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Examining the Sociopolitical and Racial Beliefs of United States History Teachers
by
Martin L. Gamboa

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(URBAN EDUCATION POLICY)

December 2021

Copyright (2021) Martin L. Gamboa
ii

Acknowledgements
Mom–
I got so much from you. But I want to focus on your spirit, and the independence and toughness that you instilled in us. Chasing
off people that were trying to jump Malcom and I, making sure we always looked like prep school students going to P.S. 161, or
31, or anywhere else. As I got older, I grew more independent, and that seemed to take you by surprise, but I got it from you. The
desire to be on my own, to be someone that could stand on my own, I got that from you. Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to make
you proud, from giving talks at JW meetings, to doing well in school when I didn’t want to, not wanting to cause you any more
stress than you already had. I wouldn’t have finished this dissertation if you weren’t here. In a way, all this school is a monument
to you, so thank you so much for fighting. God exists through the people she brings to us, and I am honored to be your son.
Dad–
Inmemorial y Siempre. Proud to be your son and honored to watch you try to become a better dad
Darnell, Mandela, Malcom, Marcus, Zeddie, Blake, Roxanne, Malachi –
Thank you all for believing in me. Since I was a kid, even as we went down different roads, I felt the love. I felt the support.
Manny, I can still remember being in Co-Op city and asking what your regrets are, and some of it is family business, but
ultimately, you wanted me to focus on school. Malcom, all the times you grabbed me from the airport, or would come with me to
shoot basketballs outside and control your temper as I became better than you, or the time you ate two burritos in one sitting
(UNBELIEVABLE still). Marcus, I tell everyone about how kind you are, how much of a solid person you are, and how
important your story is to me. Zeddie, you inspire me to be a more handsome person, but on a more serious note, for being
willing to show me gaps in my perspective whenever you suspect there might be one. Blake, bro, so many conversations could go
here. But shout out to you visiting me in Poland, you and Malcom. Seeing two other black men getting to enjoy this new place,
without fear of the cops, it was beautiful. Roxanne, thank you for being you, and being one of the earliest people to be okay with
the person I was growing to be. Malachi, regardless of what you are going through, I’m on your team and think you are an
amazing little brother. Can’t wait to watch you shine, grow, and thrive… There’s so much more but thank you all. Love you
infinitely much.
Aunt Jackie–
I don’t know what you saw in me when I was a kid. I don’t know why you took me to see Emperor’s New Groove with your
school. But I am so grateful to have you in my life, as someone that has believed in me from jump, that would always pick up my
calls, and would be patient with me as I learned to conserve energy. I love you so much and your guidance has been instrumental
in getting to this step. Wouldn’t be here without you.
Julia, Audrey, Rebecca–
I have to talk about the people that made Boston College survivable, financially and emotionally. Audrey Friedman, Rebecca
Schmitz, Julia Devoy, I wouldn’t be here without each of you. Truly. Audrey putting a note that made sure financial aid wouldn’t
cap my aid was a lifesaver, even though I still had to go in every semester to make them read said notes. Rebecca, being able to
sit in your office and talk about what I was dealing with might have been my informal introduction to therapy, so much so I did
so even after finishing at BC, whenever I could. Julia, thank you for encouraging me to apply for a Fulbright, to apply for a PhD,
check and check, you give great advice. And thank you for your continued support
Maja–
Thank you for the memories in Palanka, Izmir, and so many other places. Most importantly having the grace to show me
unconditional love before I could understand it. Your lessons shaped my priorities in life more than anyone else has or ever will.
Harrison–
My favorite Australian. Shout out to the bus stop and the driver’s terrible parking. I’m so grateful for our friendship, the board
games, the long chats, the shared commiseration on things that can be hard to talk about. Lastly, thank you for tethering me on
this side back in November 2020, I still listen to your voice note.
Anthony Cutone–
What more can I say that I haven’t said. Coming up on a decade, all because we liked similar music. You’re a real one and have
believed I could do this every step of the way, and cheered me on every time.

iii

Mikolaj, Doctor Pedro, Ryan–
My guys! 3 to a bed on some nights, staying out until morning, all of our adventures, and more to come. I’ve become a different
person since you guys met me, and have embraced every subsequent version, even as the homebody I’ve become is different than
the person who used to love chatting up randoms in hookah bars.
James Kale II–
Whenever one of us didn’t have a dollar, the other was happy to give his last. But even before that, shout out to those long nights
studying in O’Neill Library. I wouldn’t wanna go back since we are well on our way to bigger and better, but man those were
some real conversations. Blessed to have you in my life
Last Obama Cohort–
Thank you all so much for making someone that thought I would be a Subway sandwich artiste feel like I belonged. Thank you to
those who let me crash in their office during the first year
Slaughterhouse and Latinx Collective–
These groups were such an affirmation 24/7. Supporting each other’s senses of belongings, the live reaction threads whenever
things were out of pocket, and all around love. Proud to be a part of both
Josh Schuschke–
I’m just trying to get like you, still. Shout out to you for letting me come to cookouts early, for the Fortnite sessions, for the 790
advice, for the readings, and for all the wisdom. Legend in my eyes and in my mind
Committee Members–
Morgan, Shaun, Dennis, I think I have complimented you individually about how much your mentorship has meant to my
development as a scholar, writer, thinker, and young professional. Thank you so much
Program Office–
Laura, Alex, Patrick, Evan, John, everyone that has worked in the program office, thanks for everything, especially when I had to
cut it close with paperwork deadlines and such
Madison–
I don’t have words for how much you have impressed me, how much you have surprised me with your rapid growth as a person
in getting things it took years for me to learn. Watching you has continually inspired me to keep going. Thank you for being a
lighthouse. I was putting myself back together, rebuilding a sandcastle that slipped through my hands, and you were the splash of
water that stabilized me. Glad I could provide a couple of lessons before you eventually learned them thru experience
---
If you have ever shown me support, your words probably mean more than I could say, and anyone that knows me knows I have a
long and pretty detailed memory. So I will rattle off some names and my bad for those I forgot, Tia Carmen, Eddie Rodriguez,
Fred Murphy, John Harris, Sara Crosby, Oyedele, Adam Krynicki, Pravin Jammula, Mauricio Gonzalez, Ajibola, Special
shoutout to Derek, Mike, and Johnny… Kristen Fay, Priya Lal, Marilynn Johnston, David Vanderhooft, Patrick Maney, James
Weiss, Jessica Barnes, Amy and the PT team, Seth Gamradt and his teams, big mental health shout out to Paul Z and Tim C, my
therapists… David Quinn, Madeline Timmins, my D&D group, Julie Posselt, Robin L., Paul Leichterman, everyone at the St.
Mary’s Community Center, Boston Secor in general. To, for, and delivered from my ancestors, both physical and spiritual.
Liberation for my People
More Life

iv

Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
LIST OF TABLES v
LIST OF FIGURES vi
ABSTRACT vii
CHAPTER ONE 1
Statement of Problem 2
Purpose of Study 3
Teacher Beliefs 6
Teaching and Implementation 9
Synthesis and Gaps in the Literature 25
CHAPTER TWO 28
Sensemaking and Collective Sensemaking 29
Motivated Reasoning and Framing 35
Comparing Theories 39
CHAPTER THREE 42
Methodological Approach 44
Data Collection 48
Data Analyses 52
Limitations 55
CHAPTER FOUR 59
Participant Profiles 59
CHAPTER FIVE 70
The Central Phenomenon 70
Perceived Causal Conditions 85
Intervening Conditions 89
Consequences of the Central Phenomenon 92
Comparative Analyses 94
Typology of Teacher Classes 101
Summary of Findings 107
CHAPTER SIX 110
Discussion 110
Implications for Future Research 123
Implications for Practice 128
Limitations 131
Conclusions 132
References 137
APPENDICES 161
v

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Participant Demographics 59

vi

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: A Typology of Teachers and Incorporating their Beliefs 102

vii

ABSTRACT
Within the past thirty years, standards-based instruction has driven educational reform. In
the past decade, mathematics, language arts, and science have seen movements that have argued
that a centralization of curriculum would help learners nationwide. However, social studies
remains under the purview of individual states, including U.S. History. Each state has the
authority to tell its own version of the national history, with teachers as the implementers that
ultimately decide what that narrative will look like to their students. These teachers, in addition
to being professional educators, are also citizens, with sociopolitical and racial beliefs that are
informed by their local communities and the state of national affairs. The dominant cultural
narrative around teachers, especially ones involved with teaching sensitive topics like race, is
that they can, and should, leave their personal/political selves outside of the classroom.
The purpose of this study is to use a grounded theory approach that examines the process
by which teachers bring their personal selves and/or political values into the classroom,
specifically regarding their attitudes towards political polarization and systemic racism. This
dissertation seeks to dispel the myth that teachers, especially social science teachers, can teach
without bias, and examines whether that is a worthy goal for such teachers that have civic goals
for their students. The findings from this study contribute to the literature in education policy by
highlighting the politicization of the classroom and providing a framework for the different ways
that teachers attempt to navigate the current political landscape.

1

CHAPTER ONE: BACKGROUND, PURPOSE AND LITERATURE REVIEW
In Spring 2021, several state legislatures began the process to implement bills that ban
schools from teaching about the racism and bigotry that is foundational to the United States
(Sawchuk, 2021). In academia, critical race theory suggests that the power dynamics created by
institutional bigotry and structural inequities be critically examined in order to understand the
path of history in the United States (Ladson-Billings, 1998). In education, teachers that use
elements of critical race theory focus That said, the emphasis on the role of power structures is
absent from the politicized definition of critical race theory. Conservatism, at its core, focuses on
preserving the existing power structures and social relations that have traditionally existed in the
context of that society. American conservatism, then, would focus on principles of liberty and
independence, with the caveat that these rights were initially given to landowning White men,
and other groups had to fight for their right to share in the wealth and welfare that minoritized
peoples played a huge part in building, previously mostly for the benefit of said landed White
men. The states implementing these bills are attempting to erase history from politics, and erase
the impact of partisan choices on the course of history.
Several of these states use language that undermine the impact of the historical past in
favor of suggesting that all individuals are born with the same amount of privilege, are treated
the same by those with power and that no group-level advantages exist now. Importantly, the
guidelines focus on narrowing the spectrum of acceptable debate and suggesting what American
values are at the current moment than the policies and historical truths that critical race theorists
would want students to be exposed to. Rhode Island’s bill bans teaching that the United States, or
the state of Rhode Island, is fundamentally racist or sexist, though there exists a long history of
law at the federal, state, and local law that discriminates against Black people and women, along

2

with a parallel history of lawmakers, mostly White men gaining wealth by serving in public
office, passing laws designed to benefit wealthy White men almost exclusively. These bills have
names designed to garner sympathy and inspire unity while working to keep the narrative
conservative and attempting to limit teachers’ ability to point out the continued failure of public
officials to protect the vulnerable citizens.
These bills can put teachers in a difficult spot. The United States’ own history betrays the
ideals of unity that these laws attempt to frame as fundamental to the United States. After the
bombing of Pearl Harbor, hundreds of thousands of American citizens were taken from their
homes and forcefully detained in internment camps, solely because they have Japanese ancestry.
The 45
th
president of the United States frequently used Islamophobia to justify policies that
discriminated against people for their religion in combination with their ethnic background.
These bills, and the politics and history that they espouse, ignore a long history of civil rights
expansion and contraction, and the history of blaming society’s ills on various minoritized
groups. Malcolm X believed that the issue was not a strictly a legal one, as civil rights legislation
was already on the books. However, deep down, wealthy White men believed that they should
have the ultimate say in whose rights are guaranteed, the only permanent answer being their
own, and thus they would not put any lasting effort towards enforcing the symbolic laws they
signed (X, 1990). Laws are only as powerful as their enforcement agents, and this study seeks to
understand teachers reconcile the narrative they are asked to teach as enforcement agents with
their own political beliefs.
Contemporary political discussions draw on collective cultural values, built on a shared
history, a history that is transferred to the next generation by teachers. The previously mentioned
bills attempt to dull the brutality suffered by people, and stop the generational transfer of the

3

knowledge that these crimes were committed out of a sense of racial superiority and the victims
were targeted solely because those people were Black. The lived history would be left out of the
classroom in favor of textbooks that hope to foster the unity mentioned in several bills, without
addressing the race-based reasons as to why historically, and in the present day, people of color
agitate for an empirical unity, rather than one that only exists in public rhetoric. Rather than
addressing the injustices of the past, these bills seek to skip the process of reconciling those
crimes to a not-yet-seen world where race does not play a factor in health outcomes, interactions
with the police, or life in our society in general. As schools become vehicles for politicians to
enforce their view of society and shape what values students should be learning, it is of
tantamount importance to understand how teachers, as citizens and implementers, choose to
navigate the political and historical landscape.
The primary research question guiding the study asks “How do teachers’ sociopolitical
beliefs influence their teaching of U.S. History?” Because teaching is shaped by the standards
guiding instruction and teachers are influenced by their school and social contexts, in addition to
national political affairs, the following research questions narrow the primary research question
and allow for more nuanced answers: 1. How do teachers describe the relevance of contemporary
politics in their U.S. history classroom? 2. How do teachers describe the political leanings of the
standards in their state? 3. To what extent do teachers political/social/racial attitudes factor into
their implementation of the standards and their overall philosophy of teaching?
The study is unique in its contribution to the literature in a number of ways: first, the
findings will demonstrate that teachers find it impossible to completely remove bias from their
teaching. Second, the study extends the literature on how teachers use standards in developing
lessons that cater to the needs of their students and their communities. Third, the framework

4

developed from the results provide a way to map the individual factors and ecological contexts
that shape when and how teachers make politically or civically motivated adjustments, as
members of their educational and local communities. This study seeks to analyze the specific
ways that the Movement for Black Lives is leveraged in classrooms across the country.
The dissertation is organized as follows: the rest of chapter one is a review of the relevant
literature and the gaps in said literature. Chapter two is an overview of the theoretical
frameworks leveraged in designing the study. Chapter three deals with the methods used in the
study. Chapter four lists participant profiles. Chapter five reveals the findings of the study, in
relation to the built framework locating teachers on a two-dimensional axis of their attitudes
towards political integration and their beliefs about their role in the school ecosystem. Chapter
six concludes the dissertation by providing a discussion of data relative to the existing body of
literature, as well as implications for research, policy, and practitioners.
Literature Review
“Intelligence plus character–that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one
not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate. The broad
education will, therefore, transmit to one not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but
also the accumulated experience of social living.”
- Martin Luther King Jr., The Purpose of Education
King’s words blend two purposes for education: discernment of worthwhile endeavors,
and the skills and content knowledge to understand, propose, and enact timely solutions. King
emphasizes the “accumulated knowledge of the race,” indicating that historical context has
utility in building character. Earlier, King highlights how the classroom fails to provide students
with the skills to think critically and effectively, allowing students to fall into the “morass of
propaganda.” Seventy-one years after he argued that education must force one to “sift and weigh
evidence,” recent events seem to suggest that different parts of the country may be sifting

5

through contrasting piles of evidence. A majority of Americans believe that Confederate statues
should be preserved in public spaces (Kahn, 2017). Objectively, these statues honor individuals
who led an armed insurrection against the United States to preserve the institution of slavery.
That being said, some states’ history standards glorify the Confederacy (e.g. Alabama asking
students to recognize their state’s key role in the “organization of the Confederacy) whereas
other states do not have explicit content standards related to the Civil War.
The “worthy objectives” King mentions are likely defined by content standards, as the
standards provide a framework of expectations for content that students should be exposed to and
the cognitive tasks they should be able to perform given historical data. Standards-based reform
has been a pillar of educational initiatives since the early 1990s, with Smith and O’Day’s (1990)
seminal work theorizing how to make lasting change in through system-wide initiatives and
changes. Despite the widespread beliefs that standards should drive instruction and that teachers
use standards to guide their teaching, these assumptions have not been adequately studied in the
field of U.S. History, or even generally in social studies. Whether the content standards are
worthy objectives and the extent to which teachers’ own beliefs influence the implementation of
the standards that have not been adequately answered.
Teachers are ultimately responsible for implementing such standards, and a greater examination
of how their own beliefs affect implementation is warranted in order to understand what
historical skills are being taught in classroom. In addition, some content standards leave the
historical domain and verge on entering the political e.g. Analyze the persistence of poverty and
how different analyses of this issue influence welfare reform, health insurance reform, and other
social policies (California 11.11.6) or Discuss the solvency of long-term entitlement programs
such as Social Security and Medicare (Texas 10.11.F). The current research on teacher beliefs

6

mostly studies teachers’ beliefs in a vacuum, without examining the racial-political-social beliefs
that may make teachers more inclined to privilege some content or organizing framework when
teaching history.
Evidence on the Effects on Teacher Beliefs on Implementation
Teachers have different beliefs and attitudes about education (Ghaith & Yaghi, 1997;
Sinatra & Kardash, 2004), their individual domain (Cheung & Wong, 2004; Van Driel et al.,
2007; Cross, 2009), and best practices regarding teaching their subject (Brickhouse, 1990; Fogo,
2014; Hartzer-Miller, 2001). In addition, teachers hold differing beliefs about how standards
should affect their own teaching (Bonner, Torres-Rivera & Chen, 2018; Ross, McDougall,
Hogabam-Gray & LeSage, 2003). Research has shown that teachers do not leave these beliefs at
the door, rather, they allow these beliefs and attitudes to guide their use of the standards, both in
terms of assessments (Donnelly, 2007; Haney, Czerniak & Lumpe, 1996 and day-to-day
activities (Cross, 2009). Stakeholder position shapes understanding of standards, with teachers’
acting as “street-level bureaucrats” that implement policy based on their experience as educators
(Weatherley & Lipsky, 1977; Spillane 2009). Teachers’ ability to implement standards with
fidelity is not only a function of their capacity, but also their will to implement, influenced by
their attitudes towards the reform materials (Penuel, Fishman, Yamaguchi & Gallagher, 2007;
Stein et al., 2008).
Teachers, alongside their professional beliefs and attitudes, also hold political and social
beliefs. Quinn (2018) found that K-12 educators, while more liberal than the general population,
were also more tolerant of others espousing racist beliefs. Teachers’ racial attitudes, while more
liberal than the general population, are still often rooted in logics that do not address privilege as
a structural cause of inequity (Solomona, Portelli, Daniel & Campbell, 2005). Teachers are in the

7

unique position to shape the political and racial socialization of students, as the correlation
between what teachers believe they taught and what students believe they are being taught is
significant (Desimone, Smith & Frisvold, 2010). Teachers can use this position in a variety of
ways, including: to develop multicultural understanding among students (Cherng & Halpin,
2016), to espouse political beliefs and suppress those of students (Niemi & Niemi, 2007), to
share problematic racial histories (Thornhill, 2018; Almarza & Fehn, 1998), or to silence the
discussion of morally difficult issues like race (James, 2008). As policymakers seek to increase
educational opportunities, a better understanding of how standards become instruction via
teachers could help generate policy solutions that are robust to the filter of beliefs and attitudes.
While there are unique causes and consequences for studying each domain and how
implementation of standards is shaped by teacher attitudes and beliefs, I narrow my focus to the
political and social implications of social studies classes, using science class as a comparison
case, as there is more empirical research on the latter. Though the classes have differing public
perceptions, the two classes are both rooted in “relating evidence and developing understanding
(Donnelly, 1999; p. 33).” More importantly, both classes attempt to develop student
epistemologies that extend far beyond the classroom; understanding how teacher beliefs shape
how students’ evidence processing could have implications on understanding the process of
political socialization and the worrying trend of political polarization. In what follows, first, I
briefly describe some of mechanisms that could explain how beliefs, attitudes, and experiences
shape implementation of standards, drawing from literature in educational policy and
psychology. Next, I describe the different domains of teacher beliefs, organizing these beliefs
into the following sections: domain-specific beliefs, standards-specific beliefs, and political-
social beliefs. Afterwards, I describe the consequences of teacher beliefs shaping fidelity of

8

implementation and expand on the existing research, by belief domain. I close by examining the
gaps in the literature, including the challenges of studying racial-political-social beliefs of
educators.
Mechanisms Connecting Teacher Beliefs to Implementation
Despite the notion that educators should leave their non-pedagogical beliefs and attitudes
outside of the classroom, there are several reasons to believe that this is not the case. Political-
social beliefs are becoming vital to individual identity (Kaplan, 2016) and some beliefs lie at the
intersection of political and pedagogical. For example, teachers that hold deficit views of their
students may offer less cognitively demanding activities for those students, while offering more
complex tasks to students they view as more capable (Raudenbush, Rowan & Chong, 1993;
Zohar, Degani & Vaaknin, 2001). In addition, teachers act as cue givers that can suggest the
correct ideas about their domain to students (Muis & Foy, 2010). More importantly, as these
beliefs can be correlated with race, minoritized populations are exposed to education without the
same rigor or cognitive involvement as their White middle-class counterparts (Diamond, 2007). I
briefly describe the reasons we expect beliefs, both pedagogical and otherwise, may impact
implementation.
Domains of Teacher Beliefs
Teachers beliefs have commonly been divided into several subsections, with varying
levels of research having been done in each category. There are teacher beliefs about the self,
which has been measured by self-efficacy (Brouwers & Tomic, 2001; Denzine, Cooney, &
McKenzie, 2005) and epistemic cognition (Maggioni, VanSledright & Alexander, 2009). There
are teacher beliefs about context and environment, where research tends to focus on teachers’

9

beliefs about classroom management (Martin & Sass, 2010), school policy (Ware & Kitsantas,
2007), and collective efficacy (Tschannen-Moran & Barr, 2004). There are also beliefs about the
content being taught, which includes both the epistemic nature of the subject and beliefs about
what content should or should not be taught in classrooms (Graham, Harris & MacArthur, 2004;
Hudson, Kloosterman, & Galindo, 2012; Losh & Nzekwe, 2011). The last two domains of
teacher beliefs focus on their perception of certain pedagogical approaches (Bonner & Chen,
2009; Torff & Warburton, 2005; Wooley, Benjamin & Wooley, 2004) and their beliefs about
their students (Brady & Woolfson, 2008; Coplan, Hughes, Bosacki, & Rose Krasnor, 2011).
Teachers sociopolitical and racial beliefs form a category alongside these domains of
teacher beliefs, rather than another subcategory, for several reasons. First, every individual holds
sociopolitical and racial beliefs, regardless of occupation. Second, sociopolitical and racial
beliefs may influence different categories of teacher beliefs, with varying degrees of influence on
behavior. For example, a teacher that has lower expectations for students from differing
backgrounds than their own may let those beliefs influence their beliefs about the content that
should be taught to students (Landsman, 2004; Rubie-Davies, 2006), or their own self-efficacy
when teaching in this context (Bloom & Peters, 2012; Siwatu, 2011). Sociopolitical and racial
beliefs, at their least influential, would be correlated with the aforementioned teacher beliefs,
depending on the circumstance; at their most influential, strong sociopolitical and racial beliefs
could be partially predictive of how (and to what extent) teachers with these strongly held beliefs
discuss topics related to race, politics, and/or society.
Teacher Pedagogical Beliefs and Implementation
Teachers come from a variety of educational backgrounds, both with respect to their
domain and certification process. These pedagogical beliefs, in addition to teacher experience,

10

impact how teachers view classroom best practices (Ertmer et al., 2012; Ghaith & Yaghi, 1997;
Polikoff, 2013), and how to implement these best practices (Lidar, Lundqvist & Ostman, 2006;
Richardson et al., 1991). Also, teacher beliefs about the standards that guide their instruction
shape how closely teachers align to state frameworks (Bonner, Torres-Rivera & Chen, 2018;
Donnelly & Boone, 2007; Ross et al., 2003). On top of these beliefs explicitly related to
education, educators may hold political beliefs that shape pedagogical beliefs and practices (Zipp
& Fenwick, 2006).
Teachers, while acting as on-the-ground implementers of reforms, may hold beliefs or
have prior experiences that actively undermine high levels of implementation fidelity. While
capacity to implement is important, a teacher’s attitudes towards said reform, or the teacher’s
will to implement, has a significant impact on the positive or negative adaptations a teacher will
make to a curriculum (Allen & Penuel, 2015; Datnow, 2000; Spillane, 2009; Stein et al., 2008).
To reduce the likelihood of belief-based adaptations, teachers need to feel both professional
support in how to best implement reforms (Penuel et al, 2007; Kim et al., 2017) and a sense of
autonomy in how best to adapt the curriculum for the needs of their students (Porter, 1989;
Torres, 2014).
The Nature of Science and Implementation
Science teachers bring both their beliefs about their domain and their beliefs about the
standards to the classroom, with each impacting instructional practices and the implementation
of standards. Brickhouse’s (1990) examination of three science teachers had several relevant
findings about how teachers bring their beliefs into the classroom. First, the two experienced
teachers both aligned their classroom practices tightly with their own beliefs about the nature of
science, and encouraged students to see the science similarly to how they viewed it. The teacher

11

with less content knowledge approached science with a more rigid approach, focused on
discovering the “right answer,” and designed assessments as such. In addition, the teacher
actively avoided the topic of evolution, despite it being on the curriculum, because the theory
contradicted his religious beliefs. While experience increased a teacher’s ability to align beliefs
with instruction, content knowledge allowed one teacher to embrace the tentative nature of
science where a less informed teacher would disqualify new information if it contradicted their
previously held beliefs. This aligns with Polikoff’s (2012) findings, in that teachers with more
content knowledge are more accurately able to align instruction with standards; however, there
may be a shortage of teachers where we can trust that they have enough content expertise that
they won’t let non-pedagogical beliefs influence their content choices.
Political Messaging and Teacher Beliefs
Teachers’ political-social beliefs and attitudes are not formed in a vacuum. Teachers, like
the rest of us, have opinions shaped by their generational cohort’s attitudes and observed
practices (Brown & Lesane-Brown, 2006; Schwadel, 2011). As members of the larger public,
teachers’ political opinions are shaped by the political messages of the political elites
1
. Rather
than using previously held beliefs, the public tends to adopt the opinions adopted by politicians
(Brookman & Butler, 2017). Individuals form opinions through the lens of the party they
support, and this motivated reasoning changes the way an individual evaluates information
presented by members of the opposing political party (Bolsen, Druckman & Cook, 2014; Taber,
Cann & Kucsova, 2009). Taber and Lodge (2006) found that individuals, despite being told to
leave prior feelings aside and evaluate the argument solely on its strengths and weaknesses, were

1
While there are various definitions of “political elite” in political psychology, for the purposes of this paper,
“political elite” is defined as a cue-giver that the decision-maker sees as more knowledgeable than themselves on a
particular question (Gilens & Murakawa, 2002).

12

more skeptical when evaluating information that was not in alignment with their prior beliefs.
This skepticism increased as knowledge increased, with comments mostly about how they did
not like the point made. In short, they found prior attitude effect, confirmation bias, and
disconfirmation bias when examining participants’ political beliefs.
Educators are not immune to the effects of motivated skepticism. Looking at how this
applies to the classroom, teachers’ own sociopolitical and racial beliefs could influence curricula.
Conservative teachers being asked to discuss the solvency of the Affordable Care Act may be
more inclined to discuss lesson-planning with other conservative teachers, or take talking points
from a conservative outlet, rather than seeking out information from throughout the political
spectrum. This is not to say that individual members of the public form opinions solely based on
the espoused positions of their party’s elite, rather that teachers would be more likely to seek out
information in alignment with their own beliefs, as messages received from like-minded elites
require less cognition to fit into an individual’s organizing framework. If teachers suppress the
opinions of students and the beliefs expressed are uniform (Niemi & Niemi, 2007), this type of
homogenous group discussion can strengthen partisan identities and beliefs (Levendusky,
Druckman & McLain, 2016), making conversations across political lines more difficult.
Teachers’ attitudes are likely shaped by their cue-givers, and both groups are subject to
the society-wide force of political polarization. Partisan polarization is defined by homogenous
beliefs within a party and growing ideological distance between the two parties (Fiorina &
Abrams, 2008). Within a politically polarized climate, partisan elites send clearer signals to the
public about where their party stands, making an individual’s beliefs more ideologically
consistent, but also further away from members of the other political party (Levendusky, 2010).
Elite polarization can cause public antipathy towards the news media (Ladd, 2010), while

13

increasing the likelihood to take a position on an issue (Thornton 2013); in combination, the
public could form attitudes that are shaped by their own party, rather than also being influenced
by a free and independent press. In addition to impacting beliefs, polarization among elites
changes the way the public makes decisions, making elite endorsements more important than
substantive information in the public’s decision-making processes (Druckman, Peterson &
Slothuus, 2013). Considering teachers have the power to reproduce political polarization or
influence how students process information, understanding which factors affect teachers’
implementation of politically relevant standards is an important area that merits greater
understanding.
Teachers and Belief Transfer
Across disciplines, teachers are responsible for introducing students to the epistemology
of that subject. In science, teacher beliefs related to the nature of science shaped not only their
lesson planning, but ultimately whether students saw themselves as consumers of a static body of
“textbook science” or as investigators that understood the tentative nature of science as a
discipline (Solomon, Duveen, Scot and McCarthy, 1992; Yerrick, Pedersen & Arnason, 1998). In
social studies, like in science, teachers have also designed instruction around history as static,
undermining the inquiry-based nature of science and social studies (Fogo, 2014; Hartzler-Miller,
2001). If these beliefs do enter the classroom through biased implementation of standards, then
these beliefs may become parts of the epistemological foundation of students. Understanding this
connection could be especially important these beliefs could affect students as social actors.
While teachers are responsible for knowledge transfer, the process of schooling may also
result in belief transfer, which extends far outside of the classroom. Trust plays a mediating role
in knowledge and belief transfer (Levin & Cross, 2004), and students are socialized to learn and

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believe the knowledge espoused by the teacher. However, teachers may not be content experts in
their field, and can spread problematic ideas about genetics that can create or harden student
racial biases (Donovan, 2014). Looking at race in social studies, even Black students will accept
deficit-based race histories when presented by a teacher (Thornhill, 2016). The nature of
secondary schooling means that students must move between fields that have varying degrees of
content certainty, without necessarily understanding how that should affect their evaluation of
information (Lessig, 1995). Different fields have different degrees of epistemological certainty,
and across fields, students are likely to vocalize agreement with the teacher (Brickhouse, 1990;
Desimone et al., 2010; Herman, Klein & Abedi, 2000). If student attitudes and beliefs about the
topic are unsophisticated, they are likely to accept classroom knowledge across disciplines,
without engaging in inquiry (Herman et al, 2000; Yerrick, et al., 1998). While the effects of
static knowledge and belief transfer may have implications inside school, its largest may be seen
outside of it.
Organizing Framework
The literature on implementation is split. One segment of the literature focuses on
quantifiable observable variables that could influence how teachers adapt and implement state-
level policy and curricula. This branch of the literature has its roots in educational policy,
seeking to understand the way that policy is made, and subsequently adapted and understood in
different parts of the educational system. While teacher beliefs are a less explored aspect of this
section of research, there is growing interest in examining the connection between teacher
experience and level of education with pedagogical beliefs, both of which influence attitudes
towards and implementation of standards. Educational psychology forms much of the other
branch of the literature, with a focus on epistemic cognition and teacher’s domain specific

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beliefs. While this branch does have a more explicit focus on the teacher as the unit of analysis,
there is less of a connection to standards-based reform. Much of the research in this branch is
focused on how teachers understand fundamental concepts of science, rather than how teachers
make sense of specific standards in their given state.
Because of the significant evidence that teachers’ do indeed bring their political-social
beliefs into the K-12 classroom (Almarza & Fehn, 1998; Brickhouse, 1990; Niemi & Niemi,
2007), I add the influence of sociopolitical and racial beliefs as a third factor that could influence
their implementation of standards, alongside the content standards themselves and teachers’ own
pedagogical beliefs. Teachers constantly receive political and social messages from their
surrounding environments, likely relying on cue-givers when adopting positions. At the same
time, teachers act as elite cue-givers in the classroom, as students view them as content experts.
Like political elites, teachers can frame curricular content in alignment with their previously held
non-pedagogical beliefs.
Teachers being unable to separate their partisanship from their role as implementers
could have three effects: first, on the relative emphasis given to the content of standards
depending on its position compared to that of party leadership. For example, conservative
teachers could downplay the importance of federal expansion into social welfare in the 20
th

century in alignment with their own political beliefs. Second, sociopolitical and racial beliefs
could influence how teachers frame issues when discussing a particular topic. When discussing
the Cold War, liberal teachers may highlight how some important U.S. social services were
created in part to win the ideological war with the Soviets; on the other hand, conservative
teachers may choose to highlight how capitalism outlasted the communist system, thus proving
the value of the free market (Lanchester, 2009). Third, the cognitive demands being asked of

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students could be influenced by whether a more complex understanding aligns with how their
party sees the issue. Moderate teachers may be more inclined to espouse a linear view of social
progress when discussing the progress on civil rights, rather than the complexity that liberals and
conservatives, for different reasons, may find problematic (Anderson, 2012; Wertsch, 2004).
The influence of these non-pedagogical beliefs could shape the explicitly pedagogical
beliefs that have already been shown to influence implementation, alongside having distinct
influences on teacher implementation of standards that do not align with their political beliefs. In
what follows, I detail the relevant political psychology literature, connecting the research to how
such findings may manifest in the classroom. Next, I examine factors influencing
implementation in detail. Last, I detail the limited literature that focuses on teacher beliefs, with a
spotlight on those that also focus on alignment and/or implementation of content. In addition, I
continually draw connections to how partisan elites could shape teacher beliefs, and how the
same phenomena, with teachers in the role of school elites, could occur in the classroom.
Political-Social Beliefs
Teachers and Framing
Teachers often simplify the nature of what they are discussing to help students learn
complex material (Brickhouse, 1990; Hartzler-Miller, 2001). This constraint is similar to the
ones faced by members of the news media, as journalists have limited time to explain to the
public why a topic is important and what values are salient to forming a position (Gans, 1979;
Chong & Druckman, 2007). Like journalists, teachers’ simplification of the issues is not
malicious, but necessary as the shortened explanations can play to students’ existing cognitive
schema (Sniderman & Thierault, 2004). However, teachers have the power to direct student

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attention to one aspect of an issue (Lidar et al., 2006; Niemi & Niemi, 2007), a process known as
framing in the political psychology literature (Chong & Druckman, 2007). How an issue is
framed has a significant influence on public opinion in a variety of areas (see Borah, 2011 for a
review).
Cue Givers and Opinion Formation
In this section, I outline the effect of elites on the public, as I argue that teachers are
subject to the influences of elites. In a two-part conversation-based process like that described in
Druckman (2018), teachers, acting as elites in the classroom, could have similar effects on
student opinion formation.
Recent research in political psychology has put a great deal of emphasis on understanding
how and why people make political decisions, especially when those decisions do not seem
rational. The research suggests that exposure to the opinion of those one considers as an expert
has a great deal of influence on our own positions. Brookman and Butler (2017) found a causal
relationship between the positions an elected official took and the attitudes of voters. However,
authors also found evidence that the strength of the official’s arguments had no bearing on
attitudes; nor did whether an official provided justification or not. The expertise and cue-giving
status of political elites is not affected by the public previously holding a dissenting opinion. This
overly deferential behavior to the perceived expert could have implications for understanding
how teachers should present information to students. Teachers’ opinions could be shaped by the
political opinions of their party elites. Political elites often use historical arguments to justify
their own political arguments. Because these historical justifications are in line with a teacher’s
own political beliefs, teachers are more likely to accept them without much pushback and may
attempt to align their teaching of the standards with these political/historical arguments.

18

Bartels and Muhr (2009) conducted a similar experiment looking at which government
institutions can shape public opinion; the authors found that because of the Supreme Court’s high
source credibility and nuanced rationales behind decisions, it was more likely to sway public
opinion than Congress, though the latter could still shape opinion. Also looking at the Supreme
Court, Tankard and Paluck (2017) found that the Supreme Court could impact individual beliefs
related to gay marriage, with positive rulings being correlated with increased personal support
for gay marriage and gay people; in addition to finding this correlation between a cue-giving
body and individual attitudes, they also found a shift in perceived social norms. In the context of
the classroom, these findings suggest two things: first, teachers’ implementation of history could
be shaped by officials commenting on the discipline (e.g. Chief Justice John Roberts calling
quantitative social science research “sociological gobbledygook”) and that these teachers could
have the power to shape students’ perceived social norms both inside and outside of the
classroom.
Partisanship and the Public
Partisanship shapes how people seek out information and how they evaluate said
information. Political beliefs are closely related to one’s self-identity; dissenting political
information activates the same parts of the brain as conflicting information related to one’s
religion (Kaplan et al., 2016). People are unable to ignore previously held beliefs when receiving
new political information, regardless of their level of political knowledge (Taber & Lodge, 2006;
Taber et al., 2009). This inability to ignore political beliefs extends to receiving scientific
information. Rather than revising their political attitudes after receiving contradictory scientific
evidence, conservatives and liberals alike reported diminished trust in the scientific community
(Nisbet et al., 2015). Considering that there is evidence that teachers let their religious beliefs

19

impact instruction, it is plausible that deeply held political beliefs could have a similar effect on
implementation.
Effects of Political Polarization
The effects of partisanship are made worse by political polarization. Individual political
polarization is defined as “a process of alignment along multiple lines of potential disagreement
and measured as growing constraint in individuals' preferences (Baldassarri & Gelman, 2008).”
Individual polarization is different from partisan polarization; where the latter focuses on the
distance between opposing groups, the former is about internal beliefs being consistent with the
general partisan consensus. Polarization increases likelihood of holding political opinions
(Thornton, 2013), as political elites send clearer cues as to what the “correct” position is for their
followers (Levendusky, 2010), making individuals more likely to hold beliefs unanimously
aligned with those espoused by their party’s elite. Polarization also increases the influence of
party opinions on individual ones, while decreasing the influence of substantive information on
these opinions. In addition, confidence in these less grounded opinions is increased (Druckman,
2013). Druckman (2018) also found that partisan media could increase polarization, both via
direct exposure and via group discussions. Looking specifically on how this may impact teachers
and their implementation, teachers could be more likely to align instruction with their own
party’s view of history than the standards they are expected to be in alignment with. In addition,
polarization could conceivably make a teacher judge student abilities’ differently based on a
student’s political beliefs, as political polarization adds a partisan element to how individuals
process well-reasoned information that contradicts their own attitudes.

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Teaching and Implementation
The recent wave of standards-based reform has sparked varying responses from the
teachers asked to align their instruction to these standards. Polikoff (2013) found a significant
correlation between several observable variables and instructional alignment, including the
number of content courses taken and the number of years teaching. Teacher attitudes towards the
standards have a significant influence on how these standards are implemented. Bonner and
colleagues (2018) found a moderate correlation between teachers’ standards-based instructional
practices, perceptions of state mandated exams, and classroom assessment preferences. This
section highlights the factors influencing implementation that may interact with a teacher’s
beliefs.
Teaching Experience
Research has found that years of experience teaching influences how teachers implement
studies. Various studies have shown that teachers with more years in the classroom are more able
to align their instruction with content standards and their espoused pedagogical beliefs
(Friedrichsen et al., 2009; Polikoff, 2013; Richardson et al., 1991). In addition to being more
aligned with the standards, more experienced teachers are also more able to espouse a consistent
teaching philosophy and align their teaching with this philosophy (Brickhouse, 1990). Less
experienced teachers have been found to be less consistent with how they implement standards,
trying different strategies while making less adaptations to already existing programs (Gersten,
Chard, & Baker, 2000; Rohrbach, Graham, & Hansen, 1993). More classroom experience has
also been shown to be positively correlated with ability to implement standards, both through
increased knowledge of the curricula and increased knowledge of their students (McNeill et al.,
2016). As teachers gain this knowledge and experience, they tend to be more skeptical of

21

instructional changes, and more resistant to implementing new strategies (Coburn, 2004). While
this self-awareness has its benefits, teachers with outdated pedagogical beliefs are less likely to
change their practices if they do not believe in the reforms taking place (Penuel et al., 2007).
This alignments with Polikoff’s (2013) findings, where alignment increased with experience, and
then dropped off, potentially indicating a point where teachers think their practices are superior
to any subsequent practices suggested by reforms.
Teacher attitudes towards the standards or reforms being enacted were among the
strongest predictors of how programs were implemented. Datnow and Castellano (2000) found
that supporters of the Success for All program would make adaptations in line with the spirit of
the reform, but teachers that merely accepted the program would make adaptations simply based
on personal feelings about how the activities could be more interesting. Teachers that actively
opposed the reform would not credit SFA for improving scores. This aligns with the theory of
motivated reasoning, suggesting that teachers will misattribute credit if doing so contradicts their
personally held beliefs.
Unlike science or social studies, mathematics could reasonably be viewed as a static body
of knowledge that teachers are responsible for helping students discover (Sierpinska & Lerman,
1996). Even so, mathematics teachers that viewed their discipline as a family of basic operations
created a classroom environment that reflected these beliefs, with a strong focus on rote
computation Despite professional development meant to change their behaviors to engage in
discourse with students, Cross (2009) found that these teachers “tended to default to the IRE
pattern focused on eliciting final answers (either numeric or algebraic) and providing primarily
summative evaluations (either correct or incorrect).” Teachers in this study frequently
reproduced how they were taught mathematics, while also simplifying their instruction based on

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low student expectations. This finding aligns with Diamond (2009), who also noted that the
sometimes racialized nature of low expectations could lead to Black and Brown students being
more likely to receive formulaic instruction that does not develop understanding of the
discipline.
U.S. History Content Standards
To date, there have been few analyses of social studies standards, none of which
compared states directly replicating the methods used by Porter, Polikoff and Smithson.
Anderson (2011) used a mixed-methods approach to examine how racial minorities are treated in
various sets of U.S. History standards. Drawing from eight states (Arizona, Florida, Michigan,
New Jersey, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, and Washington) and Washington D.C.,
Anderson “coded and analyzed standards that included people of color as historical beings.” For
each chapter, he uses as three-tiered analytical approach, focusing on content, quality of
treatment, and style of use. The content axis focuses on the historical feature represented. The
quality of treatment axis focuses on the depth of the text of the standard, as well as how much the
standard would allow the students to use historical thinking processes. The style of use axis
focuses on the ideology of the standard, and is divided into three categories:
progressive/exceptional, contributory, and discordant/conflict. Anderson conceptualizes the
standards as texts with no objective meaning, but only have the meanings that teachers and
students ascribe to them.
In analyzing the civil rights movement, Anderson found that the standards focused on the
contributions of individual African Americans and advocacy groups to the greater American
project, describing them as “mono-causal and uni-polar.” Anderson also notes that the federal
government is seen as the primary motivator of social change in the standards, concluding that

23

“The reviewed standards, however, typically deemphasize or simply ignore the persistent social
inequalities that have confounded linear progress on racial equality.” Anderson then turns his
focus to how slavery is covered in the standards, concluding that the standards do not ask
students to use historical evidence, and thus mute the devastating effects of the institution of
slavery, for Americans White and Black. Similar to the coverage of the civil rights movement,
the abolitionist movement is flattened and constructed as monolithic; disagreements in ideology
and tactics are not mentioned. Several others do thematic analyses of the standards, focusing on
the treatment of indigenous people (Shear et al., 2015), Asian Americans (Suh, An & Forest,
2015; An, 2016), and immigrants (Hillburn, Journell & Buchanan, 2016). That being said, these
analyses are done thematically, and either limit their sample to certain states, or limit their
sample to standards relevant to their thematic analyses.
Social Studies and Implementation
The literature on social studies teachers’ beliefs is relatively scant. However, the
literature does suggest that teachers’ beliefs about their domain shape implementation. Unlike
the science teachers that see their discipline as static, Fogo (2015) found that history teachers
believed that inquiry should be a core component in their teaching. Employing historical
evidence and use of history concepts were the highest rated among the teachers surveyed,
representing a “coherent set of practices that, together, represent a disciplinary, inquiry-based
approach to teaching and learning.” While these findings are encouraging, there is little evidence
that teachers are able to connect these beliefs to classroom practices. Hartzler-Miller (2001)
found that teachers would not attempt to elicit interpretation from their students. More
significantly, students would internalize the teacher’s framework of history rather than
developing their own.

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Similarly, VanSledright (2002) confronted a similar dilemma in their own case study,
noting the difficulty in developing students’ historical thinking skills without lessening the focus
on necessary content. VanSledright described the goal of teaching as “to systematically teach
students these important lessons about the always-interpretive nature of historical inquiry; and
then to uncover the interpretive machinery, debate its practices, and make community decisions
about where the limits should be under what circumstances.” No evidence within the existing
literature suggests that a majority of teachers espouse this belief or enact curriculum in line with
such thinking, and even VanSledright makes tradeoffs in making decisions in his classroom. The
social studies curriculum, specifically in United States history, is repetitive, in that students are
expected to learn increasingly complex narratives about the same periods in the history of the
United States. A primary issue is that teachers may not be equipped or willing to teach this
history while allowing students to actively come to their own interpretations about the past.
Empirical research suggests that there are two outcomes to be expected when examining
how social studies teach about race: either by incorrectly explaining race and racism or by
avoiding the topic altogether. Howard (2004) focused on a racially diverse high school on the
west coast, seeking to examine the extent to which race was discussed in the school’s social
studies’ curriculum. He found that students came to understand social studies as about the past,
but without space for understanding race and racism. These students understood the ever-present
specter of racism, and emphasized the irony in not learning about a social force in a domain titled
social studies. At the same time, these students felt encouraged to explore the impact of race
once they encountered a teacher that emphasized the impact of race in class.

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Gaps in the Literature
Despite the resurgence in research on how policy is enacted in classrooms, the amount of
focus varies by discipline, with little emphasis on social studies. While there is some research on
the beliefs being espoused in textbooks or curricular materials in social studies (Alridge, 2006;
Anderson, 2013; Woyshner & Schocker, 2015), very little of that research involves how teachers
use specific materials. The emergence of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics) as a focus in secondary schools has led to an increase in research focusing on
understanding several aspects of teachers as implementers of reform, from the influence of
teacher beliefs (Cross, 2009; McNeill et al., 2016; Tsai, 2007) to their use of materials (Polikoff,
2015; Reisman & Fogo, 2016; Remillard, 2005). Social studies, despite having the potential to be
based in the social application of evidence-based evaluation and synthesis, has not received the
same support, possibly due to high-level history examinations not being a valid test for said skills
(Smith, 2017). While there is evidence suggesting that connecting science instruction with
history helps students grasp the discovery-based nature of science (Donnelly, 1999; Solomon et
al., 1992), research suggests that teachers can have difficulty when asked to teach science as a
tentative discipline (Donovan, 2014; Lidar, Lundqvist, & Ostman, 2006; Yerrick, et al., 1998).
In line with the lack of research connecting synthesis skills across classrooms, there is
also a lack of research in K-12 education about the connection between different types of beliefs.
In higher education, research has found that party identification was correlated with pedagogical
beliefs; conservatives were more likely than liberals to see the importance in shaping student
values and less likely to support the free exchange of ideas in the classroom (Zipp & Fenwick,
2006). However, research suggests that students with relevant prior beliefs may resist having
their political-social attitudes changed by the attitudes of their professors (Dey, 1996; Linvill,

26

2011). In concert, these two findings highlight why examining the connection between political
and pedagogical beliefs in K-12 system is important: political orientation could be shaping the
pedagogical beliefs of teachers, potentially becoming the acceptable epistemologies and
rationales of that classroom. High school students could be unwillingly made to reproduce some
of the social biases of their teachers.
While there has been a focus on pedagogical beliefs, there has been less research
dedicated to teachers’ political beliefs. The notion that politics does not influence the classroom
could play a role in political beliefs not receiving attention, but even studying these beliefs while
connecting them to implementation may uncover unique challenges. First, in gathering teachers’
political information, there may be varying levels of social desirability bias depending on how
these beliefs are reported. In addition to the difficulty in accurately gathering teacher political
beliefs, if teachers are responsible self-reporting how these non-pedagogical beliefs affect their
classroom instruction may cause an additional level of social desirability; having an observer in
the classroom documenting espoused beliefs and enacted instruction could result in observer
bias, making how the teacher acts without oversight uncertain.
More specifically, studying the racial beliefs of teachers complicates the issue of studying
political beliefs. Racial attitudes can affect political opinions, changing how individuals view the
merit of policy solutions targeted at addressing structural inequities (Enos, 2014; Schneider &
Ingram, 1993). That being said, studying teachers’ racial beliefs is especially important, given
recent evidence that they may hold problematic beliefs, while holding the power to shape
students’ understandings of race (Donovan, 2014) and multiculturalism (Cherng & Halpin,
2016). The issue lies in accurately measuring teacher beliefs about race while reducing social
desirability bias, as teachers resist discussing difficult or morally complex issues in different

27

ways. While some teachers simplify conversations (Almarza & Fehn, 1998; Niemi & Niemi,
2007), others avoid the discussion of race and racism altogether (Bakari, 2003; Pollock, 2009;
Thornhill, 2016), even in professional development settings (Martell, 2017). Understanding the
sociopolitical and racial beliefs that teachers hold and how interact with other beliefs and their
actions in implementing curriculum is important both to understanding standards-based reform
and understanding how contemporary politics influences the classroom.

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CHAPTER TWO: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS
The empirical literature shows evidence that teacher experiences, attitudes, and beliefs do
shape their implementation, both of large-scale reforms and classroom instruction. Much of the
research done on implementation fidelity does not give a theoretical framework that suggests a
pattern as to how and why implementation differs from teacher to teacher, or site to site.
Looking at the research on standards-based reform, a common theoretical framework used is
McDonnell’s (1995) Opportunity to Learn, which simply posits that students are most likely to
learn content explicitly taught by teachers. However, OTL focuses on the end-product, enacted
curriculum, rather than the teacher-level factors that shape implementation. In fact, much of the
empirical research takes teacher adaptations to curricula as a given, without examining the
motivations behind these changes. The different domains of beliefs may be interacting with each
other. Given that they seem to be actively shaping the content students are purposefully exposed
to by teachers, theory should be used to understand why beliefs, especially those not directly
related to classroom practice, may impact implementation of standards.
In this section, I put forth two theories that could explain how beliefs, attitudes, and
experiences could drive how teachers implement standards: sensemaking theory and theories of
motivated reasoning and framing. Sensemaking provides a useful framework for understanding
how an individual teacher justifies their own decision-making processes; in addition, collective
sensemaking allows a framework that acknowledges the domain-specific practices (e.g.
departmental professional development) that could shape an individual’s pedagogical beliefs and
content implementation. The latter two theories, while somewhat distinct, have been used in the
field of political psychology in concert to explain how individuals both process information and
make decisions (Chong & Druckman, 2007; Taber & Lodge, 2006). These theories provide a

29

useful framework to explain how and why implementation of standards may be influenced by
their partisan identities. Collectively, these theories could provide a holistic understanding of
how teacher experiences, beliefs, and attitudes, pedagogical and otherwise, shape how they
implement standards in the classroom.
Sensemaking: Understanding Individuals and Organizational Culture
Individual Sensemaking
At the individual level, sensemaking theory is used to understand how an individual
understands policy and turns said policy into action. Enacted, sensemaking is the process by
which actors attempt to move the actual state and the expected state into sync with one another.
For example, teachers that face classrooms that they perceive as rowdy may enact a zero
tolerance policy to order to move the actual state of the classroom (“rowdy”) in alignment with
their beliefs about what a classroom should look like (Ritter & Hancock, 2007). Looking at
implementation of curricula, teachers may plan activities that align with their own pedagogical
beliefs about their discipline, and limit student inquiry to the cognitive demand level they
believed was appropriate (Maggioni & Parkinson, 2007). To align the enacted and actual states,
actors rely on frameworks that will allow them to take (or continue to take) action. These
frameworks include institutional constraints, personally acceptable justifications, and traditions
from previous actors in similar roles. Conceptually, sensemaking “can be treated as reciprocal
exchanges between actors (Enactment) and their environments (Ecological Change) that are
made meaningful (Selection) and preserved (Retention) (Weick, Sutcliffe, & Ostfield, 2005, p.
414).” I examine each of these factors below.

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Ecological Change
The first step in the sensemaking process is the reciprocal exchange between actors and
their environment. Actors, each with their own attitudes and beliefs, evaluate the ecosystem they
find themselves in, trying to establish order and minimize flux while enacting any type of action.
In doing so, actors begin to “notice and bracket,” using previous mental models to place an event
into a category that one already has a programmed response to. This noticing and bracketing is a
form of rudimentary sensemaking, as the decision becomes less about an individual’s logics, and
more about the previous experiences that had positive enough outcomes to be stored. Noticing
and bracketing represents how teachers first attempt to bring order to an environment in flux.
Given new content standards with overlapping cognitive demand language, teachers may rely on
previous activities meant to assess student understanding. The resulting data, represented by
which pre-existing category the new action falls into, still must be made meaningful, which is
done in the process of selection.
Selection
Selection is the second stage of the process. Selection is how the data is organized. In this
stage, actors use their cognition to reduce the number of possible meanings the data they are
trying to understand could have. Through a combination of “retrospective attention, mental
models, and articulation,” actors create a plausible and functional narrative (Weick, Sutcliffe, &
Ostfield, 2005). During this stage, actors tend to give most weight to their own predispositions,
while also subtly expecting that actors in equivalent roles would use the same evaluative
techniques when forming a narrative. For an activity to be organized, individuals in similar roles
should exhibit similar behaviors (Tsoukas & Chia, 2002). The structure of this logic is radial,
meaning that as actors change, due to individual beliefs or different understandings of their roles,

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their implementation and adaptations can be expected to diverge. For teachers, selection would
be choosing among the possible appropriate reactions to a student giving an unpopular opinion
(e.g. the United States has colonial holdings in the form of Guam and Puerto Rico). Depending
on a teacher’s views, they would choose from several possible responses. The availability of
possible responses is shaped by dispositions about the statement; teachers that disagree strongly
would likely choose from a variety of negative responses, while teachers that agree strongly
would choose from a field of positive responses. Developing student ability to discuss historical
content is a reoccurring cognitive demand in U.S. History teachers, and the direction of this
standards-mandated conversation may be shaped by how the teacher views their role in
classroom and what discussion ought to look like.
Retention
Retention is the third part of the process, where meanings are preserved both within an
individual actor and as a part of the larger organizational culture. The nature of how this action is
retained is influenced by how the system is organized and how information gets distributed
throughout the network. Retention includes the interpersonal communication of one’s own
rationales. This communication of an individual understanding allows complex, private
information about the past to become simple, ordered, and relevant to the current task (Obstfield,
2004). These principles continue to be open to interpretation and re-imagining by new actors.
Truths of the moment are fluid, as correct answers in the past can become incorrect in the
present. The stage of retention is where prior attitudes and beliefs become especially important to
understanding how beliefs affect implementation, as the plausible narrative and usable action is
“related to past experience, connected to significant identities, and used as a source of guidance
for further action and interpretation (Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 2005, p. 414). Continuing

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with the example from selection, whether the action selected by the teacher is preserved depends
on how the teacher evolves in their understanding of how to handle dissenting student opinions.
Retention is also dependent on the larger organizational context; if the teacher asks for advice
from their colleagues, the input and suggested action could become preserved instead.
Tentative Cycles and the Roles of Ambiguity and Plausibility
Sensemaking in organizations takes the form of a tentative cycle, meaning that the final
output of one round may not be identical as the initial input of the next action. Plausibility of a
narrative is constantly being re-evaluated on the criteria of its comprehensiveness, incorporation
of observed data, and robustness to criticism. The importance of plausibility to a group’s
sensemaking is heightened by the group’s espoused commitment to accuracy. Plausibility,
however, depends on “observed data” and different groups notice and focus on different data
points; actions that seem plausible to teachers based on classroom observations may not seem at
all plausible to a group of superintendents examining test scores. An actor’s understanding of
who they are shapes both what and how they implement. Unfortunately, the empirical literature
suggests that teachers, whether due to their attitudes about teacher autonomy or political beliefs,
have difficulties enacting curricula that runs counter to important beliefs.
Collective Sensemaking: Understanding Departmental Cultures
Collective sensemaking is a branch of sensemaking that creates a framework regarding
how groups come to an understanding of shared happenings. Rather than focusing on the
individual and their ways of organizing the world, collective sensemaking focuses on how
groups organize happenings and create procedures. Coburn (2001) describes collective
sensemaking as a bridge between institutional theory and sensemaking, doing so to acknowledge

33

the influence of organizational culture on sub-groups, but also that subgroups also have a sub-
culture, and individuals could use both filters when determining the correct course of action.
Coburn (2001) describes sensemaking in learning communities as collective and situated,
meaning that the understandings of individuals are shaped by negotiations with others, and that
these meanings can only be understood in their organizational context, with collective norms,
values, and traditions included. Sensemaking is commonly used to understand teachers’ beliefs
and practices (Bertrand & Marsh, Coburn, 2004; Stosich, 2016), making it relevant to domain-
specific content implementation. This framework is especially useful for understanding teachers’
implementation practices, as they could be creating teacher-specific meanings, and meanings that
are specific to social studies teachers.
Collective sensemaking focuses on how groups come to common understanding.
Teachers, though, are a part of several groups whose sensemaking may conflict with each other.
A social studies teacher may consider themselves as members of a limited social studies’
teaching community, a larger teaching community, and partisan members of their political
community. Research on political polarization suggests that influence of partisan community
sensemaking could spread to other areas. Druckman and colleagues (2018) suggest that a two-
step communication flow could be spreading the polarized values of partisan media beyond the
audience of said media. Applied to classroom implementation, teachers exposed to partisan
media could influence teacher opinions and willingness to engage in accuracy-motivated
discussions with students that disagree. The practice of designing a curriculum in alignment with
the standards is an integral part of professional development, which is an environment conducive
to collective sensemaking. For example, changes in the standards could be discussed in
departmental meetings, where practices evolve based on group interpretation.

34

While most areas of the United States are politically homogenous (Wasserman, 2017), it
is important to understand how conversations over politically charged objects change based on
the nature of the conversation. Teachers could consider themselves members of different
teaching communities, and conversations between members of these groups could influence how
a teacher chooses to implement standards. The precise effect of how content standards
implementation would be influenced depends on the political composition of these affinity
groups, and the political composition of the classroom. First, let’s consider a politically
homogenous group of teachers and pupils. Students that find the teacher credible would be likely
be persuaded by the teacher’s arguments, whether they are based in curricular frameworks,
partisan media, or ideas found on forums like Teachers Pay Teachers. In addition, these students
are expected to echo similar rationales, and are thus polarized towards the teacher’s
implementation of the standards. Most importantly, social pressure exists to conform to the
dominant opinion; this effect could be even larger in the classroom considering the teacher’s
legitimate role as a trusted source of information. On the other hand, heterogenous conversations
could moderate how directionally motivated teacher implementation becomes, as teachers could
be responsive to student learning goals.
Summary
Individual sensemaking theory is useful for understanding an individual teacher’s beliefs
and their implementation of standards. Its emphasis on how individuals come to create
procedures to avoid perceived chaos based on their own values is consistent with literature that
showed teacher adaptations based on either a lack of capacity to implement as planned, or a lack
of will to teach certain content. Collective sensemaking does the theoretical work in explaining
how cohorts may have effects on individual beliefs, while also explaining how there may be

35

more than one classroom culture in a school depending on the topic being taught. Both of these
suggest that there may be a connection between individual level beliefs, collective school
cultural norms, and classroom implementation.
Motivated Reasoning and Framing
Framing and motivated reasoning are two distinct theories in the field of political
psychology. Framing is the systematic way an actor organizes information and makes it
meaningful for their audience (Gitlin, 1980; Chong & Druckman, 2007; Schneider & Ingram,
1993). Motivated reasoning is defined by the belief that all reasoning is motivated for
individuals, as their attention to and processing of information is driven by particular motives or
goals (Taber & Lodge, 2006). These two theories have been used in concert in research
previously, as they both attempt to explain how information prior to action influences political
decision-making. In previous research, how an issue is framed is used as a possible explanation
for whether an individual is motivated by a desire for accuracy or to align with partisan identity
(Taber, Cann & Kucsova, 2009). Using these two theories in concert allows a more in-depth
understanding of how individuals receive and evaluate content information (motivated
reasoning), and how they are likely to organize that information into a digestible format for their
audience.
Motivated reasoning focuses on two broad categories of goals: accuracy goals and
directional goals. Accuracy goals are defined by an actor’s inclination to seek out and consider
all relevant information to reach a correct conclusion. Directional goals, in contrast, motivate
individuals to reason to defend a previously reached conclusion. The empirical literature
suggests that, when discussing political information, citizens pursue directional goals which

36

biases information processing. Politically motivated reasoning
2
is the process where, upon
encountering a political object, an individual “raises a perceptual screen through which the
individual tends to see what is favorable to his partisan orientation” (Campbell et al., 1960, p.
133). Taber and Lodge (2006) describe three biases in how politically motivated reasoning
affects individuals: confirmation bias, prior attitude effect, and disconfirmation bias. Teachers’
pursuit of directional goals when enacting content standards could in influence implementation
in several ways, which I delineate according to their corresponding bias below.
Confirmation bias is a well-studied phenomenon in social science (see Nickerson, 1998).
Here, confirmation bias is defined as the bias to seek out new information consistent with held
beliefs (Taber & Lodge, 2006). With teachers, this could manifest as the addition of curricular
materials that espouse similar epistemic beliefs or equivalent content. In addition, this could
affect how teachers frame questions. Rather than allowing for a diversity of opinions in the
classroom, teachers could call on students who have previously provided answers consistent with
their own held beliefs.
Prior attitude effect is the phenomenon where an individual evaluates the strength of
arguments that align with attitudes as stronger, and evidence that runs counter to these beliefs as
weaker (Taber & Lodge, 2006). While this could shape how a teacher grades student exams,
prior attitude effect is more likely to influence behavior in more subjective ways. For example,
teachers may describe their own beliefs and vigorously nod when a student outlines similar
causes to a historical event. This subtle encouragement would influence which students
participate, both by creating a chorus of students whose opinions are encouraged and by
silencing students that hold different beliefs.

2
Partisan motivated reasoning and politically motivated reasoning are equivalent terms in the field of political
psychology. I use the two terms interchangeably here.

37

Disconfirmation bias is defined as the tendency for partisans to spend more energy in
denigrating arguments that run counter to existing beliefs (Taber & Lodge, 2006). In the
classroom this could manifest as a teacher spending an inordinate amount of effort disagreeing
with students about how to evaluate the impact of the American civil rights movement.
Considering that social studies is a discipline based on constantly evolving knowledge, even
accuracy motivated reasoning regarding hotly contested areas of American history could depend
on what one previously understood as accurate, even if that prior view was incorrect. This bias
could manifest in disagreeing with students based on political beliefs, rather than students’
ability to meet the content and cognitive demands of the standards. Accuracy of what America’s
values are on a micro level, or the goal of social studies, could be influenced by partisanship
(Zipp and Fenwick, 2006). I argue that our social studies curriculum, especially the topics that
focus on (or could be linked to) hotly contested issues that still permeate American society, is a
political object that could trigger partisan motivated reasoning (i.e evolution, acceptable forms of
protest, sources of inequity, freedom of speech vs. tolerance).
Framing
Framing is an additional way that teachers’ beliefs may shape their implementation of
classroom content. Framing is the process where individual aspects of an issue are made more
salient than others when evaluating an issue. While research in framing mostly focuses on
conversations among equals, understanding frames is relevant because how an issue is framed
shapes how it will be received by students and, if activated by similar discussions, how other
issues will be evaluated. Individuals base their attitudes on considerations that are available,
accessible, and applicable or appropriate (Chong & Druckman, 2007; Higgins, 1996; Price &
Tewksbury, 1997). Individuals have to understand why political polarization has deleterious

38

effects on policy discussions when forming an attitude related to politically censored social
studies standards. Accessibility increases when an individual is constantly exposed to a frame
e.g. being exposed to non-racialized classes making students think that discussing race and
racism is outside of the purview of school (Delpit 2012, Howard, 2004; Lewis, 2001).
Applicability or appropriateness essentially defines the strength the frame will have on
influencing opinion e.g. the impact of protest on traffic (Chong & Druckman, 2007).
In some cases, the standards may provide frames that highlight what should be made
salient to students. As Anderson noted, U.S. history standards tend to teach a convergent
narrative of history, where progress on civil rights is continuous and linear. The three states
being examined all have introductions to the standards, where overarching goals are laid out.
Looking at California, students are expected “learn that the United States has served as a model
for other nations and that the rights and freedoms we enjoy are not accidents, but the results of a
defined set of political principles that are not always basic to citizens of other countries.” While
New York and Texas both mention the influences of industrialization, urbanization, and war,
Texas also asks students to look at efforts to expand the democratic process, in addition to
celebrating Freedom Week. Each state is framing U.S. history in its own way, guiding teachers to
salient issues, while teachers still have the autonomy to determine what these frames should look
like in practice.
Because the field of social studies is built on tentative knowledge, a teacher has agency to
make some aspects of history more salient than others, both in terms of topic and cognitive
demand. Looking at the two components of framing, availability and potency, teachers shape
what frames students see as available by shaping content knowledge, and could shape frame
potency by promoting one frame over another as legitimate. For example, the American Civil

39

Rights Movement could be evaluated based on several frames; the teacher gets to choose which
frames are made available to students in the classroom. While students may receive race
socialization messages outside of the classroom (Lesane-Brown, 2006), student expectations of
what counts as knowledge in class is mostly shaped by previous classes (Howard, 2004).
Teachers also get to choose the strength of each frame, especially for standards where students
are asked to evaluate multiple frames regarding complex issues.
Summary
Theories from political psychology are useful in understanding how individuals are
affected by larger level macro-influences. While there is a popular myth the school is exempt
from politics, that myth does not apply to teachers themselves, nor the material they are tasked
with teaching. Teachers are not exempt to the forces of political polarization and elite
communication, and could be expected to show the same biases others show when confronting
with contradictory political information. Teacher social-political attitudes could directly
influence implementation of content they find political, and indirectly influence implementation
via its relationship with their educational strategies and pedagogical goals.
Comparing Theories
The strengths in sensemaking as a theory is the agency it allows the individuals in
developing understanding. Rather than imposing theoretical mechanisms on an actors’ actions
and motivations, the individual is allowed to describe their own motivations and how they drove
them to action. An individual’s actions and alignment of implementation can be judged in
accordance with their own espoused beliefs. This allows an individual to describe what issues are
salient to implementation. For example, if an individual espouses that shaping student values is

40

an important goal, sensemaking interviews can focus on how day-to-day implementation of
standards is shaped by that guiding belief. In addition, collective sensemaking acknowledges the
nested nature of organizational culture. This nested-ness is suitable for understanding how social
studies teachers justify their beliefs, whether as teachers, social studies teachers, or otherwise.
Several researchers have found sensemaking lacking in a key area: organizational
sensemaking can ignore larger macro-factors that influence how policies are implemented (Mills,
Thurlow & Mills, 2010; Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2015; Weber & Glynn, 2006). Weber and Glynn
(2006) argued that the “role of larger social, historical or institutional contexts in explaining
cognition (2006, p. 1639)” is neglected. That being said, Weick and colleagues have
acknowledged that the causal arrow, if only focused within the institution, may minimize the
socialization of actors due to “broad cognitive, normative, and regulatory forces that derive from
and are enforced by powerful actors such as mass media, governmental agencies, professions,
and interest groups (2005, p. 417).” By incorporating partisan motivated framing alongside
sensemaking, I hope to highlight the influence that these broad forces and powerful actors have
on teachers’ implementation of content.
Motivated reasoning is particularly useful in understanding how beliefs moderate the
processing of information. In concert with framing, the theories explain why some arguments are
capable of changing beliefs, when other more objectively robust lines of argument might not.
Motivated reasoning, as a theory, though, could be creating as many questions as it creates
answers. Leeper and Slothuus (2014) note that calling something partisan motivated reasoning
then raises the question of why an item activated an individual’s partisan identity. As discussed
earlier, teachers hold political identities in addition to their identities as teachers; little is known

41

about the interaction between beliefs in shaping implementation that could intersect with both
identities.
Conclusion
The empirical research suggests that teachers will inevitably make adaptations to the
curriculum. What is less understood are the factors that drive adaptations to implementation, and
whether teachers’ motivations are accuracy or directionally based. All of the three theories imply
that teachers’ decision-making in regards to how they translate the written standards to enacted
curriculum is influenced by factors beyond the classroom. While all of these frames were
influential in designing this study, partisan motivated reasoning and sensemaking will be the
primary lenses that I will be using to analyze patterns, trends, and themes. I expect that teachers
will be driven by accuracy goals when delivering content that is only tangentially political; their
practices will primarily be shaped by their role as a history teacher. I expect alignment to be
more important than a sense of influencing student values. However, I expect partisan motivated
reasoning to influence partisan teachers to enact standards with political relevance in alignment
with their own partisan directional goals.

CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODS

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Teachers can let some deeply held beliefs can influence their implementation of standards
(Bonner et al., 2018; Brickhouse, 1990; Stipek et al., 2001; Van Driel et al., 2007). Researchers
and policy analysts have also suggested various other observable factors that influence fidelity of
implementation, such as years in the classroom, number of content courses taken, and the
amount of professional development available (McNeill et al., 2016; Polikoff, 2013; Stein et al.,
2008). The literature focused on implementation and alignment has suggested that teachers use
their pedagogical beliefs and attitudes (e.g., the belief that understanding science starts with
knowing formulas) when determining what and how to teach. This could be a product of beliefs
being influenced by individual educational experiences (e.g. understanding the nature of science
at a more complex level because of a master’s degree in physics). However, some research
suggests that teachers allow their political-social beliefs, such as their beliefs about evolution
versus intelligent design, to affect the content that students are given the opportunity to learn,
either by skipping that material entirely (Brickhouse, 1990) or by decreasing instructional time
dedicated to evolution (Donnelly & Boone, 2007). As another troubling example, White teachers
often either mute conversations about race (Howard, 2004) or espouse troubling beliefs as
evidence-based facts (Thornhill, 2016).
Despite the evidence that teachers are likely to make changes to the curriculum during
implementation (Datnow & Castellano, 2000; Kim et al., 2017), little is known about the factors
that shape the type of changes that are made. Teachers make changes for a variety of reasons,
including to increase student understanding, as a result of their attitudes towards the standards, or
due to a misunderstanding of reforms meant to change implementation (Cross, 2009; Donnelly &
Boone, 2007; Spillane, 2009). Because of the prevailing notion that teachers should be given
some degree of autonomy in determining what and how they teach (Porter, 1992; Torres, 2014;

43

Yerrick & Arnason, 1998) little research has been dedicated to investigating the factors that
affect teachers’ implementation of standards on a day-to-day level. What is known about
teachers, and about how decision-making is affected by partisanship in other fields, indicates that
more attention should be paid to what and how the next generation is being taught about our
history, our government, and our society. Again, the questions guiding my research are as
follows:
1. How do teachers describe the relevance of contemporary politics in their U.S. history
classroom?
2. How do teachers describe the political leanings of the standards in their state?
3. To what extent do teachers political/social/racial attitudes factor into their
implementation of the standards and their overall philosophy of teaching?
Qualitative methods are oriented towards understanding processes, and the actors that influence
various stages of said processes. Qualitative methods allow for a nuanced focus on how
individuals make meaning. Looking at the field of education policy, individuals tend to interpret
problems and determine solutions based on the function they are expected to fill in their role
(Spillane, 2009; Weatherley & Lipsky, 1977). The research on how teachers see their roles is
limited, and almost non-existent in social studies. In recent years, education has moved from an
area of relative bipartisan agreement about its importance to one that is hotly contested and often
politicized. This is especially relevant in history, as politicians lobby for curricular changes in
line with their own parties’ political stances (Goldstein, 2019; Strauss, 2018). Thus, qualitative
methods are suitable for understanding how teachers implement curricula that is either in
agreement or in contrast to what history they see as vital for their students to understanding.
Also, these methods provide a lens to examine how teachers’ own choices are influenced by
larger sociopolitical contexts and their own sociopolitical attitudes.

44

There are various reasons as to why qualitative methods are preferable in this line of
research. Because of the depth that qualitative data allows, this study served as an exploratory
way to gain insight on history teachers, a historically understudied group. There is a lack of
information on what students are being taught explicitly in their history classrooms; the recent
news stories about teachers posing with a noose (Bridgeforth & Harper, 2019) or a principal
using racial slurs in staff meetings and with students (Londberg & Biery-Golick, 2018) suggest
that the implicit lessons students are receiving about race are regressive and rooted in racism.
Methodological Approach: Grounded Theory
Traditional usage of grounded theory suggests that researchers minimize their
assumptions about pre-existing categories (Glaser & Strauss, 1967); this tabula rasa approach to
the collection and analysis of data serves the purpose of reducing researcher bias and allowing
the data to speak for itself (Bryant & Charmaz, 2007). However, recently, there have been
several critiques of this strict way of thinking (Denzin, 2007). First, allowing the data to speak
for itself allows the participants to speak for themselves, while not acknowledging the subtle
undertones that may go unnoticed if prior understandings are not providing context to incoming
data. This is especially salient when dealing with issues of politics and race, as Americans tend
to skirt both issues, and use coded language when they are uncomfortable with a topic (Gordon,
2005; Solomona, et al., 2005). While the study focused on how the teachers make sense of their
own beliefs and how those relate to classroom practices, descriptions of such would be
incomplete without either moving past the veneers of coded language or acknowledging the
similarities between what teachers say in this study and what previous researchers have also
discovered.

45

Rather than using Glaser and Strauss’s original conception of grounded theory, this study
employed Charmaz’s constructivist approach. Charmaz’s approach highlights the importance of
meaning-making, while emphasizing that multiple perspectives are involved in the process of
said meaning-making. In addition, Charmaz’s approach asks the researcher to acknowledge their
own role throughout the process of gathering and interpreting of data. Rather than attempting to
be a blank slate as data comes in, the more recent approaches to grounded theory suggest
theoretical agnosticism, where the researcher acknowledges their biases and preconceived
notions throughout the research process. Throughout the data gathering and analyses processes, I
took memos that highlighted where the findings were in alignment with my preconceived notions
and experiences. In addition, I allowed teachers, if they asked and had the time, to read their
transcripts to ensure that their experiences do not come across as a reflection of my own biases.
Sampling, State/District Choices, and Recruitment
States vary widely in their political diversity (Wasserman, 2017), state involvement in
curricula (Gewertz, 2014; Gewertz, 2015, and their demographic makeups (U.S. Census Bureau,
2016). The overarching goal of the project is twofold: first, to gain a greater understanding of
how teachers’ political and racial beliefs influence their instruction via the standards, and second;
how teachers’ beliefs about contemporary politics and state policy influence their instruction.
The goal with the sample was to have three states that are geographically diverse, with multiple
large districts with varying levels of partisanship, with robust content standards. This first
required choosing states with political diversity and robust state standards, then choosing
districts with different political demographics, and then choosing a diverse sample of teachers to
interview within these districts.

46

The first step is choosing states within which to identify teachers. States were organized
into political categories, using the Cook Partisan Voting Index (CPVI). The CPVI ranks states on
the strength of their partisanship, and this list was consulted to sort states into categories. States
were grouped into categories of conservative, liberal, and middle of the road (±1 on the CPVI).
States that voted entirely Democratic or Republican were excluded, as they would be less likely
to have differing political contexts. In addition, states that had congressional districts that went
to the minority party were preferred.
Because the role of governance and the standards is also important to this project, states
in each category were then ranked by the comprehensiveness of their social studies standards.
States without standards were automatically excluded, as were states where the U.S. history
standards were not specifically tied to historical content (e.g. Wyoming SS.12.4.4: Describe the
historical interactions between and among individuals, groups, and/or institutions (e.g. family,
neighborhood, political, economic, religious, social, cultural and workplace) and their impact on
significant historical events.) Ultimately, California was chosen as the liberal state, Texas as the
conservative state, and New York as the middle-of-the-road state.
District Choices
The states chosen are divided into Congressional districts. The CPVI also rates these
districts by their partisanship. These congressional districts are proxies for the local political
climate that teachers are providing instruction in. For example, California and Texas are known
as quintessential Democratic and Republican states. However, there are districts in California
(CA 1
st
, CA 18
th
and CA 50
th
) that consistently vote Republican and districts of Texas that
consistently vote Democratic (TX 9
th
, TX 18
th
, TX 30
th
). In order to ensure that I captured the
varying political climates present in each state, I grouped the districts into categories of

47

conservative, liberal, and middle of the road (as was done with states). Next, I noted when
multiple Congressional districts were assigned to one metropolitan area. While studying multiple
congressional districts in one city has merit, that approach may reach theoretical saturation
without capturing the diversity of political opinions clearly present in the state. In California,
there were far fewer candidates for conservative districts than liberal ones. Similarly, in Texas,
there are far fewer liberal congressional districts. For evenly split districts, there are only 21
congressional districts in the country with a CPVI ≤ ±1, seven of which are located within the
three states being sampled.
Districts were categorized as being either heavily Democratic, heavily Republican, or
somewhere in the middle. That said, the degree of partisanship at the district level varied by
state. The range in California was D+40 to R+12, which makes sense. California’s conservative
areas still have a significant amount of liberal voters. The recruiting resulted in teachers from a
range of D+38 to R+8. Texas’s overall range is D+29 to R+33, with the teachers interviewed in
districts ranging from D+26 to R+33, a similar range. Lastly, New York has an overall range of
D+40 to R+12, with the range of teachers being exactly the same.
Recruitment
In order to find potential participants, I combed through the geographic borders of each
congressional district that would meet a qualification for said category. Next, I went onto the
school district website and, if listed, emailed the high school U.S. History teacher (or teachers).
Upon gaining IRB approval for the study, I reached out to teachers on the list, three at a time,
asking if they would be interested in participating in a study about U.S. History teachers’ beliefs
and classroom practices (see Appendix B). Next, interested teachers were sorted based on their
congressional partisan voting index until there were three teachers in each kind of district until

48

there was a pool of 27 teachers who agreed to be interviewed. Social studies teachers are far
more male-dominated than other subjects, but are more in line with other subjects in their racial
background (Geiger, 2018; Hansen, Levesque, Valant & Quintero, 2018). Teachers that are
underrepresented in the subject (non-white, and/or female) were targeted during these
recruitment emails to ensure a diverse sample. Teachers expressing interest were asked if they
have any comments, concerns, or questions about their participation. Teachers will then be sent a
packet including a description of the study, its procedures, along with assurance of participant
confidentiality. Interviews will then be scheduled until there are at least three participants per
congressional district and a satisfactory level of theoretical saturation has been reached.
Data Collection
Collective Case Study
Collective case study is defined as a case study, spread over multiple sites (Stake, 2005).
Case studies are defined as “an instance of a class of events [where] the term class of events
refers to a phenomenon of scientific interest...that the investigator chooses to study with the aim
of developing theory regarding causes of similarities or differences among instances (cases) of
that class of events (George & Bennett, 2005, p. 18). Each state acted as an instrumental case
study; instrumental case studies are particular cases which may be used to gain a greater
appreciation of the phenomenon being studied. Together, these cases provide insight about the
topic being studied even across various settings. Collective case study is a popular
methodological choice among the qualitative researchers examining beliefs (Allen & Penuel,
2015; Cross, 2009), as the method attempts to use multiple sites to understand the various ways a
phenomenon can occur. Collective case study is useful for several reasons: first, the large-scale
forces commonly ignored by organizational theory take on different forms in different contexts.

49

For example, Texas and Alabama, two conservative states, may take differing approaches to
glorifying the Confederate States of America. In addition, this study had multiple sites within a
state, as each congressional district is its own site, which allowed for insight on how the
collective sensemaking of those in varying social and political climates affects implementation of
shared content standards.
Semi-Structured Interviews
The data collection consisted of 27 interviews of U.S. History teachers located in the
aforementioned three states. These interviews were designed to elicit teachers’ beliefs and to
gain insight into how they see the phenomena being studied (Creswell, 2014). These interviews
were conducted by phone call, allowing for flexibility in scheduling, while hiding my racial
background to reduce social desirability bias. This study focused on teachers’ biases, their own
politics, and their own ideas in relation to those in their district or school building. Because I
asked teachers to both reflect on their own role in the phenomena being studied and to give a
more objective opinion about the state’s role in politics, it was important that teachers felt
confident that they could talk candidly about their experience without being judged. I made sure
to be gracious to participants giving their time while scheduling the interviews, in addition to
beginning each interview with unscripted conversation about the experience in the classroom,
and playing up my classroom experience if they asked me why I was researching this topic,
before beginning the interview protocol.
The interview protocol (Appendix B) is guided by the three research questions, all of
which center around how the teacher views relevance of politics and beliefs in the U.S. history
classroom. The first question is designed to understand to what extent the teacher sees their own
beliefs or the political climate of the time as being pertinent to their own instruction. The

50

relevant items in the interview protocol should allow the teacher to feel comfortable discussing
items related to RQ2 and RQ3, which are more tied to the teacher’s identity and beliefs.
Questions generated for the interview are based on the literature in Chapter 2, with some items
being adapted from other studies that looked at teachers’ beliefs and their impact on
implementation. Teachers were asked about their intersectional identities, their political beliefs,
their state’s U.S. History standards, and any student initiated political/racial/social conversations
that the teacher engaged with. Follow up questions were asked about the beliefs that influence
decision-making, with particular attention paid to when espoused sociopolitical and racial beliefs
are brought up. This interview protocol was revised throughout the data collection process
(Charmaz, 2011), with each change being noted and justified in memos as themes emerge. While
the length of these semi-structured interviews may vary, they were designed to last between 45-
60 minutes. These interviews were recorded via a digital call recording software, and
immediately transcribed for analysis.
Vignettes
As mentioned earlier, these interviews touched on topics that are designed to understand
the factors that influence teachers’ classroom practices. These interviews also focused on beliefs
that individuals are sometimes uncomfortable elucidating, especially in situations where their
attitudes may not be seen as socially acceptable. For example, teachers that favor a lecture-based
style may not comfortably explain their beliefs in a school district where the vast majority of
teachers are trying to move away from using lecture on a day-to-day basis. Regarding political
beliefs, conservative teachers may be afraid to espouse their political beliefs in an area where
conservatives are mocked for being racist, homophobic, or otherwise bigoted (Buchanan, 2015;

51

Haviland, 2008). Teachers are not immune to these fears, and measures need to be taken to
ensure that the data gathered is not incomplete or biased due to these concerns.
Vignettes are a qualitative research tool designed to ameliorate these worries. Vignettes
are “short stories about hypothetical characters, to whose situation the interviewee is invited to
respond (Finch, 1987: 105).” In general, vignettes are used with three main purposes in mind:
▪ interpretation of actions and occurrences that allows situational context to
be explored and influential variables to be elucidated.
▪ clarification of individual judgements, often in relation to moral dilemmas.
▪ discussion of sensitive experiences in comparison with the ‘normality’ of
the vignette.
For this research, the design of the vignettes is mainly aimed at the first and third usages, though
some teachers may see the conflict between the standards and their own beliefs as a moral
dilemma. To give an example of how the usage of a vignette may play out, a teacher may
voluntarily give an example on how they would handle a similar situation, allowing me to obtain
data closer to their enacted curriculum, rather than their espoused beliefs. I intentionally looked
for the three biases (confirmation, disconfirmation, and prior attitude) when probing how
participants make judgments of the situations presented in each vignette. Previous research
suggests U.S. history teachers can convey a substantially different narrative of their curriculum
in theory than they enact in practice (Almarza & Fehn, 1998; James, 2008; Maggioni &
Parkinson, 2008).

52

Data Analysis Procedures
Grounded Theory/Open Coding
Grounded theory suggests that data collection and analysis should occur simultaneously,
allowing flexibility in the theory that will eventually be developed. Grounded theory “learning
how, when, and to what extent the studied experience is embedded in larger and, often, hidden
positions, networks, situations, and relationships” (Charmaz, 2006, p. 131). Rather than
approaching data analysis with a set understanding of how codes will be developed, grounded
theory begins with a process known as open coding. Open coding is similar to taking a fine-
toothed comb to the collected data, noting reoccurring words in phrases both within and between
participants. For example, teachers noting the importance of remaining “unbiased” or “impartial”
regarding the results of the 2016 election (Dunn, Sondel and Baggett, 2019) would be an open
code that would eventually become a more general category e.g. the appearance of political
neutrality. In all phases of the data collection (interviews, vignettes, and surveys), open coding
was used in an attempt to piece together emergent concepts. Before moving onto the next phase
of coding, these concepts are formed into categories, which were linked by their dynamic
relationships to one another.
Memos/Axial Coding
Analytic memos are a useful tool when utilizing grounded theory. Memos are a reflective
tool meant to help refine the codes and categories being constructed, as well as the relationships
between said categories. Using the example from earlier about teachers wanting to remain
impartial, an analytic memo might describe how teachers appeared being seen as pushing an
agenda if they did not remain impartial. The continued use of memos throughout the data

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gathering process allowed me to refine the definitions and concepts that would eventually turn
into working theory of how beliefs influence implementation, in addition to generating a class
typology of teachers.
Axial codes are used to formalize the relationships and patterns that the analytic memos
serve to highlight. The goal of these codes is to understand the context and conditions that
generate the phenomenon being studied. Causal conditions are people, places, and events that
generate the phenomenon (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). For this study, causal conditions include,
but are not limited to, the written text of the U.S. History standards in a given state, discussing
contemporary politics in the classroom (Dunn et al., 2019), or the 2016 Presidential election
(Tugend, 2018). Intervening conditions are those that “mitigate or otherwise impact causal
conditions on phenomena (Strauss & Corbin, 1998, p. 131).” An example of an intervening
condition that may present itself during this study is if school leadership change, with a
corresponding shift in attitudes towards political discussion in classrooms. Lastly, consequences
refer to the outcomes of the phenomena being studied, which are the different ways that teachers’
beliefs manifest themselves in different classrooms and political contexts.
Selective Coding/Turning Categories into Theory
There are four distinct, but related processes occurring during axial coding: turning
subcategories into categories; comparing categories with additional data being collected;
detailing the properties and borders of each category; exploring variations in how the
phenomenon occurs. The final stage of data analysis is selective coding, which is built off of the
open and axial coding done in previous stages. Selective coding is “the process of selecting the
central or core category, systematically relating it to other categories, validating those
relationships, and filling in categories that need further refinement and development (Strauss &

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Corbin, 1998, p. 116).” This core category should be the driving mechanism behind the
phenomena, with analytic power to explain relationships between other categories and help
explain variations in the data. This process is complete when theoretical saturation has been
reached, and new data collection yields no new concepts and the information gleaned fits neatly
into the proposed theory.
Trustworthiness
Trustworthiness is the conceptual soundness determining the value of the research being
conducted (Marshall & Rossman, 1995). Trustworthiness, while not being a perfect analog,
corresponds to the quantitative concepts of validity and reliability. Lincoln and Guba break down
trustworthiness into the four constructs of credibility, transferability, dependability, and
confirmability. In what follows, I will define the four constructs and discuss how my study
attempts to achieve satisfactory levels of each.
Credibility is defined by how accurately the data collected reflects the multiple ways the
phenomenon can present itself. Credibility is increased with member checking where the
teachers’ being interviewed would both have access to the transcripts for their interview. In
addition, teachers would also be asked about their opinion on the emerging concepts and the
completed grounded theory. Transferability is defined by how applicable the findings from one
study would be in another setting. While the goal of qualitative research is not generalizability,
one of the goals of this study is to inspire similar studies to examine the beliefs of teachers. Thus,
future researchers should be able to understand the population I am studying, and both reproduce
the study and find similar results, or apply said theory (with modifications) to a slightly different
population (e.g. science teachers).

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Dependability is defined by the stability of the findings over time. In this study, this was
measured by the results and recommendations are clearly grounded in the data and thus would
also be approved by the participants that generated the data. Confirmability is defined by the
repeatability of the study, in order to ensure that the findings are not based on the researchers
own biases. Dependability and confirmability are increased by transparently describing the
research process, both during the planning process and once data collection and analysis are
underway. This is known as an audit trail, which would allow other researchers to closely mirror
the research process as it unfolded rather than as the intended version not grounded in the data.
Limitations
Sample Size/Generalizability
There are several limitations of the designed study, which I will address now. First, as
with all qualitative methods studies, the sample size is finite, and much smaller than the
quantitative methods studies examining similar attitudes and beliefs. Limiting my sample to 27
teachers in 3 states means that the findings will not be generalizable across the entire United
States, nor will they even be generalizable in the states where the teachers are being located.
However, generalizability is not the main goal of qualitative study; generalizability is the known
trade-off in exchange for richer data and, in theory, a richer understanding of the forces that
shape the outcomes that are more tangibly measured by quantitative studies. In addition, the lack
of available data on social studies teachers’ racial beliefs, combined with a general dearth of
studies that examine several domains of teacher beliefs at once, suggest that any rigorously done
study will add to the landscape of literature. The current study, while limited in sample size,
addresses both of these gaps in the literature.

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Social Desirability Bias
There are two types of bias that were especially relevant for this study, both of which
could fall under the category of social desirability bias. Social desirability bias is defined as the
tendency for respondents to answer questions in a way that will be viewed favorably by others,
both by over-reporting positively viewed behaviors and under-reporting negative ones. First,
teachers may describe their teaching methods in alignment with what they expect other teachers
in the district to say or may speak in phrases that they expect will be beneficial for me as a
researcher. In addition, individuals tend to be hesitant when describing their political beliefs
(Eliasoph, 1998; Scheufele, 2000), and especially so when describing their racial beliefs (Lewis,
2018; Stoll, 2014). In order to reduce the first kind of bias, the interviews had vignettes designed
to allow them to indirectly describe their attitudes and practices with reduced fear of judgment
(Finch, 1987; Hughes & Huby, 2002). While the second type of bias cannot be completely
eliminated, especially in a study where racial and political beliefs play a significant role,
measures were taken to reduce its effect.
Lack of Classroom Access
Another limitation for this study is the lack of classroom access. Multiple studies have
suggested that there is not a clear and consistent relationship between teachers’ espoused
pedagogical beliefs and their own pedagogical practices in the classroom. Teachers’ espoused
beliefs may represent an idealized version of how they would like to teach, but very rarely do.
Whether this is due to the pressure of time constraints (Maggioni & Parkinson, 2005),
organizational pressures regarding style of instruction (Cheung & Wong, 2002; Diamond, 2007),
or other factors, teachers tend to be pragmatic in their approach to day-to-day practices. There is
less literature on the correlation between teachers’ political beliefs and their classroom practices,

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but the 2016 Presidential election marked an uptick in such research. These articles suggest a
trend of teachers using their platforms to influence their students’ political beliefs (Dunn et al.,
2019), notions of American values (Sondel, Baggett, & Dunn, 2018), and their understandings of
interpersonal and structural racism (Wills, 2019).
Role of Researcher
Positionality is defined as the relation between the identity and belief systems of the
researcher and the participants or subject matter (Madison, 2012). Because I interacted with
participants, my identity, life experiences, and outward appearance could have influenced data
collection and participant responses (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995). After noting the multiple
ways that bias could have affected the data obtained from this study, I would be remiss if I did
not mention my own biases. As a quantitative leaning mixed-methods researcher, I believe that
almost everything can be translated into data, as long as the instruments used to measure the
variables and translate qualitative findings into quantitative data are accurate and reliable. As our
data collection instruments have become more fine-tuned and diverse, researchers have been able
to capture connections that previously were unseen by quantitative and qualitative researchers
(latent class and latent profile analyses are relevant examples).
My focus on social studies is purposeful. Empirical literature has shown that social
studies, alongside science, can influence how students come to understand the racialized nature
of the world, sometimes negatively (Brown & Brown, 2006; Donovan, 2014). As a cis-gendered
queer Black man with classroom experience as a U.S. history teacher, I occupy a somewhat
distinct position in relation to the teachers I would be interviewing. My beliefs previously shaped
how I designed curriculum, focusing on marginalized groups and diverse accounts of history. In
addition, I went out of my way to undermine material that, either purposefully or accidentally,

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those that uphold white supremacist and male-dominated narratives of history. Teachers that see
my educator identity first may be more open and honest about how their beliefs affecting
instruction, thinking that I understand the process. I see myself as a Black male first, and a
teacher second. In this study, I hoped to use my position as someone that understands the fluid
nature of everyday instruction to glean honesty about how one’s own background can shape
aspects of lesson planning and politically motivated classroom discussions.

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CHAPTER FOUR: PARTICIPANT PROFILES
In this chapter, I provide profiles of each teacher that participated in the study. The
purpose of these profiles to give insight into the contexts, identities, backgrounds, in addition to
the individual teaching influences and aspirations that are tantamount to understanding the
study’s key findings. The participants come from various ethnic backgrounds, had different paths
to teaching history, and ranged from relatively novice to veterans about to retire from the
profession. In addition to said profiles, I have constructed a reference table for participants, with
their names, years of experience, their self-described political beliefs, their school district type,
and the Partisan Voting Index of their district, which gives a sense of the political atmosphere in
their community.
Participants
Table 1
Name Race Sex State District District
Type
PVI Politics Years
Sam Hispanic W CA CA-28 Urban D+23 Progressive 4
Riley White M CA CA-12 Urban D+38 Left-Wing 9
Kyle White M CA CA-05 Suburban D+22 Socialist 24
Brad White M CA CA-04 Rural R+8 Democratic Socialist 24
Wendy White W CA CA-21 Rural D+5 Conservative w/ Liberal
Views
13
Dana White W CA CA-41 Suburban D+12 Moderate Democrat 22
Brenda White W CA CA-04 Suburban R+8 Moderate 7
Clark White M CA CA-04 Suburban R+8 Democrat w/
Conservative Leanings
31
Betty Black W CA CA-35 Suburban D+17 Lincoln Republican 20
Rose White W NY NY-13 Urban D+40 Independent Moderate 25
Susan White W NY NY-13 Urban D+40 Fisacally Conservative
Democrat
22
Maurice White M NY NY-22 Rural R+9 Democratic Socialist 20
Wyatt White M NY NY-02/NY-
04
Suburban R+5/D+4 Fiscal
Conservative/Social
23

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Liberal
Brook White W NY NY-02/NY-
04
Suburban R+5/D+4 Independent Moderate 18
Misty Black W NY NY-03 Suburban D+3 Liberal 27
Don White M NY NY-24 Urban D+2 Progressive Democrat 7
Chris White M NY NY-25/NY-
27
Rural D+8/R+12 Fiscally Conservative
Liberal
25
Stephanie White W NY NY-17/NY-
18
Suburban D+9/R+1 Slightly Left of Moderate 31
Brittany White W TX TX-11 Rural R+32 Moderately Conservative 27
Sylvia White W TX TX-21/TX-
25
Rural R+5/R+8 Small Government
Conservative
14
Grant White M TX TX-12 Rural R+15 Progressive Democrat 7
Steve White M TX TX-35 Urban D+17 Democratic Socialist 13
Jessica White W TX TX-10/TX-
17/TX-31
Urban R+5/R+9/R+6 Moderate Liberal 14
Sylvester White M TX TX-02/TX-
18
Suburban R+4/D+26 Fairly Liberal 5
Alice White W TX TX-23 Suburban R+1 Liberal 11
Oliver Hispanic M TX TX-21 Rural R+5 Moderate 2
Ben White M TX TX-23/TX-
28
Urban R+1/D+5 Left Leaning Moderate 18

California
Betty: Betty is a teacher in a suburb of a medium-sized city in southern California. She
has been teaching for twenty years, and began teaching by accident, having studied film in
college. Then, Betty enjoyed it so much that it became a career. Having spent three years on a
committee focused on implementation of the 2016 California frameworks, those frameworks and
pacing guides drive her instruction. She feels passionate about history being multicultural and
not Eurocentric, attributing some of that passion to her being a person of color. Betty is of mixed
race and says “sometimes I’m a little more Black, sometimes I’m a little more White.” She
describes herself as a Lincoln Republican, noting that democracy has its flaws.

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Brad: Brad is a White man who has been teaching for 24 years, in a rural part of northern
California. He studied educational psychology in college and entered teaching for two reasons:
first, he wanted to make the world a better place; second, he felt “cheated” by the history he was
taught in high school and wanted to teach history in context and help students feel agentic about
their own political agency. He does not believe state standards can be politically neutral and so
does not focus on getting students to know every standard, but instead on building their political
and historical curiosity. He describes himself as a democratic socialist and tries to help his
students see the difference in how political bias is perceived when it agrees with consensus, like
that the United States is democratic, or when it does not conform with consensus, like saying the
U.S. is not that democratic.
Brenda: Brenda is a White woman who has been teaching for 7 years in a rural area in
northern California. From a young age, Brenda was fascinated with history, and her excitement
for history classes was dulled by the mismatch between the history she read about and the history
taught to her in classrooms. Specifically, “she hardly saw any women in history” and thus
focuses on inclusivity and a social justice lens when designing her lessons. She believes that the
goal of the standards should be to teach an accurate history that is close to neutral as possible,
while recognizing that every source has some bias. Politically, she identifies as a moderate.
Clark: Clark is a White man who has been teaching for 31 years, in the same rural district
in northern California that Brenda teaches in. His original career path was law enforcement, and
became a teacher after his wife suggested a career change. With experience, Clark has leaned on
the standards less and uses thematic lenses to pass his love of history onto students. Clark
describes himself as a Democrat with conservative leanings.

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Dana: Dana is a White woman who has been a teacher for 22 years, fourteen at the high
school level. She teaches in a suburb of a medium sized city in southern California. Originally,
she planned to pursue a doctoral degree in history, but stopped after her master’s to begin
teaching. As a more senior teacher, she is given more autonomy in delivering instruction, and
uses that autonomy to try to make “content relevant to students and more relevant to real life.”
She feels like it’s not her job to make a judgment call on sociopolitical issues, but to explained
what happened, why people believe what they do, and how that led to today’s society. She
identifies as a moderate Democrat.
Kyle: Kyle is a White man who teaches in the suburbs of the Bay Area in California. He
has been teaching for 24 years. He began teaching to provide a source of income for his mother,
who had become unable to work for a short period of time. When he began teaching, he noticed
that there was a relative lack of emphasis on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
and wanted to spend more time there highlighting the struggles for social justice that took place
during that time. He describes bias influencing the history classroom as “inevitable” and he
checks himself “constantly to make sure he’s not presenting one perspective.” He describes
himself as a socialist.
Riley: Riley is a white man who teaches in a large city in the Bay Area of California. He
has been teaching for nine years, with three of those teaching U.S. History. He began teaching
because he wanted to do something that he felt was “vital and important.” He “wanted to work
with young people and have more of a profession.” He describes his style of teaching as
thematic, using the metaphor of skipping a rock across time to the present day. Riley feels like
every teacher, even if trying to be neutral, is influenced by their sociopolitical beliefs, whether
through their delivery style of the content itself. He describes himself as left-wing.

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Sam: Sam is a Hispanic woman who teaches in a large city in southern California. She
has been teaching for four years, with the 2020-2021 school year being her second teaching U.S.
History. Sam has “always wanted to be a teacher” and went from a teaching degree program to
working with teenagers until she became a classroom teacher. Sam believes that Common Core
allows teachers to choose what is most important as long as students are learning skillsets, while
acknowledging that it takes professionalism to avoid those biases unduly influencing students.
She describes herself as progressive.
Wendy: Wendy is a White woman who teaches in a rural part of central California. She
has been teaching for thirteen years. Wendy describes herself as having always “felt the calling”
to be a teacher. History, though, was a later decision, but she had enjoyed the study of history
since high school. Though she is aware that other teachers allow their biases into the classroom,
she does her best to remain neutral. Her philosophy is that she keeps her political beliefs to
herself and she will let her students know her political party when said students graduate. She
identifies as a conservative with some liberal views.
New York
Brook: Brook is a White woman who has been teaching for 18 years. She teaches on
Long Island, where there is a mix of cosmopolitan liberalism and suburban
moderate/conservative beliefs. She worked as an educational trainer in a corporate setting, where
she became fascinated with educating the staff at the company until decided to become a
classroom teacher. She feels like the state exam dictates what students should learn and that
teachers should accept that, so she uses a Prentice Hall text that aligns well with the standards
and summarizes each unit. Brook “tries to give them a moderate view so they get to choose what

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perspective they feel most comfortable with.” Brook herself identifies as an independent
moderate.
Chris: Chris is a white man who has been teaching in rural upstate New York for 25
years. He always knew he wanted to be a teacher, and loved history and in college he decided to
pursue both in one career. His experience guides his pacing, but he has used the recently released
New York State frameworks as “his Bible” and works to stay aligned with those. He felt that it is
“very obvious that the persons that wrote the frameworks are left-leaning” and feels like teaching
in a district that is nearly ninety percent White presents a unique challenge in how to get poor
White students to get our of their lens to understand the brutality of slavery. He describes himself
as a fiscally conservative liberal.
Don: Don is a White man teaching history in a medium sized city in upstate New York.
He previously taught in a more rural district, but political misalignments with colleagues drove
him back to his current district. He’s been teaching for seven years. Don was originally drawn to
history, having been fascinated all throughout his life and studying it in college. He got the idea
from his teachers that history plays a huge role in social reform and progress, saying that
“transformation takes place on a very small local level.” David feels like the purpose of
schooling is to “empower people to change their lives so you can’t be neutral on things.” He
identifies as a progressive Democrat.
Maurice: Maurice is a White man who is a teacher in a rural area of upstate New York.
He has been teaching for twenty years. His dad taught for over thirty years and his mother is a
teacher so he describes teaching as “kind of in his blood,” with teaching being the only real
profession he considered. Maurice takes a thematic approach to teaching history, where he wants
students to be invested in him and the story he’s telling rather than the memorization of facts. He

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feels there is “no doubt” that political beliefs influence teaching, as it’s human nature. He
identifies as a democratic socialist.
Misty: Misty is a Black woman who teaches in the suburbs of a large city in New York.
She has been teaching for 27 years. One of her history teachers encouraged her to become a
teacher, and after some hesitance, she realized that she had a natural gift for explaining difficult
concepts. She quickly fell in love with the students and the interactions and enjoys asking
students challenging questions to sharpen their critical thinking skills. She describes her
department as overwhelmingly White and male, and prefers to tackle political conversations
head on, giving her opinion and backing it with evidence. She identifies as a liberal, feeling like
what makes her liberal is her willingness to listen to the other side and find common ground.
Rose: Rose is a White woman who teaches in a large city in New York. She has been
teaching for 25 years. Rose has always felt a passion for history, and when she started a family,
she wanted to have a schedule that aligned with her son’s vacations, leading her to teaching.
Having taught for such a long time, she describes lesson planning as tweaking things she knows
are successful rather than starting from scratch. She acknowledges that no one comes into the
class without sociopolitical bias, but feels that the amount to which that affects classroom
practices depends on the individual and their pedagogical beliefs. She describes herself as an
independent moderate.
Stephanie: Stephanie is a White woman who teaches in a suburban area of a medium
sized city in New York. She has been teaching for 31 years, with the last 21 years exclusively
being U.S. History. While she had negative views on teaching when she was younger, her
mother felt passionately about the field and encouraged Stephanie to try it. Stephanie then fell in
love with it, especially the more mature interactions teaching high school in comparison to the

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lower grades. She describes her teaching style in her U.S. history courses as a watered down
version of the Advanced Placement U.S. History class, with subject teachers collaborating often.
She feels it’s “unprofessional” to share her political opinion in the classroom, so she “does a lot
of devil’s advocate and checking her opinion at the door.” She describes herself as slightly left of
moderate.
Susan: Susan is a White woman who teaches in a large city in New York. She has been
teaching for 22 years. Her career began as an actor but wanted a stable job with health insurance.
She caters her teaching to the needs of the students, which change each period. As her career
progressed, she found a “rhythm” and relied less on the state standards to design instruction. Her
classroom focuses on primary sources and debate, as she feels that is the best way to encourage
deep reading comprehension. She feels like it’s “human nature” for political beliefs to influence
teaching and so her approach is to present both sides, which aligns with her own self-perception
as a centrist. She describes herself as a fiscally conservative democrat.
Wyatt: Wyatt is a White man who teaches in a suburban area of southern New York. He
has been teaching for 23 years and teaches in the same district as Brook. In addition to teaching,
he acts in a supervisory role towards other social studies teachers in his district. In college, he
was a sports coach and he enjoyed the process of mentoring enough to consider teaching. One of
his passions is keeping in touch with his past students and hearing how they have turned out. He
teaches history in a way that he describes as “objective” and tries to give students both sides
without giving his own opinion. He describes himself as a fiscal conservative and social liberal.
Texas
Alice: Alice is a white woman teaching in a mostly Hispanic suburban district located
near a large city in Texas. She has been teaching for 11 years, and many of her family members

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chose the teaching profession, inspiring her to do the same. She describes the standards as good,
but establishing an unattainable precedent with the amount of material that must be covered. She
identifies as liberal and feels a social obligation to show both sides using Socratic dialogue and
multiple sources, and tries very hard to reach her goal of objective teaching, likening it to being a
good debater. Alice describes herself as a liberal.
Ben: Ben is a white man teaching in a large city in Texas. He has been teaching for
eighteen years, approximately fifty percent of which he has been teaching U.S. history. After
studying political science during his undergraduate degree, he described having “limited career
opportunities” and choosing teaching as a way of giving back to society. He does his best not to
deviate from the standards, because the says the “test is a hundred percent built on the TEKS
[Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills.” He feels a state/district level pressure to remain neutral,
but mentions it can be hard to “keep your mouth shut.” He calls himself as middle of the road
politically, but notes that the last four years have caused his political beliefs to fall further to the
left.
Brittany: Brittany is a White woman who has been teaching for 27 years. She teaches in a
rural part of west central Texas. During her teenage years, she realized she enjoyed Bible school,
babysitting, and other mentoring activities and decided to pursue teaching. As a teacher in a
small district, she is the only high school history teacher and is used to having “complete
control” at whatever level she is teaching at. Brittany believes it’s her job to think for themselves
and question some things, and specifically not to indoctrinate them. She describes herself as
moderately conservative.
Grant: Grant is a White man who has been teaching for seven years. He teaches history in
a rural part of northeastern Texas. He always enjoyed history, and figured that “being a history

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teacher would be the best way to do a job that has something to do with my own personal
interests.” He inherited a curriculum from the previous U.S. History teacher and updated the
curriculum to include more information on the role of unions and civil rights struggles. He
describes himself as a “pretty loyal Democrat” with some progressive beliefs.
Jessica: Jessica is a White woman who teaches in the suburbs of a large city in Texas.
She has been teaching for fourteen years. As a young girl, she enjoyed working with other kids,
whether as a mentor or collaborator. Her mother was also interested in history; when Jessica
decided to teach, she knew she wanted to combine that with her love of history. Jessica tries to
avoid using the textbook, preferring primary sources and a thematic approach to teaching U.S.
History, but the state standards do guide her instruction because there is an end of year test. She
believes that political and social beliefs affect instruction unconsciously, and does her best to
hide her political beliefs with a neutral approach. She identifies as a moderate liberal.
Oliver: Oliver is a Hispanic man who teaches in a rural area of central Texas. He has
been teaching for two years. Oliver wanted to make an impact on something and felt teaching
was a way to do that. While he makes sure to teach the standards, he enjoys designing activities
that allow students to see the perspective of people in their own historical contexts, like the
decision to drop the atomic bomb. He doesn’t like the idea of political beliefs influencing
teachers, but admits he is probably guilty of this in small ways. He identifies as a moderate.
Steve: Steve is a white man who teaches in a large city in Texas. He has been teaching
for thirteen years. He felt he had an “aptitude for teaching” as he enjoyed being a student and the
academic setting. As a social person, he veered away from a desk job leveraging his geography
training and towards teaching. He describes the standards as “very pro-America nationalist” but
he does not feel constrained by them. To Steve, “there’s no such thing as an unbiased teacher”

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and “anyone who does is lying to themselves and their students.” He identifies as a democratic
socialist.
Sylvester: Sylvester is a White man who teaches at an early college high school in the
suburbs of a city in Texas. He has been teaching for five years, and an adjunct professor in
anthropology for six years before that. He found that he liked teaching more than research, began
teaching at a community college and then eventually became a full-time high school teacher. He
uses the state’s content standards “all the time” and says “he doesn’t think there’s anything the
state standards ask him to do that he doesn’t think has value.” He describes himself as fairly
liberal.
Sylvia: Sylvia is a White woman who teaches in a rural part of Texas. She has been
teaching for fourteen years. She originally wanted to become a sports coach but then pivoted to
teaching, describing it as “the quintessential coaching job.” As she gained experience, she relied
on the standards less often. She described her lesson planning as based off of “experiences, ideas,
for the most part coming from my brain.” Sylvia tries to keep politics out and give the students
both sides as that’s not what she thinks the state is testing. She describes herself as a small
government conservative.

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CHAPTER FIVE: FINDINGS
The goal of this study is to understand the process by which teachers determine how
contemporary events and their own political beliefs shape their U.S. history instruction. The
findings revealed teachers use their own political beliefs when they feel the standards represent
an inaccurate portrait of American history, and the influence of these beliefs are intensified if
these beliefs were previously strong; a similar intensifying effect occurs if contemporary events
“radicalize” a teacher to change their previously neutral/middle-of-the-road teaching style, at
least on certain topics.
Central Phenomenon
For the most part, the history teachers disagreed with the notion that teachers can leave
their own biases outside of the classroom. The vast majority of the teachers responded that
teachers are influenced by their own political and social beliefs, and that it was impossible for
teachers to leave these subjects completely out of the classroom. Some of these teachers
emphasized how political beliefs influence the material that might be used to supplement the
content in the standards; other teachers focused on how their social beliefs shape the overall
narrative that they teach in courses. Several teachers mentioned how important they felt their job
was, noting their particular influence as U.S. history teachers. Despite teachers understanding
their potential for influence, most teachers opposed the idea that they themselves try to shape
student attitudes, save for issues of equity. Participants like Brenda and Sam not only believed
that political beliefs influenced their teaching, but more importantly, that said beliefs should
influence implementation of content:
Brenda: Absolutely. And I think that’s often met with negativity, like well your personal
opinion shouldn’t come into or your beliefs, but if you’re someone that supports this
country and believes that everyone should have the right to vote, of course that is going

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to influence your curriculum. If you’re not careful in confronting your own biases, rather
than saying one does not have them, is important. Anyone who says otherwise just
doesn’t know that it’s affecting them.
Sam: In my opinion, every teacher’s political beliefs influence how they teach. But then,
I’m a highly political person. I am of the school of thought that the personal is political.
Everyone is political, whether he or she admits this right? Whether they understand it,
whether they can articulate it, whether they're aware of it, people are political.
Brenda and Sam both draw on the popular feminist statement that the personal is political.
Brenda specifically references the pushback that comes when the classroom is made political,
and refutes it with the justification that her political beliefs are in alignment with making the
country a better, more democratic, place. Sam takes a different approach, pointing out that even
outside of the classroom, people have political motives and act towards them, sometimes even
more so when they are unaware of such biases.
While some participants valued their personal beliefs and made sure they found a healthy
place in the classroom, a small group of teachers believed that beliefs are best left outside of the
classroom. In response to the same question about the role of sociopolitical, Wyatt gave a
different answer:
Wyatt: As a generalization, I would say no. Only because I base it on, many of the people
that I've worked with for a long time that or you know of many different political
persuasions and in the end, they want the students to be able to really create or formulate
ideas on their own and be able to look at either events that have happened or literature
that they have read and see what other people’s thought processes are and really, develop
their own kind of perspective on things.
Wyatt is one of the few teachers that gave an answer resembling no when on this line of inquiry.
Wyatt was in a unique position amongst participants; as the supervisor of social studies in his
district, he might have a vested belief in hoping the teachers in the district are implementing the
curriculum with fidelity. Throughout the interview, Wyatt expressed a more optimistic view of
his fellow teachers than other participants and stressed the importance of dialogue. That said,
Wyatt is presenting an idealist answer, he uses “as a generalization” or that the teachers “want.”

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Other teachers were between the ideological poles of embracing the personal in the
classroom and believing that one should aspire to a classroom free of personal/political biases.
Teachers in this area admitted that biases make their way into the classroom, but attempt to
minimize their effects or moderate those beliefs by understanding the way that bias would
influence them if left unchecked. Clark and Ben both take a more realist approach to the idea of
bias in the classroom when asked the same question about the role of teacher bias:
Clark: Even though I think we make an effort to stay relatively neutral, it can't help but
come out sometimes. I think that that's just how we're wired. I want to share my beliefs
with you. I think I'm right. You know, I think you should think the way I do. I think that's
just how we're wired. I think that's how everybody's wired.
Ben: I do [think that political beliefs influence teaching]. That’s human nature,
impossible to get away from. When it comes to presidential elections, especially the more
recent ones, it would be easy for pretty much any teacher to accidentally or
unconsciously include political bias. In general elections, midterm elections, the teacher’s
beliefs, and view of political parties, or what they think the Republican Party stands for
as opposed to the Democratic party.
Both teachers justify the influence of bias with trepidation, with Clark pointing out that efforts
are made to go against the “wiring” of humans and Ben saying sharing said beliefs is human
nature. Ben specifically gives the example of election season shaping how teachers discuss
politics, with their own understanding of politics translating to how they explain contemporary
politics to their students.
Teaching and Identity
Participants’ constructions of their own teacher identity were built by their own
experiences as students, their reflection on those experiences, and the pedagogical
understandings gleaned from their teacher training programs and early experiences in the
classroom. Several participants mentioned that teaching was something that they knew they
wanted to do for a long time, and saw aspects of their personality as being compatible with the

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responsibilities they expected teachers to meet. Teachers in this study revealed that 1) teaching
was not usually a job, but also a vocation tied to their personal identity 2) the standards act as
loose guidelines for instruction, in addition to collaboration with peers 3) historical interests and
expertise shaped classrooms and 4) needed autonomy and occasional support to best serve their
students.
Teaching as a Personal Identity
Many of the teachers in the study personally identified with teaching as a profession.
These participants described teaching as a vocation, and felt that their skills were uniquely suited
to being in the classroom. Some of these teachers were drawn to teaching in general, with U.S.
History as an afterthought. On the other hand, some teachers wanted to share the passion of U.S.
History with their students, with teaching U.S. History as deeply intertwined. For instance,
participants like Sam and Oliver felt a desire to help students, with an interest in history being
secondary and coming later:
Sam: I've always wanted to be an English teacher and it wasn't until the election in 2016
with the Donald Trump election that I got really inspired to work in the social sciences
instead. I felt like there's a possibility that that election went the way it went because
there's not a strong emphasis on social science in our country and I've wondered maybe
we could avoid some of the trend towards fascism that we're seeing if we had a better,
more thoughtful group of people making social science curriculum rather than what’s
happening now.
Oliver: I actually went to my university for graphic design, and I felt like: I was sure I
was gonna get a degree and find a job at some point, but I didn’t feel fulfilled. Like, I
wasn’t doing anything beneficial to my community. I decided, to think about teaching
because sure I will be teaching content, but given a platform to help inspire others to go
beyond what they can do.
In these quotes, Sam and Oliver both describe how they came to teach U.S. History. Both of
these teachers point to a moment in their life where they pivoted to teaching. In both cases, there
was an emphasis of not feeling individually fulfilled, and the importance of giving back to their

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community and country. Later in the interview, Sam thanks God that she did not end up teaching
English, and finds personal fulfillment as a history teacher. Oliver points out that while the
content is important, he sees teaching as an inspirational platform, similar to Sam wanting to
undo the fascist trends she saw gaining momentum in America.
The standards play a significant role in how teachers go about U.S. History. In all three
states, U.S. History is a tested subject required for graduation. In addition, all three states have
content standards, with two of the states (California and New York) opting into the Common
Core, leading to more of a focus on skill building that permeates social science classes. Because
the state tests were aligned with the state standards, teachers knew they would be evaluated
based on student test scores. Thus, standards play an impact on the day-to-day planning and
yearly ways that teachers transformed themselves to become better at their job.
Ben: We have to adhere to the standards because that is what the test is built on. The state
level test is built a hundred percent on the TEKS so we have to adhere to those pretty
closely. We can’t really deviate too much.
Oliver: The goal is when I do make the plan and make the lesson, that the standards are
the basis. But not the only thing because yes, I am required to teach the standards, but
why stop there?
Ben and Oliver, both in Texas, see the standards in distinctly different ways. Ben, because he
knows he is evaluated based on student performance on the TEKS, sees the standards as limiting.
His focus is on doing as much as he can to ensure that his students are prepared. On the other
hand, Oliver, who sees teaching as a means of inspiring students, views the standards as a low
bar that he strives meet and then exceed.
As teachers gained more experience in their classroom, they felt more autonomy to rely
on their own experiences, rather than adhering closely to the standards. While these teachers
were cognizant of the standards, these veteran teachers expressed an indifference towards relying

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on new sets of standards, as long as they felt they were doing their job. In the following
examples, Clark and Kyle both express a decreased need to align their instruction with standards.
Clark: When it comes to teaching right now, I rely on what I’ve done in the past and stick
with what I know. I haven’t read the new standards so honestly, I don’t know what’s in
them. I’m not leaning on the standards like I used to back in the old days, when I could
look at what I was teaching and say yeah, that’s standard 11.3.
Kyle: I've always relied more on my own beliefs, but I do have a feeling that what you
teach have to in some way be connected to the standards. You’re a representative of the
state. We have great latitude in determining exactly how we deliver that curriculum and
how we achieve our compliance with the standards but I do believe that ultimately have
to comply with the standards; you can't just go off on your own and teach whatever you
feel like.
This latitude that Kyle describes is, in part, due to their consecutive years teaching history in the
classroom. Both Clark and Kyle were the most senior history teachers in their department, both
noting at other points that newer teachers would ask for their advice when it came to delivering
content. As history teachers age, they tend to feel more confident in their ability to deliver
instruction, while still feeling a drive to tinker and adjust their instruction.
History, being the sum of information of the past, is far too vast for teachers to handle in
a single academic year. Translating American history into something that is digestible for the
students is a challenge for every teacher, which many of the teachers in the study handle by using
their own passion to create continuous themes and narratives for the students to pick up on.
Several teachers mentioned that they have a passion for a certain aspect of history e.g. social
history, labor history, military history. Teachers freely admitted that those interests indirectly
made their way into the curriculum, though Clark and Grant had different justifications as to why
they made additions to the curriculum:
Clark: I lean more towards social history. I think changes in society have been profound
in the past few years, in the twentieth century. And changes in technology, I really like
technological history.

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Grant: There were certain things that I try to address that are not emphasized in the
standards. I like to talk a little bit more about the role of unions and go in depth a bit
more into civil rights struggles and things like that.
Clark’s answer is focused on his personal interests and knowledge base. His use of the word
profound suggests that these changes are influential and worth knowing about regardless of
interests. Grant, who also brings up labor and social history, justifies this shift on their lack of
relative emphasis in the current state standards.
While the focus of this study is not student outcomes, these outcomes are still important
to the teachers. Teachers reflexively change how they teach their students and what material is
important to expose to them based on a number of factors related to their student body. In every
interview, teachers expressed some form of adapting their instruction for the needs of their
students, while also evaluating themselves based on student performance. In addition, teachers
are acutely aware that U.S. History is a tested subject, and getting their students ready for the
test, for graduation, and for life, was mentioned frequently. This section is divided into two
sections: first, the classroom goals that teachers had for students and the strategies and
adaptations used to accomplish them, and second, the civic goals that teachers had for students,
whose impacts were meant to extend far beyond the classroom.
Classroom Goals
The teachers in the study valued historical content, as well as cultivating an atmosphere
for healthy political discussion. Content goals, in this context, are defined as the historical
knowledge that teachers deem as important for the students to know, along with the information
or topics that they de-emphasize. Teachers acknowledged that they do not know all of American
history, nor do they find all sub-fields of American history to be equally interesting. A common

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content theme that teachers had was a desire to show students relevant social history. Often, this
came in the form of including content that was relevant to student demographics.
Sam: We have a very large population of Russian and Armenian students so if I'm going
over the unit about World War I, it's expected that I'm going to talk about Armenian
genocide. It is expected that I'm going to talk about and bring to light issues that might be
relevant to my student demographic.
Sylvia: A lot of the Hispanic people aren’t on there. Like the NAACP for Hispanics, like
we talk about them but we don’t talk about Latinx movements. Cesar Chavez is huge, but
we had similar movements in Texas. They do Texas history in 7
th
grade but nobody
knows anything about our history when we get here. I definitely think there should be
more Mexican American stuff included because it kind of doesn’t really show up until the
New Deal.
Another trend that emerged was the desire for teachers to “make up for lost time,” where they
acknowledged the inefficacy of certain aspects of the current school system and wanted to help
bolster student performance. One of these aspects was the handing-off of untested subjects to
athletic coaches, who were required to teach a class:
Grant: The way Texas does things in U.S. History is very strange; they teach the first half
of U.S. History in 8
th
grade, and then they don’t do anything in U.S. History until 11
th

grade. So they have a couple of years to forget everything until 11
th
grade.
Me: Do you have any level of collaboration with 8
th
grade?
Grant: I have nothing to do, really, with 8
th
grade, which here is middle school. There is
no collaboration between me and the U.S. History I teacher whatsoever. And that can be
somewhat frustrating and a lot of kids, and this might just be kids talking, but they were
like “Oh we didn’t learn anything in that class because we had such and such coach
teaching it.”
Me: Why?
Grant: Might just be a Texas thing, but my guess is that social studies is not typically
tested, except mine and in 8
th
grade, and so there’s no funding tied up in their success in
that particular subject. And so they’re like, oh you know, we’ll give that to the coaches
and if they mess up, it’s no big deal because it’s not being tested by the state. I’m a bit of
an outlier in that I’m a social studies teacher and have little to do with sports.
The exchange with Grant highlights a few important things relevant to social studies’
hierarchical position in school culture, and how teachers view their own mission and how its

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supported by the state. First, Grant calls the setup strange, and suggests that the current system
allows student knowledge to atrophy, to the extent he is building from a base that is not solid.
Second, Grant describes a system where social studies as a discipline is left to be filled by
coaches that have other priorities in addition to teaching their students. Brittany remarked on
how the coaches at her school frequently espoused their political beliefs, to the extent that some
students felt uncomfortable:
Brittany: Several of our, I hate to throw them under the bus, but several of our coaches
were walking through the halls yelling “Trump 2020” and “Join the Trump Train” and
they were wearing Trump masks, and their cars or trucks would have Trump flags. So the
kids that were Biden supporters didn’t feel comfortable saying anything in those classes.
While Brittany and Grant’s quotes speak to slightly different issues, they both point at the
troubling trend of overt politicization of schools. This is an important point, and it runs contrary
to the conservative talking point of Democrats using schools to indoctrinate students. Coaches,
who either teach social studies because the state mandates they teach something, feel
comfortable strongly expressing their political beliefs, even though their more qualified
colleagues believe that adults should leave said beliefs off-campus. Dana, who teaches in a
moderate district in Southern California, expressed a similar asymmetry in regards to who felt
comfortable sharing their beliefs in classrooms. When discussing how conservative political
beliefs may make their way into the classroom, the following exchange occurred:
Brittany: I have a couple peers who I guess feel strongly. They have their degrees from
Christian schools and they feel very strongly about incorporating their kind of judgment
and views on people and how people end up in their places in society and how people end
up homeless etc. I have seen that a lot less in the last ten years than I saw in the first ten
years.
Me: Can you give me an example of how this might influence a U.S. History classroom?
Brittany: For example, if it's just talking about how Reagan cut social programs okay
during the eighties and the students are like what are the effects of that? You know, a
certain teacher is not going to claim that that lead to homelessness and led to some of the

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generational poverty that we have today. They're not going to talk about that; they're
going to conveniently leave that out because they're a Reagan supporter.
Me: Both of those examples, if I’m not mistaken, lean conservative. Do you have any
examples of the opposite occurring?
Brittany: It hasn't come the other way that I can think of. We did have one guy that had
an Obama tattoo on his forearm and talked about kind of liberal politics after Obama got
elected and kind of you know was pro Obama in his class. They kind of had to tell him to
tone it down, but that's the only example I can think of. There's been lots of other more
conservative examples.
The teachers in this study abhorred the type of partisanship Brittany describes in her first
example, where a political leaning puts a thumb on the scale of historical knowledge. While most
teachers viewed complete neutrality and the removal of bias as impossible, they made a
concerted effort to let students know that their beliefs were their own, and that their goal as a
teacher was to give students the facts and tools to make their own decisions. These teachers,
whether they saw themselves as politically neutral representatives of the state or as agents of
social change, knew that they played a pivotal role in determining what students saw as good
citizenship. The manipulation of historical facts and imploring young students to “Join the
Trump Train,” runs counter to the principles that the teachers in my study, regardless of their
place on the political spectrum, value as good teaching.
Teachers’ feelings of autonomy shaped how they balanced meeting the tested content
goals and their own civic goals for students. Teachers in the study frequently acknowledged that
they could not cover all of U.S. History, nor could they make students interested in some minute
details without relating them to the students. However, an additional challenge that teachers
faced was balancing teaching students what they felt was important for life and what their state
test felt was important for student development. While most teachers expressed that they had
similar levels of autonomy in delivering instruction, their perception of the state exam shaped
where they fell along the spectrum of preparing students for life and preparing them for an end of

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year exam. The following quotes from Ben and Jessica highlight how the exam and the standards
shape their instruction:
Ben: We have to adhere to the standards because that is what the test is built on. The state
level test is built a hundred percent on the TEKS so we have to adhere to those pretty
closely. We can’t really deviate too much.
Jessica: I definitely feel like our state standards guide what I’m teaching kids, because we
are a test subject, and our state standards are very specific. So sometimes it’s hard to hit
every point in our state standards, but when we plan our lessons for the year, we look at
what we’re expected to be teaching our students and we use those as like topic guides.
Ben and Jessica both teach in Texas, so their remarks can be taken as a point about how
challenging it is to meet all of the TEKS. Jessica remarked later in the interview about how she
felt that the state of Texas strongly frowned upon teachers using their platform to influence
students’ political beliefs. Jessica paints teachers more as the executors of the Texas’ Board of
Education’s vision, a vision she views as conservative. These quotes represent the spectrum of
beliefs of teachers that feel limited by the exam and the standards of their state. Teachers that felt
constrained by the standards often gave shorter and less detailed responses when asked about
their civic goals for students.
Other teachers view the standards and the exam more casually, with more of a focus on
getting students to trust them and buy into their messaging as teachers. Having seen so many
students, getting them to pass is routine and it showed in their comparatively relaxed approach to
year after year of high stakes testing based on the standards. Maurice and Rose both mention the
lack of oversight due to their students performing well and passing the exam:
Maurice: The content standards, I honestly don't even look at that. I'm not trying to be
rude or anything, to be honest I don't even know what they are. I haven’t had much of a
look at them since I started teaching. I do think though, that your first three years of
teaching you put all of your eggs in that content basket. Whatever the curriculum, the
state, tells you to do, your first three years you follow it to the letter… Not to be rude to
the test, but the test is been so dumbed down that it doesn't even matter. I mean, I
understand the kids are failing throughout the state but I think that's more for a lack of the

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environment that they're in as opposed to the test itself. Have you looked at the rubric for
the American history Regents? There's definitely been many years in the past four or five
you, get nine questions wrong get a 99 or you can get one question wrong and get a 99!
How in the world are we are we bringing this to the world? I mean, this is, there's no
validity in that. It's ridiculous, so when I look at the standard and I look to the test itself,
of course I teach the kids how to do a good job on the exam. Of course I do, but I don't do
that until Memorial Day roughly. There's no really need to do any more than that in my
opinion. Now, I'm lucky, I'm extremely lucky. I work in a district where I've had maybe
ten failures in twenty years on the exam I mean that's not because of me necessarily.
Rose: I don't have a lot of oversight I haven't for most of my career because you know,
when you can go in there make it happen, then often people leave you alone. When the
administrators to come in and they see you and the kids are engaged, the lessons make
sense and you know how to make it happen and they all pass and they graduate. Then
there's not a lot of oversight.
Rose and Maurice have both been teaching for over 20 years, and their familiarity with their
environment allows them to be less intently focused on ensuring their students pass. While Ben
and Jessica used the test and the standards as guidelines, Rose and Maurice saw them as
relatively easy to meet and were almost an afterthought. Rose described it as “making it happen”
and Maurice saying that he teaches them how to do a good job, but those happen along the way,
rather than as a goal. As teachers gain experience and confidence in how to efficiently get their
students the information they need to pass the test, it opens up room for them to instill civic
lessons in their students with more freedom.
Teachers also had civic goals for their students, here defined as goals for their students
meant to influence how those students live their civic and political lives outside the classroom.
Teachers sociopolitical and racial beliefs influenced what they wanted of their students, and this
combined with their pedagogical beliefs created environments where individual teachers are
trying to create different types of citizens. The civic goals for their students could be loosely
grouped into two categories: individual rationality, and social transformation. Similar to
previously mentioned categories, these goals are not mutually exclusive, rather they represent
priorities that would subtly influence how teachers talked about issues in their classrooms.

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Fostering Individuality
Teachers that emphasize individuality tend to focus on students’ ability to discern source
credibility, to think for themselves, and refrain from sharing their own beliefs. Their ideal
citizens are able to comprehend political and historical information, and synthesize it for the
purpose of having coherent and informed opinions. When asked about what they wanted of their
students, Oliver and Brook gave responses that speak to fostering individuality.
Oliver: Because I want them to be politically active, it might be best for them to see the
whole story. And so if they stick to you know, all news sites where they get the news
from that is more politically aligned to whatever they're believe in. Then they’re kind of
getting feedback from there on site, so I'm not asking them to completely look at all
views, all news sources from the other side of whatever they're aligned with, but to
simply explore and not stick to whatever their normal is.
Brook: I really do try to give them a moderate view that they get to choose what
perspective they feel most comfortable with. I really strive for that because I think that's
important for them to know that I'm here to just give them what each side sees on this
particular issue. I don't think it's my job to be have them become a conservative or a
liberal. I want them to learn what those conversations sound like.
To teachers that value individuality, social change is second to students that can evaluate
whether they enjoy the current structure of society. These beliefs were more common in teachers
that were moderate. While their students might become conservative or liberal, these teachers
want to expose them to all sides before they become a partisan. Clark sums up his ideal civic
outcome for his students when asked about his goals: “Them being employable, have a job, vote,
be a contributor to society. Not a drag on society help others. Be nice to people.” Teachers in this
group value creating citizens that effectively contribute to the continuing functioning of society,
compared to the next group, which sacrifices efficiency for social change.

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Cultivating Transformation
Teachers that focus on transformation emphasize many of the same values as the
previous group: understanding history, coming to one’s own independent conclusions, linking
the past to the present. All of those values come into play. The main difference is a deeply rooted
sense that the current system is still not good enough, and understanding why these failures are
systemic. Teachers in this group want their students not only to be politically active, but activist-
like in suggesting the near future can and should be more just. When asked how he linked the
past to the present, Brad explicitly said he attempts to instill a change agent attitude in his
students:
Brad: I try to say: just so you know, this is not the first time this has happened, this kind
of white backlash to advances of the African American community and so then we can
kind of use what we do know about Reconstruction to kind of anticipate what could
happen tomorrow or next week or next year or where are we going. I'm trying to help my
kids have some sense of not just what happened, but how do I participate in making
history? How do I participate in making sure the future is better, more just?
Brad, like other teachers in this category, brings up the pattern of oppression of the Black
community, in its many forms. Using Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow as an example, he
points out that progress of the Black community was slowed intentionally by the White
community. He emphasizes participating in the change in making society better. Other teachers
in this group would point out the power of collective action, of voting, of protest, and getting
students to believe that their voices mattered. Similarly, Sylvester gave an answer that focused
on connecting the past and present when discussing how he hopes his class impacts his students:
Sylvester: I try to get them to make connections from now to back, back, back. I think
that’s extremely important, but yeah, I wanna make them better people. I know most of
them don’t, I can tell when they do, and I try to do that by doing my best to get them to
see how that relates to their lives today.

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Discussing Race
While several teachers agreed that racism needed to be taught in U.S. History, teachers
had varying levels of comfort and emphasis in doing so. A few teachers remarked that one could
use standards to teach about racism, but would also be justified in using the standards to
minimize historical racism and its ties to modern-day racism in the United States. Some teachers
had the capacity and will to tie racism from the past to the experiences of persons of color today.
When asked about developing connections between the politics they experience in their lives and
the politics of the past, Kyle and Susan gave similar responses:
Kyle: The Black Lives Matter movement. So I spend an awful lot of time focusing on
African American history. And a lot of my students were wanting to understand why it is
that it seems the police have such a different view of the African American community
than they do of the white community so we did because they wanted it, several extension
lessons where we looked at the origin of policing in the United States and its pre-Civil
War ties to the fugitive slave act. And it helped them make a lot of sense that police were
used to enforce social separation. But you know, again, this is an area where students
were driving the inquiry.

Susan: When BLM hit last year, the kids called the majority of us were racist and they
were using the term “White fragility” and bringing in all these things. But the critique I
heard was that there was not a good history of understanding of what racism is and how it
gets constructed. So I redesigned my course to do that.
The responses highlight an important point: students can drive inquiry and what
connections the teachers are encouraged to make to current events. Both teachers adapted their
content to meet student content and civic goals. Kyle used the example of the Fugitive Slave Act
(1850), and Susan traced the lineage of derogatory representations of Black people to the early
19
th
century. While some teachers weave this thread through because its necessity is manifest,
teachers in this study showed that they would bring in content that they felt passionately about
when students expressed a desire to place their own experience in historical context.

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Perceived Causal Conditions
Causal conditions are the people, places, events that generate the phenomenon (Strauss &
Corbin, 1998). In this study, perceived causal conditions refer to the people, places, and events
that either cause or provide justification for teachers to bring their political and racial beliefs into
the classroom. For the phenomenon of political disclosure influencing classroom content to
occur, the interacting set of conditions must be in place. Within this study, these are 1) Identities,
2) Conditions, and 3) Experiences. All three of these interact with each other, but each must be
satisfied individually to create an environment where the teacher discloses their beliefs to move
the students directionally, whether on a political, civic, or moral spectrum.
There is a vast set of literature about the role of identity in the development of empathy
for oppressed and minoritized groups. People that directly experience bigotry, whether due to
race, gender, or sexual orientation, often cite that bigotry in why they attempt to combat bigotry
when they see it. In this study, participants explicitly mentioned how their pedagogical, racial,
and gender identities shaped their classroom philosophy, including the importance (or lack
thereof) of political disclosure or emphasis on structural issues that go beyond the standards. In
the cases of intersectional overlap, i.e. identifying as a woman of color, their causal implications
will be discussed in both sections and compared to others who cited their experience as a White
woman, or a White man.
Several teachers used their humanity, a fundamental identity, as justification for bringing
their personal political beliefs into the classroom. Rather than doing so purposefully, these
teachers bring themselves into the classroom to share their humanity with students. This is in
contrast to the older teachers that seemed apolitical (which is, itself a political stance) and
teachers that believe that being apolitical is possible. Steve and Brad both see human bias as

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inescapable, but when asked, differed in the extent to which they incorporated said biases into
their teaching.
Steve: There’s no such thing as an unbiased teacher. We all have biases. There’s
absolutely no way to claim that you are completely unbiased. Anyone who does is lying
to themselves and to their students. So recognizing your own bias is the first thing,
admitting it.
Brad: Absolutely. I think that and I certainly teach my kids this that once one is outside of
that, once teaching outside the basic assumptions of power it becomes pretty obvious that
they have an opinion. if by if I teach that schools are trying to help kids learn or you
know the United States as a democracy, it seems like I'm apolitical but if I teach that the
United States isn't a democracy or the United States is trying to destroy democracy
around the world or schools are trying to make sure kids don't learn, suddenly it seems
like I have a pretty biased opinion.
Both responses highlight that bias is not something to be denied, but embraced and analyzed.
However, Steve’s approach focuses on fostering a connection with students based on
authenticity, and being able to admit that one’s opinions are shaped by individual understandings
of shared, subjective experiences. Brad, though, focuses on of the asymmetric manner that biases
is recognized and called out. Brad highlights that opinions that fall within the Overton window,
or within the currently acceptable spectrum of political debate, face less scrutiny that those that
have achieved social consensus. Brad’s response points to the larger trend that explains the
slightly conservative nature of teaching: the bigotry of previous actions are cloaked in tradition
and objectively good practice.
Racial Identity
Another important component of participants’ identities was the salience of race in the
classroom. Their racial identity, in some circumstances, influenced their use of the standards and
the overall tenor of the curriculum. Whiteness is sometimes constructed as the absence of race,
and White teachers did not often bring up their whiteness in justifying why they needed to teach

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about the social rot that is White supremacy. Brittany describes how Whiteness influences the
history that is written, and also the textbooks that the students are exposed to:
Brittany: That's right. I give the true story. My kids will tell you Ms. Brittany gives you
the good, the bad, the ugly. And I'll tell you: this isn't in the history books because it
doesn't make the United States look good. And this is the ugly part of history. You know
white men wrote the books, so guess who is featured in the books and I do my very very
very best to cover all the races and their part in history and what happened to them over
time so that the kids say oh this isn't just a brand new thing when Trump was trying to
build in the wall.
Though this quote shows show a willingness to point out the ills of racism and other social
issues, there is an important commonality to note: the relative blamelessness of White women in
the upholding of White supremacy by pinning all of the blame on White men. While white
supremacist attitudes related to toxic masculinity harm white women, White women historically
played a role in white supremacy in the United States. Whether as objects of desire that white
men use to justify violence, or as perpetrators of lies that hurt Black people, white women play a
central role in the oppression of non-White people. That said, Brittany’s motivations do not come
from personal interest, but professional pride. Brad’s experience is similar, though more critical
of institutions:
Brad: I don't think there's anything in the standard that says “Hey clearly this is a white
supremacist country and clearly we've got problems because of the institutions of white
supremacy and we need to be clear about this in these particular ways.” Obviously there's
nothing like that, I don't suspect there will be so I certainly teach about that kind of thing
and I can justify it if anybody were to question me by using the standards. But I could
also be justified not doing it by using the standards.
While giving this answer, Brad came to a realization about the cost of the autonomy given to
teachers when teaching about race. Just as Brad could teach about White supremacy by going
“above and beyond” what is asked by the standards, the lack of a mandate could allow teachers
to go through the same units without explaining how those bigoted beliefs played an integral role

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in shaping laws, social structures, and extrajudicial killings. When asked about whether this
autonomy was a good thing, Brad seemed ambivalent:
Brad: Well, I think that one day we will see it as a weakness hopefully. I’ll be honest, I
think that maybe I’m one of those [teachers that use their autonomy to shape the political
values of the curriculum] too. So one has to be careful, but if you have white supremacist
teachers who are teaching about white supremacy, then the learning might not be what
you hope it would be. But if those teachers were in there, I don’t think standards could
solve that problem.
Brad’s ambivalence is based on the fact that his activism could also be used by conservative
activists with goals that contradict his. Ultimately, Brad acknowledges that standards are
incapable of solving the issue of teachers pushing agendas in classrooms, suggesting that
preemptively making sure teachers have values compatible with our democracy may be much
better than hoping to use standards to rein in teachers with anti-democratic views.
Gender Identity
In the above examples, Sam and Oliver came into teaching without a passion for history.
The latter developed as they came to understand teaching as a platform for improving society.
Other teachers, however, always saw teaching as a way to share their passion for history. When
asked about why they became a teacher, Jessica and Brenda both brought up their love of the
subject unprompted:
Jessica: I think I always knew I wanted to be a teacher, always. Even as a kid, I always
loved working with other kids; I’ve babysat, I worked, I was a mentor when I was a girl
scout up through high school. I went to college and was more interested in studying
history and my mom was a history buff. When I got to college and really started to think
about what I wanted to do, I decided I wanted to teach. I wanted to combine that with my
love of history.
Brenda: When I was a little girl, I really enjoyed history, and I was really excited to take
history classes, and in no way to knock the history teachers but, I was disappointed. I
wasn’t seeing the people, the stories, that I learned about. Specifically, being a woman,
there were hardly any women in history. So, I try to create an inclusive curriculum and to

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make sure that all my students are represented in some way or another, so that is kind of
an ongoing journey for me.
Jessica mentions the word “always” three times in the first two sentences, suggesting a strong
and, from her perspective, immemorial desire to work with others and mentor. Brenda, though,
recalls childhood as a period of disappointment when it came to her primordial passion, history.
Jessica consistently had an outlet for her need to mentor, where Brenda rarely saw herself
included in the curriculum of her favorite subject, even though she had spent much of her time
reading history outside of the classroom. Jessica becomes a teacher as a way to coalescing her
two passions. Brenda’s decision to teach is in order to resolve the dissonance she felt not being
represented in classrooms, and continuously tries to make sure her students do not feel a similar
dissonance.
Intervening Conditions
Intervening conditions are the contexts or constructs that promote action and action
relative to the central phenomenon. In this study, intervening conditions are contexts that, while
not causal, could make a teacher more or less likely to infuse their U.S. history lessons with their
personal attitudes and contemporary politics. The intervening conditions are as follows: 1.
Community engagement with the school 2. Evaluating the community trust of history teachers,
and 3. the politicization of historical facts and the societal trend of political polarization. These
intervening conditions moved teachers towards an autonomous model of teaching where what
was best for students was determined by teachers or towards teaching as a part of the political
community, where politics also plays a role in determining how “politically controversial” topics
are handled in the classroom.
The first intervening process that moves from the causal conditions to the central
phenomenon is the larger community and its role in the school. This step is important for several

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reasons: first, teachers understand that they are public servants; second, different communities
have varying levels of influence on how schools operate, and; third, teachers wanted to keep
their jobs. Most high schools (besides the largest ones) only employed one or two secondary U.S.
history teachers and people that landed such a job often hoped to retire in that role. Thus,
teachers in communities where the parents were very involved expressed very real fears of being
fired for saying “the wrong thing,” which could be something as innocent as saying something
politically inflammatory while still being factually correct. In responding to the vignette about
parents suggesting “Chris” teach about more American heroes, Susan also illuminated the
difficulty in straddling the line between teaching, navigating what the parents want, and being a
member of a curriculum team:
Susan: I believe Chris should take that to his AP and his principal, before he does
anything. And if he changes what he does based on what other people do, it would have
to be coming from a more top-down approach. Because if he caters to the parents and
changes the curriculum and there’s an issue, he would be to blame. That is an issue,
because we’re talking suburban right? Suburban schools are built around voting boards of
education, which are parents, and so there could be a backlash and he could get fired. It
gets really political.
In addition to the power that community members hold in some districts, the COVID-19
turned classrooms into virtual spaces. In some cases, this narrowed the spectrum of acceptable
inquiries and historical narratives similar to the effect of over-involved parents. As Sam and
others have said, there is a mistrust of teachers that manifests either in seeing them as
incompetent at teaching their children, or acknowledging them as competent, but directionally
motivated against the interests of the larger community. In the quotes from Wendy and Dana,
they both describe how social and educational changes have shaped teaching practices:
Wendy: With the new framework, they looking at things through different lenses. For
example, the LGBTQ community during the Holocaust, or the Rape of Nanking during
World War II, or the Armenian Genocide, so topics that are controversial in the sense that
they haven’t been discussed in the classroom because the frameworks are so new and so

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for the vast majority, they’re just not as known. Those are the kinds of conversations
where, especially, in a town that is very conservative, that can lend to complaints,
especially in this environment where kids are in everyone’s living room, so if someone
makes an off-color remark, everyone can hear it and then a parent might complain, a
“What are you teaching my children?” kind of mentality.
Dana: I think that the extent to which [sociopolitical and racial beliefs] influences how
they teach the content is directly proportional to kids having cell phones in the
classrooms because now that everything that we say and do is recorded pretty much but
again for some reason I think my peers are a lot more careful about what they say. I have
a couple peers who I guess feel strongly they have they have their degrees from Christian
schools and they feel very strongly about incorporating their kind of judgment and views
on people and how people end up in their places in society and help people end up
homeless etc. I have seen that a lot less in the last ten years than I saw in the first ten
years.
Politicization and Polarization
The last intervening condition is defined by partisanship and teacher responses to it. The
prior two conditions are based on participants’ understandings of their role within the larger
school and social community. The third condition is about whether teachers position themselves
as informed partisans or as moderates. Seeing oneself as a moderate can move teachers towards
passive inaction, keeping historical debates anchored in the past in order to avoid scrutiny;
seeing oneself as more informed on the topic than the wider community, and thus justified in
tying the facts to students’ everyday lives, even if it means politics coming into the classroom. In
the first quote, Misty explicitly mentions how political polarization has made her job more
difficult:
Misty: Debate has to be done very very carefully because of the polarization that has
taken place. Politics has also influenced what a teacher teaches in a certain district, given
the kinds of district that they live in. For example, in New York City, teachers have a lot
more flexibility because the student population, New York is largely a democratic
district. When you come out to school districts further out in Long Island, as they become
more conservative, that is certainly going to affect the delivery that a teacher may have
regarding a certain issue.
When asked about how he goes about being objective and why that is a good goal to have in the
classroom Wyatt: I actually think it’s good in society as a whole. I don’t like, even when I’m

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talking to my friends, if I have my opinion on things, I don’t really want to share them all the
time because it’s basically my opinion. So if young minds are impressionable, and I understand
they are around adults at home and if that’s how their ideas are shaped then so be it, but it
shouldn’t be on me to put certain ideas in their head or pushing an agenda outside of teaching
them the history.
Consequences of the Central Phenomenon
The consequence of teachers bringing their sociopolitical and racial beliefs is the
lessening of the epistemic distance between the historical content as defined by the standards and
the political worlds that teachers and students inhabit. Teachers bring in these attitudes, beliefs,
and perspectives to grant students the capacity to understand the forces that shape their everyday
lives, and the will to investigate historically informed ways to improve the society they live in.
Teachers 1) deconstruct objectivity, by 2) presenting competing perspectives, in order to 3)
develop student consciousness. These three components highlight how and why teachers link
history and contemporary politics, allowing students to link those concepts to participate in civic
society and build a better future.
One of the key conflicts that teachers face is the balance between valuing the historical
facts and the understanding that the overarching narrative of history is subjective. In this study,
teachers sought to find ways to show students that there was more history than can be covered in
the classroom. Participants, even those that saw neutrality as an ideal for a teacher, did not want
their students to mimic that in discussion. Rather, these teachers wanted neutrality to be more of
a blank slate with fundamentally sound arguments meant to sharpen and define students’ own
political attitudes and values. The following quote by Brad demonstrates this attitude:

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Brad: You can't be neutral. there's no such thing as objectivity. We talk a lot about how
that's the case and then I certainly teach the kids that their job is to not to believe me, not
to believe anything I say, but to try to understand what I've said and try to figure out
where I'm wrong.
In addition to deconstructing the narrative of historical neutrality or objectivity, teachers
also demonstrated a strong will to share competing political and historical narratives. Teachers
all along the political spectrum believe that broadening the perspectives that students are exposed
to was a key finding in the study. The thrust of most participants’ presentation of competing
perspectives is to teach students how to evaluate data, rather than having a singular conclusion to
draw from said data. In the following quote from Susan, her centrism serves as a main reason to
share differing views with students:
Susan: I’m a centrist to begin with, so maybe my way of presenting a centrist view, is
having both sides on the plate. I’m the only Democrat in my family of twenty-six people.
I really don’t believe that it’s my job to proselytize to the students, I just have to hope
that through debate, they become more rational when looking at the evidence rather than
the emotional. That’s the only thing I want my kids to learn really.
The final consequence is the development of student consciousness, tied to the teachers
own ideas about the utility of understanding the past. Teachers in the study had preferred areas of
history, not because of random fun facts, but because of the continued relevance of the struggles
that certain areas of history talked about. To participants, they were infusing history with the
moral politics of learning what is right and wrong on a society-wide level. This was done in
order to grant students a cumulatively built consciousness of the debates that shaped their civic
sense of right and wrong, while also demonstrating that those impacts are felt today and will
continue to be felt in the near future. In the following quote from Betty, she uses her personal
beliefs about history to connect the curriculum to her students’ present and to both parties’
futures:

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Betty: For me, history is not dead. And that’s the slant I take with my students. I tell
them, “you probably think that history is dead, and what happened in the past is in the
past, but I’m going to tell you, history is still alive, it’s all around us and it can determine
where we are and help guide us in the future.”
The use of personal politics, according to Betty, Susan, Brad, and others, is used not to convince
the students of the validity of said beliefs, but to encourage students to develop and independent
and informed political identities. Participants often noted their own preferences in regard to
historical content, but rarely expressed a desire for that topic’s historical content to be more
represented in the standards. Teachers frequently expressed a desire to focus less on the minutia
of long-forgotten battles, as interesting as they may be to people already fascinated by American
history. The obligation teachers felt as part of their school, as historians, or as agents of the state,
was always outweighed by the duty they felt, both as teachers and as citizens, to make history
relevant to the nascent political identities and lived experiences of their students.
Comparative Analyses
In addition to the thematic analyses conducted by examining teachers as individuals,
trends appeared when analyzing teachers as teachers as members of the various communities
they inhabit. While teachers tended to focus on what went on in their own classroom, a goal of
the research was to understand the extent to which context shaped individual teaching actions
and implementation, i.e. California teachers versus New York teachers versus Texas teachers, or
teachers in mostly liberal districts versus teachers in conservative districts. The interview
protocol provided two indirect measures of the influence of context, in addition to when the topic
of the state and district’s influence on instruction came up organically. The following section
presents analyses of the teachers as members of such groups, noting how individual teacher
personalities interact with the contexts that they find themselves in.

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A noticeable trend in liberal districts was the overall involvement of the district in being
involved with the development and reform of the curriculum. Compared to teachers in mixed or
conservative districts, participants that taught in school districts that have moderate to strong
democratic PVI were more likely to mention the district as a reform lever. Jessica, in a liberal
city in Texas, mentioned that the school district was encouraging the teachers to rely less on the
textbook and more on primary sources. Riley, who teaches in a very democratic part of
California, mentioned that the district takes a hands-off approach to social studies teaching,
which made him feel like the district trusted the teachers to do right by the students. The teachers
in heavily Democratic districts in New York did not mention district support as explicitly,
though this could be due to their political beliefs perhaps being in line with local party politics,
rather than being further politically left than their home district, which is true for Riley.
Despite research suggesting a geographic partisan sort (Levendusky, 2009), where people
live in districts in alignment with their politics, this did not always hold true. Susan teaches in
one of the most democratic leaning districts in the entire country, and described herself as a
fiscally conservative democrat. In this quote from Susan, she describes how students assume a
political homogeneity of the teachers:
Susan: They all presume all the teachers are liberal, to the point of detriment. I would say
25 to 30 percent of school are more conservative, but they are silent about their
conservatism.
Susan’s point speaks to the idea that students in liberal districts feel like their teachers share their
points of view unanimously, when the truth is closer to a majority. Susan’s statement also
contradicts the popular notion that teachers in liberal districts have homogenous points of view
that they use to influence students to think similarly. High school students’ political beliefs are

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influenced by their parents and the news that they consume. That said, a majority of the teachers
across districts feel empowered when their district is in alignment with their partisan identity,
even if their individual beliefs go beyond traditional American discourse between Democrats and
Republicans.
District-level involvement varied in conservative districts. Don moved from a rural and
conservative district in upstate New York to an urban district with more liberal politics. That
said, the motivation for his move was a disconnect at the peer level and he made sure to note that
the pushback was not coming from above, as his supervisors welcomed Don’s willingness to
revamp an outdated curriculum. Grant, a self-described “progressive Democrat” in a very
conservative district, has a simple relationship with supervisory infrastructure. The following is
in response to a question about autonomy in modifying the curriculum:
Grant: We’re very fortunate to have, a very kind of hands-off administration. There’s no
curriculum person in our district, to my knowledge anyway, that’s, you know, looking
over our shoulders and whatnot. So we’re given a fair amount of free rein, the exception
to that being as long as they’re prepared for the state test at the end of the year.
Grant describes his situation as fortunate, while being out of his control, as he also mentions the
idea that some districts could employ a person responsible for looking over teachers’ shoulders.
While this particular concept did not directly appear in interviews, Texan teachers that were
liberal pointed out the conservative macro-context often, as Texan state level politicians lobby
against certain content choices. Grant pointed out how he has to walk a line so that conservative
students do not shut down:
Grant: The general social climate here or political attitude out here is one of fairly
extreme conservatism. Because we're in a rural district, you know, and so I feel like the

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children don't hear very much from more moderate type people and so I try to make sure
that whenever I give a personal appraisal of some political situation that I say this is my
opinion you know based off the facts that were given. I try not to be too preachy because
I feel like they would probably shut down on me or just, you know, disregard whatever I
said.
Grant has a justified suspicion that conservatives care about the messenger before trusting the
value of the message. Don, located in a rural part of New York with a CPVI at D+2 and
categorized as divided, mentions something similar:
Don: I had a student come up to me after my lesson on gender and race and ask
“Mister, do you really believe in White Privilege? I know you teach it, but you just
have to teach it right?” And it occurred to me that I’m teaching things, and they’re
learning it, but might not actually believe it. So I have come to accept that they might
not believe it, but they do take it in.
Don’s point indicates that the conservative skepticism that is found in deeper red districts can
also be found in districts where conventional thinking would suggest a more moderate view. In
fact, congressional districts that rate as purple might be more blue and red without much
moderation or discussion.
As a fairly liberal person in a politically divided district, Don pointed out how students
may get a slightly different slant to their history depending on whether he, or his preceding
teacher, who he described as a military conservative, designed the lesson:
Don: I know for the most part, they’re the same, for 75-80 percent of the instruction, but
it’s those little moments where we’re asking students to make assessments about what it
means, because the history is tinged by whatever glasses you wear, but the actual events

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are the same. I think it’s when we shift our lessons from “what happened” to “what does
it mean.”
When asked to give an example, Don mentioned Jefferson versus Hamilton and who modern
people think was right and how that could leak into instructions. He also pointed out how a
conservative person given the freedom to choose a book might look at Guns, Germs, and Steel,
which has a Eurocentric view of imperialism and world conquest. Chris, also in a divided part of
rural New York, mentions a yearly struggle of trying to break through to students not used to
hearing liberal viewpoints:
Chris: There are students in our district that proudly fly the Confederate flag. Many of
them claim it’s because they are proud of their redneck culture. I had a student two years
ago walk out of class because he didn’t like the discussion, and I showed him look, every
state that seceded, in their articles of secession, mention slavery, trying to show him that
flag was flown by an army that believed that slavery should be a natural right. And this
student had a few choice words for me and walked out the door.
Chris’s quote highlights that his students come into class using political symbols, even without
knowing the history of those symbols. In this particular case, the student was uninterested in
being informed by the very person meant to teach him the history and meaning of these cultural
symbols.
That said, there is also a strand of suburban conservatism that is shaped by the parents.
Stephanie mentions that particular struggle:
Stephanie: I’m a liberal politically minded person, but I live in Trump country. And I
teach where I live. So I have to be very careful about what I show to the students because
their parents know everything. And now we are using Google Classroom, and because

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they are taxpayers, we are obligated to invite them into the classroom and I don’t know
who’s listening to my lesson, but now I feel there’s more scrutiny so I have to feel uber-
careful.
Teachers in wealthier parts of states tended to deal with conservative parental scrutiny than their
counterparts in more working-class or poor districts. Stephanie would go on to mention how
restrained she felt when discussing the January 6
th
insurrection:
Stephanie: For instance, what happened on Wednesday [January 6
th
] at the Capitol, how I
opened was, and I had students that had no idea what happened, I showed a clip of what
happened and a clip of Lindsey Graham stating that the election was fair and that Joe
Biden was the winner… And I just stayed with the electoral college, I did not get into
antifa or vigilantes, because I have many kids who are absolutely devoted to Trump and
kids who are extremely liberal, so I have to walk this tightrope so everyone feels heard.
And that’s not exclusive to my neighborhood.
In her interview, Alice described how she was subject to the exact same scrutiny that justifies
Stephanie’s tightrope walking:
Alice: There's not a lot of room for that in a very conservative community where I teach.
So I had a conversation about black lives matter as an extension of Americans protesting
and it's part of the American spirit. And somebody complained to school board that I was
teaching about black lives matter and I was sent an official letter two weeks ago asking
me to only teach the standards.
Interestingly, none of the teachers who lean conservative mention any feelings of having to walk
a tightrope or feeling a sense of liberal surveillance. While some pressures seem equal across the
political spectrum, this particular bias seems asymmetrical.

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Looking at a within-district comparison, Rose and Susan both teach in the same school
district, albeit one of the largest ones in the entire country, and in a Democratic stronghold. In
addition, the demographics of the schools they teach in are drastically different, with Susan at a
very prestigious school which requires an entrance exam and Rose at a Title One school serving
mostly low-income students. The following quotes highlight the difference in how the world
appears to their students, and how differently these teachers, both of whom fall near the middle
of the political spectrum must approach these students:
Rose: Remember, I am teaching minority students in a Title One school, so I’m not
necessarily teaching the kids whose personal experience or family experiences have
benefitted from this society. There’s an opinion that wanders through these communities
that nothing is going to change and the deck is stacked against you and what I try to do to
show students that one: things have changed and two: if you want things to change, you
must engage and be part of the change.
Susan: This one girl said because we did current events, it was the first time she heard
alternative views. At her house, they only watched Fox News and only talked
conservative politics. That person said current events “opened my eyes to the world.”
And to me that was like, “Oh, my God,” that is a real awakening of the spirit, and I did it
through the lesson, and if you get one that’s great. You’re not going to get most of them,
because they don’t care, they only care about money. The majority of kids in this school
just care about making money.
Rose’s main focus is building student collective agency, which does not seem to be a concern for
Susan’s students. Susan has to deal with some parents that have the power to insulate their
students from opposing viewpoints, and views it as her responsibility to show them otherwise.

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This dynamic is especially fascinating considering that Susan describes her students as so capital
focused, even at a prestigious, yet public, school filled with students of color.
A Typology of Teacher Classes
This section features a graph (Figure 1) that situates teachers in categories depending on
their expected behaviors related to political/historical curriculum implementation. When reading
the graph, there following caveats are crucial to understanding the purpose of these classes:
1. These are not independent and dependent variables, as community increased
integration does not necessarily cause one individual to support critical narratives.
2. These classes, while very distinct at the extremes of high/low integration and
critical/traditional narratives, are less predictive of behavior if teachers describe
moderate, and variable community support, or express inconsistency in their desire to
teach using critical narratives.
3. One’s position on the graph are not statements of teacher quality, nor is one class
“better” than the other. Each of the classes have functional uses and the teachers that
fall into each category often make deliberate choices in line with that class, not
because they are unwilling to improve, but because they believe that these choices
represent their version of best practices.
The following section presenting the model of teacher classes is organized by category, with
descriptions of each class, interspersed with exemplar quotes from participants that embody that
line of thinking.

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Figure 1: A Typology of Teachers and Incorporating their Beliefs

Community Change Agents
Teachers that fit into the community change agent category describe teaching as a social
mission, and their political, social, and racial beliefs, usually liberal, drive their instruction.
Community change agents teach a narrative of the United States as one of unfulfilled promise,
where there is still work to be done. The teacher expects students to understand the value of
critiquing current social institutions, and is empowered to take risks by the support of the
community. When it comes to allowing their beliefs to shape the implementation of instruction,
these teachers are empowered to teach a social justice curriculum, whether because they have

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decades of experience passing students, or because they have the support of their school leaders
and community. This class, then, consists of two groups: the veteran practitioners who can take
risks due to community trust, like and younger teachers who take similar risks, but are somewhat
insulated from losing their jobs because they have the support of higher-ups and there is
school/community value alignment.
Teachers in this category tended to reveal where their allegiances lied when asked the
vignettes, the first of which places teachers in conflict with their community of parents; the
second places teachers in conflict with the state and a mandate for patriotic education.
Community change agents will seek the advice of their colleagues, higher ups, and attempt to
dialogue with the parents about what “American heroes” should be included or excluded in the
curriculum. In the second scenario, community change agents would tacitly undermine the state
mandate by highlighting the contributions of traditionally marginalized communities to this
American progress, or designing a meta-level activity about the messaging that the state is trying
to send when passing such reform. The key traits that define community change agents are
interdependence and a desire to make social change, and these factors are magnified when
teachers are in a local and political community that values a critical examination of history in
order to improve contemporary society.
School Functionaries
Teachers that fit into the school functionary class see education as a component of the
state, and value their place as local practitioners. Members of this class view teachers as serving
at the leisure of the government and their local community. School functionaries, even if they
hold beliefs that run counter to dominant narratives, are more cognizant of being sure to toe the
company line in terms of content and values. These teachers will disclose as much as their

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community deems acceptable, mostly on issues that there is a clear community consensus.
Functionaries differ from community change agents based on their own beliefs about the role of
teaching, and how teaching should influence generational change in the local context. This class
mostly consists of moderate teachers that value their job security and younger teachers who hold
political beliefs that contrast with the greater community, but refrain from integrating said
attitudes into their lesson for fear of rocking the boat.
The teachers in this category value community harmony, and deliberation with the
community when it comes to making decisions, but were reluctant to use their own position as
teachers to have a larger influence on the choices made. These teachers have a vested interest in
the school running smoothly, and paint the school as grounded in the historical values of the
community, even as the teachers and larger national values change. For example, these teachers,
when asked about including more American heroes, are more likely to accept this message
without much criticism, while making sure to report such changes so they are not seen as rogue
teachers. Steve gives a similar answer when asked that vignette:
Steve: I think that he should stick to his curriculum. And I think that maybe he should get
a letter from his department to return to the parents. Then, if the parents have an issue
with how he's teaching and it's the same as how the rest of the time our department is
teaching, that should be taken up with the department and department chair and
administration.
Steve’s answer focuses on forming a solid line with his fellow history teachers, rather than
challenging the parents himself. When it comes to implementing a more patriotic curriculum,
these teachers are less outwardly rebellious, mostly due to their strongly held belief that their job
is to teach what the standards say, not what their understanding of history and politics is; for

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example, replying that one’s job is to teach what is put forth is indicative of a functionary
mindset. The key values that define school functionaries are interdependence, school/community
harmony, and organizational stability.
Independent Practitioners
Independent practitioners focus mostly on what they can control: their classroom.
Teachers in this category see school buildings as complex systems, but do not see themselves
limited by disagreements with higher-ups and are unbothered by community complaints, if said
complaints are unjustified. Independent practitioners, if they have an idea that students should be
exposed to, will close the door to their classroom and share with students. This class consists of
veteran teachers that believe that if students are shown the information already in the curriculum
and are taught historical analysis skills, then the job is done. This class is similar to community
change agents in that they both are unafraid to say what they think, but this class differs in being
more willing to operate inside of already existing curriculum, rather than seeing a need to
introduce other materials to make lessons that promote civic activism.
Teachers in this class are unique in that their practices are less resistant to influence from
outside the classroom. For example, community change-agents value the interdependent support
where teachers and principals share a common goal and share ways to implement that goal at
their respective organizational levels. School functionaries also value being in alignment with
their community, though take a more passive role in shaping community values. Independent
practitioners are likely to challenge their students’ and their parents’ definition of American
heroes before implementing changes to the curriculum, but unlike functionaries, teachers in this
category do not feel an obligation to ask for feedback on whether the changes should be made.
Independent practitioners value their own expertise and what they believe students should know,

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convictions that grow stronger as they amass years of experience with positive feedback and high
average test scores. Interestingly enough, the past five years seem to have radicalized the
participants (Don, Kyle and Susan, for example mentioned how they have revamped their
curriculum to combat White supremacy, police brutality, and other normalized inequities) that
could have been independent practitioners to become activists or change agents.
Defiant Activists
Defiant activists focus on value transfer more than continuing in their current role, being
morally resolute to the extent that they would continue teaching critical narratives regardless of
their levels of outside support. Similar to community change agents, they see teaching as a
socially motivated endeavor that focuses on creating critically thinking students. Like
community change agents, defiant activists value autonomy in being able to supplement the
traditional curriculum with more materials that encourage structural and critical thinking.
However, unlike community change agents, members of this group are either uninterested or
unable to get community or school support for their ideas. They also share a trait with
independent practitioners, a willingness to shut out the organizational noise and bureaucracy in
order to best serve their students, though the two classes differ in what they see their civic role
as. This class consists of strongly liberal/progressive teachers in communities that are wealthy
and conservative, and veteran liberal teachers that experienced something that made them feel
that being neutral in the current political climate was against their overall belief system.
Looking at the vignettes, teachers in this group would take a firm stance against anything
they believe runs counter to the values they hold close and seek to help students understand,
whether that jeopardizes their reputation in the school, or creates tension with the broader
community. Teachers that fall into this category are likely to want to have a candid conversation

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with their students about what American heroes they want to learn more about, while pointing
out any character traits that run counter to the American values the course is centered around.
Riley’s answer to the second vignette typifies a defiant activist:
Riley: When I teach now, I tell students I want them to question what I’m giving
them. I want them to question me, to push back. Were I to have to teach with those
new standards, I would say the same thing. I think if they said it that explicitly, I
would probably open my school year reading and ask them “Let’s read what the state
says and what do you think?” And that would be the launching point for the rest of
the year, and I hope I would set a class culture of pushing back.
Riley wants to build a culture a of comfort undermining authority, especially when the authority
does not present as legitimate or based in reason. More importantly, defiant activists are likely to
reject the idea that parents should play such a large role in curricular development, and might
reject any attempts by their administration to cater to the parents. Similarly, teachers that fall in
this category find it difficult to imagine teaching if they could not transfer skills and values they
believe in, as that mission is primarily why they teach. This class consists solely of teachers that
see teaching as a means of social change, and would abandon teaching if the expectations of the
role shifted towards social reproduction and civic stagnation.
Summary of Findings
Teachers’ sociopolitical and racial beliefs, which this study sought to explore, influenced
their interpretation of state content standards and their own development and implementation of
curriculum. In addition, their pedagogical background and beliefs interacted with the
aforementioned beliefs, with traditionalists doing their best to leave themselves out of the
classroom and more progressive teachers using those beliefs to justify developing curricula “that

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matters.” The central phenomenon of how teachers’ beliefs found their way into the classroom
was found to have different aspects, with different teachers espousing numerous ways that their
beliefs and biases could shape classroom instruction. The finding, that teachers are inherently
biased and these biases come from experiences in and out of the classroom points to the
importance of the school ecosystem and the larger sociopolitical context teachers operate in.
The central phenomenon, however, did not occur in a sociopolitical vacuum. Teachers’
environments changed, they were subject to new experiences, and these changes impacted
teachers’ identities, and how they sought to make their own mark in the classroom. The
perceived polarization of larger society, and the partisan distortion of history compelled some
teachers to take a more active stance in shaping student civic values, specifically by showing
them a more complete story. This, combined with hoping that developing critical analysis skills,
was participants’ preferred method of raising student consciousness. This was many teachers’
ultimate goal, giving students accurate historical information so they could make informed civic
and political decisions, essentially teaching students in think for themselves in a greater society
that teachers felt was uninterested in developing said skills.
Findings from this study revealed that the sociopolitical interests of the community were
the intervening conditions. Parental intervention, or the threat of such, often dampened teachers’
ability to give the whole truth. On the other hand, student desire to be exposed to a complex
narrative of American history acted as a catalyst, moving teachers to bring in materials that
complicated and challenged traditional narratives, in order to meet the requests of students.
Specifically, teachers expressed a fear of being reprimanded by the parents or the district if
teaching about matters that could be seen as controversial in the broader community. However,

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teachers in other districts felt compelled to lead conversations on the same topics when the
students expressed that said material was important to them.
The consequence of the central phenomenon was the breakdown of the border between
history and politics. There is no modern politics without the history that informs said politics,
and the historical moments themselves are filled with then-contemporary political arguments
about how best to chart the course of the country. In this study, teachers brought in materials
meant to challenge the narrative that this version of America was pre-destined, highlighting the
then-political, now-historical, decisions that gave rise to the institutions, both good and bad, that
currently dominate our social and political lives. For some teachers in the study, the consequence
was sometimes the radicalization of their political beliefs; for others, the increased partisan
divide highlighted the importance of informed and reason compromise and conversation.
Teachers on opposite ends of the spectrum agree that the way forward is to have a
comprehensive understanding of American history, one that mentions that America has seen
already hyper-partisanship, rising wealth gaps, and the unarmed killings of Black civilians, and
challenging students to use those understandings for social reform.

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CHAPTER SIX: DISCUSSION
This study’s examination of U.S. History teachers’ sociopolitical and racial attitudes and
their classroom practices contributes to conversations about the place of politics in the
classroom, and the role of standards in how teachers provide instruction. This work is situated at
the intersection of political psychology and educational policy. The findings relevant to political
psychology are just as important to the study as those that could be housed squarely in the
domain of education policy. Specifically, findings from this study generated informative
categories for how teachers go about their work in turning curriculum and historical content into
instruction and lessons for their students. In this section, I provide a discussion of this study’s
findings within two broad literatures: 1) the role of teachers in policy implementation 2) political
behavior and communication. I will begin by situating this study within the research on teaching,
sensemaking, and curriculum policy, and how this study expands and extends the literature.
Next, I situate this study within the realm of political behavior, specifically in regards to two sub-
fields: 1) partisan motivated reasoning, and 2) the influence of position-taking on opinion
formation, both examining how teachers are influenced by politics, and how teachers’ politics
are possibly influencing their classroom practices.
Bias in the Classroom
The study’s central finding was investigating the influences of sociocultural and racial
beliefs and biases on classroom instruction. Participants described how their attitudes and
historical knowledge shaped what civic values they should infuse into their curriculum in hopes
of transferring them to students. This process is in alignment with Geller (2020), as the findings
showed how school and political environments may shape how comfortable teachers feel in
accepting the role their beliefs play influencing their practices, and secondarily, their students.

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Teachers in open situations where their political beliefs were in alignment with their school and
community were more likely to disclose in order to create students that were equipped to
perform the civic functions in their community. Teachers in environments where they felt
unsupported by their school or a degree of political misalignment with their community were less
likely to infuse their history lessons with civic values, and leaned on following the curriculum in
order to ensure their job security. This work also extends the work of Geller (2020), in addition
to the work of Dunn and colleagues (2019) by revealing not only the community factors that
make political disclosure more or less likely, but the individual justifications that could make
teachers be willing to appear non-neutral on certain issues. Howard (2003) suggested that
neutrality the face of systemic inequity in the classroom serve as endorsements of oppression.
Participants described how they identified with causes that went beyond partisanship, to issues of
equity. This finding reveals that teachers are willing to appear biased towards the side of justice,
but the line between partisan issues and equity issues is drawn by teachers and may shift over
time.
One of the key findings of this study is that the vast majority of social studies teachers do
not believe that teacher (of any discipline) can completely leave their biases outside of the
classroom. There is no such thing as unbiased teaching, or at least history teaching. Thus, rather
than arguing for unbiased teaching, this section will analyze the commonly cited sources of these
teacher political and pedagogical beliefs, and the directional biases that these sources may
contain. Throughout the study, participants frequently cited the influence of the history teachers
that they were taught as children, and the teacher educators that guided them early in their
practicing career. The process by which someone identifies with their teacher’s style and seeks to
emulate it is in alignment with Kang (2008), whose findings revealed that if the newer teacher

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saw themselves in the curriculum and in their mentor teacher, their practices would gravitate
towards traditional methods and ideas about the nature of history and of teaching it to their
students.
The findings from this study suggest that a teacher’s own feelings about their history
education shaped their opinions on the place of bias in the classroom. For example, Brook
described it as “cool” that her teachers hid their own political beliefs, and explicitly said that she
tried to emulate that style. If political disclosure is viewed as a pedagogical style, this aligns with
Journell’s (2016) findings that neutrality, perceived by teachers as presenting politically balanced
information, is the traditional, and thus, right way to teach. However, this study also found that
teachers found their way into the profession even if they did not see themselves in the curriculum
in their youth. According to the 2012 NCES School and Staffing Survey (Department of
Education, 2012), 63 percent of secondary school social studies teachers were white, and 87
percent of social studies teachers identified as male. For the most part, White teachers drew upon
their experiences as white people to determine what was an equity issue. White women drew
upon their experience as little girls when discussing equity issues, and White men acknowledged
diversity as important, but did not explicitly describe race and gender issues as a central thrust
and conflict in American history. The White men that did frame White supremacy as a key
element of history either taught non-White students, were politically far left, or both. Where
teachers draw the line between political issues and equity issues is an important one, and this
study’s findings suggest that the current White teachers, while well-intentioned, fall short in their
capacity and will to accurately teach about the salience of race and racism for both white and
non-white people.

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The findings from this study suggest that teachers that do not see representations of
themselves in the curriculum have a fundamentally different understanding of teaching than
those who did. In comparison, Sam and Brenda did not see their own experiences in the
curriculum that they were taught. Their decisions around political disclosure were motivated by a
moral imperative to help their students that would enter a society plagued with racism. Similar to
the participants in Geller’s (2020) study, opposing Trump’s rhetoric of anti-Hispanic racism was
not about sharing their political stances; it was about ensuring that their students felt they were in
a safe space and could trust their teacher, specifically pointing out that some students were
undocumented and it was of utmost importance to feel like their teacher would have their back.
Rather than seeking to reproduce the history that they were taught, women and people of color
who felt underrepresented in history courses sought to redefine what and how history is taught.
These findings suggest that while neutrality is popularly seen as the way to promote a “safe”
classroom, some teachers are willing to be seen as partisan if it means they are on the side of
student safety. This study contributes to the literature by suggesting that those teachers do not
seek to be “neutral,” rather they seek to be the ideal history teacher but their own experiences
and racial and ethnic background shape what the ideal teacher does in the classroom.
Teachers, Standards, and Implementation
This study also unearthed several important findings related to teachers’ use of the
content standards. As teachers gain experience, the standards have less influence over their
decision-making, even as new standards are implemented. At the early stages of their careers,
however, teachers adhere to the standards in order to increase the likelihood that their students
will be prepared for the end-of-year exam. To novice teachers, the standards are all equally
important; treating all standards as valuable inevitably gives more weight to earlier parts of

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history, as teachers frequently commented that they did not have time to make it the present
before shifting gears to exam preparation. As teachers accumulate years in the classroom, the
importance of individual standards wanes unless the teacher views that as providing social
context to students, or if that content frequently appears on state tests.
This study is unique in constructing a more modern typology for teachers, both as
teachers, part of the educational structure and as politically biased independent actors. It reveals
that there are catalytic events that can change what an individual sees as their purpose in the
classroom. Teachers in this study pointed to political events in the past few years, most often the
election of Donald Trump, the continued killings of unarmed Black civilians at the hands of law
enforcement, and the January 6
th
insurrection at the U.S. Capitol as history in the making that
they could not pass up the opportunity to teach about. More importantly, these events have the
power to “radicalize” teachers in promoting civic activism in the classroom, even White teachers
that would previously be neutral and relatively quiet on the discrepancies in how law
enforcement treats different people.
My findings extend the literature on political disclosure in social studies classroom. First,
the data shows that teachers do not exactly subscribe to the categorization that Kelly (1986)
suggested. That said, teachers actively rejected two of his categories as good practice. The first,
Exclusive Neutrality, suggests that teachers should not bring in any issues that may be seen as
controversial in the broader community. Many teachers saw this as impossible, and thought that
having that as an aspirational target would do a disservice to students. The second, Exclusive
Partiality, is defined by teachers dismissing ideas they believe are wrong, or by stacking the deck
in discussions towards their argument. This practice, while frowned upon, was an example of
something teachers in the study gave as an example of how political beliefs may influence

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practice. Dana shared this when she explained how teachers, when explaining systematic poverty
and previous approaches to solving it, might leave out the fact that they support Reagan and his
approach to this issue. This finding is key, as stacking the deck can both consist of influencing
the argument with one’s own beliefs, or by omitting evidence that may cause the development of
attitudes counter to one’s own opinions.
The two paradigms that most closely related to the experiences of those in the study were
Neutral Impartiality and Committed Impartiality. The former belief was expressed by teachers
that saw themselves as “old school,” and actively sought to replicate their own experiences in
history classrooms. These teachers sought to provide all of the available information on
sociopolitical issues, while not making their own positions known unless the conversation took a
personal tone where someone’s identity was attacked. Wyatt and Brook expressed this attitude,
saying that it was not their job to stack the deck, being wary of their influence on the political
development of students. The trend of not disclosing who one voted for until the students
graduate is an example of a Neutral Impartiality train of thought. Committed Impartiality, while
not a perfect model for the teachers, represented Kelly’s ideal teacher, where teachers share their
own beliefs while pursuing truth. To some extent, the teachers in my study pursued truth and
grounded their own beliefs as just that, beliefs that can be justifiably questioned when those lines
of inquiry are based in truth or idealistic ideas of American values.
One of the lingering questions in education policy is that of the role of teachers,
specifically whether empowering them to make curriculum-altering choices is preferable to
giving them ready-made materials and expecting them to implement them without alterations.
Weatherly and Lipsky's (1977) research highlighted teachers as local-level implementers, whose
understanding of policy shapes how they implement said policy. That said, recent research has

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questioned the assumption that teachers feel that amount of authority in shaping what content
and cognitive demand students are exposed to. More recent research has suggested that context
shapes the amount of individual decision-making teachers feel licensed to make. In their research
on teachers in charter schools, Torres (2014) described that teachers felt like they were told their
role would be akin to an architect, but ended up being used more similar to a construction
worker. Extending that analogy to the current study, veteran teachers tended to view themselves
as architects, while newer teachers are socialized to see themselves as construction workers
unless given encouragement from leadership to bring their own insights into the classroom.
This research also extends the literature on implementation of policy, especially when
that policy seems overtly political, which teachers are opposed to. In comparison to foundational
literature where implementation seemed to be based on capacity differences, the failure of
implementation can also be correlated to a lack of will. The vignette that focused on a state-
focused narrative of history received participant pushback on whether such a continuous progress
narrative was true. For example, Sylvia and Jessica in Texas, and Sam in California, all pointed
out that the politicization of curriculum was already happening, favoring Western-centric
perspectives. Riley noted, like Anderson (2012; 2013) found in his research on existing
standards, that state-driven materials only problematize issues that have been solved, and
furthering the assimilationist narrative that intrepid leadership has led to the expansion of human
rights in the United States. This finding suggests that teachers are aware that their current
standards are already political, and have complicated relationships with the uncritical patriotic
elements of state standards.

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Teachers, Politicization, and Polarized Communities
Teachers understand that from students’ perspectives, they are the closest thing to arbiters
of “historical knowledge.” Thus, it remained important for teachers in districts with a partisan
majority to maintain an air of credibility by backing up any contrarian beliefs with facts.
Teachers see themselves as elites in the classroom and seek to avoid the polarization of partisan
elites (needing to remain non-partisan to be a trustworthy messenger to all students). In order to
reach students on the other side in these situations, teachers must approach their political
attitudes with the backing of historical fact and encourage students who make ahistorical
arguments to do the same. On a micro-level, teachers in polarized communities being careful of
alienating students aligns with Druckman and colleagues’ (2013) understanding of how
polarization reduces the relevance of the strength of an argument, while increasing motivated
reasoning. Teachers like Stephanie, who pointed out how wary she was about saying a
“controversial” opinion that could alienate students, have to choose between being an activist
that reaches students who agree with her views or watering down, or whitewashing, the truth in
order to get buy in from students who are more conservative.
In addition to dealing with the politicization of the classroom, teachers also must deal
with the role of partisan media. Participant e mentioned that one of her students only watched
conservative news at home, and participant g suggested that some students, taking after their
parents, were not being shown the entire story. While media engagement is healthy, some of the
shows on mainstream news networks have been described as “political theater” (Jamieson &
Cappella, 2008; Waisanen, 2009), which is not compatible with classroom debates where the set
of reasonable solutions is not so shaped by partisan bias. When teachers that were against
political disclosure were asked about students echoing conservative talking points that had latent

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or blatant racism, sexism, or xenophobia, each teacher described stepping in and saying that
those points had no place in the classroom, as they devalued other voices. This finding, that the
tenor of political discussions is shifted by the presence of partisans exposed to partisan media,
extends the literature on partisan media. Druckman and colleagues (2018) found two relevant
findings: first, homogenous groups coalesce around the party position shown in partisan media;
second, heterogenous conversations only moderate that effect in some scenarios. Relevant to the
current study, teachers playing devil’s advocate to expose their students to different views may
only help if they have already gained student trust enough to be heard even when discussing
unpopular politics.
Participants in this study, however, took different approaches to answering the vignette
about the politicization of standards. Most teachers found some issue with teaching a curriculum
that was motivated by partisanship, regardless of the fact that the narrative itself of continuous
American progress is echoed by both parties (Hall, 2005). The answers roughly mapped onto
Stooksberry and colleagues (2009) findings related to the domains of teaching. Some responses,
like Alice and Grant, focused on the intellectual opportunities that their students would be denied
by not giving them the whole truth. Other responses focused on the partisan history courses
being culturally wrong, as a relevant community disagreed with the notion or that the curriculum
would be unstable due to each party changing the curriculum every election cycle. Lastly, a
small portion of teachers used reasoning that mapped onto the moral category, where their
justifications for rejecting a nationalist curriculum was that it was incompatible with their
personal beliefs and reasons for teaching, with Brittany, Susan suggesting they would quit if
forced to fall in line with what they saw as a dishonest narrative of U.S. history, and Maurice
mentioning he would do everything possible to protest while keeping his job.

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The study found that teachers not only acted agents of the state by teaching the official
curriculum, but also as indirect change agents by promoting accuracy motivated reasoning to
their students, and direct change agents by sharing grounded political and social beliefs. As
highlighted by the several participants who went out of their way to discuss race in more depth
than the standards demanded, teachers were not passive recipients of curriculum. Teachers going
out of their way to make themselves more capable of teaching about contemporary social issues
complicates the usual paradigm of what the state wants for their students. Teachers that find the
state standards wanting are suggesting that the state is telling students what to think, and that
providing a more comprehensive history is a prerequisite to moving towards the social ideal
where students are instead taught how to think.
The combination of years of experience and some personality traits, usually related to a
social obligation, created teachers that were independent agents. This independence was usually
demonstrated by a) speaking about their autonomy in what they taught b) describing the
standards as a baseline that is easily surpassed and c) feeling unrestrained by the pressure of
yearly state exams. The findings of this study corroborate and complicate Journell’s (2010)
research on the influence of high-stakes testing. Journell categorized teachers’ incorporation of
current events into three hierarchical categories. These categories, ordered from least to most
inclusive of current events, were curricular focused, disciplined inclusion, and opportunity first.
This study finds these categories accurate, though teachers seemed to be more on a spectrum,
and where they fell in a particular moment was shaped by their own pedagogical beliefs. While
this study corroborates the anxieties novice teachers feel and that veteran teachers feel more
confidence in getting their students to pass the test, this study found that similar results could be
replicated by novice teachers in departments that coalesced around putting civic opportunities

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before the results on state tests. Teachers that feel comfortable incorporating racial dynamics and
social ethics into their history curriculum without being moderated by school bureaucracy or
community politics represent a unique opportunity to create students that consider the weight of
history when having civic discussions in classroom and when making political decisions later in
life.
History Teachers and Race in the Classroom
This study also furthers the literature in understanding how teachers discuss race in their
classroom. Teachers’ own understandings of the racial history of the country interacts with their
adamance in teaching said material, all within the context of their community, both regarding the
demographic makeup of their students and their families. Similar to what previous research has
shown, teachers in homogenous White communities may face backlash in diversifying the
curriculum or changing the structure of teaching outright; in homogenous communities where
there is little positive interaction with White people, it is also difficult for teachers to get students
to understand the evolution of whiteness over time, specifically in how White supremacy has
also negatively impacted people now commonly seen as White (Epstein, Mayorga & Nelson,
2011). White teachers in the study all expressed the desire to do better by their students, but
translating that will to capacity building seemed limited to teachers that either taught in school
districts with minoritized students or had a radicalizing experience that made avoiding race, even
to a homogenous White audience, morally unconscionable.
In addition to contributing the literature on how teachers discuss race historically, this
study provides insight into how teachers discuss contemporary racism, as a matter of current
events. If civics deliberations around current events are defined as fact -based where there are
competing proposals with varying outcomes, then these discussions are not commonplace in

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every history classroom. As Stephanie pointed out, some younger history teachers do not have
the historical knowledge to ground civic debates in political and historical content. The disparate
political and historical knowledge between teachers aligns with Journell’s (2013) research on
social studies. Teachers that had an “intrinsic political interest” and relevant life experiences
scored higher on political knowledge, but there were other teachers in Journell’s study that
admitted to being lazy and being politically apathetic. While none of the teachers in the current
study described political apathy, teachers did describe challenges in finding engaging political
materials that students were also willing to engage with. The latter point, the lack of student
interest in current events, may be exacerbated by political differences between teacher and
community, seen with a, or the lack of capacity on the part of the teacher to make current events
relevant to both their history curriculum and the lived experiences of students.
Whether as a result of political apathy or a lack of preparedness, the findings from the
current study suggest that teachers’ unwillingness to make the classroom political can extend to
limiting the depth of discussion on race. As Riley pointed out, the state standards are unlikely to
problematize current social issues, leaving that to the teachers, if they have the will and capacity
to do so. While Brad has received less conservative pushback in northern California, other
teachers, like Alice, still deal with criticisms like including Black Lives Matter in their
curriculum, a critique that hints at latent anti-Blackness in their local community. Previous
research has found that under-prepared teachers will leave these hot-button issues to the parents
(Hess, 2002; Washington & Humphries, 2011), rather than actively seeking to remediate the
antiquated beliefs that parents may be passing onto their children. The participants who held
historically oppressed identities unapologetically went above and beyond to include the stories of
oppressed communities whether teaching mostly White students or mostly students of color.

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However, White teachers required a multicultural awakening or significant intergroup experience
to internalize the important contributions of minoritized peoples to American society (Cherng &
Davis, 2017; Paluck, Green, and Green, 2018). This speaks to the larger trend where Black and
Latinx teachers use their own identities and racial experiences to promote multiculturalism,
where only a subsection of White teachers have had the experiences and or training that make
them both capable and willing to do the same.
The influence of racism on the course of American history is somewhat analogous to the
role of teaching evolutionary theory in biology. Trani (2004) several significant correlations
when examining science teachers’ beliefs, three of which are relevant: first, teachers with strong
religious convictions were less likely to believe in evolution; second, teachers who do not
believe in evolutionary theory are less likely to present that material to their students; third,
teachers who do not understand evolutionary are less likely to discuss evolution in their
classrooms. In the current study, teachers that did not express the importance of historical and
contemporary racism might be less likely to present that information to their students. More
importantly, teacher regardless of their racial convictions might be less likely to delve deeply
into issues related to White supremacy because they do not feel adequately trained to do so.
The findings from this study provide the opportunity to create a greater understanding of
teachers’ political and racial beliefs, specifically in regard to how those beliefs influence both the
implementation of standards and curricula in general. The graph detailing where teachers fall on
the axes of school/community integration and civic activism offer a new perspective in
demonstrating the curricular choices that teachers make, along with a broader understanding of
why the catalogue of available options changes with the individual, and sometimes, the context
they find them in. Most teachers do not believe that unbiased teaching is possible, and that

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aiming for such is unreasonable. The teachers that strive for neutrality do so to develop civil
discussion habits in students. Ultimately, the study discovered that most teachers do not believe
that unbiased teaching is possible and that a teacher’s views about the role of bias in the
classroom is related to one’s own teacher training and political position relative to moderates.
The importance of this study rests in undoing the cultural expectation that teachers can
and should leave their biases outside the classroom. Instead, the causes of these political,
sociocultural and racial beliefs should be examined, and understood in terms of how they will
influence implementation. Thus, the findings from this study matter in affirming that the
experiences and perspectives of people of color matter, while highlighting the need for teacher
training that goes beyond the content or the pedagogy, but why the struggles of oppressed groups
mattered in the past, and how to make them matter to students now. In the next two sections, I
will describe the implications of this work for researchers, in addition to the implications for
teachers and other people in the educational sphere.
Implications for Further Research
The study’s findings provide avenues for further exploration into understanding the
individual and contextual factors that shape teacher decision-making. The chart that places
teachers on a two-dimensional axis based on their individual commitment to teaching about
social justice and their commitment to change from within the organization has implications
relating to research on the influence of tradition on today’s teaching practices, teacher curricular
autonomy, and the influence on partisanship and polarization in classrooms and schools.
Generally, the results of this study speak to the fields of educational policy and political
psychology, and connect the two disciplines. In this section, I will discuss the implications for
both fields and suggest avenues for future research that could use the frameworks and findings of

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this study to advance the body of research on how racial and political attitudes influence the
educational space.
As previously discussed, the teachers in the current study often identified themselves in
relation to their peers, either by the classes that they taught or by how seriously they took their
pedagogy. This finding suggests that there is an internal ranking of teachers, based on which
social studies classes, with U.S. history at or near the top in terms of prestige. An unexpected,
but important finding of the study is how social studies classes that are untested are treated. The
low stakes attached to social studies can help to explain why a couple of participants mentioned
that their colleagues in social studies were primarily coaches, especially in civics classes, among
other untested subjects. Brown and Sieben (2013) found that social studies teachers were much
more likely than their colleagues in other disciplines to express interest in coaching. Knowles,
Hawkman, and Nielsen (2020), in a survey of over four thousand social studies teachers, found
that teacher-coaches were underrepresented in higher level courses and had statistically different
teaching practices when compared to teachers that do not coach, the former group preferring
lecture over examination of primary sources. Future research could investigate how teachers and
teacher-coaches teach U.S. history and civics, and the political lessons students take from those
courses.
Teachers in this study with experience at all levels suggested that teachers could use more
training in regard to their cultural and historical understanding of race. Teachers’ understandings
of the cultural and scientific construction of race should be nuanced and deep, especially in a
class like U.S. history, where the goal is to transmit the social, cultural, and political foundations
that students are expected to grasp and use in making civic decisions. Whether it comes to race
or sex, the historical justifications for discrimination have come from directionally motivated

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science (Levine, 1988) or inaccurate histories intent on justifying White supremacy (Reddick,
1934). Teaching about race in ways that essentialize racial differences in science classes can be
worse on student beliefs than not teaching about race at all (Donovan, 2014). While science and
history may not have much epistemic overlap on the surface, it is clear that understandings of
race and racism could be improved by improving the domain knowledge of teachers of both
subjects.
There are also implications related to the field of political psychology. While most of the
research related to motivated reasoning focuses on accuracy or directionally motivated
reasoning, the current research suggests that in some situations, accuracy itself can be the
direction. While a high school history course cannot be comprehensive or labelled as the whole
truth, teachers make pedagogical directional choices meant to increase the accuracy of the
narrative about U.S. history that they teach, and that students are exposed to. Research could
more intently focus on the strategies that classroom teachers use that encourage accuracy
motivated reasoning in their students. Kahne and Bowyer (2017) found that the amount of
political knowledge had no effect on the effect of partisan motivated reasoning: students that had
higher levels of political knowledge were still swayed by partisan framing as long as that
information was accurate. Further research could examine the epistemic discussions of the truth
in history classes, and the differing approaches teachers take concerning “fake news” and how
teachers make the decision on how much value to give to an opinion based on misleading news
versus more accurate sources.
One of the primary motivations of the current study was seeking to understand teachers'
dual experiences of being public citizens, subject to partisan cues, and being political elites in the
classroom, where their position-taking has value and could impact students' political

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development. More than one teacher mentioned the fear of disclosing and losing the trust of a
potential student that held differing views. First, this suggests that some partisan students view
teachers through a lens similar to viewing partisan media: their credibility is directly related to
view compatibility, and that there is a breaking point where teacher credibility can go to zero due
to a policy position. Since these discussions are more likely to happen in courses related to
contemporary issues, researchers could investigate civics, politics, and sociology courses in
politically homogenous and heterogenous areas and compare the tenor of discussion.
Continuing in the field of political psychology, the current research also offers avenues
for exploration involving the impacts of framing and partisan cues. The findings in this
dissertation allow for conversations about quantifying the values that teachers use in discussing
the value of teaching, and in learning U.S. history. In addition, this research should seek to
analyze the translation of the values into student understandings. The field of political
psychology has moved both towards field experiments and secondary data analysis in
understanding the factors influencing polarization and public opinion (Anson, 2018;
Levendusky, 2010; Thornton, 2013). By focusing on teachers, who resist being polarized due to
the nature of their occupation, and student outcomes, future researchers could understand the
micro-dynamics of how anti-partisans communicate and how this communication is understood
by a generation still leaning about which parties endorse which policies. For example,
researchers could track a cohort of students through high school in college in a community that is
politically heterogenous and analyze how they come to understand the civic cues they are given
at school, in their community, and at home.
The final implication for the study does not fit neatly within a singular field, but would be
the expansion of the current research and replication in different subject areas. The work in this

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dissertation involved elements of education policy and political psychology, but was only able to
flesh out answers for some teachers, in some contexts. First, researchers could attempt to
understand how disciplinary fields shape pedagogy. Most large-scale surveys do not disaggregate
those in the field of secondary education by subject taught; moving forward, it would be helpful
to understand what percentage of science teachers hold controversial opinions about climate
change, or what amount of history teachers watch a variety of news sources. The current research
shows that, contrary to popular belief, schools are not politically neutral and perhaps, may have
never been. To say so would be to suggest that everyone in a school site leaves their political
beliefs outside, which is untrue. Schools are a site of political contestation, and research should
follow up on this research to analyze the intradepartmental and interdepartmental conflicts, the
political justifications used in those conflicts, and the ramifications of the decisions made. There
is a need for quantitative research in taking stock of what departments around the country
believe, and qualitative research in how those beliefs shape student learning, attitudes, and
outcomes.
Quantitative researchers could also further develop constructs and design interventions
testing such constructs. For example, younger teachers in my study expressed that having mentor
teachers that provided support gave them confidence to incorporate controversial issues or
contemporary topics into their curriculum, using their own voice. Quantifying teacher support
and the influence on political disclosure is a study that could have implications for communities
across the country, especially in states passing laws restricting teachers from using critical race
theory in their lessons. A study could be designed examining younger history teachers that have
mentor teachers and those that do not, and quantify how often teachers give their own informed
opinion on said topic. More generally, quantitative researchers doing large scale research on

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teachers could ask a question about what courses they teach, so that subject can be a dependent
variable in future projects.
Implications for Practice
In addition to the implications for researchers, there are also implications for this work in
the classroom, and the broader domain of education as it continues to intersect with local and
national politics. Specifically, as politicians attempt to expand their influence over the what is
acceptable retellings of knowledge in the history classroom, policymakers and teachers can use
these findings to advance the discussion of what knowledge is classroom appropriate, and how to
determine the how the biases of potential teachers would influence their fit. This study allows for
an understanding of the factors that make a teacher more likely to integrate the values of the
community and state in their curriculum, and the factors that would make a teacher infuse the
curriculum with their own morals. In this section, I will first discuss implications for educators,
who might reflect on where they want to position themselves on the axes previously mentioned,
and the effects of doing such work. Second, I describe implications for educators who may
attempt to insulate their schools from the effect of partisanship stifling moral/civil discussions on
contemporary social issues.
The level of historical knowledge varied from participant to participant. While some of
the younger teachers did not portray themselves as historians, some of the older historians prided
themselves on their knowledge of the country, filtered through their personal lens of what aspect
of history is their preference. That said, all of the teachers pointed out that they were not paid to
train young historians, nor was that the job they were interested in performing. Teachers,
however, do value complicating the narrative or U.S. history that students are exposed to, and
focus their history instruction on that. Throughout the study, teachers expressed a desire to

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improve at their craft. This finding is especially important for White teachers, who expressed
difficulty in teaching about race and racism and either did not initiate, deferred to the standards,
or taught with hesitance in fear of doing it “wrong.” Teachers may need to be forced to attend
workshops of their choosing, focused on improving identifying areas of weakness in their own
pedagogy, for example: teaching about White supremacy to White students, or teaching about
the roots of the police force in neighborhoods that have a complicated relationship with policing.
In addition, teachers that have the will to teach about these things but are unsure how to go about
it need readily available and easily implementable materials that make the learning curve in
doing so less steep.
As mentioned in the section on further research, racism and other bigotries cannot be
combatted only in one class, as the “sources” people use to justify racism stem from
pseudoscience, policy attitudes, a lack of exposure to different people, and a number of other
factors. Thus, teachers in U.S. history may have a rare opportunity to teach students about the
historical choices made that justify White supremacy in this country. For example, the period
from the end of Reconstruction to the beginning of the 20
th
century (1876-1900) is relatively
understudied in high school history classrooms (Gamboa, 2019). Rather than focusing on how
the rapid industrialism benefitted the country, as that evidence is all around us in the form of
technological marvels, teachers could focus on the insidious parts of history that first began
during that period and how those failures reverberate to the current day. For example, this is the
period when Jim Crow is established and confederate statues meant to remind Black citizens of
their second-class status begin to go up, not immediately after the Civil War ends, but after more
liberal states give up on fighting for the rights of Black people that still live in a deeply racist
South. The Gilded Age saw the rise of corruption, money influencing politics, and concerns

130

about wealth inequities; the following age saw Progressivism, the expansion of voting, and
politics that sought to ensure the rich gave back to the society that helped them become so
wealthy. This period of history, while relatively underrepresented in U.S. standards throughout
the country, is rich with choices that shape our modern society, both on the side of politicians
and the ordinary citizens that mobilized to push back on the powerful; teachers could help
students avoid the mistakes of the past by showing them the strategies that previous generations
used to make change given similar circumstances.
Lastly, students and teachers could learn to examine their own biases in how they process
new information. As students and teachers are citizens alike, they both have an interest ensuring
that new information that affirms their previous beliefs are subject to similar scrutiny that
challenges their prior held attitudes. Teachers in this study mentioned how some of their
colleagues are resistant to changing how they have taught, but the media landscape has changed
around them. Research has shown that political knowledge does not significantly reduce the
effects of motivated reasoning on thinking (Kahne and Bowyer, 2017); media literacy and in-
depth scrutiny are more important factors that reduce the likelihood that a person will fall for
fake news (Pennycook and Rand, 2019). This presents a learning opportunity for teachers to
highlight where their understanding of what was plausible changed due to new information,
while also providing a framework for students to continuously rework their civic values in line
with the knowledge they gain. For example, 58 percent of White Americans do not believe that
African Americans should be entitled to reparations (Craemer, 2009), but teachers that believe in
a spectrum of American values may be likely to change their attitudes if they were exposed to
information about the economic case for reparations, which spans far past the American Civil
War (Coates, 2014; Winbush, 2010). Demonstrating how closely held policy attitudes can be

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changed with updated information would be a powerful example for fellow teachers and students
alike.
Limitations
This section acknowledges the limitations of the current study. While this study is not
meant to be generalizable, the extension of the findings to other contexts have theoretical limits
due to the constraints on the study. In addition, this is a study on the beliefs of U.S. History
teachers and how they influence classroom practices, but I did not get to observe classes in
person, perhaps missing some nuance in implementation that teachers would not reveal during
their interview.
The second contextual limitation of the study involves participant recruiting. Having sent
nearly one thousand emails with approximately 35 responses, there is a real possibility that the
teachers that chose to participate are intrinsically different than those that did not reply, more
concerned with the current state of social studies or more likely to have strong opinions about the
state standards, for example. While the findings from this study are not expected to be fully
generalizable, they become even less so if there is an unobserved variable that teachers in my
study have that those who chose not to reply. In addition, participant recruitment took place
during the COVID-19 pandemic, which likely reduced my response rate as teachers spent extra
time getting used to teaching virtually. In addition, this could affect the data gathered in a couple
of ways: 1) the teachers that chose to reply during COVID-19 could be different than the
population at large and 2) the virtual (and likely recorded) nature of history classes could shape
how teachers taught, and if true across participants, would limit the relevance of these findings to
other virtual classrooms.

132

In addition, there is the question of how honest individual teachers were about their
political and racial beliefs. While I did not get a sense that any teacher was lying to me or
intentionally withholding information, some teachers spoke at length and continued to reach out
after the interview was done, whereas others seemed content that they had gotten all of the
information out there. During interviews, I reminded participants that anything that they said was
helpful, as the goal was to understand the perspectives that shaped their teaching. While I used a
pseudonym and did not disclose my race unless asked at the end of the interview, more than one
teacher made comments that suggested they knew that I, as an academic doing research on the
beliefs of teachers, was not politically conservative. If that feeling that I was a member of their
political team shaped the depth of their description, another researcher may have obtained
slightly different results. However, this limitation is speculative and most participants did not
ascertain that I was Black, a concern that necessitated phone interviews and use of a different
email account. That said, continuous analysis of data until consistent trends and distinguishable
classes emerged should reduce the effects of any difference in disclosure among individual
participants.
Conclusion
The study concludes by making final statements about the scope of the results, and how
the information gleaned from the current research may advance the field of education policy and
more broadly, add to the evidence that suggests that social change is both necessary and possible.
In this section, I provide three summative points, their ramifications, and conclude with a closing
statement. The following are three key takeaways found throughout the course of the study:
1) Teachers inevitably have biases that shape their classrooms, but individual factors shape
the direction and degree of political asymmetry of these biases: The central phenomenon

133

and main key takeaway are the justifications teachers use when allowing their own
personal attitudes to entire the classroom. Whether due to feeling absent from the
curriculum that they were taught as students or their current attitudes about current
political polarization, teachers bring their previous understandings of what a teacher
should be into the classroom. Most teachers describe bias as inevitable, and the few that
disagreed showed a bias towards what could be defined as American centrism. The
current study advances the literature on teacher disclosure, and suggests that political
disclosure is also tied to deviating from the traditional notions of how a teacher should
conduct themselves. Teachers that are far in the direction of curricular independence and
high on the scale of historical activism are likely to let their own biases drive instruction
in a way outside of a traditional school structure. That said, the current findings are in
line with Geller’s (2020) recent work, in suggesting that teachers are united in taking a
stand when neutrality would mean saying nothing and would be a tacit endorsement of
bigotry. Teachers like Wyatt, Alice, and Sam, while differing on many issues, all took
strong stances when asked about whether they would remain neutral if a political point
hinged on discriminatory rhetoric. The longer participants spent in the classroom, the
more comfort they felt in transferring values to students, with the work of the standards
becoming secondary. Ultimately, teachers used their understandings of history and their
relationships with their students in tandem to create a curriculum meant to instill
historical thinking skills alongside passing along the civic values that brought them to the
classroom in the first place.
2) Context matters when determining how teachers deviate from the traditional narrative of
American history, as defined by the state content standards: The second key takeaway

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concerns the environmental causal and intervening conditions. U.S. history teachers,
while skilled practitioners, are navigating a curriculum that has political messages,
whether via inclusion or exclusion of certain topics (Apple, 2014). The content standards
already provide a state-approved version of its own history. Teachers in a variety of
contexts expressed concern about how taking community suggestions may mute the
ugliness of some truths about the United States that they feel individually obligated to
share with students. Participants in locations where there was a significant conservative
population mentioned feelings of entitlement to curricular input, and mentioned the
difficulty in doing their job when their version of history was at odds with the broader
community. Teachers, especially novice ones who do not have the long track record of
passing students, use traditional methods and narratives of history in order to reassure the
parents that the values they are trying to instill into the next generation are not being
undermined by a relative newcomer to the community. This study demonstrates the value
in schools that have veteran teachers that are both open to change and willing to go to bat
for younger teachers seeking to teach history that matters. Sam benefitted from veteran
teachers encouraging her to take risks in her curriculum so that students saw themselves
in American history; Don had to leave a school district where he could have helped
White students and colleagues understand the ills of White supremacy because he did not
feel supported in doing such work. The standards loosely dictate what teachers must
cover, but schools and communities guide both the aspirational values and uncomfortable
truths that students are exposed to in their history classrooms.

135

3) For teachers, the direction is accuracy, but this unity is undermined by preceding
differences in their own educations:
The final key takeaway from this study is the accuracy motivated reasoning of teachers that is
shaped by the diversity of their experiences. Teachers aspire to be consummate professionals, but
are operating with various sets of historical information without complete overlap. Though
teachers strive to focus on how to think, rather than what to think, this alignment is undermined
by the teachers that enter the profession for different reasons. Teachers in my study often defined
their identities in relation to their colleagues, and were either leaders or their school or had a
mentality that suggested that they wanted the best for their students, and were willing to put in
extra hours to improve their craft. Kyle, who is retiring at the conclusion of the 2020-21 school
year, spent the final years of his career learning deeply about the roots of policing in America,
and then worked to translate his lessons into curriculum that was digestible by his students.
Maurice expressed a desire to be forced to be educated on how better to teach about race and
racism, in part so that he could attend well-organized workshops, but also because of the state-
sanctioned message that this is important. If students are expected to have overlapping
understandings of American history across state lines, their teachers need to be equipped with a
comprehensive understanding of that history, the skills to make it relevant, and the will to
continue improving.
The key takeaways provide a larger view of the findings while situating the work in the
related literatures. The study, the conclusions, the implications, and suggestions for further
research provide avenues for researchers to continue exploring the domain-specific ways that
teachers’ actions are influenced by factors outside of the classroom. The two-dimensional
spectrum will be useful in situating teachers’ own individual goals within the context of their

136

community, and within the bounds of the standards that shape the values and ways of thinking
that they are expected to instill in students. While the debate around the role of teachers in the
development of students scientific, political or social beliefs may continue, this study found that
not only do teachers bring these selves into the classroom, these selves may be changed by their
experiences in their own classroom, specifically with students that demand to be taught history
that provides needed context to the lives that they are living and the society they are expected to
contribute to.
Closing this study, my hope is that the findings provide the opportunity for researchers,
those involved in schools, and broader society to think about the values that we are attempting to
teach students through our history, and what acting towards these values should look like. The
2016 Presidential election acted as a catalytic event for some that “radicalized” some of the
teachers in my study, mostly to become more active allies of their students of color, and more
fervent opponents of the latent bigotry that can occur in the White-dominated schools throughout
the country. This study found that on several occasions, students pushed their teachers to provide
deeper examinations of issues currently plaguing the United States, showing a zeal that the
writers of the standards may not have anticipated. In fact, some of the teachers admitted having
to study the history of racism in order to do these issues justice, and did the self-work and
research in order to better serve the needs of their students. The relentless push of students to
learn history that matters and the work put in by their teachers to educate themselves, and
eventually their students on these topics, gives me hope about the future of social studies
education as a means to dismantle various forms of institutional bigotry. The work being done by
these students, and the activist teachers that made them heard, will continue regardless of
whether the content standards rise to meet them.

137

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Appendices
APPENDIX A: IRB APPROVAL LETTER

162

APPENDIX B: PARTICIPANT RECRUITMENT LETTER
Dear [Participant Name],

My name is [pseudonym]. I’m a Ph.D. candidate conducting research on teachers’
implementation of state standards. I am interested in how various factors influence what and how
standards-related content are taught in your U.S. History classroom. The study is not an
evaluation of teaching practices or the “correctness” of the factors influencing instruction; I am
interested in the real experiences and attitudes of history teachers who are responsible for turning
standards, some of which involve contemporary topics, into day-to-day instruction.

I am interviewing US History teachers in your district about the implementation of these
materials. I am writing to invite you to participate in an interview focused on US/American
History instruction in [state]. I am interested in setting up a time for a 45-60-minute phone
interview. The interview will address your use of the standards in your designing and planning of
instruction, in addition to your attitude towards the standards themselves. I would also like to
collect curricular materials (PowerPoint slides, unit plans, exams etc.) that demonstrate how you
implemented some content—I will provide more details on this at the interview. In exchange for
your participation, I can offer you a $20 Amazon gift card. I will never report back to the school
district regarding your interview.

I will use the results of the interviews to characterize US History instruction in your district and
around the state. Your name, your school's name, and your district's name will never be reported
publicly. I will not report anything that you tell us to your school or district leaders, unless it is a
summary of findings across all the districts that we interview. I am hopeful that these findings
will be useful for policymakers and designers of curriculum during subsequent drafting of
materials.

Please let me know by [date plus 5 business days] if you are interested in participating.

Many thanks,
Martin Gamble

163

APPENDIX C: AMENDED RECRUITMENT LETTER
Dear [Participant Name],

My name is Martin Gamble. I’m a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Southern California. I am
writing to invite you to participate in an interview focused on US/American History instruction
in [state].

I am interested in setting up a time for a 45-60-minute phone interview. The interview will
address your use of the US History standards in your designing and planning of instruction, in
addition to your attitude towards the US History curriculum and standards in your state. In
exchange for your participation, I can offer you a $20 Amazon gift card. I will never report back
to the school district regarding your interview.

I will use the results of the interviews to characterize US History instruction in your district and
around the state. I am hopeful that these findings will be useful for policymakers and designers
of curriculum during subsequent drafting of materials.

Please let me know by [date plus 5 business days] if you are interested in participating.

Many thanks,
Martin Gamble

164

APPENDIX D: INTERVIEW PROTOCOL
Research Questions
1) How do teachers describe the relevance of contemporary politics in their U.S. history
classroom?
2) How do teachers describe the political leanings of the standards in their state?
3) To what extent do teachers political/social/racial attitudes factor into their attitude
towards and use of the standards?
Constructs and Sub-Constructs
1) Political/Social Beliefs
2) Racial Beliefs
3) Beliefs about Standards
4) Beliefs about Teaching
Semi Structured Interview Protocol
Consent Process: Hi, my name is [pseudonym]. I am a doctoral candidate at the University of
Southern California studying K-12 Education Policy. First, I want to thank you for taking time to
participate in this interview. The purpose of this interview is to understand how teachers are
making sense of U.S. History Standards in their classrooms.
Before we begin, I’d like to ask for your permission to record this interview so that I can be sure
I quote you accurately.
This interview will last between 45 and 60 minutes. I will be asking you questions about the
state standards and your attitudes towards them. We will also engage in a few conversations
about hypothetical scenarios related to teaching U.S. history. Do you have any questions for me
before we begin?
1. How long have you been teaching U.S. History? How long have you been teaching in
general?
a. What made you enter the teaching profession?
b. What are your teaching/academic credentials? (probe on field of study, degrees?)
2. What do you use to guide your day-to-day lesson planning?
b. To what extent do you use your state’s content standards?
c. Professional development? Colleagues?
d. A textbook/curriculum materials adopted by your district?
3. Can you describe the organization of your curriculum (the subjects/topics/goals
comprising your course of study) and how it was influenced by the state standards?
a. Did you design the curriculum yourself?
b. Do you think the curriculum is good?
c. How much control do you have to modify your curriculum?
d. One of the things I am interested in is how politics affect curriculum. Demographics?
---
4. Do you think state standards should be politically neutral?

165

a. How would you describe your own state’s standards? Could you recall any examples
where you felt the wording of a standard was biased in one political direction or the
other?
b. Do you think the standards mostly align with your own idea of what students should
learn in your class?
5. What are your thoughts on how race and racism are treated in the standards?
a. How would you describe your racial beliefs, generally and how it affects your
classroom and classroom practices?
I’m going to present you with a couple of standards; can you describe how you might plan
lessons around these standards, i.e. instructional activities or materials you might use.
NY
• Students will examine debates between anti-imperialists and imperialists surrounding the
ratification of the Treaty of Paris (1898) and annexation of the Philippines.
• Students will compare and contrast the economic policies of President Johnson (Great
Society) and President Reagan (Reaganomics) regarding the size and role of the federal
government.
---
TX
• evaluate American expansionism, including acquisitions such as Guam, Hawaii, the
Philippines, and Puerto Rico;
• evaluate efforts by global organizations to undermine U.S. sovereignty through the use of
treaties;
---
CA
• Discuss corporate mergers that produced trusts and cartels and the economic and political
policies of industrial leaders.
• Analyze the persistence of poverty and how different analyses of this issue influence
welfare reform, health insurance reform, and other social policies.

Implications of Running out of Time

6. What do you see as the key components of a standard and the key points of the specific
standards listed?
7. Do you think teacher’s beliefs affect the material they teach/how they teach the content?
a. Can you give me examples/explain the process of this happening?
b. Would alignment/misalignment of standards with your own beliefs influence how you
taught that material? Can you give me an example?
8. How often do political conversations happen in your classroom and how do you address
them?

166

9. How often do social conversations happen in your classroom and how do you address
them?
10. How often do racial conversations happen in your classroom and how do you address
them?
---
11. What would you say are the biggest influences in how you understand history and how
you teach students?
a. How would you describe yourself politically?
b. If they give a vague answer: present the matrix of social/fiscal conservative/liberal.
12. How comfortable do you feel discussing sociopolitical issues in your classroom? Can you
provide specific examples where you 1) led discussion grounded in the standards 2) felt
an issue was of such relevance you brought it up in class without tying it to the standards
and 3) facilitated student initiated conversations about these issues.
13. How comfortable do you feel discussing race and racism in your classroom? Can you
provide specific examples where you 1) led discussion grounded in the standards 2) felt
an issue was of such relevance you brought it up in class without tying it to the standards
and 3) facilitated student initiated conversations about these issues.
14. There is a lot going on in American politics at the moment – how does the current
historical moment factor into your instruction?
---

Vignettes
1. Tolerance (R/P/S) Vignette
Chris is a history teacher in suburban Dallas. Most of his colleagues and the students he
teaches espouse politically and socially conservative beliefs. He identifies as somewhat
liberal, but does his best not to say his beliefs as he values being a member of the tight-
knit school community and fears being judged for his political opinion. One day, a group
of students, mostly students of color, bring in a letter signed by their parents asking Chris
to focus on more American heroes. Chris teaches the same curriculum as the other U.S.
history teacher, who said she did not receive a similar letter. Do you think Chris should
change anything about what/how he teaches?

2. Politicized Standards Vignette

After a series of contentious meetings at the district and state level, the state has decided
to overhaul the state standards, with a focus on how the United States has continually
made progress as a nation and granted equal rights to more and more people. The party in
power has stated that it is the goal of the new standards to shape student political, social,
and racial values, mostly in alignment with their current party attitudes. What are your
thoughts on aligning what/how history is taught with ruling party attitudes? Narrative?
Assuming such standards were adopted here, how would such changes affect how you
teach?

167

Do you have any final thoughts or comments that you would like to share with me (like
saying to a policymaker)?
I don’t want to make any assumptions – would you mind telling me how you identify
yourself in terms of race and gender.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Within the past thirty years, standards-based instruction has driven educational reform. In the past decade, mathematics, language arts, and science have seen movements that have argued that a centralization of curriculum would help learners nationwide. However, social studies remains under the purview of individual states, including U.S. History. Each state has the authority to tell its own version of the national history, with teachers as the implementers that ultimately decide what that narrative will look like to their students. These teachers, in addition to being professional educators, are also citizens, with sociopolitical and racial beliefs that are informed by their local communities and the state of national affairs. The dominant cultural narrative around teachers, especially ones involved with teaching sensitive topics like race, is that they can, and should, leave their personal/political selves outside of the classroom. ? The purpose of this study is to use a grounded theory approach that examines the process by which teachers bring their personal selves and/or political values into the classroom, specifically regarding their attitudes towards political polarization and systemic racism. This dissertation seeks to dispel the myth that teachers, especially social science teachers, can teach without bias, and examines whether that is a worthy goal for such teachers that have civic goals for their students. The findings from this study contribute to the literature in education policy by highlighting the politicization of the classroom and providing a framework for the different ways that teachers attempt to navigate the current political landscape.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Gamboa, Martin Luther (author)

Core Title Examining the sociopolitical and racial beliefs of United States history teachers

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Urban Education Policy

Degree Conferral Date 2021-12

Publication Date 11/08/2021

Defense Date 06/21/2021

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Education,Education Policy,implementation,OAI-PMH Harvest,political polarization,social studies,sociopolitical beliefs,teaching,U.S. history

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Polikoff, Morgan S. (committee chair), Chong, Dennis (committee member), Harper, Shaun R. (committee member)

Creator Email martin.gamboa.2009@gmail.com,mlgamboa@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC16659541

Unique identifier UC16659541

Legacy Identifier etd-GamboaMart-10207

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Gamboa, Martin Luther

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

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Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

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