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Minerals and metals are part of everyday existence, including in the air people breathe. They are either in, or have a hand in creating, nearly all of consumer products. As essential as they are, minerals and metals are too often unseen, unappreciated, and unnoticed. In the teaching of preservice primary and secondary teachers as well as high school students, the authors have found that while students might understand the relationship between burning coal and air pollution and may have learned about gold and diamond mining in history courses, they have little understanding about the extraction of minerals and metals that fuel their lives. The authors believe that lessons framed around the motivations, harms, and consequences of mining, in particular metals and minerals, are critical in fostering a heightened attunement to the precarious state of the environment and the role product consumption plays in its ongoing deterioration. Upon completion of the lessons in this article, students will have a heightened awareness of the role mining and minerals play in the creation of everyday objects and will begin to theorize possible alternative framings to renewable energy.

While social studies is often referred to as either disciplinary or interdisciplinary, we explain why the term intra-disciplinary might be more appropriate. Specifically, we present new materialist definitions of the prefix intra- and theorize why it is productive to consider social studies concepts as simultaneously historic, geographic, economic, and civic, instead of discrete and separate disciplines. After presenting an overview of the field of social studies and concerns over disciplinary definitions and designations, we show how theory can be put into practice with descriptions of three activities we did with elementary and secondary-focused preservice teachers designed with an intra-disciplinary approach in mind. These activities include a walk through a local neighborhood, a trip to a nearby organic grocery store, and a field trip to the state art museum. Ultimately, we present an argument that the often separated social studies disciplines are always abundantly present in each other and that their continued separation narrows the scope of the field and restricts teachers' ability to create relevancy between classroom topics and the lives of students.

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.

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 enactive, 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.

Social studies education (SSE) commonly uses copying pedagogies (e.g., simulations) to help students develop a deeper understanding of self, others, curriculum, and society. This article argues that simulations are eminently mimetic (i.e., a theoretical orientation concerned with understanding the entangled relationships between originals and copies) and abound with overlooked opportunities to engage with double logics that traverse academic disciplines. Primarily, we theorize how mimetic concepts (e.g., protean, pharmakon/Janus-faced) can be capacious in providing needed nuance and texture to simulatory approaches to SSE through the demarcation of two specific mimetic registers within simulation(s): mimicry and imitation. Through these two mimetic gestures, this article calls for a more intra-disciplinary framing of SSE, thus offering an alternative corridor for SSE educators, students, and researchers to consider how simulations are used to make sense of the more-than-human world in both historical and contemporary contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we first (re)trace the presence and absence of mining, metals and extractionary practices, what we call MMEs, from environmental and sustainability curricular frameworks United Nations' Act Now Framework. Then, we critique the swelling markets, mentalities, and mastermindings used to develop and produce "clean" and "renewable" energy sources/solutions. As one of many examples, there is increasing skepticism among Indigenous communities that history may repeat itself as the quest for "clean" results in further displacement and violations of tribal sovereignty (Healy & Baker, 2021; Holzman & Waldman, 2022; Shah & Bloomer, 2018). Notwithstanding our (e.g., authors) academic positionalities in social studies education, one of our conclusions considers the necessity of interdisciplinary collaboration between science and social studies on the issue of sustainability through MMEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]