Adolescents as Readers of Social Studies - Examining the Relationship between Youth’s Everyday and Social Studies Literacies and Learning

Oct 15, 2026

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Examining the relationship between student engagement and social studies literacy, this paper explores how adolescents’ reading interests and everyday practices connect to learning in social studies. Using complementary survey and interview methods with 802 secondary students from five schools in one urban community, it identifies a common perception that school social studies is boring and irrelevant. Interview subsample analysis shows many youth use texts to investigate identity and themes of struggle and conflict.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages35

Reading Time1 h 28 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Study Focus and Research Approach

Survey Findings

Interview Findings

Implications for Social Studies Curriculum and Pedagogy

UC Berkeley Berkeley Review of Education Title Adolescents as Readers of Social Studies: Examining the Relationship between Youth’s Everyday and Social Studies Literacies and Learning Permalink [https://escholarship.org/uc/item/25348252](https://escholarship.org/uc/item/25348252) Journal Berkeley Review of Education, 4(1) ISSN 1947-5578 Authors Stockdill, Darin B. Moje, Elizabeth B. Publication Date 2013-01-01 Peer reviewed [eScholarship.org](eScholarship.org) Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Available online at [http://escholarship.org/uc/ucbgse_bre](http://escholarship.org/uc/ucbgse_bre) Adolescents as Readers of Social Studies: Examining the Relationship between Youth’s Everyday and Social Studies Literacies and Learning Darin B. Stockdilla1 and Elizabeth B. Mojeb aOakland Schools, Michigan bUniversity of Michigan Abstract In this paper, we examine the relationship between student engagement and social studies literacy, exploring the possible connections between students’reading interests and practices and social studies learning. With a sample of 802 secondary students from five schools in one urban community, we use complementary methods to explore survey and interview data. Descriptive analysis of survey data indicated that study participants often perceived social studies education in school as boring and irrelevant. Nevertheless, qualitative analysis of interview data from asubsample revealed that many young people describe using texts to explore dimensions of their identities as well as themes of struggle and conflict. We use these findings to illuminate connections between youths’ concerns and interests and the enduring problems taken up by the social sciences, arguing that attention to these connections has the potential to engage students and develop their thinking and literacy practices in the social studies. Keywords: social studies education, adolescent literacy, student engagement, content area literacy, motivation I think they need to come up with better assignments, assignments to keep us more awake, more interested, y’know what I mean? ‘Cause reading a book and doing questions, is all…like, ‘why I gotta do this again?’, y’know? If they were just more interesting, more into what we’re used to doing on an everyday basis, I bet you we would learn a lot more than the curriculum we got now. These words, spoken by a high school student during an interview about his social studies2 classes, underscore the disconnect this 17-year-old saw between what he was learning in school and what he was “used to doing on an everyday basis.” In this paper, we draw from his words to examine the relationship between student engagement and 1 Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Darin Stockdill, Oakland Schools, Learning Services, 2111 Pontiac Lake Trial, Waterford, MI 48328. Email: [daristoc@umich.edu](daristoc@umich.edu). 2 For the purposes of this study,“social studies” refers to the content area classes labeled with this term in the participating schools; as is common throughout the United States, these schools offer United States history, world history, civics/government, and economics as their core “social studies” classes. The social studies then represent the K–12 representation of school-based social science learning. Berkeley Review of Education Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 35-68 36 Stockdill & Moje social studies literacy, exploring possible connections between students’ reading interestsand practices and social studies learning. Specifically, we examine the relationships between youth’s attitudes towards social studies education and their interests outside of school, particularly with respect to out-ofschool reading. Through complementary analysis of survey and interview data, we examine the interests and literacy practices of a predominantly Latino/a sample of urban adolescents around social issues, both in

FAQs

What relationship does the paper examine?

The paper examines the relationship between student engagement and social studies literacy, connecting everyday reading interests and practices to social studies learning.

How is the study conducted?

It uses complementary methods, including survey and interview data, with 802 secondary students from five schools in an urban community.

What do survey and interview findings suggest about students’ experiences?

Survey analysis shows many students see social studies as boring and irrelevant, while interview analysis shows youth use texts to explore identity and themes of struggle and conflict.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by Ben