Junior High, Intermediate, Middle School Education and Teaching Commons^™

Creating Inclusive Classrooms With Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy, Melissa Kane

Doctor of Education in Secondary and Middle Grades Education Dissertations

This is a qualitative phenomenographic study that uses the theoretical frameworks of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (CSP) (Paris, 2012), Intergroup Contact Theory (Allport 1954), and Social Constructivism (Smagorinsky, 2007) to evaluate how 7^th grade students at a Title I middle school in the Southeastern United States experience the phenomenon of peer relationships in the context of a CSP writing unit. Students created, peer edited, and shared multimodal “Where I’m From” (Lyon, n.d.) poems in intentionally created groups. The researcher collected data via participant interviews, participant journals, and a researcher reflection journal. Findings indicated that students developed a better understanding of …

Navigating The Context: Implementing Inquiry In The Middle School Social Studies Classroom, Juliann Noble Healy

Doctor of Education in Secondary and Middle Grades Education Dissertations

Abstract

Despite over a century of advocacy by social studies scholars and professionals and the development of curricular resources to promote inquiry-based learning (IBL) in K-12 social studies, inquiry is not a defining element of the K-12 social studies classroom (Saye, 2017). Teachers face significant barriers to the use of inquiry-based learning. In particular, contextual barriers such as curriculum breadth, high-stakes testing, and lack of context-specific resources are indicated (e.g., Konopack et al., 1994; Martell, 2020; Voet & Wever, 2016). However, recent research presents applications of IBL in K-12 social studies classrooms, which suggests the potential to overcome barriers. This …