Melting the glaze: Exploring student responses to liberatory social studies

ers, relying almost exclusively on the information found in the textbook, have disseminated the required information to students expected to listen passively and absorb the important they must know in order to pass exams (Apple, 1986; McCutcheon, 1981; Ravitch & Finn, 1987; Shaver, Davis, & Helbur, 1979; Sosniak & Perlman, 1990). Even though these truths continue to reflect the perspectives of the Eurocentric canon, it is not just students from historically marginalized groups who find them alienating and irrelevant. Reduced to an endless list of names, dates, and disembodied bits of information, social studies knowledge seems meaningless to nearly every student, regardless of race, class, or gender. As far as most students are concerned, the required social studies knowledge consists of nothing more than assertions that are either true or false, correct or