All the news that isn't

Once again for TE407, I will be entering a citation for each work discussed before discussing it.

Nelson, J. L. (2001). Defining Social Studies. In Stanley, W. B. (Ed.), Critical Issues in Social Studies Research for the 21st Century (pp. 15-38). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.

I found this chapter, or perhaps I should say this article to be very redundant both with itself and with other themes we've been covering so far in our seminar. I feel that the chapter could be summed up in a number of short statements, as follows:

1. Definitions are important in policymaking and academics.
2. The definition of "social studies" is contested.
3. Therefore, policymaking and academic work about social studies are contested.
4. Social studies in general and history in particular are subject to political control.
5. Democracy requires educating people to be able to reach conclusions different from those of their government.
6. Therefore, maintaining the contestation of the definition of social studies is democratic.
   

Maybe the above are shocking to some people, but seriously this is almost all stuff we've been talking about already. Does it seem to anyone else that this article was also a hearty exercise in self-promotion in the sense that it aggrandizes what the author apparently loves to do the most, namely define "social studies?"

(yawn)