Seeing the Forest Through the Trees: Some Renewed Thinking on Dispositions Specific to Social Studies Education

Abstract

Too often, social studies educators are asked to focus their design and enactment of learning experiences on the mastery of content knowledge, often at the expense of other aims and goals. In response to this problem, the authors of this article explore the reclamation of dispositions in social studies curriculum planning and teaching. First, he authors clarify what is meant by dispositions in the social studies. Then, by drawing on seminal works in the field, they ofter a taxonomy of social studies dispositions in order to assist pre-service and in-service teachers to consciously plan for dispositional development. Finally, the authors detail how these dispositions can be operationlized within a series of practical examples.

Keywords:

• dispositions
• citizenship education
• curriculum design