This issue of Canadian Social Studies focuses on social studies research and teaching in elementary schools. The four articles that make up this special issue cover a variety of topics ranging from an examination of the use of technology in the early grades to an investigation of how legal studies and the processes of jurisprudence might be incorporated into elementary social studies. Taken together, I think these different pieces represent two complementary trends in contemporary social studies scholarship in elementary education.
On one hand the articles in the issue are a confirmation of the diversity and quality of the scholarly work currently being undertaken by researchers in elementary social studies. On the other, this same diversity of approach, coupled with the authors' appreciation for the multi-faceted and complex ways in which elementary students engage issues and understand concepts in social studies challenges traditional learning theories constructed on the linear and limiting "expanding horizons" model of the discipline.
As evidence of the two trends I note above, in this issue Linda Farr Darling examines how children's literature can be used to help to teach about children's rights as they were declared at the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Wanda Cassidy's article proposes innovative strategies for addressing social studies topics and promoting critical thinking objectives using law. In her piece on the use of the Internet in elementary social studies, Susan Gibson suggests that the use of such activities as WebQuest can help students develop the critical thinking and analytic skills that are fundamental to the aims of social studies. Finally, Amy von Heyking's exploration of new research on historical thinking asks us to reconsider how we approach teaching history in elementary education.
George Richardson