Exploring the Potential of an Inquiry and Disciplinary Literacy Approach to History and Social Science Education in a Public High School in Mexico

Inquiry and disciplinary literacy are approaches in history and social science education that center students as active inquirers who investigate in multiple sources and come to their own conclusions regarding relevant questions and complex issues. These approaches have been gaining momentum in research and practice internationally, but have not been sufficiently explored in Mexico, where they could be helpful in addressing diverse concerns in history and social science education, as well as in general literacy. In this dissertation, I begin exploring the potential of an inquiry and disciplinary literacy approach in Mexico through a Design-Based Research framework, in collaboration with four teachers at a large, urban, public high school. In Chapter 1, I share an introduction and an overview of the project. Chapter 2 is the manuscript “Exploring Teachers’ Uptake of an Inquiry and Disciplinary Literacy Approach to History and Social Science Education in a Mexican High School.” I investigate how the teachers took up inquiry lessons and the design principles behind them throughout a 4-month design and preparation stage and a 5-month implementation stage, in which they taught 2 or 3 inquiry lessons and reflected on them. Data includes recordings, materials, and notes from meetings with these teachers; as well as classroom observation recordings and fieldnotes. The findings show that the teachers appreciated an inquiry approach and took up its core components, as well as inquiry and dialogical features embedded in the guided teaching materials. However, more class time was spent on the preparatory stages of the lessons (building connections and background knowledge), than on the disciplinary literacy practices (evaluating and analyzing sources and writing conclusions), which students largely completed on their own. Limited instructional time and the teachers’ cursory acquaintance with the approach may explain this partial uptake. An added focus on disciplinary literacy practices and pedagogies during teacher preparation and/or embedded in the teaching materials could help address this. Chapter 3 is the manuscript “Source Evaluation in History and Social Science in a Mexican High School: A Case Study of Beginners’ Engagement.” It presents a case study of the students in one teacher’s classroom (N=33), focusing on their source evaluation as novices in the context inquiry lessons with multiple sources. The study found qualitative nuance indicative of students’ incoming strengths and areas of improvement in source evaluation, as well as the ways in which this practice advanced (or had the potential to advance) their engagement with the contemporary and historical issues in their lessons. The study also illuminates the particular demands of evaluating historical sources as opposed to contemporary ones. Lastly, Chapter 4 provides overall conclusions and implications. The experiences of the four teachers and their students in this study speak to the possibilities and challenges of an inquiry and disciplinary literacy approach in their context, which helps establish a foundation for future work in a broader range of contexts within Mexico. Teachers and teacher educators seeking new ways to elevate the relevance and authenticity of their courses could draw on the core structure of inquiry and disciplinary literacy lessons, or on particular practices and pedagogies within the approach. Moreover, curriculum developers, in collaboration with educators and other stakeholders, could leverage the potential of modular, adaptable inquiry lessons to help address strategic social, disciplinary, and literacy goals of history and social science education for Mexican youth.PhDEducational StudiesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/176461/1/marestra_1.pd