBN 1-59311-453-2 $44.07 (Hardcover)   ISBN 1-59311-454-0 Reviewed by Sohyun An University of Wisconsin-Madison August 24, 2006 The importance of a regular and open discussion of research methods in an academic field is self-evident. Such discussion helps both researchers and audiences for research by facilitating better design of one's own research as well as better understanding of the research of others. Unfortunately, this has not often been the case in the field of the social studies education. There has been lack of public discussion of methods of research in the field. Research Methods in Social Studies Education is a successful initial attempt to correct this deficiency and to promote a constructive public forum in which veterans and newcomers to the field regularly and openly discuss social studies research methods. Of course, the long-time paucity of methodological debate will not be resolved in a day or in a single volume. However, even bringing up and calling the field’s attention to the problem that has rarely been publicized or addressed is worthwhile in itself. This collection of ten essays on social studies research methods is far from a typical research methods book. Although Keith Barton, the editor, organizes individual chapters into three parts (a: conceptualization of research questions--chapters 2, 3, 10; b: research design and implementation--chapters 4, 5, 6, 7; and c: data collection and representation--chapters 8, 9, 10), the essays address many other methodological issues so that they could have been categorized in different ways. Barton's book can be best characterized as an introduction to various ways of doing social studies education research. It begins with the editor’s essay that sets the stage for the following nine chapters. Barton calls into question the dearth of methodological discussion in the social studies education field, discusses possible causes for the unfortunate state of the field, and suggests collective efforts for the profession to address the problem. The rest of the book is Barton’s impressive selection of essays in which contributors, as veteran social studies researchers, describe one or two kinds of research they have conducted and discuss methodological issues or difficulties they have faced. Included as ways of performing social studies education research are historiography (chapter 2), emancipatory research (chapter 3), action research & self-study (chapter 4), collaborative democratic research with children (chapter 5), ethnographic research (chapter 6), comparative international research (chapter 7), cognitive interview combined with social science survey (chapter 8), research on teachers’ ideas and practices (chapter 9), and research on historical thinking (chapter 10). The wide variety of the nine chapters notwithstanding, by the editor's own admission this book “is by no means comprehensive.” (p.9) There are more than nine ways of doing social studies education research and there exist “far more topics, more perspectives, more suggestions and advice than could be covered in the nine chapters” (p. 9). However, given that this book is a first step toward addressing the scarcity of literature on social studies education research methods, given that the editor did assemble contributions from experienced social studies researchers who “work with varied methods in diverse settings and from multiple theoretical frameworks” (p. 9), this book does help a reader get a sense of the many kinds of research conducted in social studies education. Useful advice and research strategies from veteran researchers are a highlight of the book. Meanwhile, as with many edited books, some essays may be more rewarding than others. Taken as a whole, however, individual components of the book do have a collective potential to achieve the explicit purpose of the book, namely, introducing various ways of doing social studies education research and initiating a discussion of methodological issues among the profession. Without doubt, the introductory essay by the editor is one of the best chapters. Barton makes a strong argument for the importance of constructive and lively public discussion of methodology, setting powerful rationales and interpretive guides of the following chapters. Barton’s clear and cogent writing does urge self-reflection among the members of the social studies researcher community. In particular, graduate students or junior researchers in social studies education will most appreciate Barton’s honest description of the poor conditions for learning social studies research methods, such as insufficient, irrelevant, or sometimes even harmful research methods courses offered in graduate schools, and a dearth of open and lively methodological discussion in academic conferences, journal articles or books in the social studies education field (pp. 7-8). Given that the contributors of individual chapters have conducted social studies research from various theoretical perspectives, in diverse research settings, and with different research tools, it is no surprise that the reader of the book will find seemingly contradictory advice or arguments across the nine chapters. For example, in chapter 3, Cynthia Tyson argues for emancipatory ways of doing social studies education research and criticizes researchers who conduct “hit and run” studies. Simone Schweber confesses in chapter 6 that she preferred the “hit and run” study and detachment to attachment during her research. Actually, such contradiction is what this book aims at, provoking constructive debate of research methods among social studies education researchers. One of main premises of the book is that “there are no correct and incorrect ways of doing social studies research” (p. 5); “there are only more and less productive ways of doing research with given populations for particular purposes.” (p. 5) From this perspective, the seemingly contradictory advice about “hit and run” research offered by Tyson and Schweber is, in fact, not contradictory. Each of the two can be an appropriate approach in a certain research context. From the emancipatory research perspective, the “hit and run” study is so unethical and unjust that a researcher should avoid it. On the other hand, in Schweber’s case, the research was located in two fundamentalist religious schools (one in an Orthodox Jewish school, the other in a fundamentalist Christian school), in which the researcher was an outsider with a different religious background and worldview. Further, the research findings were less than meaningful to the research participants; rather, the findings might “pose multiple challenges” (p. 128) to the communities. In Schweber’s opinion, reporting back or sharing the findings could only have “hammered at the walls of insulated worlds again” (p. 129) and wasted valuable time and energy of the research participants. Likewise, this book intends to promote an open-minded attitude toward methodological issues by modeling a constructive discussion of research methods. By doing so, this book criticizes “calls for methodological conformity” (p. 4) and “assertions of ownership of given methods” (p. 6), which might have foreclosed open discussion about alternative ways of doing social studies education research in the past. Another principal message of the book is a critique of the “qualitative versus quantitative” disputes. According to Barton, those rare occasions when research methods have been discussed in the social studies education community were the “qualitative versus quantitative” debate, in which the two were described as “mutually exclusive or one thing superior [to] the other” (p. 6). With careful selection of essays which combine the two methods constructively, this book asks social studies education researchers to move beyond the shortsighted and unproductive “qualitative versus quantitative” dichotomy. Several chapters exemplify the ways in which qualitative and quantitative methods can work together so as to improve the process and the product of research. For example, in chapter 8, Wendy Richardson describes how cognitive interviews can complement social science surveys and yield a deeper interpretation of survey results. Bruce VanSledright and his colleagues in chapter 10 discuss difficulties in measuring ideas and practices of teachers with a quantitative scale. They suggest complementing the quantitative instrument with in-depth qualitative interviews. In addition to what the collection of ten essays attempts to convey as a whole, many other topics, messages and advice are conveyed in individual chapters. Following the editor’s introduction essay, Christine Woyshner (chapter 2) reviews recent scholarship on the history of social studies education, offering insightful ideas for a new direction of social studies historiography. According to Woyshner’s analysis, social studies education historians have excessively written about the early 20th Century progressive era, using the struggle metaphor or “history versus social studies” and focusing on influential leaders who are exclusively, without surprise, rich White males. Notable and thought provoking are Woyshner’s suggestions for advancing this branch of social studies education research, for example, expanding historiographic research beyond the progressive era or extending biographical studies to those whose voices have been absent from the historical record, such as women or African Americans. As noted above, emancipatory social studies education research is discussed by Tyson in chapter 3. Tyson’s critique of traditional epistemologies and methods of the field (e.g., empiricisms, scientisms, and normalisms) as well as her demand for social studies researchers to always ask themselves “Who really benefits?” from their research should prompt a reflective and honest discussion among the researcher community. Action research and self-studies, which have been under utilized in social studies education research, are discussed in chapter 4 by Marilyn Johnston. With detailed explanations and examples of the two types of practitioner research, Johnston argues for an emancipatory potential of action research and self-study. Meanwhile, how to do collaborative and democratic research when the research participants are young children is discussed in chapter 5 by Fionnuala Waldron. An insightful message from Waldron’s essay is that although children cannot be a co-researcher in an absolutist sense because of constraints around age that limit the extent of children’s involvement, a researcher can and should work for the maximum level of children’s participation possible in each context (pp. 105-106), so that both process and product of research can be democratic and emancipatory. Also noted earlier, methodological dilemmas in doing research on fundamentalist religious schools are described by Schweber in chapter 6. Schweber’s rich and thorough storytelling of how her personal identities intersected with demands of the research at every turn is outstanding. She details gaining access to the devout religious schools, issues of whether or not to follow religious rituals of the sites as a researcher from a different religious background, trust-building from the unique research settings, and issues of attachment/detachment to the research participants. Meanwhile, Carole Hahn advocates comparative international research and urges social studies education to go "global” (chapter 7). Suggesting useful strategies for doing such research (e.g., using sabbatical leaves to curtail high expenses to conduct research in foreign countries; taking language courses or collaborating with native researchers to solve language differences), Hahn underscores benefits of doing comparative international research for both social studies education and researchers themselves. Richardson’s discussion on the merits of cognitive interviews combined with a survey instrument comes next (chapter 8). Particularly interesting is the response effects Richardson found in the interview with students who just finished a survey questionnaire. That is, when taking the survey, students understood terms such as “politics” or “political” narrowly, referring exclusively to “government.” Richardson believed that this might have lowered the statistics arising from the survey, in particular the magnitude of the relationship between students’ political discussion and civic engagement. The following essay (chapter 9) is Deborah Cunningham’s detailed description of the process and methodological issues of her own research. It is no surprise that her constant self-reflection and diligent efforts at every step of the research process resulted in successfully capturing ideas and practices of teachers, as well as finding counterevidence to much received wisdom of the field (e.g., that teachers cannot represent their thoughts and practices clearly and thoughtfully). This book ends with Vansledright and his colleagues’ essay (chapter 10) in which the authors discuss several research-related difficulties encountered in researching the historical thinking of students and teachers. What they learned from these difficulties is well described. For example, rather than hastily concluding that young children know little about history, a researcher needs to be patient, rephrase a question, or pair interviewer with interviewees, because the young often tell less than they actually know. The importance of theoretical precision or conceptual clarity in research design is also underscored in the final chapter. As with many edited books, some chapters seem more tightly constructed, fully developed, clearly written, or thought provoking than others. Indeed, the evaluations of the individual chapter on their own will be different depending on who the reader is. However, the ten essays taken as a whole do succeed in initiating a discussion of research methods in social studies education. The limitation of not being comprehensive, as mentioned earlier, seems ironically one of its strengths; leaving topics, perspectives, or advice regarding social studies education research methods to be addressed others, this book serves as a bridge to future collective efforts by the field. Overall, this book is a worthwhile read for those interested in better research in social studies education. About the Reviewer Sohyun An is a graduate student in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She studies social studies education/history education and is currently preparing her doctoral dissertation on Korean-American adolescents’ perspectives on U.S. history and the relationship between historical understanding and the sociocultural background of young people. 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