4 Barriers to Social Studies Success
In social studies classrooms across the country, teachers often face a universal challenge: Balancing information, topics, and resources that meet the unique needs of their students while adhering to school, district, and state mandates and standards for the curriculum.
This balancing act can lead to a disconnect between preparing students for active and engaged civic lives in an ever-changing world and checking the required boxes for district and state accountability.
Today, we’re looking at four of the top barriers to social studies success that most teachers encounter and discuss what we can do to make the material resonate with students while also meeting state expectations.
1. Finding engaging, relevant, and mandate-compliant high-quality instructional materials
One of the most common barriers to social studies success in the classroom is the materials themselves. To think critically about history and current events, students must be engaged in the materials, ask thoughtful questions, explore diverse perspectives, and build skills to support college, career, and civic readiness.
Unfortunately, legacy materials—like textbooks—often fall short of these goals in the classroom. In the past, many decision-makers thought social studies textbooks provided enough value because once history happened, it didn’t change. Today, teachers, more than anyone, know that’s not the case. They need narratives, perspectives, and resources that are as diverse as the student populations they teach. They also need timely current events content that helps them connect past to present for their students.
With social studies classroom minutes declining since the 1990s, getting the most out of their instructional time is at a premium—one that teachers can’t waste using inflexible resources.
Instead of relying on textbooks, many teachers resort to collecting content from various sources like websites, apps, and other print materials. This manual work takes considerable time and effort. Plus, pulling content from unvetted sources puts teachers at risk of only meeting one side of the delicate balancing act: Relating to students or complying with mandates.
An all-in-one resource like Newsela Social Studies that provides current events content, legacy materials like primary sources, diverse perspectives of important historical events, mandate-compliant content, and additional differentiation and skill-building resources can help bridge the gap between these two goals and let teachers make the most of their social studies instructional time.
2. Supporting struggling readers in social studies
According to a 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) report, more students today score at the lowest levels on civics and U.S. history exams than they did five or ten years ago. While we can likely attribute some of the decline to the lack of high-quality instructional materials and decreased instructional time, there may be another factor to consider: Students reading below grade level.
Even if teachers can access high-quality instructional materials, many students can’t engage with them in ways that are expected for their grade level. For example, so much of secondary social studies instruction, specifically, comes from text-based analysis. If secondary students read at a middle school or even an elementary school level, they’d need differentiated materials to access and understand the social studies content in front of them.
Bringing students’ literacy skills to grade level would help them understand social studies content. But, many secondary social studies teachers often don’t have the time or the resources to differentiate content or teach literacy alongside their subject-specific lessons. In elementary classes, teachers working with struggling readers may spend more and more time on out-of-context reading skills practice to bolster literacy and end up sacrificing even more of their already-diminished social studies minutes.
Luckily, teaching social studies and literacy can be symbiotic. The more time students spend using high-quality, engaging, and accessible nonfiction texts, the more reading gains they can make. To reach this goal, teachers must view social studies instruction and literacy skill building as a package deal rather than two separate disciplines.
Tools like Newsela Social Studies put these paired goals at the forefront. Leveled nonfiction texts and primary sources allow students to access grade-level social studies concepts, and scaffolded activities and resources provide extra support in building literacy skills.
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3. Incorporating current events into the classroom
Social studies topics like politics, policy, and social justice are increasingly prevalent in education spaces. Teachers and administrators hear them at school board and staff meetings, while students engage in them at the lunch table, in class, and on the playground or bus.
It’s increasingly apparent that social studies is more than just teaching ancient history. It’s also about discussing, dissecting, and analyzing current events and their impact on our lives. Social studies teachers often need to put a heavier emphasis on skills like digital media literacy and how to have healthy classroom discussions about complex topics to meet these increasingly important civics needs.
An inquiry-based approach to teaching can provide students the space they need to examine real-world issues, ask hard questions, and still meet state social studies standards. Using this approach, teachers can help students examine history and current events through multiple perspectives. Offering inquiry-based professional development focusing on student-led learning can help lay the foundation teachers need to help put students on the path to social studies success.
4. Making social studies relevant to students' lives
Social studies often gets the reputation of “the boring class” when students think it’s all just memorization of a bunch of irrelevant dates and facts unrelatable to their daily lives. It doesn’t have to be this way. The skills students develop in social studies classrooms allow them to navigate today’s most pressing and challenging issues. As educators, we have to make them see that.
Relying on textbooks and memorization doesn’t work. Effective instructional strategies paired with high-quality materials that reflect their lived experiences do.
When you tap into the authentic and rich stories history holds and share a variety of perspectives from mainstream to less visible, students have the opportunity to see themselves in the material, make past-to-present connections, and build a deeper understanding of background knowledge within the subject area.
Unlock the keys to social studies success
Social studies success is possible in any classroom, despite any barriers. We just have to get our teachers, parents, and students to buy into what we know is true: Social studies is just as important as other subjects like ELA and math, and it can contribute to student success at all grade levels.
Gaining buy-in starts with stressing how relevant social studies topics and skills are to our daily lives. Discover how your school or district can ensure that social studies minutes are relevant and serve the strategies you have in place to drive student outcomes with our guide, “From History to Headlines: 4 Ways To Make Social Studies Relevant.”