Inquiry-Based Global Learning in the K–12 Social Studies Classroom

Brad M. Maguth, Gloria Wu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000059441
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book, edited by experienced scholars in the field, brings together a diverse array of educators to showcase lessons, activities, and instructional strategies that advance inquiry-oriented global learning. Directly aligned to the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standard, this work highlights ways in which global learning can seamlessly be interwoven into the disciplines of history, economics, geography, civics, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Recently adopted by the National Council for the Social Studies, the nation's largest professional organization of history and social studies teachers, the C3 Framework prioritizes inquiry-oriented learning experiences across the social studies disciplines in order to advance critical thinking, problem solving, and participatory skills for engaged citizenship.

Part I
Inquiry-Based Global Learning

1
Global Learning in the Social Studies Classroom

Brad M. Maguth and Gloria Wu

Citizens today are actors on a global stage, and it is essential they are knowledgeable about the world, its people, and issues. Their economic, political, and environmental actions and inactions connect them with geographically distant and culturally diverse populations. Gains in technology immediately transport ideas, trade, investments, and people around the world. This free exchange of ideas, products, and citizenry results in new opportunities for people to collaborate, innovate, and learn from one another. However, with these newfound opportunities and possibilities come global challenges that include the spread of disease, terrorism, conflict, and growing power and economic imbalances between states, corporations, and people. As evident in the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the global issues our world and its people face cannot be remedied by one nation or person acting alone in isolation but requires citizenries across cultures and borders to come together to act. Regardless of the pros and cons to our new global age, citizens today and tomorrow must be equipped to understand our interdependent world and to act to make it more peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable.

The social studies is predicated on the preparation of knowledgeable and responsible citizens for active participation in their local, national, and global communities. Through a strong social studies experience students have the opportunity to analyze, discuss, and debate global histories, problems, issues, ideas, and perspectives. Students learn how actions and movements in one part of the world have an impact on humans and their natural environments in other parts of the world. Moreover, the social studies curriculum provides an ideal space for learners to investigate issues of inequity, institutionalized discrimination, and power imbalances that impede opportunities for a sizeable percentage of the world’s people.

In an increasingly global and multicultural age, it is paramount social studies teachers have strong standards-based resources and materials to teach about the world, its people, and issues. This book brings together a diverse array of social studies educators to showcase instructional units, activities, and strategies that advance inquiry-based global learning, all directly aligned to the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework. The C3 Frameworks is a conceptual tool published by the National Council for the Social Studies (2013) that helps elementary, middle, and secondary teachers plan engaging inquiry based units. These units help in the formulation of compelling and supporting questions, build disciplinary knowledge, help students evaluate evidence, construct arguments, and take informed action.

This work showcases ways in which inquiry based global learning can seamlessly be interwoven into the disciplines of history, economics, geography, and civics. Instead of feeling restricted or handcuffed by the C3 Framework when trying to advance global learning and perspectives, this book presents the many ways global learning complements and supports the framework. Drawing from scholarship in social studies and global education, this book includes research-based instructional materials, resources, and strategies, all aligned to a rigorous C3 Framework, for use by teachers, teacher educators, pre-service teachers, curricular specialists, and professional development supervisors looking for global learning instructional tools.

What Is Global Education and Why Is It Important?

The state of knowledge about the world, its people, and issues in the United States presents a critical challenge in preparing the citizens we need in an increasingly globally age. Americans are often out of touch, disconnected with, and ignorant toward complex global issues. The latest National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) Geography test results (2014) indicate there have been no significant changes in the geography scores for U.S. eighth-graders since the test was first administered in 1994. On this exam, only 68 percent of U.S. eighth graders, even after consulting a physical and political map, could locate Somalia on the Horn of Africa. The National Geographic-Roper Survey (2006) found that fewer than 15 percent of young U.S. citizens surveyed could locate either Israel or Iraq on a map.

Another survey administered by the World Public Opinion Association (2010) found that Americans want to tackle a growing domestic deficit by significantly cutting foreign aid from what they perceived to be 27 percent of the U.S. budget to a more prudent 13 percent. The problem comes in that foreign aid accounts for around 1 percent of the U.S. budget. This distorted worldview held by many Americans presents a significant hurdle in creating a citizenry informed and ready to work with citizens in other countries. Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski noted: “We (the U.S.) can only have as good a foreign policy as the public’s understanding of world affairs. And, the tragedy is that the public’s understanding of world affairs in America today is abysmal” (PBS News Hour, 2012).

Such global ignorance is viewed by experts in the U.S. and abroad as both disturbing and dangerous. In 2012, the Pew Research Group conducted a study that investigated how people in other countries viewed Americans and the United States in general. In this poll, only 35 percent of global respondents (across 27 countries) viewed the United States favorably. Over 48 percent of global respondents viewed the United States negatively (which was a higher negative percentage than North Korea, Russia, and China). It should also be noted that U.S. citizens viewed themselves most favorably (80 percent) out of all 27 countries – far above the next most favorable country rating which was Italy with a 74 percent favorability rating of the United States (Pew Research Center, 2012). Additional research finds that U.S. news outlets and media often advance stereotypes and misinformation about global cultures, and can be hostile toward the inclusion of covering multiple perspectives on global issues (Merryfield, 2005; Miller, 2008).

Global education is centered on preparing citizens to live, learn, work, play, and act with culturally diverse populations from around the world (Merryfield and Wilson, 2005). This book is focused on those instructional practices that help learners understand Earth as a complex, finite system where humans hold varying perspectives. In particular, this book presents instructional units that align to at least one of four key features and meaningful practices in the area of global education. These practices include:

1. Investigating global and cross-cultural perspectives
2. Understanding global issues and geographies
3. Making local to global connections
4. Applying global learning to take informed action.

Investigate Global and Cross-Cultural Perspectives

An increasingly global and multicultural society requires social studies teachers to present a more balanced image of the world. This includes the social studies classroom serving a corrective function whereby misinformation and prejudicial thinking is challenged and corrected. For instance, instead of presenting distorted, exotic images of Africa, frequently depicted in the media (i.e., Africa as a country, oasis of poverty, and wild elephants and giraffes cavorting across the safari), students should learn Africa is the world’s second largest continent and home to 54 diverse countries. While researching Kenya (a populous country on the eastern shore of the African continent), teachers and students can use the Internet to locate and review Kenyan reliable primary sources and newspapers. Teachers with a global mind-set should actively debunk myths and stereotypes held about people, cultures and regions, and actively seek out multiple, global perspectives for students to investigate.

Students can review the true size of Africa on the map in Figure 1.1 to gain a better reference point in understanding the great size and rich geographic and cultural diversity on the continent of Africa.

Figure 1.1 The real size of Africa.

Source: Krause, K. (2013, October 15). Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:True_size_of_Africa.webp#filelinks. Reprinted under a Create Commons license.

A globally minded educator would present students with many perspectives on complex global issues. Using primary and secondary sources, media, firsthand experiences, and literature written by people in different cultures, teachers strive to teach students to understand issues through diverse people’s points of view. By examining different points of view on a historical event, or story in the news, Merryfield (2002, p. 19) contends, “students develop the habit of looking for and considering other perspectives, especially those of people of minority cultures.” For instance, in an eighth grade U.S. history unit on the Age of Exploration and Discovery, students could debunk Columbus and other European explorers as heroes to be admired, and instead read Native American accounts of the awful treatment and injustices inflicted by Europeans in 1492 (Bigelow and Peterson, 1998).

Learners should be given the opportunity to engage and critically consider multiple perspectives through direct cross-cultural interactions with individuals from different cultures. With the bulk of the world’s people living outside of the U.S., teachers can and should have students access, investigate, and compare a variety of sources and voices from outside the U.S. The social studies classroom can serve as a global and learning laboratory whereby students come to understand the connection between perspective and culture, and how diverse perspectives exist within societies.

See Figure 1.2 for an example activity where learners compare multiple global perspectives published in archived newspapers from around the world reporting on the devastating U.S. terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Students can analyze images, text, and commentary to investigate global perspectives, and to compare and contrast global state news coverage of this historic event. Archived front pages are accessible via the Newseum Archives at www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages.

Figure 1.2 Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 12, 2001

Source: www.cleveland.com/september-11/index.ssf/2011/07/september_11_the_events_the_vi.html.

Promoting Student Understanding on Global Issues and Geographies

The global classroom requires students to understand the many ways in which geographically distant and culturally diverse populations are directly connected to one another. In particular, learners grasp how our dependence upon the planet’s finite resources is a unifier between different cultures, states, and people. Being human connects us to our planet and its reso...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Decication Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Contributors
• Foreword
• PART I Inquiry-Based Global Learning
• PART II Showcasing Global Learning
• Index