Wayne Journell

My research agenda could be broadly defined as better understanding the current practices of social studies educators with respect to fostering ideological diversity and tolerance in their classrooms. It is my hope that through a deeper understanding of current practices social studies educators can begin to address ways to incorporate more opportunities for developing ideological awareness and deliberation in their classrooms so that schools can fulfill their mission of developing future citizens capable of successfully participating in an increasingly pluralistic democratic society.

There are 51 included publications by Wayne Journell :

TitleDateViewsBrief Description
Analyzing the Appropriateness of Internet-Based School News Programs for Social Studies Classrooms: CNN Student News as a Case Study 2014 2818 This article describes a research study on the appropriateness for social studies classrooms of CNN Student News, a free online news program specifically aimed at middle and high school students. The author conducted a content analysis of CNN Student...
Bridging Reading and Writing through C3 Inquiry 2016 1875 In seeking a disciplinary literacy model that would enable students to express well-developed perspectives and argue contrasting views with the sound use of evidence, we developed a student-driven model that emphasized historical investigation, offer...
The challenge of political instruction in a post-9/11 United States. 2011 1519 In the decade since the attacks of September 11th, the political climate in the United States has become increasingly intolerant of opposing viewpoints. This climate, made nearly ubiquitous by 24-hour news cycles and increased exposure to political m...
Confronting Educational Politics with Preservice Teachers: Reactions to Waiting for Superman 2013 1875 Within the literature on teacher education in the United States, relatively little research has been conducted on how preservice teachers conceptualize popular depictions of the profession or issues related to the “extended professionality” of teachi...
A Content Analysis of Immigration in Traditional, New, and Non-Gateway State Standards for U.S. History and Civics 2016 1283 In this content analysis of state U.S. History and Civics standards, we compared the treatment of immigration across three types of states with differing immigration demographics. Analyzing standards from 18 states from a critical race methodology pe...
Culturally relevant political education: Using immigration as a catalyst for civic understanding. 2011 1543 In an analysis of National Assessment of Educational Progress data, Niemi and Junn (1998) found that students in the United States know very little about politics. While this news may be unsettling to those who place a premium on engaged citize...
Dewey and Standardization: A Philosophical Look at the Implications for Social Studies 2007 3707 The work of John Dewey and his beliefs regarding student-centered learning are discussed in an effort to analyze the standardization of public education with a focus on social studies instruction. Using the Virginia Standards of Learning as a model, ...
The disclosure dilemma in action: A qualitative look at the effect of teacher disclosure on classroom instruction 2011 2020 Using Kelly's (1986) four perspectives on teacher disclosure, I analyze the quality of instruction present in the classrooms of six high school government teachers during their coverage of the 2008 Presidential Election, an event that received widesp...
Do This, Not That: Designing Effective Professional Development 2016 849 Do you find yourself … … searching for a new approach to teaching social studies that incorporates inquiry? … in a school, district, or state that hasn’t offered professional development for social studies instruction in the last 3, 5, 10 years? … th...
Essentials of middle and secondary social studies [book review] 2014 732 As former teachers, one secondary and one middle grades, who are now teacher educators, we understand the challenge of finding appropriate resources that provide preservice teachers with an encouraging, yet realistic, view of K-12 education. In Es...
Facilitating historical discussions using asynchronous communication: The role of the teacher 2008 5032 A brief narrative description of the journal article, document, or resource. This study examines the effectiveness of asynchronous communication in facilitating historical discussions among adolescents, with a specific focus on the ways in which teac...
Field Ecology: A Modest, but Imaginable, Contestation of Neoliberal Science Education 2016 1323 Science education has become a valuable market tool, serving the knowledge economy and technocratic workforce that celebrates individualism, meritocracy, entrepreneurship, rational thought, and abstract knowledge. Field ecology, however, could be a m...
Fostering political understanding using The West Wing: Analyzing the pedagogical benefits of film in high school civics classrooms 2013 20037 This study describes one high school civics teacher's use of film as a way to improve his students' understanding of politics. Using episodes of The West Wing, an award-winning political drama, over the course of a semester, the teacher was able to c...
An incomplete history: representation of American Indians in state social studies standards 2009 4021 Using an interpretive analysis, American history standards from nine states that incorporate high-stakes assessments in social studies are analyzed for their representation of American Indians. Research on high-stakes assessments shows that teachers ...
The Inequities of the Digital Divide: is e-learning a solution? 2007 3381 This article addresses the continuing digital divide in public education, one that defines itself largely along geographic, socioeconomic, and cultural lines. The article refutes the idea that the digital divide is dwindling due to increasing access...
The influence of high-stakes testing on high school teachers’ willingness to incorporate current political events into the curriculum 2010 3131 This paper describes the findings of a qualitative study of six government teachers from three diverse high schools in the Southwest Chicago suburbs during the 2008 Presidential Election. All of the teachers expressed a desire to cover the election i...
Interdisciplinary Education 2011 1643 This issue marks my debut as editor of the Interdisciplinary Education Feature of Social Studies Research and Practice (SSRP). I would like to thank Dr. Cynthia Sunal, Executive Editor of SSRP, for this opportunity. As a loyal reader, reviewer, and c...
Joining the Conversation: Twitter as a Tool for Student Political Engagement 2013 3558 This article describes possibilities afforded by using social media, specifically Twitter, as a way to encourage students to join political conversations across the United States and around the world. In this study, we describe a project in which stu...
Learning from each other: What social studies can learn from the controversy surrounding the teaching of evolution in science 2013 3662 This article addresses the need for researchers to move beyond discipline-specific approaches to research and practice and offers an example of how interdisciplinary understandings can increase knowledge in respective disciplines. The specific focus ...
Learning to Think Politically: Toward More Complete Disciplinary Knowledge in Civics and Government Courses 2015 668 Secondary civics and government courses are often framed as a content area in which students learn about processes of government and ways of participating in a democratic society, as opposed to a discipline in which students use specific tools and wa...
Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics: Uncovering the Truth Behind Polling Data 2011 1942 One of the fundamental tenets of social studies education is preparing students to become knowledgeable and informed citizens. Especially in this era of increased communication and technology, one skill necessary for informed citizenship is the abili...
Making a Case for Teacher Political Disclosure 2016 2894 K-12 teachers in the United States are often discouraged from disclosing their political opinions in the classroom, and those that do are often accused of indoctrinating their students. In this essay, the author attempts to make a case for teacher po...
Making every year a presidential election year: Using The West Wing’s Santos/Vinick race to simulate election politics 2013 2962 This article makes a case for using The West Wing’s Santos/Vinick presidential election as a way to simulate election politics in civics and government courses. The series provides a behind-the-scenes view of the political decisions made by both fict...
Making politics palatable: Using television drama in high school civics and government classes. 2012 8542 The authors make a case for using The West Wing, a political drama that aired on NBC from 1999 to 2006, as an instructional tool in high school civics and government classes. The show offers a realistic portrayal of life in the White House through th...
Maximizing the Potential of Computer-Based Technology in Secondary Social Studies Education 2009 2417 This paper looks critically at the way technology is currently used in social studies education and makes the argument that technology can better serve teachers and students as a tool of engagement and inquiry rather than as a supplement to existing ...
Perceptions of e-learning in secondary education: a viable alternative to classroom instruction or a way to bypass engaged learning? 2010 3056 This manuscript uses interview data collected during a qualitative study in 2007 of a secondary US history e-learning course. The teacher, Mr. Harding, and 11 of the 13 students in the class were interviewed about their general perceptions of e-learn...
Rethinking “general audience”: A comparison of students’ understanding of popular film in high school honors and general-level classes 2012 1764 Research suggests that secondary teachers across the United States are regularly turning to popular film as a way to engage students and deliver content. However, research on the use of film in secondary education has yet to focus on how students of ...
Review of the book Teaching American history in a global context by C. Guarneri & J. Davis (Eds.) 2009 610 Education is deeply rooted in tradition, particularly within disciplines that help shape the cultural and political identity of nations. As a result, survey courses in American history, regardless of academic level or location within the United State...
Review of the book Teaching what really happened: How to avoid the tyranny of textbooks and get students excited about doing history by J. W. Loewen 2010 1872 In the sequel to his bestseller. Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen has crafted a critique of how history is being taught in public education that should be in the hands of every practicing and pre-service social studies teacher in the United Stat...
Review of the book This happened in America: Harold Rugg and the censure of social studies by R. W. Evans 2009 853 The primary emotion that I felt after reading Ronald Evans' biography of progressive era luminary Harold Rugg was that of pleasant surprise, I was familiar with Evans' work, and I knew that This Happened in America won the 2008 Exemplary Research Awa...
Scaffolding Classroom Discourse in an Election Year: Keeping a Cool Mood in a Heated Season 2012 760 Once the outcomes of a national election are announced, the confetti is on the floor, the balloons have deflated; one group of people is very happy; another group is disenchanted with the outcome and maybe with the whole process. The next day in the ...
Setting Out the (Un)Welcome Mat: A Portrayal of Immigration in State Standards for American History: a Journal for Readers, Students and Teachers of History 2009 1547 This article frames history education as a social construction designed to create a national identity through the inclusion, exclusion, and treatment of various societal groups. Using this lens, the author analyzes curriculum standards from nine stat...
Social studies, citizenship education, and the search for an American identity: An argument against a unifying narrative. 2011 4475 One of the more haunting images from George Orwell’s (1949) 1984 is that of the protagonist, Winston Smith, altering official government history on behalf of the Party as part of his responsibilities at the Ministry of Truth. Orwell viewed the man...
“Socializing economics”: Using practical applications to enliven economic theory 2012 2683 Although economists may disagree on what concepts are considered to be the most important within their field, there seems to be general consensus within the profession that the purpose of economics education is to teach students to "think like an eco...
Standardizing Citizenship: The Potential Influence of State Curriculum Standards on the Civic Development of Adolescents 2010 2673 The rise of state-mandated standards in public education have allowed legislators to answer the question of what constitutes a proper civic education, a debate that has existed in the United States since the turn of the twentieth century. Through the...
Students blogging about politics: A study of students' political engagement and a teacher's pedagogy during a semester-long political blog assignment 2015 579 Many scholars have written about the Internet’s potential for engaging youth in public issues, but there has been little empirical research on the political engagement outcomes from students’ classroom-based use of web 2.0 tools, such as blogs, or th...
Teachers' Controversial Issue Decisions Related to Race, Gender, and Religion During the 2008 Presidential Election 2011 2500 Using the 2008 Presidential Election as a case of curricular controversy, the author describes how six high school government teachers responded to the racial, gender, and religious diversity included on the presidential tickets of the two major poli...
Teaching the 2008 Presidential Election at Three Demographically Diverse Schools: An Exercise in Neoliberal Govemmentality 2011 115 This article describes the disparity in political instruction found in six government classes from three demographically diverse high schools during the 2008 Presidential Election. In general, students from working-class households or those in lower-...
Teaching politics in secondary education: Analyzing instructional methods from the 2008 Presidential Election. 2011 6428 This article describes the instructional methods of four high school government teachers during their coverage of the 2008 presidential election. By analyzing the ways in which these teachers attempted to generate interest in the election and further...
Teaching politics in the U.S. History classroom 2014 1373 In the United States, courses on civics or government are often marginalized in most states’ social studies curricula in favor of courses in United States or world history. The origins of this history-dominated approach have roots in the debates betw...
Toward technology-mediated transcultural education: Learning from a discussion of politics and culture between American and Moroccan students. 2009 781 This study makes an argument for using synchronous technology as a way to mediate transcultural dialogue in pre-service and K-12 social studies classrooms. As evidence for this claim, the authors present findings from a two-hour videoconference betwe...
Tweeting in the Classroom 2014 1173 Twitter can be a smart instructional tool that links students with real-time information and connects them to authentic discussions beyond school walls.
Using videoconferences to diversify classrooms electronically. 2011 2398 In this article the authors make a case for videoconferencing as a way to diversify middle and secondary classrooms. Through a description of the setup of a videoconference between American pre-service teachers and Moroccan undergraduates, the author...
Using YouTube to Teach Presidential Election Propaganda: Twelve Representative VIdeos 2009 4414 One of the primary goals of social studies education in the United States is to prepare students for civically active, politically informed, and socially engaged democratic citizenship. Too often, however, the curricula fall short of this goal. Textb...
Walk, Don't Run — to Online Learning 2012 2160 The financial lure of lower-cost online learning during a period of tight budgets shouldn't prompt schools to proceed before giving serious consideration to a multitude of factors.In 2003, my first year of teaching high school, the district technolog...
We Still Need You! An Update on the Status of K-12 Civics Education in the United States 2015 1611 In 2001, Richard Niemi and Julia Smith published an article in PS: Political Science and Politics on enrollments in high school civics and government courses. They framed their study on the premise that political scientists were ignoring an important...
What the flip: Impact of flipped instruction on self-regulated learning 2014 2119 Flipped instruction, while becoming a more common pedagogical approach is still a nascent area for empirical research. This comparative case study of the use of flipped instruction in two courses - one face-to-face and the other online - by the same ...
What Preservice Social Studies Teachers (Don't) Know About Politics and Current Events—And Why It Matters 2013 3200 This article reports findings from a 3-year study on preservice middle and secondary social studies teachers' common content knowledge of politics and current events. Surveys showed that both groups were generally uninformed about these issues, and o...
When One-Size Methods Class Doesn’t Fit All: A Self-Study of Teaching Traditional and Alternative Licensure Students Together 2013 1258 This article uses a narrative approach to start a dialogue about the challenges of teaching blended methods classes that contain traditional and alternative licensure students. Many alternative licensure students enter their methods classes as later...
When oppression and liberation are the only choices: The representation of African-Americans within state social studies standards 2008 1983 This study seeks to understand the ways nine states represent African Americans within their standards for U.S. History. Previous research on the effects of high-stakes assessment on social studies educators suggests teachers align their instruction ...
When using technology isn’t enough: A comparison of high school civics teachers’ TPCK in one-to-one laptop environments 2014 1513 In this multiple case study, the authors compare the instruction of two high school civics teachers during the 2012 Presidential Election. Both were highly-qualified practitioners who worked in schools with one-to-one laptop initiatives, creating an ...