Social Studies for a Better World: An Anti-Oppressive Approach for Elementary Educators

Plan and deliver a curriculum to help your students connect with the humanity of others!

In the wake of 2020, we need today’s young learners to be prepared to develop solutions to a host of entrenched and complex issues, including systemic racism, massive environmental problems, deep political divisions, and future pandemics that will severely test the effectiveness and equity of our health policies. What better place to start that preparation than with a social studies curriculum that enables elementary students to envision and build a better world?

In this engaging guide two experienced social studies educators unpack the oppressions that so often characterize the elementary curriculum--normalization, idealization, heroification, and dramatization--and show how common pitfalls can be replaced with creative solutions. Whether you’re a classroom teacher, methods student, or curriculum coordinator, this is a book that can transform your understanding of the social studies disciplines and their power to disrupt the narratives that maintain current inequities.

Noreen Naseem Rodríguez is an Assistant Professor of Elementary Education and Educational Justice in the College of Education and Core Faculty in the Asian Pacific American Studies Program at Michigan State University. She studies the pedagogical practices of Asian American educators and how elementary educators teach so-called ＂difficult histories＂ through children’s literature and primary sources. Before becoming a teacher educator, she was a bilingual elementary teacher in Austin, Texas for nine years.

Katy Swalwell is Lead Equity Specialist for the Equity Literacy Institute and founder of Past Present Future Media & Consulting. A former classroom teacher and tenured university professor, she explores how social studies education can help people of all ages become better at identifying and disrupting oppression. In addition to publishing research in peer-reviewed journals, practitioner magazines, and other academic books, she has created the Amazing Iowa children’s book series (amazingiowa.com) and co-hosts an irreverent history podcast called Our Dirty Laundry, which examines white women’s complicity in white supremacy.