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To date, there is little or no research that specifically examines assessment literacy in social studies education, or the relationship between preservice teachers assessment literacy and their thinking about their own agency. This article focuses on three preservice social studies teachers who demonstrated a high degree of assessment literacy in their lesson plans, by developing assessments that supported their purpose for teaching social studies and their instructional decisions. The preservice teachers' thinking about their assessment decisions in their field experience classrooms was examined through artifacts, interviews, and reflections. The preservice teachers' thinking demonstrated that their assessment literacy was distinct based upon their views of the teaching profession. The findings from this case study highlight the ways that the authoritative discourses of assessment can influence the agency of preservice teachers. The discussion of findings highlights several implications for social studies teacher education.

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This article discusses a case study that explored the potential of nonfiction graphic novels to develop pre-service teachers’ understanding of agency in a social studies methods course. White pre-service teachers were aske'd to read one graphic novel and then add frames, re-narrate frames, and reflect on their decisions. The positionalities of researchers, who are White males, and participants were part of our analysis. The researchers found that pre-service teachers made revisions to the graphic novels to change the historical actors’ decisions: within the constraints of the historical situation's circumstances; to better fit their own ethical framework; and to critique the author's interpretation of the historical event and the amount of agency assigned to certain historical actors. We also reported findings related to shifts in understanding related to positionality. The pre-service teachers’ revisions demonstrated their understanding of historical actors’ ability to make choices; however, for most pre-service teachers those decisions were limited by, and insignificant in comparison to, the constraints of societal structures. Most pre-service teachers viewed these structures as operating outside of the realm of ethics that they used to articulate and identify agency, and thus, these structures were not responsive to changes in individual or collective agency. Implications are provided for social studies teacher educators.

The purpose of this article is to address student absenteeism through the theoretical lens of ecological agency and to encourage the use of ecological agency in a school setting to address student absenteeism more holistically. We align absenteeism research within the ecological agency framework and suggest that absenteeism is a manifestation of agency influenced by contextual factors unique to the student’s ecological context and reinforced through punishment. Observing absenteeism through the lens of ecological agency provides an alternative, unique viewpoint giving insight into the process of how students choose to engage in absenteeism based on their ecological factors. The article also intends to illustrate pragmatic use of viewing absenteeism through the lens of ecological agency by providing a sample of interventions that are used to resolve contextual factors and improve student attendance.