Reviews the constraints on implementing an issue-centered approach to social studies education and argues that schools play an important role in socializing students into society. Concludes that advocates of new theories of social studies education must take into account the realities of contemporary school and society. (SLM)

Currently, findings of educational research are of little consequence to the curricular/instructional decisions of social studies teachers. Four basic conditions have created this inconsistency. (1) Since social studies teaching takes place among value and factual assumptions, decisions about educational practice are based more on value judgments…

Discusses and explains experimental validity, including both internal and external validity, in terms that a classroom teacher can understand and use in his own research. (CK)

A discussion of the current position of social studies in relation to teaching technique and method leads to advocating a social studies curriculum that provides for relevance to students' lives, examination of social issues, and strategies to help students deal with values and value conflicts. (Author/ND)

The authors take issue with the Shermis and Barth position that indoctrination in American education is wrong (Social Education, March 1985), arguing that they have misunderstood the issue and that the imposition of certain democratic values and processes does not conflict with the goals of reflective inquiry. (RM)

Teachers do not intentionally use or consider research findings in making teaching decisions. This lack of use is usually blamed on research deficiencies; e.g., educational research does not address the realistic demands of classroom teaching, research findings are inconsistent, and research articles are difficult to obtain and read. A major…

Research in law-related education has not led to cumulative knowledge that is of much use to curriculum developers or classroom teachers. Among the reasons for this state of affairs are that researchers concentrate on nonessential topics, educational research does not generally meet criteria for scientific research, educational research is too…

The author is concerned that teaching strategies based on the values clarification approach (VCA) and on Kohlberg's stage theory of moral development might be premature. The VCA has been adopted widely despite concerns about threats to privacy of participating students, infringement on rights of parents to shape their children's values, and…

Examines why social science/social studies educational research does not generate theories. The author concludes that the subject matter of this kind of research--human beings in their sociocultural milieu--makes it difficult to make objective observations from which theoretical principles can be derived. (AM)

The role of decision making, and its import for generating social change are examined. Decision making is considered from psychological, semantic, and scientific viewpoints, and suggestions for constructive change in social studies curricula are offered. (RJG)

Reviews the role of statistical significance testing, and argues that dominance of such testing is dysfunctional because significance tests do not provide the information that many researchers assume they do. Possible reasons for the persistence of statistical significance testing are discussed briefly, and ways to moderate negative effects are…

Generalizations and implications of results from three National Science Foundation studies of elementary and secondary social studies education are reported. Results indicate that the teacher's beliefs, values, knowledge, and techniques are the key to what happens in the classroom and that textbook content rather than inquiry tends to be the…

The necessity for social studies professors and curriculum developers to recognize the reality of teacher attitudes and classroom situations is discussed. The author contends that teachers are not very reflective about what they teach and about the effect of their teaching on students. This lack of introspection can be traced to teacher education…