The Future Role of Technology in the Social Studies

Technology has gained prominence as a tool within the social studies with the potential to enhance current pedagogic practice. Although an increasing body of research suggests that technology can improve academic achievement, changes in social studies instruction based on these findings have been tempered by the following: (1) questions about the efficiency and effectiveness of computer technology applications in the classroom; (2) the role of teacher education institutions and school settings in facilitating or hindering computer-based activities; (3) the unrealized potential of technology; and (4) the overlooked consequences of technological development on children and youth with regard to their social functioning, interpersonal interactions, and global understanding. Various technologies such as Internet and web-based resources, hypermedia, data instruments, digital video, and tele-collaborative teaching represent emerging resources implemented in social studies instruction.

Technology, however, is more than just a tool of instruction, and these resources have effects on the political, social, and economic functioning of American society. Technology's impact on society is exemplified in the phenomenon of the digital divide that separates those who are information rich through their access to telecommunications, computers, and the Internet from the information and technologically poor. Within the social studies educators focus on the differential impact of privileged access to these resources in the early stages of development and consider the potential ongoing consequences of this separation of haves and have-nots on economic success, civic influence, and personal advancement.

Social studies education will continue to evolve as it is affected by events and trends in the United States and abroad. These include the globalization of the media and the economy, advancements in technology, shifts in schools and school demographics, teacher accreditation standards, student testing mandates, changes in the American family, and swings of the political pendulum. These forces will certainly impact ideological perspectives and influence the direction of the social studies in the future.

The development of the education of social studies teachers mirrors, in large part, the history and changes of teacher education generally. Social studies teacher preparation has moved from teachers' institutes and normal schools begun in the nineteenth century to teacher colleges and university-based teacher preparation in the twentieth century. But the education of social studies teachers has also had to take into account the unique definitions and issues connected to the teaching of social studies.

Defining Social Studies

Social studies is remembered by many who have gone through schools in the United States as a series of names, dates, and state capitals. In fact, both the definition and content of the field have been a matter of controversy since the early twentieth century. Social studies can be seen both as an umbrella term for a broad field of studies encompassing history and the social sciences and as an integrated field of study in its own right. But whatever the definition, the objectives of social studies education are highly contested. Values such as patriotism, an appreciation of free enterprise, respect for diverse cultures and nations, and knowledge of the structures and functions of American government are each seen by some group as the major goal of social studies teaching. The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) defines the field as "the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence". Because the NCSS standards for the education of social studies teachers (1997) are widely accepted by teacher preparation programs, the goal of enabling learners to acquire knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to citizen participation helps to provide a focus for both the social studies curriculum and the preparation of social studies teachers.

Structure and Organization

What most distinguishes the preparation of social studies teachers from the preparation of other secondary and middle school teachers are the course requirements in their teaching content field and the special methods course. There is a good deal of variation of requirements across the fifty states. Since social studies is an interdisciplinary field, a major concern regarding content requirements is that of depth versus breadth across the various disciplines. How much content knowledge in each of the disciplines making up social studies is enough? How can prospective social studies teachers be prepared both broadly and deeply in all the areas they are expected to teach? In some programs, pre-service teachers major in social studies and take a broad array of courses across history and the social sciences. In other programs, they major in one field and take one or more courses in each of the other social studies disciplines. In some states teachers are certified in "social studies," while in others they may receive certification in a particular discipline such as history or geography.

The social studies methods class is the cornerstone of the professional course work taken by prospective social studies teachers. In this course teachers are expected to learn how to transform content into curriculum and to select and implement appropriate teaching strategies. Through the social studies methods course, combined with related field experiences, pre-service social studies teachers must learn ways to bridge the gap between the experiences of learners and content knowledge. However, although the methods course is a key component of the pre-service education of social studies teachers, there is not general agreement on a number of issues concerning this course: What should be the depth versus breadth of methods taught? How much emphasis should be given in this class to the needs of diverse learners? How much time should be spent preparing pre-service teachers to work with state mandated assessments? What emphasis should be placed in the methods course on developing a sufficient background in the social science disciplines?

The question of subject field content is complemented by the related ontological question, often dealt with in the social studies methods class: What is the nature of knowledge? How teachers conceive of knowledge determines, to a large extent, how they will teach. Is knowledge transmitted by experts or is it constructed by each learner? In teaching methods classes, pre-service teachers may be asked to consider whether history, for example, is largely basic facts of what happened, a method of inquiry, or broad concepts and ideas that enable learners to understand today's world. Generally, the answers teachers develop to these questions are based on the beliefs and expectations pre-service teachers bring to the teacher education program. They bring their already developed conceptions of the content as well as what it means to teach and they make sense of their teacher education experience through the screen of these preconceived ideas. For this reason, the study of pre-service teachers' perspectives and the influences on forming and changing these perspectives has been an important focus for research.

The issues raised by a consideration of the social studies methods class are confounded by the fact that in some programs the instructor of that course may not be a specialist in social studies; indeed, that individual may not be well acquainted with the field itself. Thus questions about the nature and goals of the field may be dealt with only superficially or not at all.