About the Author

Dr. Linda S. Levstik is a Professor who joined the faculty in 1982. She came to Lexington from Columbus, Ohio where she was a consultant for teacher education program assessment with the Ohio Department of Education. Dr. Levstik holds a B.S. from Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, and taught in public and private schools in Ohio. She holds both M.S. and Ph.D degrees from The Ohio State University. Her areas of academic interest and expertise focus on teaching and learning history. She was awarded the Jean Dresden Grambs Distinguished Career Research Award in 2007 for her scholarship in history education.
For more, CLICK HERE! 
For her vita, CLICK HERE!

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About the Article

Published as the third chapter in the 92nd Bulletin for the National Council for the Social Studies, entitled "NCSS in Retrospect." It can be found on pages 21 through 34. 

Citation
Lestvik, L.S. (1996), NCSS and the teaching of history. In O.L. Davis, Jr. (Ed.), NCSS in retrospect (pp. 21-34). Washington, D.C. National Council for the Social Studies.

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THESIS

“...Educators have argued about whose history appears in the curriculum and how that history is presented.” (21). This debate has been a core element of the NCSS’ existence and has been a undulating wave throughout its history. It essentially boils down to the two aims of historical instruction: cultural transmission or cultural transformation.

cultue: transmission or transformation? 

• Dichotomy has existed within NCSS since its inception in 1921.
  • Coincided with the “professionalization” of historians and the emergence of the field of “social studies”.
  • “‘History for its own sake’ advocates have tended to view history education as a form of cultural transmission, whereas cross-disciplinary advocates more often have advocated a cultural transformation view.” (23)
• Cultural Transmission
  • “Claim[s] that an integrated social studies field does not respect historical scholarship and dilutes both method and content.” (23)
  • Use of curriculum as a means to craft a common history, a unified cultural landscape. Try to tell the narrative history of the country.
    • The story, well told.​
      
    • “Lynn Cheney (1987), for instance, claimed that separate disciplinary history as a form of cultural transmission was necessary for cultural survival” (23)
  • ​Emphasizes a more “chronological” approach to curriculum and instruction.
• Cultural Transformation
  • “...reconceptualized history to make it more ‘relevant’ to a society experiencing major upheavals.” (24)
  • “...’guerilla history’, arguing that history should lead to social action, particularly on behalf of oppressed peoples.” (24)
  • Use of curriculum to emphasize analysis, discover problems and work towards solving them. No common narratives, since there they are all so interwoven yet unique.
    • The sources, well scrutinized.
  • ​Emphasizes a more “thematic” approach to curriculum development and instruction.
• This struggle has been inherent in NCSS throughout its history and the argument still rages today.

historical knowledge:
​A timeline

• 1920s and 1930s- “Progressive” historians doing “scientific” history.
  • “...generally subscribed to some version of scientific history: assuming a position of impartiality, identifying ‘facts’ by the rigorous examination of archival and original sources, and developing interpretations that organized and explained the facts.” (25)
  • Historical knowledge came from “the political life of nations but with a progressive emphasis on the struggle between special interests and ordinary people.” (25)
  • A wee little bit of social history introduced via “units” in elementary instruction.​
• 1940s and 1950s
  • “...historians of the ‘consensus’ school rejected the conflict model of the progressives… focused on uncovering a broadly shared set of values that, they argued, overrode ethnic and class distinctions” (26)
  • Political history remained the backbone of historical knowledge.
  • Flare-up of more social studies-oriented courses, debate over the decline of traditional history in the classroom.
• 1960s and 1970s
  • “...social history moved from the margins to the center stage of historical scholarship.” (26)
  • “...the new social historians assumed that society was divided by race, class, gender and ethnicity, and that traditional historical sources were inadequate for their needs.” (26)
  • Adoption of the methodologies of the other behavioral sciences, leading to a massive increase on quantitative information.
  • The “new social studies” was “‘the development in the student of certain attitudes and values, the use of a mode of inquiry, and the attainment of knowledge about… content” (Fenton, 1996, 325, quoted in Levstik, 1996, 27).
  • Brought out a large conservative backlash, evidenced in Mark Krug’s History and the Social Sciences (1967)
  • Historical Knowledge: Doing as well as learning.
  • Call for better teacher education and historical knowledge.
  • All of this remained mostly in the academic realm, having little to no impact on how history was taught in the classroom.
• 1980s to 1996 (date of article publication)
  • Postmodernism has changed how historians perceive the world, history and thought itself.
    • ​"...history does not exist as a discipline 'in the world'; rather, it exists 'in the head' as a cultural frame" (Geertz, 1983 in Levtsik, 1996)
    • ​"...historical knowledge can never be fixed, nor described in terms of 'truth'. Instead, it is best understood as a constantly evolving creation of historians who operate within a cultural context." (28)
  • Led to multiple approaches in the classroom, an uncertainness amongst many about how best to proceed
    • ​"...an emphasis on multiple and often competing perspectives potentially provides exciting possibilities for social studies curriculum development." (28)
    • ​​"...the history of racial and ethnic groups, labor and class history, and gender history fundamentally alter the traditional curriculum." (28)
  • ​No consensus has emerged and these two viewpoints still stand in stark contrast with one another.

The future of social studies education

• NCSS, though at times taking minor stands in favor of one particular method or another, seems firmly entrenched in both camps
  
  • Supported by, supports, AHA, OAH
    
  • Standards are grouped thematically
    
• Need for NCSS to better develop a research base on teaching and learning history
  
• Challenges finally emerging against traditional instructional methods, historical knowledge bases
  
  • “Expanding environments” in the crosshairs
    
• The future could go one of these two ways…
  
  • Transmission:
    
    • Domination of neoconservative reforms
      
    • “...a narrow band of mainstream culture, maladapted to the needs of a multicultural society.” (30)
      
  • Transformation:
    
    • “...work together toward an educational synthesis centered on the study of the creation of public culture.” (30)