On the Social Study of Social Studies

Abstract

Schooling is a socid activity. It is my premise that our understanding of the conditions, processes, and effects of teaching and learning in schools would benefilt from more research that is social in nature. Social studies education and research in particular would benefit from more social ways of thinking about society and research and of investigating and interpreting schooling and social studies (see Clernents, 1981b). For the most part, however, the assumptions and practices adopted by social studies and other educational researchers have been asocial.Educational research has been "coming out of the laboratory closet" and into the "natural" social setting of the classroom (Leinhardt, 1978). But, the move has been accompanied by efforts to make a closet out of the classroom by decontextualizing it, that is, by examining classroom phenomena in isolation from one mother and their institutiond, societal, and historical, settings (Mishler, 1979). Consequently, the ecolo$cal validity and value of much classroom research has been unnecessarily limited (Doyle & Ponder, 1975). While classrooms are no more natural settings than are subways or skyscrapers (see Hamilton, 1981, on the evolution of the classroom system), classroom research does seem to hold promise for manageable and meaningful social study.To describe schooling as a social activity and propose that the study of schooling reflect its social character, i . e . , a social perspective, assumes mutual influence among school phenomena and between schools and larger Downloaded by [New York University] at 03:03 15 May 2015 social structures. Further, people in schools are seen as jointly creating and acting on meanings or definitions of their situations as they interact over time. To take a social perspective is to reject oversocialized notions of human thought and action, instead viewing teachers, students, and others as creators as well as consumers, transmitters, and, perhaps, victims of their milieux. The purposes of the present inquiry are to (a) delineate characteristics of social research with particular reference to classroom research, (b) identify examples of recent social studies classroom research that are social in nature, and (c) explore the possibilities and limitations of the social study of social studies. Social vemus Asocial Classroom ResearchClassroom research! is defined as systematic inquiry about school classrooms that is directed toward understanding classroom processes. It is usually but not necessarily conducted in clas~roorns.~ Such research can employ various methods -historical, philosophical, experimental, survey, empirical, ethnographic-or combinations of methodologies. Social studies classroom research would include studies of social studies classrooms or other (e.g., "self-contained" elementary) classrooms with reference to social studies concerns.Tentative distinctions between social and asocial classroom research were derived from the literature in social psychology, sociology, and social inquiry. Particularly helpful were Bronf...