Papers by Erin Adams
Critical Education, 2020
This is a study of the politics of “official knowledge” in K-12 economics curriculum in the Unite... more This is a study of the politics of “official knowledge” in K-12 economics curriculum in the United States. The purpose of this study is to understand how reviews of literature both promote official knowledge and thus serve as useful sources of uncovering the authorship, or author-function at work in a social science discipline, which are usually thought to be anonymous and author-less.
Reconceptualizing Educational Research Methodology
In this article, we explore the teaching of post-qualitative methodology within what Deleuze call... more In this article, we explore the teaching of post-qualitative methodology within what Deleuze called a “Control Society.” We offer up the online video series Three Minute Theory, specifically the video What are Societies of Control? as an example of our engagement with post-qualitative theories and methodologies. We posit that post-qualitative methodology repurposes the tools of a control society and for that reason is both needed and necessary for making sense of the world we live in. We begin by providing an overview of a control society. Next, we provide “outtakes” from the video script that serves to illustrate the process of producing a pedagogical product, highlights our collaborative writing process, and provides additional examples of control societies. Then, we discuss our pedagogical considerations when making the video, including the importance of a controlling metaphor and the creation of a “writerly text” that would allow our audience/students to use as an impetus for cr...
Reconceptualizing Educational Research Methodology , 2020
In this article, we explore the teaching of post-qualitative methodology within what Deleuze call... more In this article, we explore the teaching of post-qualitative methodology within what Deleuze called a “Control Society.” We offer up the online video series Three Minute Theory, specifically the video What are Societies of Control? as an example of our engagement with post-qualitative theories and methodologies. We posit that post-qualitative methodology repurposes the tools of a control society and for that reason is both needed and necessary for making sense of the world we live in. In the article, we provide “outtakes” from the video script that serve to illustrate the process of producing a pedagogical product, highlights our collaborative writing process, and provides additional examples of control societies. Then, we discuss our pedagogical considerations when making the video, including the importance of current-day examples and the creation of a “writerly text” that would allow our audience/students to use as an impetus for creation rather than as a source to be reproduced. Finally, we provide examples of the ways in which post-qualitative methodologies align with control societies and the possibilities this presents for researchers
An analysis of reviews of literature written about K-12 economics from 2008-2018.
Social Studies Research and Practice , 2020
Purpose – The purpose of this theoretical paper is to propose that museums can be useful sites in... more Purpose – The purpose of this theoretical paper is to propose that museums can be useful sites in intervening
the theory–practice divide in teacher education. The authors draw from their visit to the Center for Civil and
Human Rights (CCHR or Center hereafter) to explore the potential of a local museum as a powerful intervention
in the preservice teacher education theory/practice divide.
Design/methodology/approach –The authors’ theoretical framework draws off of“thinking with theory,” a
method of using concepts to make sense of data by “plugging” a concept“into” data (Jackson and Mazzei, 2011).
The authors believe that everyone, even their preservice teachers think with theories in an attempt to make
sense of information and events. In their social studies methods courses, the authors offer readings, texts,
videos and experiences that present ideas and concepts that are new to their preservice teachers in order to
expose underlying theories that frame worldviews.
Findings – The authors provide four“snapshots” or findings. These include: heroification and villainification,
White–Black binary and messianic meta-narratives, empathy and simulation and critical Black patriotism.
Each of these snapshots is grounded in theories from scholars in the field of social studies, demonstrating one
way to put theory to work.
Originality/value – As the aforementioned snapshots show, the authors found a place like CCHR that can
serve as important space to think with theory and deconstruct presented narratives. The authors “plugged” concepts from social studies scholarship “into” the narratives presented at the CCHR. Specifically, the authors
used villainification (van Kessel and Crowley, 2017), AsianCrit (Chang, 1993), Black Patriotism (Busey and Walker, 2017) and messianic narratives and martyrdom (Alridge, 2006).
Keywords in the Social Studies: Concepts and Conversations , 2018
In this chapter, I argue that "family" is a social study and construct that ought to be considere... more In this chapter, I argue that "family" is a social study and construct that ought to be considered beyond the primary years. I argue that the concept of families ought to be interrogated for its rhetorical and production value, for the good of families rather than for the production of "good" families.
The Social Studies , 2019
This is a comprehensive review of literature related to K-12 economics curriculum spanning 20 yea... more This is a comprehensive review of literature related to K-12 economics curriculum spanning 20 years, from 1998-2018. The search for literature revealed 18 articles and book chapters in peer-reviewed journals and volumes related to social studies and economics education. The study revealed several trends and issues related to K-12 economics textbooks, including publishing trends, the extent to which economics curriculum is relevant and the influence of neoclassical economic theory in serving as the “official knowledge” undergirding the curriculum. The review presents debates in the field related to these issues. The study also reveals the possible influence of the 2008 financial crisis, revealing that economics curriculum seems to have changed little, although the number of scholars critiquing the curriculum has risen dramatically.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00377996.2019.1581725
Citizenship, Social and Economic Education , 2019
This article examines the theoretical assumptions underlying K-12 economic curriculum and the con... more This article examines the theoretical assumptions underlying K-12 economic curriculum and the consequences of this curriculum for citizenship education and democracy. Specifically, the article discusses scholarship related to the critique of neoclassic economic theory’s role in influencing the Voluntary National Content Standards in Economics and the trickle-down effects into state standards and textbooks. From the literature, the author uncovers two main critiques of neoclassicism: that neoclassic theory is unrealistic and impersonal. Neoclassic theory has enormous consequences for the civic mission of social studies. The author investigates the extent to which neoclassical theory makes for good citizenship and is desirable for a democratic society.
Social Studies Education Review , 2019
In this study, I investigate how neoclassicism materializes in Georgia’s economics standards for ... more In this study, I investigate how neoclassicism materializes in Georgia’s economics standards for kindergarten through high school. I want to understand the extent to which the standards are neoclassical, the kind of subject positions they make possible, and potential implications for school
and society. I draw upon the work of socio-economic theorists including Maurizio Lazzarato, Gilles Deleuze, and Felix Guattari to understand the processes of subjectification and dividuation-the making of an economic subject and the subdividing of that subject into component,
interchangeable, useful, and de-personalized parts. I argue that the Georgia standards adhere to neoclassical theory, provide little by way of human action or agency, and could actually be in opposition to the civic mission of social studies
https://doc-00-2k-docs.googleusercontent.com/docs/securesc/bi6csict6racsk6hjqb8ki32afvtqe75/j781mrd87unojg9141ngbh3a9m2a4v9j/1587138000000/10701588629876974464/05422802378559942454/1t4sEn-2vAmcf2JHsYeqoV3j-3uwTM2GW?authuser=0&nonce=h81q0ku50e1hu&user=05422802378559942454&hash=1u80i6234d2ipvm7l90mjdq04ned1e11
in Toward Justice: Reflections on A Lesson Before Dying
Edited by Robin A. Bedenbaugh
Part of ... more in Toward Justice: Reflections on A Lesson Before Dying
Edited by Robin A. Bedenbaugh
Part of Tennessee's The Big Read promotion and the UTK Library
The authors present Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), a method in which an image is presented to ... more The authors present Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), a method in which an image is presented to students who are then led through a discussion based upon three questions: What’s going on here? What makes you say that? What more can we find? VTS is popular in museum and art
education, but has great value when modified for social studies. It can promote critical thinking and increase learners’ access to the curriculum. The authors draw upon the research literature on both VTS and aesthetic learning to help practitioners imagine and enact powerful
interactions with difficult content in the social studies classroom.
Book Reviews by Erin Adams
Journal of Social Studies Research , 2018
In this book review, 4 preservice teachers and their teacher-educator collectively reflect on Car... more In this book review, 4 preservice teachers and their teacher-educator collectively reflect on Carla Shalaby's book Troublemakers: Lessons in freedom from young children at school. We consider the contradictions of making trouble and how trouble-making can be conceptualized in social studies.
Theory and Research in Social Education, 2019
Book Review:
Childhood is a social study: A book review of social studies and young children. E... more Book Review:
Childhood is a social study: A book review of social studies and young children. E.A. Odhiambo, L.E. Nelson, J.K. Chrisman; Social Studies and Young Children 2016, Pearson
Teaching elementary social studies can be a difficult task. That social studies is marginalized in elementary classrooms
has been well documented and discussed (Fitchett, Heafter, & Lambert, 2014). At the university level, social studies methods
instructors face the challenge of balancing content with pedagogy, ensuring that preservice teachers are provided with
satisfactory disciplinary learning in subjects most often comprising social studies, history, geography, civics/government,
and economics as well as the best ways to teach such content to very young children specifically. Social Studies and Young
Children is a text that attempts to accomplish this task by addressing the nature of teaching young children in general
alongside each of the four main social studies disciplines.
Adams, E. (2016). Childhood is a social study: A book review of social studies and young children. Journal of Social Studies Research, 39, p.339-342.
Awards by Erin Adams
Three Minute Theory by Erin Adams
In this edition of 3MT, we use Immaterial Labor to theorize the current working conditions in a C... more In this edition of 3MT, we use Immaterial Labor to theorize the current working conditions in a Control Society in general and Covid specifically.
Uploads
Papers by Erin Adams
the theory–practice divide in teacher education. The authors draw from their visit to the Center for Civil and
Human Rights (CCHR or Center hereafter) to explore the potential of a local museum as a powerful intervention
in the preservice teacher education theory/practice divide.
Design/methodology/approach –The authors’ theoretical framework draws off of“thinking with theory,” a
method of using concepts to make sense of data by “plugging” a concept“into” data (Jackson and Mazzei, 2011).
The authors believe that everyone, even their preservice teachers think with theories in an attempt to make
sense of information and events. In their social studies methods courses, the authors offer readings, texts,
videos and experiences that present ideas and concepts that are new to their preservice teachers in order to
expose underlying theories that frame worldviews.
Findings – The authors provide four“snapshots” or findings. These include: heroification and villainification,
White–Black binary and messianic meta-narratives, empathy and simulation and critical Black patriotism.
Each of these snapshots is grounded in theories from scholars in the field of social studies, demonstrating one
way to put theory to work.
Originality/value – As the aforementioned snapshots show, the authors found a place like CCHR that can
serve as important space to think with theory and deconstruct presented narratives. The authors “plugged” concepts from social studies scholarship “into” the narratives presented at the CCHR. Specifically, the authors
used villainification (van Kessel and Crowley, 2017), AsianCrit (Chang, 1993), Black Patriotism (Busey and Walker, 2017) and messianic narratives and martyrdom (Alridge, 2006).
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00377996.2019.1581725
and society. I draw upon the work of socio-economic theorists including Maurizio Lazzarato, Gilles Deleuze, and Felix Guattari to understand the processes of subjectification and dividuation-the making of an economic subject and the subdividing of that subject into component,
interchangeable, useful, and de-personalized parts. I argue that the Georgia standards adhere to neoclassical theory, provide little by way of human action or agency, and could actually be in opposition to the civic mission of social studies
https://doc-00-2k-docs.googleusercontent.com/docs/securesc/bi6csict6racsk6hjqb8ki32afvtqe75/j781mrd87unojg9141ngbh3a9m2a4v9j/1587138000000/10701588629876974464/05422802378559942454/1t4sEn-2vAmcf2JHsYeqoV3j-3uwTM2GW?authuser=0&nonce=h81q0ku50e1hu&user=05422802378559942454&hash=1u80i6234d2ipvm7l90mjdq04ned1e11
Edited by Robin A. Bedenbaugh
Part of Tennessee's The Big Read promotion and the UTK Library
education, but has great value when modified for social studies. It can promote critical thinking and increase learners’ access to the curriculum. The authors draw upon the research literature on both VTS and aesthetic learning to help practitioners imagine and enact powerful
interactions with difficult content in the social studies classroom.
Book Reviews by Erin Adams
Childhood is a social study: A book review of social studies and young children. E.A. Odhiambo, L.E. Nelson, J.K. Chrisman; Social Studies and Young Children 2016, Pearson
Teaching elementary social studies can be a difficult task. That social studies is marginalized in elementary classrooms
has been well documented and discussed (Fitchett, Heafter, & Lambert, 2014). At the university level, social studies methods
instructors face the challenge of balancing content with pedagogy, ensuring that preservice teachers are provided with
satisfactory disciplinary learning in subjects most often comprising social studies, history, geography, civics/government,
and economics as well as the best ways to teach such content to very young children specifically. Social Studies and Young
Children is a text that attempts to accomplish this task by addressing the nature of teaching young children in general
alongside each of the four main social studies disciplines.
Adams, E. (2016). Childhood is a social study: A book review of social studies and young children. Journal of Social Studies Research, 39, p.339-342.
Awards by Erin Adams
Three Minute Theory by Erin Adams
the theory–practice divide in teacher education. The authors draw from their visit to the Center for Civil and
Human Rights (CCHR or Center hereafter) to explore the potential of a local museum as a powerful intervention
in the preservice teacher education theory/practice divide.
Design/methodology/approach –The authors’ theoretical framework draws off of“thinking with theory,” a
method of using concepts to make sense of data by “plugging” a concept“into” data (Jackson and Mazzei, 2011).
The authors believe that everyone, even their preservice teachers think with theories in an attempt to make
sense of information and events. In their social studies methods courses, the authors offer readings, texts,
videos and experiences that present ideas and concepts that are new to their preservice teachers in order to
expose underlying theories that frame worldviews.
Findings – The authors provide four“snapshots” or findings. These include: heroification and villainification,
White–Black binary and messianic meta-narratives, empathy and simulation and critical Black patriotism.
Each of these snapshots is grounded in theories from scholars in the field of social studies, demonstrating one
way to put theory to work.
Originality/value – As the aforementioned snapshots show, the authors found a place like CCHR that can
serve as important space to think with theory and deconstruct presented narratives. The authors “plugged” concepts from social studies scholarship “into” the narratives presented at the CCHR. Specifically, the authors
used villainification (van Kessel and Crowley, 2017), AsianCrit (Chang, 1993), Black Patriotism (Busey and Walker, 2017) and messianic narratives and martyrdom (Alridge, 2006).
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00377996.2019.1581725
and society. I draw upon the work of socio-economic theorists including Maurizio Lazzarato, Gilles Deleuze, and Felix Guattari to understand the processes of subjectification and dividuation-the making of an economic subject and the subdividing of that subject into component,
interchangeable, useful, and de-personalized parts. I argue that the Georgia standards adhere to neoclassical theory, provide little by way of human action or agency, and could actually be in opposition to the civic mission of social studies
https://doc-00-2k-docs.googleusercontent.com/docs/securesc/bi6csict6racsk6hjqb8ki32afvtqe75/j781mrd87unojg9141ngbh3a9m2a4v9j/1587138000000/10701588629876974464/05422802378559942454/1t4sEn-2vAmcf2JHsYeqoV3j-3uwTM2GW?authuser=0&nonce=h81q0ku50e1hu&user=05422802378559942454&hash=1u80i6234d2ipvm7l90mjdq04ned1e11
Edited by Robin A. Bedenbaugh
Part of Tennessee's The Big Read promotion and the UTK Library
education, but has great value when modified for social studies. It can promote critical thinking and increase learners’ access to the curriculum. The authors draw upon the research literature on both VTS and aesthetic learning to help practitioners imagine and enact powerful
interactions with difficult content in the social studies classroom.
Childhood is a social study: A book review of social studies and young children. E.A. Odhiambo, L.E. Nelson, J.K. Chrisman; Social Studies and Young Children 2016, Pearson
Teaching elementary social studies can be a difficult task. That social studies is marginalized in elementary classrooms
has been well documented and discussed (Fitchett, Heafter, & Lambert, 2014). At the university level, social studies methods
instructors face the challenge of balancing content with pedagogy, ensuring that preservice teachers are provided with
satisfactory disciplinary learning in subjects most often comprising social studies, history, geography, civics/government,
and economics as well as the best ways to teach such content to very young children specifically. Social Studies and Young
Children is a text that attempts to accomplish this task by addressing the nature of teaching young children in general
alongside each of the four main social studies disciplines.
Adams, E. (2016). Childhood is a social study: A book review of social studies and young children. Journal of Social Studies Research, 39, p.339-342.
Link to the conference: http://lcya.kennesaw.edu/
Link to the session: http://lcya.kennesaw.edu/docs/Child_Breakout_Session_2.pdf
In this materialist study, I examine how a field trip to a local grocery store during a preservice elementary social studies course served to disrupt my students’ ideas about the purpose of field trips, how communities work, and how public spaces, like curricula, are carefully curated to achieve certain purposes.
In this paper, we introduce the idea of ‘intra-disciplinarity’ to think about how social studies concepts are always already historical, geographic, economic, and civic, instead of separate disciplinary entities. We feature two studies with preservice teachers that illustrate an intra-disciplinary social studies approach in practice.
In this paper, I investigate the concept of becoming as it relates to teaching and teacher education. I will begin by discussing the concept of “becoming” as used by theorists Deleuze and Guattari (1983; 1987). Then, I will elaborate on Marble’s (2012) piece “Becoming Teacher” and his challenge to “critically encounter the other” in teacher education. Finally, I will present dissertation data in which I explored the concept of “becoming teacher” and “becoming teacher educator” by facilitating encounters between Others; teachers, preservice teachers, teacher educators, adolescents and teens, and themselves.
This paper is based on my study of two U.S. farmers markets. This study was an attempt to explore research methodology in new materialism. New materialism presents new challenges to traditional qualitative research in terms of what is thinkable and doable. Farmers markets are ideal places for considering the political and economic materiality of our everyday lives. When designing the study I considered the how, not the what, of the market. I wanted to think about what it is to be a living being in the market rather than trying to constitute what the market is or what people are doing. I used a walk and talk interview method rather than a traditional face to face method to see how people move through the market, territorializing and reterritorializing this space and as a way to consider the body in qualitative research.