Social Studies Research and Practice: Volume 19 Issue 1

Themed editorial: Social studies research and practice special issue: effective use of films in the social studies classroom

Scott L. Roberts, Starlynn Nance, Nancy Sardone, Sarah Jane Kaka

Reel critical: using film to teach Indigenous studies in the elementary classroom

Kate Van Haren, Abigail Stebbins

Film has long been an instructional tool in social studies education; however, most research and methods for using film to teach social studies are situated at the secondary…

The unity productions foundation film and the C3 framework

Nada Wafa, Susan Lynn Douglass

The purpose of this paper is to engage readers with Unity Productions Foundation (UPF) films, which provide a powerful, inspirational digital tool for teachers. The organization's…

Part of whose world? The Little Mermaid, fantasy media, and casting backlashes as racial projects for social studies classrooms

Joanna Batt, Michael Lee Joseph

Conversations around diversity, race and science fiction and fantasy films/television have sparked in response to recent casting decisions made in the upcoming live-action The…

Learning about geographic mobility with film

Joshua L. Kenna, Dennis Mathew Stevenson

Geography is an exciting discipline involving the interrogation of place, space, and mobility. Film is too powerful and assessable tool that engages audiences. Therefore, this…

Civic education and the pedagogy of sports films

Donald R. McClure, Anne-Lise Halvorsen, Daniel J. Thomas III

This study explores the value of sports films for engaging youth in issues related to patriotism, justice, equity and liberty. The authors analyze how two sports films, 42 and…

The power(s) of Bridge of Spies to learn about the Cold War

Alan S. Marcus, Katherine A. Griffith, Francis Gary Powers Jr

In this article, we use the film Bridge of Spies – which depicts the case of U-2 spy pilot Francis Gary Powers – and relevant primary sources, particularly Powers' letters from…

Films as emergent educational resources in Indian upper primary social studies classrooms: a multimodal inquiry

Sanjna Sebastian Thoppil, Sanjay Pandy

This study explores the relevance of film texts in Indian social studies classrooms for students at the upper primary level. It examines how different types of visual texts can…

Till: using human rights education to examine citizenship and civil rights

Sean Corrigan

This practitioner article uses human rights education (HRE) to frame issues of social justice, particularly anti-Black racism, depicted in the film Till. Teachers cognizant of the…