In any field of study and practice, professionals try to carefully define the terms used in their community of practice. To have differences, deficiencies, and nuances of terms is not unusual in applied fields of study, particularly because – as in social studies education – the practice draws on other disciplines. What one professor means by “knowledge,” “values,” or “active learning” can be slightly or very different from another’s. Because this can be confusing for a newcomer to the community of practice, the following definitions are provided as a pre-reading activity to enhance understanding of the concepts and generalizations when encountered in the book. Some definitions are original to this book’s author and others are based on the work of select scholars or learned societies.
Academic disciplines – are typically defined as the areas of research and study found in universities.
Arc of Inquiry – is part of the NCSS C3 Framework and is based on constructivist theories. It places a premium on lessons that start with compelling questions or propositions and using active learning “investigations” by which students and teachers, together, pursue answers through the examination of foundational knowledge and democratic ideals.
Active learning – is where students are engaged in the learning process through teacher-created engagements that require students to think critically, such as in problem-solving, decision-making, and values analysis and completing tasks such as writing, creating graphic organizers, etc. This is in contrast to passive learning such as listening to teacher-dominated lectures and activities such as completing fill-in-the-blank worksheets.
Agency – is the capacity of a person to consistently make choices and to act.
Moral agency – is the ability to make moral judgments as the basis for acting (Barker, 2005).
Authenticity – “whereby each individual is thought to have a unique identity, an original way of being human, to which he or she must be true” to have the Good Life (Taylor, 1992, p. 38).
Autonomy – is the ability to reflect critically on one’s principles, decide how to live, consider one’s circumstances, and act based on those reflections.
Beliefs – are part of students’ identity and ideology. Because individuals have emotional attachments and value beliefs as important to their identity, beliefs are fundamentally different from abstract ideas and are more resistant to change than ideas (Fenstermacher, 1994; Richardson, 1996). When presented with compelling questions and propositions of ideas that matter, students are moved to reflect on their beliefs and identity: They are inspired to reconsider who they are and who they want to be.
C3 Framework – is a curriculum and instruction platform developed by the NCSS that has two parts: A) Grade-level standards for the core social studies subject areas; and B) the Arc of Inquiry, a methodological approach to teaching the social studies based on constructivist theories.
Compelling propositions and questions – based on social studies foundational knowledge, teachers develop questions and propositions that are aimed at the considerations of a democratic ideology. As an example, learning the foundational knowledge of various wars would lead to consideration of the enduring idea of the common attributes of causes of wars. In turn, this would lead to a consideration of a thing that matters – how to decide if a war is just – which leads to examination of at least two democratic beliefs, the right to security and respect for human life.
Caring encounter – entails genuine presence and connectedness between a teacher and student that is initiated by the teacher in order to facilitate the student’s formation of a holistic identity and ideology (Buber, 2000; Marcel, 2001/1951). It requires “engrossment,” what Noddings defines as “an open, nonselective receptivity to the cared-for” and “where the person being cared for senses the caring’s energy is flowing toward him” (Noddings, 1999, 1998, p. 40).
Civics – is not the same as education about government(s), it is teaching and learning for civic competence.
Civic competence – is “the knowledge, intellectual processes, and democratic dispositions required of students to be active and engaged participants in public life” (NCSS, 2020).
Common Core – is a set of standards created by the National Governors Association that emphasizes basic skills. These standards outline what a student should know and be able to do at the end of each grade level. All but a handful of states have adopted the standards, and those that did not have very similar standards of their own design.
Constructivism – is a widely accepted theory that entails methods of instruction based on a view of learning as a process in which the learner is expected to actively construct knowledge, as opposed to the passive learning approach where a student is viewed as a pitcher to be filled up with knowledge.
Cognitive constructivism – describes how the individual learner comes to understand and organize knowledge by conceptualizing ideas into schema (Piaget, 1929).
Social constructivism – emphasizes how meaning and understanding grow out of social encounters with others (Vygotsky, 1978).
Critical thinking – “active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends” (Dewey, 1910, p. 6).
Curriculum – is derived from the Latin word meaning race course, as in a race with hurdles an athlete must jump over to get to the finish line. The when and what of teaching has traditionally been referred to as the curriculum, scope and sequence, or framework. The past two decades have also seen the increased use of the word “standards” when referring to curriculum. The how of teaching is usually referred to as pedagogy, approaches, methods, strategies, or instruction.
Democracy and democratic – refers to a (unless stated otherwise) liberal democracy as opposed to the narrower construction of rule by the people. It includes free, multi-candidate elections; universal suffrage; limited government powers through a constitution or set of laws that transcend the government apparatus; the idea of inalienable rights based on equality of persons; and the rule of law. The term “democracy” (small “d”) is not to be confused with the “Democrats” or the Democratic Party. Both Republicans and Democrats adhere to a democratic ideology.
Democratic beliefs – for this book’s framework, the core democratic beliefs ...