JSSE - Journal of Social Science Education

Editorial

2025-03-19T12:47:41+00:00

We are pleased to present the first issue of 2025 with four new original articles and a country report from the Czech Republic. Less pleasing is the societal development where political, social and economic structures – and democracy itself – are being questioned by populist movements and leaders. Naturally, such upheavals in general society have consequences for Academia. In mid-March, the JSSE was informed by the US Department of Education that the current administration and the Musk-led “DOGE” are – in an attempt to reduce government spending – slashing funding for the database ERIC, where educational research from all over the world is being indexed and made available for researchers and teachers. In their budget cuts, ERIC will now stop indexing many journals, and the JSSE is among them. We are probably only at the beginning of the process where US research will become increasingly pressured to follow governmental guidelines that please the current administration.

Controversial issues in Swedish social studies education: Success and failure in teachers’ task perceptions

2024-06-17T12:40:20+00:00

Highlights:

– The study examined teachers’ perceptions of success and failure in their teaching about controversial issues.

– 18 interviewed teachers in civics in Swedish school years 7, 8, 9.

– Relational aspects are decisive.

– Values included neutrality, pluralism, civil behaviour, and students’ well-being, which were central to the teachers.

– Tensions concerned the level of emotional engagement and how to deal with students’ opinions.

Purpose: This study seeks to gain an understanding of the complexities involved in real-life classroom teaching. The aim is to trace values and tensions displayed in what the teachers regard as successful and unsuccessful.

Design/methodology/approach: Teachers were interviewed to explore their perceptions of success and failures in their teaching about controversial issues. Data was analysed thematically and cross-analysed to find underlying didactic values and tensions.

Findings: Successful and unsuccessful are mainly related to the students’ learning, teachers’ efforts, and reactions of parents, not to specific issues. Values included concern for students’ well-being and a desire for less polarisation. Tensions concerned students’ level of commitment and how to deal with students’ own opinions. Successful teaching is not only about achieving curriculum goals but also must be understood in relation to teachers’ task perceptions.

Practical implications: Results of the study can provide teachers with a ground for didactical reflection.

Exploring the implementation gap in citizenship education: An analysis of policy processes from a post-colonial perspective

2024-04-01T10:50:07+00:00

Highlights:

- Brazilian case study analyses the implementation gap in Citizenship Education Policies (CEP)

- A post-colonial perspective is employed to overcome Western democratic ideals in CEP

- Five key policy processes are examined as factors influencing the implementation gap in CEP

- A clear citizenship concept and modelling learning activities contribute to reducing the gap

- Challenges include top-down approaches, external disincentives, and policy misinterpretations

Purpose: This paper explores the implementation gap in CEP using a post-colonial perspective, focusing on a case study in Brazil.

Methodological approach: By employing a qualitative case study approach, semi-structured interviews with frontline educators are applied. Responses were analysed using content analysis with a descriptive design.

Findings: Five key policy processes are identified, yet two – a clear citizenship concept and modelling learning activities – largely contribute to reducing the gap. The remaining three processes – citizenship education as a cross-curricular subject, professional development, and pedagogical resource accessibility – can affect the gap. However, these three can be hindered due to disincentives to implement and other challenges that arise at the frontline level.

Research limitations: The case study may not be generalisable due to the evidence available and considering the regional context.

Practical implications: Insights from the study can aid in developing more inclusive and effective CEP, particularly in post-colonial settings.

Shifting shores: Transformative learning with the city

2024-11-11T22:34:58+00:00

Highlights:

– Post-human methodologies support geographical experimentation in social science education

– Walking with a virtual (Deleuze) landscape manifests the materiality of the city

– Diverse temporal and spatial rhythms reveal the subject as porous

– Encounters with the city create space to think and do things differently

– Post-human approaches to transformative learning challenge detached subjectivities

Purpose: Our research unpacks transformative learning through learning-with the city and the agency of encounters. We exemplify how post-human education methodologies can make students sensitive to rhythms beyond their own, helping them to get to know Earth as more than a backdrop for human activity.

Approach: Walking the historical shoreline of Helsinki challenges rigid notions of a landscape and collapses the past with the present and future, revealing the porousness of the city and self.

Findings: Engagement with landscape remnants makes everyday transformations and entanglements tangible, engendering thinking-with the city.

Research implications: Post-human approaches to transformative learning give valuable insights into how learning is non-linear, non-representational, and takes place through meaningful encounters with the world

Practical implications: Post-human methodologies lay the groundwork for how experiments could be developed by social science educators in different localities, e.g., having students walk along a railway refusing to give way for an ever-growing city.

Exploring civics in early 20th century Sweden: A study of final exam questions at four teacher training colleges between 1915 and 1937

2024-11-24T10:24:45+00:00

Highlights:

– Modern society is reflected in exam questions at Swedish teacher training colleges from 1914 to 1937.

– Despite not being part of the curricula, civics appear in final exams at four Swedish teacher education institutions.

– Some topics evolved, from hygiene-related questions in the 1920s to racial biology in the 1930s.

– 182 out of 924 exam questions can be classified as civics-related in Sweden today.

Purpose: This article’s purpose is to examine the manifestations of the evolving modern society and what we now identify as civics or other contemporary social issues in the final examination questions from 1914 to 1937 at four teacher education institutions in Uppsala, Falun, Lund, and Landskrona.

Design/methodology/approach: The method can be described as a qualitative text analysis, primarily of examination questions. This analysis aims to gain insights into the meaning of the examination questions and to understand which concepts of knowledge, subject ideals, and contemporary inspiration emerge in the material.

Findings: The results are that 182 exam questions from a pool of 924 questions could be interpreted as civics in Sweden today. Most are questions about economics. Another finding is that citizenship education questions increase and evolve over time. Until 1921, there were nurture-related questions regarding physical education, technology, and organisation. In the 1920s, the focus of exam questions corresponding to civics shifted to themes of thriftiness, sobriety, and hygiene. In the 1930s, while thriftiness and hygiene continued, several questions related to racial biology also emerged during that decade.

Practical implications: Our results indicate that topics that we consider to belong to civics today existed long before the subject of civics was outlined in the curriculum plans.

Thank you to referees 2023/2024

2025-03-19T15:21:30+00:00

The editors of the Journal of Social Science Education would like to thank the following peer referees who reviewed papers between January 2023 and December 2024. No scholarly journal can thrive without the support of people who donate their scientific expertise and time to review manuscripts. Your contribution as a reviewer has been vital in maintaining the high scientific quality of our journal, and your valuable feedback to authors has helped improve their work. We appreciate your contribution, especially given the increasing workload and time pressures in the current academic system.

Civic and social science learning in the Czech Republic: Current state, challenges and prospects

2025-02-03T17:47:24+00:00

Highlights:

– Civic learning has undergone important changes since 1989.

– In 2004, innovative Framework educational programmes were legislatively introduced.

– Teacher training is significantly competency-oriented.

Purpose: Taking the form of a report, the presented text aims to map the curricular changes in civic education and social science learning in basic and upper secondary schools after 1989. It seeks to identify the key features of undergraduate teacher training at universities, with an emphasis on field-specific didactics, and to provide a brief overview of school textbooks, methodological portals, journals and professional organisations. Additionally, it aims to outline prospects and future challenges.

Approach: The research design is based on the use of descriptive method and on the analysis of documents – laws, ministerial decrees, curriculum, educational programmes, a list of textbooks endorsed by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, educational portals and specialist journals.

Findings: The article outlines the most significant changes in the approach to civic education and social science learning during the democratisation of society following the fall of communism. It characterises the school curriculum, undergraduate teacher training in the Czech Republic and innovations aimed at developing professional competencies. It also discusses field-specific didactics and its position, methodological support and professional communication among teachers within the professional community (textbooks, portals, associations, etc.).

Research limitations: The limitations primarily lie in the deliberate focus solely on the educational field and its curricular framework, rather than on individual aspects of the educational process (such as teaching methods and forms, field-specific extracurricular learning, evaluation of the impact of teacher qualification on lesson quality, the out-of-school context of civic learning in society, etc.). This approach is motivated by the aim to ensure maximum consistency in the text. Another limiting factor is the fact that while current challenges for the field are outlined, answers to these issues are contingent on the implementation of relevant empirical research, which is still largely lacking in the Czech Republic.