Teachers' Curricular Decision Making in Response to a New Social Studies Textbook

In this study the author examines how seven 5th-grade teachers organized their social studies curriculum using a recently issued textbook. In general, the teaching was more variable than might be expected given the similarity of teaching materials. The author discerned three different styles of textbook use, each with a distinct impact on the teachers' assessment of the curricular potential of the new resource and on the ways the teachers modified their prior instructional agendas. Overall, teacher planning was less dependent upon the textbook than previous studies suggest.