![Sample our Education journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5932/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Education.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Taken from a larger qualitative study, this article argues that rather than an encompassing uniform definition, rigor, as understood and enacted by social studies teachers, exists on a complicated spectrum. Teacher placement on this spectrum was influenced by teacher life experience, teacher interpretation of student need, pedagogy employed, how content should be used, and the role of the teacher in the lives of students. How rigor is conceived and enacted by social studies teachers can have a profound impact on the types of citizens schools nurture and develop and the role school can play in the lives of students.
KEYWORDS:
Notes
1. AVID is an educational support program. Developed by an English teacher in San Diego, CA, it is now a nationwide program. The program works to close the achievement gap through college readiness and support.
2. AVID, Facing History and Ourselves, Linked Learning, Teaching Tolerance have adopted the language of rigor in teacher support materials and professional development.
3. https://larrycuban.wordpress.com/?s=rigor, http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/, http://www.badassteacher.org, https://grantwiggins.wordpress.com//?s=rigor&search=Go
4. From the Education Week blog “Teacher Beat” http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2014/09/poll_finds_support_for_longer_.html?intc=bs&cmp=SOC-SHR GEN#.VBhVYcN90cU.facebook
5. The AVID program provides a definition. It is short, uncomplicated, and easily applicable to multiple grade levels, disciplines, and contexts. While a good beginning, it leaves much unclear. It reads, “AVID defines rigor as using inquiry-based, collaborative strategies with increasingly complex content. In AVID's definition, rigor is a method to be applied rather than a set of specific coursework materials; it is how students learn, not just what they learn, that is emphasized” (http://www.avid.org/dl/abo_access/access_16-1.pdf)