Volume 12 Number 10                                                                               August 18, 2009 

 

Social Studies in the Postmodern World: An Essay Review 

Ashwani Kumar 
University of British Columbia 

 

Segall, Avner; Heilman, Elizabeth E. & Cherryholmes, Cleo H. (Eds.) 

(2006) Social Studies—The Next Generation: Re-searching in the 

Postmodern.  New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. 

Pp. vii + 299        ISBN  0-8204-7067-8 

Citation:  Kumar, Ashwani. (2009, August 18). Social studies in the postmodern 

world: An essay review. Education Review, 12(10). Retrieved [date] from 

http://edrev.asu.edu/essays/v12n10index.html 

Social Studies—The Next Generation:Re-searching in the Postmodern is an edited 

anthology of seminal articles aimed at providing poststructrual foundations to social 

studies research and teaching. The editors, Avner Segall, Elizabeth E. Heilman and Cleo 

H. Cherryholmes, and the contributors, are seriously concerned with the present status of 

social studies research that is rooted in the principles of modernity, which sees truth and 

knowledge as ―objective,‖ ―uniperspectival,‖ ―hard,‖ ―attainable,‖ and  ―transmissible.‖ 

Social studies, editors argue, has been in a theoretical ―time warp,‖ excluding itself from 

some of the more interesting conversations (postmodern, postcolonial, poststructuralist, 

critical feminism, and cultural studies) going on in academia (and beyond) since the 

1980s. The editors urge social studies scholars to consider more inclusive, reflexive, and 

democratic approaches to research and teaching.  

The main objective of this volume, according to the editors, is to broaden the 

imagination within social studies education by highlighting current, cutting-edge 

scholarship incorporating critical discourses. The volume brings together the works of 

those social studies scholars who have been influenced by post discourses and in turn 

incorporating diverse themes, methodologies, and theoretical frameworks. The 

contributors intend to explain the need for problematizing the assumptions of modernity 

regarding “knowledge” and “truth” and the hitherto taken-for-granted notions of nation, 

state, sovereignty, citizenship, and several others key concepts in social studies. 

 



             

              Education Review Volume 12 Number 10  2 

 

According to the authors, none of these categories is fixed and stable and all of them need 

to be critically examined, with reference to those dominant discursive practices and 

regimes of truth that give rise to and perpetuate them.  

Social Studies—The Next Generation is divided into four parts, with a total of 

twenty-two chapters: Part I ―Introduction and Context‖ contains two valuable 

introductory chapters by the editors to orient readers to the features of postmodernism 

and what it offers to social studies education; Part II ―Postmodern Propositions‖ has 11 

chapters, each representing a distinct theme and its postmodern treatment aimed at 

illustrating the relevance of post lens to understand social issues; Part III ―Responses‖ 

consists of six reviews of the anthology by established scholars in the field; and Part IV 

―Afterwords‖ provides a concluding overview.  

 

Poststructural Foundations of Social Studies Research and Teaching 

 

Cleo H. Cherryholmes in Chapter 1, ―Researching Social Studies in the 

Postmodern: An Introduction,‖ declares that the ―essays in this volume are bold and 

varied departures‖ from the social studies education of the beginning of the twenty first 

century. He briefly discusses the need and relevance of postmodernism and 

poststructuralism in the wake of growing discontentment with positivism and scientism 

that view truth as absolute and uniperspectival. He lays the foundation for the 

―postmodern turn‖ in social studies by examining Rorty‘s ―linguistic turn‖; Foucault‘s 

emphasis on the relationship of ―knowledge and power‖; and Derrida‘s stress on 

―deconstruction.‖ Cherryholmes considers ―postmodern turn‖ as tremendous moment for 

social studies educators where ―there is no one set of undisputed authoritative stories or 

theories or concepts or facts for social studies educators to adhere to and teach…‖ (p. 6). 

He clarifies the place of theory in postmodernism and challenges a key criticism of 

postmodernism in stating that  

… not having one set of agreed upon theories and concepts, or a stance 

from which to engage them, doesn‘t mean we can avoid taking a stance. 

Indeed a stance is inherent in whatever we choose to say or keep silent 

about (p. 6).  

 In Chapter 2, ―Social Studies Research in the Context of Intellectual Thought,‖ 

Elizabeth E. Heilman and Avner Segall stress the importance of postmodern and 

poststructural perspectives in social studies and provides explanations how the former has 

evolved through the critique of preexisting ―scientific,‖ ―modern,‖ and ―progressive‖ 

ways of viewing the world.  

Heilman and Segall explain that during the late 1970s modernism and 

structuralism were begin to be replaced by postmodernism and poststructuralism (based 

on theories of Barthes, Derrida, and Foucault). Postmodernism, they maintain, isn‘t just a 

temporal phenomena or something that came after modernism; rather, it is ―a way of 

thinking about the world which challenges modernism with its emphasis on logic, 

progress, universality, and objective truth‖ (p. 17). Postmodern viewpoint, on the one 



             

               Kumar:  Social studies in the postmodern world: An essay review 3 

 

hand, stresses on ―context and situation,‖ while on the other, critiques ―grand narratives‖ 

and monolithic and linear theories about political, social, aesthetic, and literary events. 

This critique allows us to think, ―that such narratives serve to mask the contradiction and 

instabilities inherent in any social organization or practice‖(p. 17).  

Heilman and Segall acknowledge that social science disciplines such as 

Geography, History and Anthropology  have been influenced by ―reflexive,‖ ―linguistic,‖ 

and ―critical turns‖ and in turn are contributing towards generating interesting intellectual 

conversations. Postmodern theory, they argue, is to problematize the taken-for granted 

binary frameworks of understanding social issues such as developed/developing, 

public/private, and local/global. Besides, in the postmodern perspective, such traditional 

concepts as nation, state, culture, and sovereignty are no longer viewed ―neutral, 

deterministic, and concrete but rather as created academic concepts which are ill-defined 

and in flux‖ (p. 20). Heilman and Segall show their concern over the fact that social 

studies has only marginally participated in postmodern discourse in spite of having 

―progressive roots,‖ ―inherently inter-, if not antidisciplinary‖ and because of issues of 

power, representation, identity, subjectivity and voice are being fundamental to its nature. 

Why did social studies did not participate in postmodernism? 

According to Heilman and Segall, the prime reason why mainstream social 

studies did not welcome postmodern critical discourse was the general refusal to explore 

postmodern themes. In spite of the contribution of scholars such as Giroux, 

Cherryholmes, and Popketwitz to education, social studies did not welcome them much 

in spite of the fact that their initial affiliation was with social studies. Heilman and Segall 

refer to the 1982 issue of Theory and Research in Social Education (TRSE), which 

included articles by Giroux and Cherryholmes where former focused on critical theory 

(based on Frankfurt School) while latter on Habermas and partly on Foucault. They also 

mention the special issue of Social Education (SE), ―New Criticism and Social 

Education,‖ which brought articles of Apple, Titlebaum, Giroux, Wexler, Cherryholmes, 

Gilbert, and Stanley together. These scholars emphasized upon ―moving beyond the 

immediate conditions of schooling…[to]…the political, social, economic, and cultural 

basis underlying current conditions of schooling, teaching and learning as well as the 

taken-for-granted ideologies that give rise to them‖ (p. 22). These two issues of TRSE and 

SE could not give way to critical discourses afterwards until the late 1990s. In the late 

1990s critical issues occupied a significant place in TRSE due to its new editor E. Wayne 

Ross and the emergence of critical scholarship among social studies researchers. The 

latter includes scholars who were nurtured through interdisciplinary and cross-

disciplinary doctoral programs and who based their works on a variety of theoretical and 

methodological perspectives such as cultural studies, curriculum theory, women‘s 

studies, African studies, and queer Studies. Heilman and Segall believes that the Social 

Studies—The Next Generation is yet another attempt to emphasize upon critical 

perspective in social studies research by bringing to together the works of those social 

educators who employ postmodern and poststructural lens in their research and teaching.  



             

              Education Review Volume 12 Number 10  4 

 

Now, I turn to a discussion of the major features of each chapter by the 

contributing authors to provide a glimpse to the readers what it looks like to research and 

teach in the postmodern. 

Kevin Vinson in Chapter 3, ―Social Studies in an Age of Image: Surveillance–

Spectacle and the Imperatives of 'Seeing' Citizenship Education,‖ discusses the image-

surveillance-spectacle complex, based on the philosophical ideas of Foucault, Debord, 

Baudrillard, Bogard, Lyon, to explain how the former is related to social 

studies/citizenship education. By critiquing the notions of ―accountability‖ (which puts 

teachers and students under strict surveillance of policy makers, parents and 

administrators) and standardized tests (spectacle) in order to have acceptability according 

to the set ―image‖ in citizenship education, Vinson urges teachers and students to be 

aware of ―the extent to which and how surveillance and spectacle rule and ‗define‘ their 

lives as teachers, students and citizens‖  (p. 43). He urges them to raise questions such as:  

Is the disciplinary society based on seeing-being seen consistent with their 

vision of democracy? Is the life under such circumstances consistent with 

their vision of ―good life‖? Why or why not?... Are they comfortable with 

the way things are? Do they seek change? In what directions? Why? [and 

to see] ―how might the varieties of their available citizen/social knowledge 

help them here? …[and], what might it—all of these—means for 

classroom based citizenship/social instruction? (p. 43).  

Lisa J. Cary questions the taken-for-granted notions about female juvenile 

offenders in particular and citizenship in general in Chapter 4 titled ―Within and Against 

Citizenship: Bad Girls in Deviant Subject Positions.‖ Cary points towards a ―social 

crisis‖ wherein deviant individuals are termed as ―bad citizens‖ and deviant juvenile 

female offenders as ―bad girls‖ and ―pathologized women.‖ She explains that these 

categories are ―historically framed through the intersection of multiple discursive 

practices‖ (p. 48).  

Cary invokes the postmodern works of Stanley (1992) and Popkevitz (1998) 

based on Foucauldian (poststructural) analysis, to go beyond the ―metanarratives‖ and 

work against the ―normalizing tendencies of dominant discourses‖… to complicate its 

[social studies‘] understanding and presentation of fixed signifier and stable collective 

subjects that are both exclusivist and essentialist, such as the good citizen and the bad 

girl‖ (p. 51). Using the lens of postcolonialism and cultural studies, based on the works of 

Bhabha (1994), Pratt (1992), Spivak (1993), Delgado (1999) and Ong (1999), she urges 

us to look for ―alternative ways of thinking about epistemological spaces [or ―curriculum 

spaces‖] in social studies that can be useful in interrupting the im (possible) constructions 

present within existing dominant discourses [such as ―good citizens‖ and ―bad girls‖]‖ (p. 

51). In order to understand deviant subjectivity, Cary employs Jennifer Terry‘s (1991) 

work of deviant historiography that focuses on the construction of ―deviant subjectivity‖ 

with reference to lesbians and gays. Deviant historiography makes it apparent how 

historical texts and emergent discourses can shed light on the deviant subject positions 

constructed on /for/with juvenile female offenders. 



             

               Kumar:  Social studies in the postmodern world: An essay review 5 

 

By combining critical discourse analysis and deviant historiography, Cary 

explores how the construction of identities such as ―good girls,‖ citizen, child, adolescent, 

progressive era notions of women (social hygienists and eugenicists), social institutions 

of education and detention, and populist discourses, all tie in a ―multiply-layered 

discursive spaces‖ that is exclusivist and reductive. The ways in which female juvenile 

offenders historically have been constructed as ―deviant‖ in these epistemological spaces 

includes the highly sexualized and pathologized medico-scientific discourses and 

aggressive behavior that has been analyzed as suggestive of masculine tendencies.  

Cary‘s major purpose behind deconstructing the historical discursive practices 

and institutional arrangements regarding juvenile female offenders is ―to make possible 

interruptions of that essentializing and exclusivist construction for teachers, teacher 

educators, counselors, administration, juvenile justice officials and other state agents who 

are among first to position and label these girls‖ (p. 60). Cary also wants to inform the 

work of social studies educators about taken-for-granted notions of citizenship that 

marginalizes students considered bad or deviant in society.  

 Lisa Loutzenhiser in Chapter 5, ―Gendering Social Studies, Queering Social 

Education,‖ points out the continuing lack of focus on gender, sex, and sexuality within 

social studies in spite of the fact that ―teaching for diversity‖ and ―teaching for social 

justice‖ are highlighted as major concerns within education. Her main focus is to question 

―what is normative and normalized in schools and classrooms in relation to gender and 

sexuality?‖ (p. 62). Grounding her arguments in the works of Warner (1993), Sumara and 

Davis (1999), and Rodriguez (2003), she critiques the notion of ―heteronormativity‖ that 

calls for assimilation and similarity rather than uncertainty of partial, messy differences. 

She argues for anti-oppressive pedagogies that incorporate queer theories, fluidity and 

non-essentialized categories to offer help for theorizing about teaching and learning of 

difference. Fluidity theories, according to her, gives attention to the complicated and 

incomplete picture that subjectivities and identities offer. She also stresses the need for 

―intersectionality‖ where the diverse subjective identities meet momentarily and the way 

categories of race, gender, and sexuality undergo change within local contexts. She 

critiques the ―assimilation,‖ ―add and stir‖/―focus on similarity‖ models of curriculum 

that assume student identities as universal, non-intersectional and fixed, and the idea that 

the insertion of ―multicultural‖ curricula content into already established lessons, without 

making changes to the purposes of lessons or units, will suffice. 

Drawing upon Felman (1992), Loutzenhiser acknowledges the difficulties that a 

teacher might face teaching a curriculum that assumes classroom reality to be 

―normative‖ and ―normalized.‖ She suggests that the ―conversation about gender, 

sexuality and (and in) their intersections cannot occur unless teachers also have 

experienced the hard conversations [in their pre-service teacher education program]‖ (p. 

58).  

In Chapter 6, ―Citizenship and Belonging: Constructing ―A Sense of Place and a 

Place that Makes Sense,‖‖ Dawn Shinew reports a study involving six elementary female 

education student-teachers placed in two high-need schools in an urban school district. 



             

              Education Review Volume 12 Number 10  6 

 

The study focused upon exploring ―participants‘ beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors 

regarding the role of teachers in a democratic society and encouraged them to examine 

the extent to which knowledge about what it means to educate democratic citizens is 

constructed, situated and political‖ (p. 84).  

Developing on Haraway‘s (1991) concept of ―situated knowledges,‖ Shinew 

observes the concepts of citizen and democratic citizenship as situated knowledge. The 

basic question explored was: How has the meaning of citizenship been shaped by 

locationality and positionality? Shinew intends not for constructing one definition and 

proving it better than the others but for multiple definitions through the participants‘ 

experiences. She proposes a shift  

… away from a foundational notion of citizen that rejects ―real‖ all-

embracing definition in favor of a perspective that acknowledges the 

validity of partial truths, socially constructed narratives and ―situated‖ 

knowledge, all of which reflects a postmodern epistemology… Instead of 

presenting citizenship as a static, sterile, unchanged concept, social studies 

should be promoting critical, radical, lived democracy in which competing 

definitions challenge and complement one another. It is in these spaces 

that pre-service teachers and their future students can create new 

meaningful ways to act out their roles as citizens (p. 82). 

Brenda Trofanenko in Chapter 7, ―The Public Museum and Identity: Or, the 

Question of Belonging,‖ explains the role museums play in constructing national identity 

and propagating those historical representations which emphasize dominant culture at the 

expense of native culture in Canada. She argues that ―public museums carry ideas of 

inequality and dominance‖ that try to propagate the view of nation being a singular 

identity rather than something that has grown out of conflicts and tensions ―between 

belonging and non-belonging of unity and diversity, of cohesion and dispersion― (p. 97).  

Trofanenko considers public museums part of State apparatuses to educate and 

civilize the public in particular ways by attempting to control exactly what the former 

wished the latter to know. She questions such unwarranted authority and power as well as 

trouble the trust over the objects displayed as neutral and ―scientific‖ evidence of the 

past. She argues that these museums do not give space to the role of indigenous people in 

the formal nation-building; rather, they are seen as ―marginalized and pre-modern people, 

whose identities are tied to objects from which the public understands ―culture.‖  She 

urges that museums should be critical of the past instead of presenting a positive image. 

She suggests that the critical study of museums should start with ―not only what is being 

represented but also how it came to be represented in the first place. The effect of the 

representation can and should be questioned and critiqued‖ (p. 105).   

Robert J. Helfenbein, Jr. provides us with an intriguing critical geography 

perspective to teach history in Chapter 8 titled ―Space, Place and Identity in the Teaching 

of History: Using Critical Geography to Teach Teachers in the American South.‖ 

Helfenbein‘s chapter is the outcome of his experience of teaching an online history 



             

               Kumar:  Social studies in the postmodern world: An essay review 7 

 

course (part of social studies) to pre-service teachers in North Carolina. In this course, 

Helfenbein explores three questions:  

How does a critical geography approach challenge a traditional 

history/social studies curriculum? In what ways could social studies 

teachers incorporate such approaches to both curriculum and pedagogy? 

Finally, what is at stake—for both teachers and students—in such an 

approach? (pp. 111-112).  

The ―critical turn‖ in geography, attributable to the works of geographers like 

Harvey (2001), Allen (2003), Massey (1995), and Soja (1989, 1996),  involves dissolving 

the traditional, physical/human geography divide as well as the notion of ―border‖ as 

fixed entity. In critical geography perspective ―borders and boundaries are troubled, 

crossed and complicated … [and this is] part of the process of place-making‖ (p. 113). 

Critical geography applies multiple hierarchical level analyses to understand the 

complexity of curriculum, educative practice, and social formation.  

Helfenbein cites responses of several students in his history course to question the 

relationship of pre- and post-civil war condition of slavery to explain that history cannot 

be understood through grand narrative; rather it is so rich and complex that it requires 

multiple perspectives of the people whose identities and perspectives have been shaped  

(not in a deterministic fashion) due to being in different places. By means of various case 

studies, he ―challenged students to think of space as contested, navigated and negotiated‖ 

(p. 118). Rather than conceiving of geographic regions as determining contexts for the 

unfolding of history, the critical perspectives encouraged students to see the people living 

within these contexts as flexible, responsible actors who struggle with conditions of their 

existence. This helps students, Helfenbein explains, move from the beginning questions 

of ―how does where we are help make us who we are? to ―how does who we are help us 

make where we are‖ (p. 122). This shift determines the possibility of history.  Following 

Pinar (1994), Helfenbein maintains that curriculum is not about subjects of history or 

geography but about ―subjectivity‖ where people make their own history under 

conditions that are often not of their own making. Thus, he stresses that the 

autobiographical account of history of the teachers and students (that he also employed in 

his own course) is significant to point out and reflect on our own subjectivities as 

knowers of history. He believes that such understanding helps teachers see their own 

―classrooms, content and pedagogy as spaces of possibilities—indeed, as spaces of hope‖ 

(p. 124). 

Avner Segall has authored Chapter 9, ―What is the Purpose of Teaching a 

Discipline Anyway? The Case of History,‖ where he identifies and analyses the 

limitation of ―collective memory‖ and ―disciplinary‖ orientations in order to highlight the 

significance of ―critical postmodern approach‖ to the discipline of history and history 

education. He questions Peter Sexias‘ work for undermining postmodern approach to 

history while supporting the disciplinary orientation. According to Sexias (2000), 

―disciplinary orientation‖ provides student with multiple versions of the past. It teaches 

students to reach the ―better interpretation‖ on the basis of a series of documents, 



             

              Education Review Volume 12 Number 10  8 

 

historians‘ assessments, and other materials, as well as construct their own 

interpretations. Sexias points out that postmodern orientations suspect grand narratives 

and questions disciplinary notions of truth by seeing knowledge and knowing always as 

positioned and positioning. Sexias questions the importance of postmodern orientation, 

which, unlike disciplinary orientation, does not allow educators and students to reach at 

the ―best‖ or most historically valid approach based on evidence, to understand how 

different groups organize the past into histories, and how these histories are implicated in, 

and serve larger political and social purposes. For Sexias postmodern approach is ―too 

overtly political and ideological, overly relativistic, present-day oriented, and circulatory 

reflexive to meaningfully guide history education in schools‖ (Sexias, 2000 in this 

volume, p. 127). Sexias,  not being against questioning the foundation and examining the 

assumptions, asks: ―How much is enough? What sense of the world of knowledge of 

history does the open-ended free-play of argument, plot, ideology and narrative trope 

offer students. How do they become aware of the limit?‖ (Sexias, 2000 in this volume, p. 

127). Segall, on the contrary, argues in favor of ―critical postmodern‖ approach and 

explains that the term ―disciplinary‖ should be attributed to the postmodern approach 

rather than to the disciplinary approach. According to Segall, the emergence of 

postmodern, poststructural, feminism, and postcolonialism has made the hitherto 

unproblematic concepts of ―facts,‖ ―reality,‖ and ―objectivity‖ problematic. Thus, reality 

and interpretation are not separable entities. Informed by the post discourses, feminism 

and cultural studies, Segall stresses that critical perspective allow critical examination of  

… disciplinary practices, arrangements and the boundaries and the 

regimes of truth emanating from them, with a particular focus on what the 

above require [for inclusion] as they make knowing possible, and what 

and who are silenced and ignored [excluded] through these requirement 

(p. 134). 

 Segall points out that it is in the context of inclusion and exclusion in the 

construction of subject—both as the substance of knowledge and knowing—critical 

approach stands in sharp contrast to the disciplinary approach. What becomes important 

for disciplinary approach is not an exploration of history or its education as text but rather 

an examination of individual texts, that is, carefully and meticulously exploring sources 

and measuring them against other individual sources. A critical approach, on the other 

hand, implicates individual text sources in their discursive modes of production, connects 

them to the broader discourse that made them possible. Critical perspective is not 

interested in ―what‖ questions, for example, what is the meaning of a particular text? but 

with questions related to ―why‖ and ―how‖ that text and its meaning become important.  

Recognizing the fact that historians and educators in disciplinary camp have 

charged critical approach with relativism (that makes it difficult to teach students, if not 

impossible, how to make sense of the past), Segall build on Stanley (1992) to argue that 

―use of relativism as a negative characterization only makes sense if we assume the 

possibilities of objective stable knowledge‖ (p.137). Employing Derrida (1979), Segall 

believes that truth is plural and so relativism (or perspectivism) is the background 



             

               Kumar:  Social studies in the postmodern world: An essay review 9 

 

condition under which the knowledge is sought in humanities and in our daily life. 

Relativism, Segall argues, does not mean that educators can‘t make discriminations or 

moral judgments but it eschews the possibility of a metaphysically grounded knowledge. 

However, the criteria for such judgments are not neutral but positioned.  

Segall concludes that although all the three orientations engage some aspect of the 

discipline, it is the critical approach that is self-reflexive and helps students and teachers 

to know about the disciplines unlike collective memory (that exposes students to a 

limited dimension of subject) and disciplinary (that has criteria and method to analyze the 

past but does not question the tools or discipline itself). Thus, the main objective of 

critical approach is to help students question the very tools of historians and the discipline 

itself, which actually makes it ―disciplinary.‖ 

Greda Wever Rabehl strongly argues for the place of ―tragic knowledge‖ in social 

studies in Chapter 10 titled ―The Tragic Knowledge of the Social.‖ Rabehl points out that 

much of our social studies curriculum and pedagogy is disconnected from the real 

concrete contexts. This detachment, she explains, signifies a particular kind of abstract 

thinking and blindness to concrete human realities.  

Grounding her ideas in the works of Simon Weil (1949/2002), Rabehl recognizes 

the importance of ―witnessing‖ the social reality including that which we have chosen not 

to see, or have in the name of romanticism refused to see. She questions the attitude to 

view social reality that is ―blinded by the complacency of optimism‖ that does not allow 

to see reality ―rooted in a specific existential terrain, a terrain inherited by much pain and 

suffering‖ (p. 143). By providing us with excerpts from an autobiographical narration of 

a former displaced person and a prisoner of war, she raises very significant and deep 

issues regarding ―violence.‖ She points out that seeing violence, as just the obvious form 

of cruelty and hatred is not sufficient. ―Violence is everywhere, where we act as if the 

other is only to receive…violence is found in whatever narcissistic strategy the self uses 

to reduce, use and annihilate the other‖ (p. 145).  

Rabehl urges the social studies educators that if the latter seriously want to take 

the issues of social justice in their work then violence and cruelty cannot be seen as 

exclusive attributes of ―others‖ but means by which the self, whether collectively or 

individually, perpetuates itself. With reference to social studies curriculum and pedagogy 

in school, she wants to take up Piaget‘s suggestion of providing students with lived 

experiences in which they may explore the nature of social conflicts and problems. She 

also sees social studies as an important field of research wherein space should be 

provided for the study of the social knowledge of the tragic and its remembrance so that it 

can emerge as coherent field of study. She urges the social studies educators in schools 

and the social studies research in universities to focus on the personal and 

autobiographical memory as the link between collective memory and personal responses 

in order to disrupt self-deceiving collective interpretive frameworks.  

Tammy Turner-Vorbeck presents a critique of the modernist concept of ―family‖ 

prevalent in the present social studies curriculum and pedagogy in Chapter 11 ― 

Representation of Family in Curriculum: A Poststructural Analysis.‖ According to 



             

              Education Review Volume 12 Number 10  10 

 

Turner-Vorbeck, a poststructural examination of the conception of family suggests that 

modernist social science discourses have developed ―a normative conception of what 

defines a ―family‖ as well as what constitutes a normal, healthy, and thus, valued 

―family.‖ Form of family that diverts from the so-called standards, for example, single-

parent, gay, lesbian, transgendered, adopted and grandparent, etc. often go unrecognized 

and unappreciated and even pathologized by labels such as ―dysfunctional‖ or ―morally 

wrong‖ (p. 133).  These social science discourses are reciprocally related with political 

discourse. Referring to Chambers (2001), she argues that the academic discourses have 

followed the governmental rhetoric and reproduced similar biases in upholding a white 

middle-class, aspirational, nuclear version of family as a mythical norm. As well, the 

family policy is strongly influenced by research agendas that get shaped by political 

agendas.  Government funds those researches generously, which uphold the dominant 

family ideals. These academic and political discourses on family are further supported 

and perpetuated by media discourses and their consistent portrayals of the normative and 

ideal family forms—as natural, biological, heterosexual, cohabiting conjugal unit. These 

three discourses—social science, political, and media—perpetuate those discursive 

practices that normalize the traditionally held belief of a family and excludes any ―other‖ 

version of a family as ―dysfunctional‖ or ―abnormal‖ in spite of the fact that existing 

social reality has deviated to a considerable extent from the traditional/ideological 

conception of family as something biological, inevitable, unchangeable, and universal. 

Given such prevalent conceptions of family, Turner-Vorbeck urges for a social studies 

curriculum and pedagogy that interrupts this normativity with reference to the issues of 

family and gives space to more critical and plural forms of understanding the diverse 

ways in which people in society are related and have organized their relationships. 

In Chapter 12,  ―Adventures in Metropolis: Popular Culture in Social Studies,‖ 

Trenia Walker presents an emphatic case for the incorporation of popular culture in social 

studies for the development of ―civic competence‖ and ―democratic education.‖ Walker 

points out that our environment is a ―media-saturated environment,‖ which not only 

provides us with images of the world around us by means of television, films, video, 

magazines, posters, video games and Internet but also suggests us ways of understanding 

the world. She is amazed at as well as critical of the fact that in spite of the power and 

pervasiveness of popular media many of the educators simply ignore this fact. She 

considers media as the ―first curriculum‖ whereby students construct most of their 

images, and critiques those teachers who think that just by refusing to incorporate popular 

media in their classrooms they can save students from the negative impacts of the former. 

Rather than escaping from the reality of the deep-seated influence of popular 

media, Walker calls for the development of critical literacy following the works of Freire 

(1997) and Aronowitz and Giroux (1993). Critical literacy, she emphasizes, helps 

students develop the connection between knowledge and power. It helps them know how 

knowledge is socially constructed and serves specific economic, political, and social 

interests. Thus, critical literacy provides students with the tools of reading the world and 

their lives critically and relatedly, which may grow their potential for social action and 



             

               Kumar:  Social studies in the postmodern world: An essay review 11 

 

change. According to her, social studies curriculum provides the needed space for the 

development of critical literacy. She urges us to go  

… beyond the traditional methods of merely teaching through popular 

media texts (for entertainment, relevancy or the perceived immediacy of 

experience) and engaging students to think critically about popular media 

texts…. [This] approach helps students critically examine assumptions, 

attitudes and values underlying the production, mediation, and 

consumption (especially students‘ own consumption) of such texts and 

how they position students to assume particular social, gendered, and 

racial reading positions (p. 173).  

Such an approach, Walker thinks, provides space for ―civic competence‖ as 

defined in NCSS (1994) and ―democratic education,‖ based on the ideas of Nelson 

(2001), Dewey (1916/1966), Giroux (1988), McLaren (1995), and Tucker and Evans 

(1996), that basically requires critical examination of social issues, active participations, 

community living, fighting against social discrimination, and a global perspective to 

contribute towards a common good.  

Elizabeth Heilman in  Chapter 13, ―Critical, Liberal, Poststructural Challenges for 

Global Education,‖ makes a strong case for the significance of global education in social 

studies curriculum given the pressing political, economic, cultural, and environmental 

problems that spawn the planet earth. She remarks that though issues of global concern 

have been part of social studies curriculum, the nature of global education presents 

distinctive philosophical and conceptual challenges and often contradictions between 

theorists. She carries out a critical examination of the philosophical and conceptual 

claims and counter claims to bring about substantial improvement about ―global‖ in 

social studies curriculum. 

Heilman‘s basic thesis is to undermine modernist idea (based on positivism and 

empiricism) of neutrality, subject area division, and concepts such as state, identity, 

power and culture, and pose global education as essentially an integrative postmodern 

study. Heilman recognizes and exposits upon four aspects of theory of globalization: 1) 

The overarching philosophical rationale for global education, and whether global 

citizenship should be understood as a ―status‖ or as an inclusive ―critical capacity.‖ 2) 

What can be involved in cross-cultural understanding and ―knowing‖ the other?  3) What 

is the meaning of culture? and  4) How might we think about the various media through 

which our global learning occurs? 

Heilman opens up the debate between two strands of citizenship: ―citizenship as 

status‖ and ―citizenship as practice.‖ Citizenship as status is given/available to those who 

are full members of a community, and who are equal with respect to the rights and duties 

that comes with the status. Heilman critiques this concept of citizenship for being 

confined to those who have the status, and thus having very limited implications for 

education. She favors the concept of ―citizenship as practices,‖ which is more expansive 

and introduces an important ―ethical dimension‖ and highlights the need to make 

judgments that affect others and to listen to others across differences. She points out that 



             

              Education Review Volume 12 Number 10  12 

 

these intellectual and ethical capacities are not particularly natural, and this situation 

requires thoughtful education if they are to be successfully realized. Citizens, she argues, 

are not only law obeying people, they are also those who are actually engaged to bring 

about changes in the laws, if the latter are in conflict with significant values. She 

articulates that  

… global education is fundamentally a moral, political and critical 

endeavor rooted in a particular idea of citizenship that asserts 

responsibility for all people, all species, and for the environment, and 

express faith in democratic dialogue and decision-making (p. 192).  

Heilman also questions the view of multiculturalism wherein other cultures can be 

known in their entirety and, thus, all differences and conflicts can be resolved. She 

remarks that ―cross-cultural knowing is to begin with the idea that whoever the ―other‖ is, 

the ―other‖ can never be fully known and that coming to know across difference is an 

acutely difficult process‖(p. 196). She considers it naive to think that one can know the 

other without any struggle for uncomfortable feeling of difference. Demanding 

appreciation of other perspectives underestimates the discomfort of real difference. She 

stresses that though the global citizenship requires ―sincere and empathetic interpreters,‖ 

it does not mean that the criticism of other individuals and culture should be suspended. 

What is required is not superficial appreciation or criticism but deeper examination of 

world that is not composed of homogenous reality but of incompatible belief systems. 

And such examination, she thinks, needs imaginative and emotional capacities. She 

greatly emphasizes for the incorporation of postcolonial studies and hybirdity theory to 

understand the term culture and its implications for global education.  

Heilman also carries out a critical examination of media that often makes it hard 

for people to access the ―real.‖ She explains that besides formal curriculum and trips, it is 

the popular culture through mass media that shapes students imagination about other 

cultures. She refers to work of Baudrillard (1993) and explains how mass media create 

hyperreality where truth does not exist. She warns us of using the popular culture and the 

teaching resources with great caution and critical analysis to make students aware of 

misinformation and cultural chauvinism. Following Merryfield (2001), she urges for 

―globalizing‖ global education through literature, theories, and diverse practices that 

reflect the complexity of our world in the present time.  

 

Reviews within the Volume 

 

Part III, ―Responses,‖ includes reviews of the volume by the established scholars 

in the field, namely, Joe Kincheloe, Merry M. Merryfield, William B. Staley, Margaret 

Smith Crocco, Walter Parker, and Keith C. Barton.  

Reviews by Stanley and Barton are particularly critical of the project. Stanley‘s 

critique mainly constitutes two points concerning the volume‘s lack of effective 

contribution to the debate on the purpose(s) of social studies education, and the 

challenges postmodernism has faced from various quarters for being hopeless, nihilistic, 



             

               Kumar:  Social studies in the postmodern world: An essay review 13 

 

relativistic, fascist, apolitical and for not being in favor of political, social, and economic 

reforms. He urges the authors of the volume to theorize and respond to these critiques.  

Barton applauds postmodernism for rich critical examination of issues, but 

questions how far it will be able to contribute towards developing curricula and 

instruction. He critiques the idea of limiting postmodernism to a mere ―reflexive 

encounter.‖ He challenges the authors‘ view that proposing a new curriculum and 

instructional practices is an act of  ―imposition.‖ Barton argues that we, the educators, 

can‘t do without imposition, what we can do is just to ―debate which ways are better… 

[Otherwise,] why should we require [students] to go to school if we don‘t have anything 

to teach them?‖ (p. 243).  He concludes that in the critical examination of postmodernism 

space must be given for the ideals of ―reason‖ and ―progress‖ toward a just society.  

 The other respondents are more supportive. For Kincheloe, the volume provides 

plethora of theoretical discourses for social studies scholars to deploy in their scholarly 

academic labor. He considers the work to be very timely especially in the wake of 

standardization propagated by No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) that, if left 

unchallenged, is certain to push the social sciences and humanities to the ―desert of 

irrelevancy.‖ Kincheloe suggests that reconceptualization of social studies requires 

intellectual rigor, criticality, and practicality.  

Crocco raises the issue of the ―undertheorization‖ in the field of social studies 

with reference to its cardinal concepts of nation, state, identity, citizenship etc. This 

undertheorization she attributes to the over dominance of practice; positivistic orientation 

of the field‘s primary research journal, Theory and Research in Social Education; lack of 

distinctive research methodology; and divisions among social studies educators who lack 

any common goals to bring about a just social order. Merryfield appreciates the volume‘s 

emphasis on multiple perspectives, derived from the post traditions. However, she shares 

her concern that the book is reduced to ―university rhetoric‖ for it lacks contributions 

from classroom practitioners.  

 Parker presents a case for ―critical pragmatism.‖ Though he appreciates the way 

many contributors of the book have ―packed and unpacked‖ educational practice, he asks 

questions such as:  

What is accomplished as a result? Are the analyses more powerful? Are 

the objects of attention worthy in the grand scheme of things, of readers‘ 

time given the on the ground problems and crisis we face? Are the 

solutions and actions proposed less naive and superficial and more wise 

and humane—and workable? (p. 239).   

The last part, ―Afterwords,‖ answers (some of the) points raised in the 

―Responses.‖ The main points discussed are: 1) Editors maintain that postmodernism in 

social studies is not to replace the existing curriculum and practices by new ones. Rather, 

it is to promote a critical, reflexive engagement with existing disciplinary discourses and 

practices, one that attempts to subvert them through a process of critical engagement with 

these practices. 2) Editors respond to the critique that labels postmodernism as a form of 

relativism. They argue that valuing multiple perspectives simply means the impossibility 



             

              Education Review Volume 12 Number 10  14 

 

of objective knowledge but that does not mean that one cannot make value claims about 

knowledge and visions for a better future.  However, value claims and judgments are 

never neutral or disinterested. 3) Editors also defend the criticism that the works in the 

volume are too theoretical and is devoid of direction for practice. According to Segall, 

theory is not opposite to practice rather  

theory and practice are always already inherent in the other…theory is 

inherently practical not only when it is practiced but as a practice, one that 

does not simply precede practice…theory, then, is the practice of 

intelligibility. This kind of practice—a critical-reflexive engagement with 

the existing forms of knowledge—contributes to the coming together of 

theory and/as practice… (p. 249).  

 

Critical Evaluation 

 

Social Studies—The Next Generation. Re-searching in the Postmodern 

successfully serves the purposes for which it has been collected: it provides poststructrual 

foundations to social studies research and teaching by highlighting cutting edge 

scholarship incorporating critical discourses. Chapter authors very well problematize 

various basic notions pertinent to social studies, such as nation, identity, citizenship, 

state, culture, multiculturalism, global citizenship etc., which are usually taken-for-

granted. Contributors have also been able to show to the readers that most of the current 

research in social studies is simply positivistic that not do not question the dominant 

discourses that shape and reshape present day reality and perpetuate it further.  

Social Studies—The Next Generation is also very significant for, perhaps, being 

first of its kind that brings together the works of social educators employing 

poststructural methodological and theoretical frameworks. The volume is certainly 

beneficial for those researchers in the field who wants to question the existing social 

reality from postmodern lens. Treatment of several themes such as gender and sexuality, 

deviant girls, museum, family, popular culture, multiculturalism etc. through employing 

diverse methodologies (for example deviant historiography, discourse analysis, 

autobiography, and media analysis) and theoretical frameworks (for example situated 

knowledges, critical geography, heternormativity, critical history, feminism, cultural 

studies, and postsructuralism) can certainly help others in the field to understand, reflect 

upon, and enrich their own teaching and research. The book will certainly serve as a 

Postmodern Reader for students, teachers, and researchers in the field of social studies. 

The volume also has a high credibility for being edited by the established scholars in the 

field who have been laboring hard through their scholarship and through encouraging 

new scholars to undertake and enhance postmodern investigations in the social studies. 

More specifically, the first two introductory chapters by the editors provide 

readers with a rich conceptual background explaining the major differences between 

modernism and postmodernism and structuralism and poststructuralism. The introductory 

chapters also provide detailed theoretical argument for the incorporation of post-



             

               Kumar:  Social studies in the postmodern world: An essay review 15 

 

discourses in the social studies research and teaching. Furthermore, chapter authors very 

innovatively present several case studies to share their practices as postmodern social 

studies scholars in their specific contexts. Chapters 6 and 8 by Dawn Shinew and Robert 

Helfenbein, jr., respectively, are very good examples of the same. In addition, authors 

analytically show how important it is to understand the perspectives of ―other‖ through 

incorporating themes like tragic knowledge and juvenile female offenders.  The chapters 

dealing with popular culture (Chapter 12), museum (Chapter 7) and global education 

(Chapter 13) are particularly intriguing for their analysis and suggestions.  Segall‘s 

emphasis (in Chapter 9) on critical postmodern approach to history and history education 

is a brilliant piece that argues for history teaching and learning as a reflexive engagement.  

Additionally, contributors of the book, though claiming to be researching in the 

postmodern, also draws heavily from diverse critical traditions of feminism, queer 

studies, fluidity theories, critical theory, psychoanalysis and cultural studies and, thus, 

respects multiple-perspective and plurality of truth. Chapter authors have supported their 

claims with sound theoretical argument and empirical evidence. All the chapters 

(including endnotes and bibliography) contain accurate information, are well written, and 

easy to follow. Chapter wise endnotes and references are also immensely valuable for 

further investigations. The editors‘ innovative idea of incorporating reviews by 

established social studies scholars should also be appreciated.  Such an effort discloses 

editors‘ sincerity towards sharing their work and seeking critical feedback—the backbone 

of any sound research. 

I see Social Studies—The Next Generation as a valuable contribution to the field 

of social studies that offer plethora of post perspectives to view social reality. It surely 

engages with the current debates in social studies education ridden with undertheorization 

and positivistic research.  

Nevertheless, in addition to the aforementioned merits, the Social Studies—The 

Next Generation also has certain limitations that need to be pointed out for the benefit of 

the reader.  

First of all, in their introduction, Heilman and Segall inadequately explain how 

structures influence psychology, linguistics, and sociology, which in turn influence 

education. It was difficult to understand why they reduced Piaget to be a structuralist. 

Interestingly, one of the contributors of the volume, Rabehl, invokes Piaget‘s work for 

experiential learning. Moreover, Heilman and Segall‘s references to modern period and 

its thinkers were inadequate. They did not refer to the works of Marx and Durkheim and 

only sketchily touched upon Freud.  

Moreover, though Heilman and Segall briefly describe existentialism, 

phenomenology, and pragmatism, they do not refer to any of the works that grew in 

education/social education due to such influences. Besides, while discussing how 

pragmatism led to progressive education and constructivist philosophy there is no 

reference to John Dewey. It was difficult for me to know on what basis did the put 

Althusser‘s (1971) work under the category of post- discourses on page number 19. 

Althusser‘s work is counted as one of the most significant representative of reproduction 



             

              Education Review Volume 12 Number 10  16 

 

or structural paradigm. In addition, the paragraph on critical theory did not mention even 

a single critical theorist except Paulo Freire. (However later on page 22 they refer to a 

few critical theorists such as Michael Apple, Henry Giroux, and William Stanley, among 

others while discussing the place of critical scholarship in the Journal of Social 

Education and Theory and Research in Social Education).  

Furthermore, in the Endnote 2 on page number 258, Heilman and Segall have 

categorically deprived Goodman, Ross and Gibson from having any say in postmodern 

discourses. Indeed Rich Gibson is a staunch Marxist, but E. Wayne Ross, in addition to 

his allegiance to Marxist theories of education, has employed the critical perspectives of 

Debord and Foucault to explain the importance of ―surveillance ― and ―spectacle‖ on our 

social and educational system in his Image and Education (2003) (co-authored with 

Vinson). Moreover, while Segall and Heilman have singled out Goodman, Ross and 

Gibson as people whose works cannot be seen as critical postmodern, Shinew‘s 

references in her chapter to the works of critical theorists (for example Goodman (1992) 

and Giroux and McLaren (1986)) and Vinson‘s references in Chapter 1 clearly reflects 

the significant role that critical theory plays in postmodern age. It is difficult for me to 

find out the need to see critical theory and postmodern from dualistic lens.  

Also, throughout the book I have been struggling to understand the difference 

between postmodern, critical postmodern, and critical theory. Editors of the book 

describe the works in the book as ―critical postmodern.‖ If ―critical postmodern‖ is 

different from ―postmodern‖ then what is the exact difference between the two? and what 

made them abandon the postmodern and choose critical postmodern? No explanation can 

be found throughout the book how critical postmodern is different from ―critical theory.‖ 

Given the fact that many of the contributors in this volume, including Segall and 

Heilman, describe themselves as critical theorists and quote critical theorists, I wish to 

ask whether they are appropriating critical theory to postmodernism or postmodernism to 

critical theory. If former is the case, then, it seems impossible as critical theorists have the 

well-defined goals of achieving social justice, equality, and freedom for the common 

good of the public. Postmodernism, of course, sees such goals as idealistic constructs that 

are impossible to be achieved. If the latter is the case, then, postmodernism should be 

welcomed by critical theorists as it can really add to their work by helping them 

understand how the forces such as neoliberalism and standardization gets accommodated 

and modified in specific contexts.  

In addition, the editors and the contributors have exaggeratedly associated 

modernism with positivism. Their critiques of positivism are valid, but these critiques 

have been offered by several other traditions within modernism itself, including 

pragmatism, existentialism and phenomenology (as also noted by Heilman and Segall in 

Chapter 2). Moreover, besides these traditions Marxism, psychoanalysis, and critical 

theory also fall within the modern that have contributed greatly to understanding social 

and individual problems, and cannot reasonably be discarded for being ―modernist.‖ 

What is the purpose of postmodernism in education? Is it to replace modernism? Or, is it 

to keep the core values of modernism such as social justice, freedom, and equality and 



             

               Kumar:  Social studies in the postmodern world: An essay review 17 

 

help us see how the limitations of modernist thinking might be overcome? If former is the 

case, then why? and, how? If latter is the case, then I would ask: Is it essential to look at 

modernism and postmodernism from dualistic lens? If yes, why? Is looking at them from 

dualistic lens a mere academic exercise or is there some serious concern towards the 

problems of our existence, which is already very complicated?  

Moreover, throughout the anthology, contributors discuss the oppressive 

conditions created by standards-based reforms and high-stakes standardized testing that 

slowly and steadily is eliminating social studies from the school curriculum. This is a 

circumstance that is not particular to US, but is happening throughout the world (Ross & 

Gibson, 2007). Standardized tests and successful performance on them is being 

considered as the sole purpose of education. Though authors of the volume raise this 

issue, they are unable to explain how these tendencies are linked with and can be 

explained through understanding the extent to which behaviorism and positivism is part 

and parcel of capitalist schooling and society. Capitalist society and its schooling gives 

value to what can be commodified through production, quantification, marketing, and 

consumption. Standardized tests are the very manifestation of positivism and 

behaviorism, which value objective, measurable, reproducible, and transmissible 

knowledge, and is bound to be popular in capitalist society for they fit the very notion of 

commodification on which the capitalist society rests (Kumar, 2008a; 2008b).  

          Additionally, contributors of the volume illustrate their serious concern over the 

issues of social justice, but readers will not find an explanation of how and why injustice 

exists in the first place. None of the contributors employ the category of ―class‖ to 

explain social injustice. There are no references to how the capitalist economy gives rise 

to social injustice and is reflected through poverty, unemployment, poor funding of 

schooling etc. Such issues seem not to be the concern of postmodern scholars in social 

studies. There is no discussion of the expanding empire of capital, by means of 

neoliberalism and neocolonialism spearheaded by World Trade Organization, World 

Bank and International Monetary Fund. There is no concern over the issues of war, 

nuclear crisis, and ecological problems. Are these not concerns of postmodern social 

studies researchers? Social studies educators are surely interested to know how 

postmodernism responds to such issues.  

        Finally, the authors of the Social Studies—The Next Generation. Re-searching in the 

Postmodern, appear to offer the critical lens for examining present circumstances, but are 

ultimately unable to offer anything new for curriculum and instructional practice in social 

studies. Obviously, the authors are not satisfied with the present state of social studies 

education and urge social educators to engage with social reality with reflexivity and 

criticality. A key question remains: What is the purpose of this exercise if the authors 

have no plan for change? Most certainly they have ideals and visions for how social 

studies teaching and learning might be transformed, but then why keep them secret? Is it 

a fear of being labeled as ―modernist‖ or escaping from the ―dirty work‖ in the reality of 

the classroom, with which they so strongly claim to be associated with? 



             

              Education Review Volume 12 Number 10  18 

 

 

Acknowledgement 

          I sincerely thank Dr. E. Wayne Ross for encouraging me to write this review and 

providing generous feedback in its preparation. 

 

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               Kumar:  Social studies in the postmodern world: An essay review 21 

 

About the Reviewer 

Ashwani Kumar is a second year PhD student at the department of Curriculum & 

Pedagogy in the University of British Columbia, Canada. His research focuses upon 

understanding why education/social education works as an agent of reproduction of 

hegemonic ideologies, socio-economic inequalities, and cultural orthodoxies instead of 

acting as a catalyst agent to bring about transformation in the structure and consciousness 

of human existence for a just, democratic, and peaceful world. 

 

 

Copyright is retained by the first or sole author, 

who grants right of first publication to the  

Education Review 

 

Editors         

Gene V Glass 

Arizona State University 

 

Gustavo Fischman 

Arizona State University 

 

Melissa Cast-Brede 

University of Nebraska, Omaha 

 

http://edrev.asu.edu