Social studies education - Ph.D.

The program in social studies education focuses on issues related to curriculum, instruction, and assessment in K-12 social studies. Full-time graduate students generally have opportunities to supervise student teachers, teach introductory social studies classes, and conduct and publish research with one or more faculty members. Doctoral students are required to complete a research internship with one or more of the faculty as part of their study for the degree. Graduate students are strongly encouraged to present research papers at professional conferences, specifically the National Council for the Social Studies and the American Educational Research Association.

Faculty maintain active research agendas with several research centers at the University including the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement, housed within the College of Education and Human Development, and two research centers housed outside the College—the Center for Environmental Learning and Leadership and the Center for the Study of Political Psychology. Social studies faculty research interests include the areas of political socialization, political tolerance, authentic assessment, citizenship and civics education, and democratic thought. In addition, faculty members engage in research centered on the history of curricula, multicultural and gender studies, and social justice. All are actively engaged in their scholarship and work in both national and international contexts.

Recent Ph.D. graduates have conducted research in the areas of intercultural relations, moral development, multicultural gender-fair curriculum, social studies instructional issues, and the standards movement as it relates to social studies education. Graduates of the program have assumed positions as instructional leaders in the public schools, curriculum development specialists, social studies assessment specialists, and college/university faculty.

Faculty

• Patricia Avery

  I currently coordinate the evaluation of the Deliberating in a Democracy Project, a study in which models for discussing controversial public issues are implemented in secondary classrooms in three U.S. cities (Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.), and three countries (Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, and Lithuania). This five-year  project began in 2004-2005 and each year the project will be expanded to additional sites within and outside the United States.

• Benjamin M. Jacobs
  My research interests include social studies education, history of education, curriculum studies, teacher education, and Jewish education, and I plan to investigate such questions as how social education takes form in ethnic schools.
• Terry Johnson
  I am particularly interested in exploring the most appropriate ways to use children's literature to teach elementary social studies concepts.
• J. B. Mayo
  As a former middle school teacher of six years in two Virginia localities, my research interests include multicultural education, global education, and the teaching of history, especially modern U.S. history from the 1960s to the present.

Course requirements

See also: Ph.D. student resources.

Sample dissertations

Andreshak-Behrman, J.A. (2003). Dimensions of social inclusion in the curriculum and co-curriculum at a post-1992 British university: A case study. Unpublished doctoral thesis. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.

Coler, J.R. (2005). Beginning teachers: Emerging leaders of classroom discussion. Unpublished doctoral thesis. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.

Johnson (2002). Computers in the social studies: How and why computers are used as an instructional tool. Unpublished doctoral thesis. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.

Lai, Y. (2004). The experience of civic discourse: A hermeneutic phenomenological study of Taiwanese social studies teacher preparation programs. Unpublished doctoral thesis. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.

Pfeifer, G.R. (2002). The influence of authentic assessment tasks and authentic instruction on Lutheran elementary school fifth and sixth grade students' attitudes toward social studies and authentic projects. Unpublished doctoral thesis. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.

May 2006