Research

The Social Studies Network is engaged in research that supports inquiry-based and justice-centered pedagogical and curricular practices in P-20 social studies. Have a research need? Contact us.

Read Dr. Asif Wilson's research study, Returning to the Source: Black Teachers Centering Justice with Black Students in Chicago Public Schools. This study drew analyses of interview transcripts collected by Dr. Timuel Black in the 1990s and other primary source data to piece together narratives detailing the socio-political forces that influenced the educational praxes of three Black teachers at DuSable and Phillips High Schools in Chicago. By understanding the consciousness of Black teachers of the past—returning to the source—contemporary Black teachers may be better equipped to navigate the complexities of their roles in schools today.

Social movements can play an important role in inquiry-based and justice-centered social studies. Read Dr. Asif Wilson's study, Curricularizing Social Movements: The Election of Chicago’s First Black Mayor as Content, Pedagogy, and Futurities.

Using surveillance data collected by the Chicago Police Department, and other historical artifacts, Dr. Wilson calls for the curricularization of social movements from the past. As the paper details social movements of the past can offer curricular insight through content and pedagogy, reconceptualizing the ways in which educational spaces might be better bound to the communities and legacies of resistance that contextualize them.