Our NCSS mission is very clear: advocacy is at the heart of our work. Advocacy for social studies involves collaboration with many other organizations and individuals in education. Throughout the past year, NCSS has focused its advocacy efforts on turning around the marginalization of social studies. We use information from the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) to call for an increase in daily social studies instructional time in Grades K-5, and stronger supports for high-quality social studies curriculum, assessment, and professional learning. We often distill our message down…

The National Council for the Social Studies ("NCSS") is now accepting proposed resolutions for the 65th House of Delegates Assembly, to be held at the 2021 NCSS Annual Conference in Minneapolis, MN. The House of Delegates ("HOD") meeting serves as the official annual business meeting of the NCSS membership, and is composed of representatives of NCSS Affiliated Councils, Associated Groups, and Special Interest Communities. Resolutions are the vehicle through which NCSS members can bring issues before the HOD for debate and vote. Resolutions approved by the HOD are brought to the NCSS Board of…

Approved by the NCSS Board of Directors on May 18, 2020. Since the first identified case of COVID-19 was declared in the United States on January 15, incidents of verbal and physical harassment against Asians and Asian Americans have sharply increased (Yan, Chen, & Nuresh, 2020). On March 16th, President Donald Trump referred to COVID-19 as “the Chinese Virus” in a controversial tweet (Kuo, 2020), defending his phrasing and denying that it might be racist for several days before publicly declaring he would refrain from repeating the phrase (Vasquez, 2020). From mid-March, in one month…

NCSS Press Release Approved by the NCSS Board of Directors, May 29, 2020 Silver Spring, MD – In response to the death of George Floyd, National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) condemns the use of excessive violence or force, or extrajudicial processes, used discriminately by law enforcement against blacks in America when investigating or enforcing probable or non-probable causes of infractions, misdemeanors, or felonies. These actions are against the civic values and practices we teach all students through social studies education. NCSS President Tina L. Heafner, Ph.D., expressed, “…

Please tell us about yourselves and your time with NCSS.  Sohyun: I am an associate professor, soon-to-be full professor from this fall, of elementary social studies education at Kennesaw State University. I have been a member of NCSS since 2007 and participated in the annual conferences. Noreen: I am an assistant professor of elementary social studies education at Iowa State University. I have been a member of NCSS since 2013. I won the Larry Metcalf Exemplary Dissertation Award in 2017, served as the 2018 Chair of the College and University Faculty Assembly (CUFA)…

Dear Social Studies Educators,  We are at a critical juncture in history and we are on the frontlines of change. Adults, youth, and children are turning to history, geography, economics, and civics to cope with the complexities of our human experience and to seek answers to the questions that govern our daily lives. There is no time in our contemporary lives in which the study of social studies has been more critical and central to understanding and action.  COVID-19 forced us to chart new paths of delivering remote education while also revealing the cavernous socio-economic and racial…

The following articles have been selected from our three main journals for K-12 teachers: Social Education, Middle Level Learning, and Social Studies and the Young Learner. These articles are grouped by topic for easy reference. Also included are recent current event responses that address racism and call for human rights education. NCSS Current Events Responses (2020)Teaching about Race and Racism in the ClassroomThe African American Struggle for Civil RightsSlavery and Its LegacyRacism and Discrimination against Black, Indigenous, and People of ColorHuman Rights EducationMiddle Level…

Description: As a global pandemic has taken center stage in our lives, people are asking questions to try to make sense of the issues in the world today. Join panelists from the NCSS Government and Public Relations committee as they explore how essential it is for people to have a critical understanding of social studies in order to answer these questions. During this session, different content areas of social studies will be explored using compelling questions related to the current pandemic in order to support student understanding of the world around them both today and into the future.…

It’s difficult to know where to begin. First, I hope this message finds you, your family, and those you care for safe and healthy as COVID-19 continues to devastate us and alter our landscape for school, work, recreation, and civic life. Each of our current challenges alone could be a major turning point in a “normal year.” Taken together, however, our challenges can seem downright overwhelming. In just five short months, 2020 has proven to be the year when the social studies – and education – are more urgently needed than ever before. This could be the best time to fulfill our National…

Busing in U.S. History: A Lesson to Promote Historical Empathy Katherine Perrotta   OPEN ACCESS