Date of Award

2010

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

School of Education

Abstract

This document presents a research project in the format of an historical narrative that chronicles the issues, process of consensus, and the impact of the National History Standards Project (NHSP) on local policies and curricula in history education. The influence of the voluntary national history standards movement is chronicled with the local development of social science standards-based curricula with the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and the Chicago Public Schools (CPS).

This dissertation is a case study that utilizes multiple sources of research such as archival primary sources, oral history interviews and participant observations to corroborate the evidence. The oral history interviews were conducted with some of the

stakeholders of the NHSP in addition to national and local educators that were involved with the development of standards-based education.

The conclusions reached in this study are: 1) that the National Standards for History impacted the ISBE social science standards and those of CPS; 2) the state of history education is adversely affected by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) (2001) legislation to fully implement the standards effectively and 3) educational policies and funding must be changed to ameliorate the accountability measures in assessing the performance of students to achieve the content and skills of the history standards. The implications for teacher preparation and certification in history and the social sciences are also examined for the promotion and sustainability of highly qualified teachers to ensure the mastery of the history standards in instruction. The contemporary advocacy movement in history and social science education by professional organizations is also discussed as well as the role of government in educational policy making including the issues of accountability and assessment.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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