Perceptions of Social Studies Teacher Roles in Literacy Instruction

Abstract

Research has found that Social Studies content teachers struggle implementing literacy into their content area. This study focused on the question, what are Secondary Social Studies teachers perceptions of their role in literacy instruction? The principal investigator of this study interviewed two experienced Secondary Social Studies teachers on their perceptions and implementation of literacy in the Social Studies content area. It was found by these interviews that these participants had been using higher level literacy instruction techniques as part of their daily instruction in the content area and that they perceive literacy instruction as the responsibility of the Social Studies teacher not only for the benefit of literacy ability, but for Social Studies content knowledge as well.