The Theory-Story Reader for Social Studies

“If I believe that democracy is for everyone, that students should learn to think and act in the community, and that it is not enough just to learn one story from history, then this book is a wonderful place to begin conversations about building that world.” —Teachers College Record

Theory holds the capacity to help educators see the world differently, challenge problematic assumptions and practices that cultivate harm, and illuminate pathways toward access, equity, justice, joy, and love. While it is easy to underestimate the role of theory in such pursuits throughout social studies education, this book shows that theory is always-already present in all productions of teaching and learning.

In this collection, well-established scholars highlight a broad range of theories that are currently used to alter the landscape of social studies instruction. Important to these efforts is the position that theory does not exist in a vacuum, but rather is the reflection of a certain set of concepts and the relationship that one holds to those ideas. Taking these further, each chapter author employs storytelling as a means to share their personal history and unpack how they came to understand their selected theoretical topic. They address a breadth of concepts, such as Black feminism, psychoanalysis, racial capitalism, settler colonialism, sustainability, and technoskepticism.

Book Features:

• The only resource of its kind that pairs storying with a far-reaching range of theories actively used by scholars in the field of social studies education and research.
• Brief chapters, arranged alphabetically by concept, provide structure while also staying true to the book’s framing of theory as being curious, fragmented, nomadic, and discursive.
• Embedded connections within each chapter will help readers understand the relational and entangled nature of theory.

Bretton A. Varga is an assistant professor of history–social science at California State University, Chico and coeditor of Toward a Stranger and More Posthuman Social Studies. Erin C. Adams is an associate professor of elementary social studies at Kennesaw State University.

“If I believe that democracy is for everyone, that students should learn to think and act in the community, and that it is not enough just to learn one story from history, then this book is a wonderful place to begin conversations about building that world.”

—Teachers College Record

“The authors ask readers to maintain a sense of urgency to study social life, critique power relations, and be on the lookout for theoretical im/plausibilities.”
—From the Foreword by Vonzell Agosto, professor, educational leadership and policy studies, University of South Florida

“These stories affirm that it is okay to be unconstrained by ‘what is’ and that we do not have to invent a unified theory of social studies education or wait for the revolution to happen to bring about change. The theory-stories told here allow us to imagine what is possible in social studies education and in the world beyond.”
—From the Afterword by E. Wayne Ross, professor and codirector of the Institute for Critical Education Studies at The University of British Columbia

“Varga and Adams have assembled a powerful collection of essays in The Theory-Story Reader for Social Studies. I am grateful for the ways contributors to this volume caused me to think, reflect, and at times pause in my engagements with theory across teaching, scholarship, service, and activism. “
—Andrea M. Hawkman, associate professor of social studies education, Rowan University

Contents

Acknowledgments  xi

Foreword: Looking Out for Theoretical Plausibilities Vonzell Agosto  xiii

Introduction: Always-Already on the Lookout Searching for, Enacting, and Storying Theory in Social Studies Education Bretton A. Varga and Erin C. Adams  1

1.  Academic’s Disease  10
Tommy Ender

2.  Affect as Potential: Interrupting Social Studies Education  18
Peter M. Nelson

3.  Beyond the Majority Rules: Anarchism in Social Studies Education  25
John Lupinacci and Brandon Edwards-Schuth

4.  Phobogenic Hypervisibility as the Invisibility of Black Men and Boys  32
Daniel Josiah Thomas III

5.  To Live Differently: Haecceity and Becoming as Concepts to (Un)do Social Studies Education  39
Rebecca C. Christ

6.  “Don’t Just Thank Black Women. Follow Us.”: Black Feminist Civic Activism  45
Amanda E. Vickery

7.  “Nobody’s Free Until Everybody’s Free”: Black Feminism’s Implications for Social Studies Education Research  53
Kristen E. Duncan

8.  Emphasis on Radical: Centering Black Feminist Radical Politics  59
Tiffany Mitchell Patterson

9.  Moving Toward Interdependent Relations and Anti-Colonial Understandings With Theories of Post-Critical Global Citizenship  65
Timothy Patterson and Jenni Conrad

10.  Critical Refugee Studies Encounter Social Studies  73
Sohyun An

11.  Decolonial Global Citizenship Education  79
Theresa Alviar-Martin and Mark Baildon

12.  “No Humans Involved” Revisited: What Social Studies Might Learn From Sylvia Wynter’s Examinations of Columbus and the Rodney King Trial  86
Esther June Kim

13.  Schools as Apparatuses of Security: Governmentality and True Power  93
Wayne Journell

14.  “They Got Us Warring for Our Freedom”: Toward a TrapCrit Perspective for Social Studies Education  99
Kelly R. Allen

15.  How Hyperreality Morphs Social Studies Inquiries  106
Cathryn van Kessel

16.  Intergenerational Knowledge: Embodied Archives and Silenced Narratives in Education  114
Muna Saleh

17.  Reflecting on the Mimetic: (Material) Double-Dealings and Duplicities Within Social Studies Education  121
Erin C. Adams and Bretton A. Varga

18.  Mobilities Theory and Social Studies Education  129
Stacey L. Kerr

19.  I’m With Them: Enacting a Pedagogy of Solidarity  135
Ryan Oto

20.  Choosing to Teach in Pointy Heels (and Other Postfeminist Dilemmas)  142
Mardi Schmeichel

21.  Psychoanalysis and Social Studies Education  148
H. James Garrett

22.  Queer Geography  155
Sandra J. Schmidt

23.  Intentionally Hidden From the Masses: (Racial) Capitalism’s Omission in the Social Studies  161
Jillian Ford

24.  Defiant, Playful, and Inventive: Rasquache Social Studies Theorizing  168
Tim Monreal

25  Witnessing Scar(ring)s: Settler Colonial Theory for Social Studies Education Research  178
Sarah B. Shear

26.  Sociogenesis and Social Studies Education  186
Danielle I. Charlemagne

27.  “Social” Sustainability and Its Implications on Teaching and Learning in Social Studies  194
Yun-Wen Chan

28.  Technoskepticism in Social Studies Education  202
Daniel G. Krutka, Marie K. Heath, and Jacob Pleasants

29.  On the Insufficiency of Counterstories: Empathic Fallacy and (Un)Expected Readers  209
Noreen Naseem Rodríguez

Afterword: Imagining Possible Futures in Social Studies Education and Beyond  216
E. Wayne Ross

Endnotes  223

Index  227

About the Editors and Contributors  238