Journal of International Social Studies

Summarizes the history of the International Assembly

McGuire, Margit Elizabeth

Journal of International Social Studies 
http://www.iajiss.org 
Volume 1  Number 1 58 Fall 2010 
 
 
An Historical Account of the International Assembly 
 
Margit E. McGuire, Seattle University, USA 
 
With contributions from Richard Beardsley, Retired Social Studies Teacher, Richmond, 
BC, Canada and Robert Fowler, Professor Emeritus, University of Victoria, Canada 
 
     
     The National Council for the Social 
Studies (NCSS) has a long history with 
global and international education. There 
have been special interest groups focusing 
on global and international education and 
clearly many members have placed a high 
priority on making the organization more 
international. The following highlights 
events that kept the “flame burning” and led 
to the establishment of the International 
Assembly in 1994. 
     In 1981, President Theodore Kaltsounis 
suggested to the NCSS Board of Directors 
that the National Council for the Social 
Studies become the International Council for 
the Social Studies. This proposal did not go 
forward but many members continued to 
seek ways to make the organization more 
international in focus. A milestone was 
reached in 1988 under the leadership of 
President Jan L. Tucker, when the Board of 
Directors narrowly passed a motion to 
establish an international conference to 
occur every three years.  
     The first international conference was 
held as a joint venture between NCSS and 
the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 
Vancouver, Canada with sponsorship from 
the British Columbia Social Studies 
Teachers’ Association and the Washington 
State Council for the Social Studies with 
support from the Alaska and Oregon state 
councils. This joint venture brought together 
Canadian and American educators to plan 
the first ever conference open to educators 
from across the world but with a special 
focus on the Pacific Rim.  The conference, 
“Pacific Rim: International Conference on 
Social Studies Education,” drew 1100 
educators from sixteen countries and 
jurisdictions around the Pacific Rim. Under 
the joint leadership of Jan L. Tucker, 
President of NCSS, and Don Wilson, 
Professor of Social Studies at UBC, the 
conference clearly established itself as an 
international event. With great enthusiasm 
and interest, conference attendees discussed 
how they might continue these valuable 
international connections. Many attendees 
viewed NCSS as too insular and not outward 
looking. While there was great enthusiasm 
and interest, it was clear there was not the 
infrastructure to support an international 
organization, and especially so without the 
aid of technology that is widely available 
today.   
     However, the idea did not die and 
continued to simmer as other international 
conferences were planned and attended, 
particularly in Miami, USA (1991) and 
Nairobi, Kenya (1994)
*
. In 1991, 
international educators approached NCSS 
President Margit McGuire and raised the 
issue of an international organization again. 
One suggestion was to create a position on 
the Board of Directors for an international 
                                                 
*
 Other international conferences followed 
in Sydney, Australia (1997) and Calgary, 
Canada (2000). Sadly this initiative died 
after the Calgary, Canada international 
conference in 2000. 
Journal of International Social Studies 
http://www.iajiss.org 
Volume 1  Number 1 59 Fall 2010 
 
member. This idea did not seem feasible 
given the time and cost of attendance and  
participation in board meetings. 
Additionally, it was not clear how such a 
position would address the interests of 
international members. As conversations 
continued, it became clear that NCSS could 
indeed support the infrastructure of an 
international component but what was the 
best venue?  
     Consideration was given to a special 
interest group (SIG) but was rejected 
because of the informality of SIGS. After 
additional discussion, it seemed that the 
“associated” organizational structure would 
meet the needs of international members. 
The first problem was: no one knew how 
such a group could be constituted as other 
associated groups had been in operation as 
long as anyone could remember. 
Additionally, it was not clear how such a 
body could be established under the bylaws 
of NCSS. There were also issues about 
whether such a group would “fracture” the 
organization by establishing yet another 
entity that stood apart from the rest of the 
organization. Counter positions argued that 
the International Assembly, as it would be 
called, would provide a home base for 
international members and visitors alike. 
The debate continued for the next two years 
and finally on May 1, 1994, the NCSS 
Board of Directors voted to establish the 
International Assembly as an associated 
group. At the annual meeting in Phoenix in 
1994, the International Assembly formally 
met and approved its constitution.  Robert 
Fowler, University of Victoria, Canada, a 
strong proponent of the International 
Assembly and one of the early advocates for 
such an organization at the Pacific Rim 
international conference, served as the first 
chairperson. 
     The rationale as stated in the 
International Assembly Constitution makes 
the case for the associated group:  
For the past twenty years the 
annual conference of NCSS has 
attracted numbers of social studies 
educators from many countries. 
Canadians, Australians, and, 
increasingly educators from the 
European Community, in 
particular, have become active 
members of NCSS. Moreover, in 
recent years, educators from Africa, 
Asia and South America have 
offered significant contributions. 
These educators have taken 
advantage of the NCSS conference 
to interact and network among 
themselves and with their 
American counterparts on issues of 
common concern in teaching and 
learning social studies. This 
interaction has heightened 
awareness among all members of 
the international dimension of the 
social studies and the transnational 
nature of issues, developments and 
concerns in social education of the 
people of this planet. 
To its credit, NCSS has proved the 
major, if not the sole forum for an 
international gathering of social 
educators. The leadership of the 
Council in offering this forum to all 
social educators has been very 
much appreciated by U.S. and 
“foreign” members alike. In turn 
international delegates have 
provided a diversity of perspectives 
that have enlivened and enriched  
both the formal program of the 
annual conference and its informal 
debates and discussions. The 
international community welcomes, 
therefore, the Council’s decisions 
to grant affiliated status to the 
International Assembly. Hence, this 
proposed constitution is put 
forward for information in order 
Journal of International Social Studies 
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Volume 1  Number 1 60 Fall 2010 
 
that it will be discussed, revised if 
necessary, and approved by the 
membership of the International 
Assembly at its meeting in Phoenix 
on November 18, 1994. 
 
     The International Assembly has featured 
many notable speakers since its inception 
including Former Chancellor Helmut 
Schmidt in 1999. At that meeting, the 
International Assembly instituted the Jan L. 
Tucker Memorial Lecture that has continued 
to attract internationally renowned 
government and policy decision-makers as 
well as authors and educators. The 
International Assembly has broadened the  
organization through its network of such 
notable presenters thus increasing the 
international focus of the organization and 
affirming the important contributions that 
the International Assembly makes to NCSS. 
As globalization increases, the International 
Assembly plays an essential role in NCSS in 
highlighting topics from an international 
perspective, providing a forum for 
international educators, and supporting 
international outreach that is so essential to 
the National Council for the Social Studies. 
Today the International Assembly continues 
to flourish with strong leadership and a 
commitment to global and international 
education endeavors. 
     To date there have been eight leaders 
each serving a two-year term.  
Robert Fowler (Canada) 1994-1996 
Hans Hooghoff (Netherlands) 1996- 1998 
Gavin Faichney (Australia) 1998-2000 
Vickie Green (Canada) 2000-2002 
Omiunota Nelly Ukpokodu (USA) 2002- 
     2004 
Toni Fuss Kirkwood-Tucker (USA) 2004- 
     2006 
Gloria Alter  (USA) 2006-2008 
Iftikhar Ahmad (USA) 2008-2010  
 
 
Margit McGuire is a past president of the National Council of the Social Studies 
 


English

An Historical Account of the International Assembly

This article provides a critical review of the text "Challenges and Prospects for Canadian Social Studies" edited by Alan Sears and Ian Wright and widely used in Canadian social studies contexts

Tupper, Jennifer Anne

Journal of International Social Studies 
http://www.iajiss.org 
 
 
Volume 1  Number 1 44 Fall 2010 
 
Challenges and Prospects for Canadian Social Studies  
 
Sears, A., & Wright, I. (Eds.). (2004). Challenges and Prospects for Canadian Social  
Studies. Vancouver, Canada: Pacific Educational Press. 312pp. ISBN 987-1895766721 
 
Review by Jennifer A. Tupper, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada S4S 0A2.
 
 
In this edited collection, Alan Sears and 
Ian Wright bring together Canadian social 
studies education scholars in an effort to 
critically examine contextual, content and 
process challenges and prospects pertaining 
to social studies education. While the book 
is intended for a Canadian audience, pre-
service and in-service teachers as well as 
teacher educators, I would argue that it 
transcends the Canadian context in its efforts 
to think through and discuss some important 
issues facing social studies educators 
regardless of where they might be located.  
In particular, chapters that focus on teaching 
historical thinking, citizenship education, 
gender and sexuality in the social studies 
curriculum, and multiculturalism, speak to 
concerns that exist beyond the boundaries of 
nation-state. More than a methods textbook, 
this collection attempts to challenge pre-
service and in-service teachers‟ 
understandings of what it means to teach 
social studies to diverse students living in 
complex times. While practical pedagogical 
strategies are found throughout the book, 
they are most often included alongside 
theoretical considerations intended to 
interrogate more traditional and narrow 
approaches to social studies education.  
 
 
Part I of the collection, Contextual 
Challenges and Prospects, begins with a 
very helpful overview of the historical  
context of social studies in English Canada.  
In this chapter, Penney Clark traces the  
American influences on the emergence of 
Canadian Social Studies; the various 
approaches to teaching social studies 
including the structure of the disciplines, 
and; the renewed emphasis on citizenship 
education from the 1970s to the present.  
This is an important first chapter because it 
encourages pre-service and in-service 
teachers to consider the history of their 
chosen discipline and how this history 
continues to influence contemporary theory 
and practice in social studies education.  
Clark‟s chapter is followed by Shields‟ and 
Ramsay‟s examination of current social 
studies curricula across English Canada. The 
authors argue that social studies suffers from 
an identity crisis particularly because “it has 
been, and remains, a contentious subject 
area, perhaps more so than any other subject 
in the school curriculum” (p. 39).  This 
statement provides an opportunity for social 
studies educators to consider why their 
subject is so contentious and what 
corresponding challenges this poses for their 
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Volume 1  Number 1 45 Fall 2010 
 
own teaching. Next, Stéphane Lévesque‟s 
chapter provides readers with an historical 
perspective of history and social studies in 
Québec, and Ken Osborne‟s piece explores 
the partnership and rivalry of social studies 
and history.   
Part I ends with Alan Sears‟ writing 
about citizenship education and social 
studies in Canada. Sears discusses 
citizenship as a contested concept despite its 
centering of the social studies curriculum in 
Canada. He asks and attempts to answer 
what we mean by citizenship and citizenship 
education, what the best ways are to educate 
citizens, and how we might strengthen 
citizenship education in Canada and 
elsewhere. I use this chapter with my social 
studies pre-service teachers to grapple with 
the complexities of citizenship and to 
critique the privileging of liberal democratic 
understandings of citizenship underlying the 
chapter. What is largely missing from Sears‟ 
discussion is consideration of how the 
narrative through which citizenship 
education is imagined involves the 
transformation of students into an engaged 
citizenry despite differences of race, class, 
culture, gender, et cetera. These differences 
which constitute students‟ social locations, 
mediate the ways in which they are able to 
imagine themselves engaging as citizens in a 
country such as Canada (Tupper & 
Cappello, 2010). Sears draws attention to the 
need for students to not just know about 
democracy, but to believe in democracy. He 
argues for reform in the field of citizenship 
education through a sustained and deep 
analysis of both what is wrong with 
citizenship education and “how it can be 
fixed” (p. 104). This argument could be 
expanded to include a consideration of how 
the promises of democracy have not been 
realized for all citizens in Canada. Certainly 
it is important to encourage students to 
believe in democracy, but this belief should 
be formed with a clear sense of both the 
possibilities and failures of the democratic 
system in which students live (Tupper, 
2009).   
In Part II of the collection, Content 
Challenges and Prospects, a variety of 
authors explore what content should be 
included in social studies curriculum. At the 
outset, readers are invited by Sears and 
Wright to consider several questions as they 
encounter each chapter. These questions 
provide a means of engaging more 
intentionally and deeply with each of the 
chapters, and are particularly useful with 
pre-service teachers as they begin to form 
their own perspectives regarding the 
challenges and prospects of teaching social 
studies. In their chapter, Teaching Historical 
Thinking, Peter Seixas and Carla Peck 
advance an approach to history education 
that provides students with “the ability to 
approach historical narratives critically” 
with a stronger focus on specific skill 
development and rational thinking. 
Recently, however, their approach to 
teaching historical thinking has been deemed 
inadequate by some scholars for providing 
Journal of International Social Studies 
http://www.iajiss.org 
 
 
Volume 1  Number 1 46 Fall 2010 
 
little opportunity to “discuss inequities in the 
past or present by leaving no place to think 
about history outside of classification and 
rational thinking” and for running the risk of 
“reproducing the privilege of the Western 
philosophical tradition for making rules 
about who and what counts in the study of 
the past” (Cutrara, 2009, p.97). Other 
chapters in this section include: discussions 
of geography as spaces of possibility for 
teaching and learning (Hurren); law 
education in social studies (Cassidy); global 
education and the challenge of globalization 
(Richardson); understanding 
multiculturalism in the social studies 
curriculum (Varma-Joshi); understanding 
First Nations Issues (Orr); gender and 
sexuality in the social studies curriculum 
(Loutzenheiser); education for peace-
building citizenship (Bickmore), and; visual 
literacy (Werner).   
Perhaps the most challenging chapter in 
this section is Loutzenheiser‟s Gender and 
Sexuality in the Social Studies Curriculum: 
Bound and Un-determined. My students 
often approach this chapter with scepticism, 
imagining that sexuality has nothing to do 
with becoming a social studies teacher. As 
they engage with the chapter, however, they 
come to a better understanding of just how 
much sexuality and gender have to do with 
social studies. Loutzenheiser does a superb 
job of blending theory and practice as she 
calls students to uncover and question the 
“normal” within classroom spaces, to 
consider the power of social studies 
narratives that privilege heteronormativity 
and how these narratives perpetuate binaries 
that “leave little room to make visible 
complicated renderings that can invite more 
complex understandings” (p. 185). After 
reading this chapter, I invite my students to 
revisit the social studies curriculum they are 
mandated to teach given what they have 
learned from Loutzenheiser. I also 
encourage them to consider the intersections 
of gender, sexuality, race, class, culture, and 
(dis)ability in light of official curriculum - 
the knowledge, skills and attitudes they are 
obligated to teach. They almost always come 
away with new curricular insights that I am 
hopeful will inform the pedagogical choices 
they make in their own classrooms and the 
ways in which they understand and work 
alongside their own students.    
Part III, Process Challenges and 
Prospect, is the final section of the edited 
collection. Again, Sears & Wright begin 
with a series of questions for the reader‟s 
consideration that have the potential to 
provide more meaningful engagements with 
the ideas and approaches advanced in each 
chapter. Within these chapters readers will 
find more practical approaches to teaching 
social studies. Chapters focus on 
instructional approaches (Evans & Hundey), 
concept learning (Hughes), critical thinking 
(Farr Darling & Wright), situated learning 
(Hughes & Sears), democratic experiences 
for early-years students (Shreman), 
computer technologies (Gibson), and 
assessment and evaluation strategies 
Journal of International Social Studies 
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Volume 1  Number 1 47 Fall 2010 
 
(Myers). It is appropriate that these chapters 
come at the end of the collection as their 
reading may be informed by earlier 
engagement with the chapters in Parts I and 
II focussing on contextual and content 
challenges and prospects.     
Largely missing from this edited 
collection are the theoretical considerations 
of social studies education from Critical 
Race and Whiteness Studies Standpoints.  
While certain chapters attempt to challenge 
dominant (white) discourses of social 
studies, employing CRT and Whiteness 
Studies as lenses through which to read and 
interpret social studies curricula and 
pedagogy would be powerful both within 
and beyond the Canadian context. These 
absences are suggestive of the ongoing 
challenges to transformative social studies in 
pre-service and in-service educational 
contexts.  Despite these shortcomings, the 
edited collection offers many opportunities 
for educators to reflect upon their 
pedagogical approaches and theoretical 
understandings of what it means to teach 
social studies to diverse and complex 
learners in the 21
st
 century. It is a valuable 
book for any social studies educator to own.  
 
References 
 
Cutrara, S. (2009). To placate or provoke? A critical review of the disciplines approach to  
history curriculum. Journal of the Canadian Association of Curriculum Studies, 7(2), 86-
109.  
 
Tupper, J. & Cappello, C. (2010). Locating citizenship: Curriculum, social class, and the  
„good‟ citizen.  Theory and Research in Social Education, 38(3), 298-327.  
 
Tupper, J. (2009). Unsafe water, stolen sisters, and social studies: Troubling democracy  
and the meta-narrative of universal citizenship. Teacher Education Quarterly, 36(1), 77-
94. 
 
Jennifer Tupper is an Associate Professor of social studies education and curriculum theory in 
the Faculty of Education at the University of Regina. 


Challenges and Prospects for Canadian Social Studies

A content analysis of ten United States history textbooks (2005-2008) was conducted by the researchers to determine the current depiction of Japanese Americans and internment during the World War II era.  This study updates and expands upon the textbooks used in prior research by Romanowski (1995), Harada (2000), and Ogawa (2004) that had numerous considerations and recommendations for future textbook authors to consider when writing their new editions.  Based on the new United States history textbook editions covered for this study, it is concluded that support of some of their considerations and recommendations were taken care of, however, unfortunately others still are not.  Additionally, a new consideration for future textbook writers is encouraged by the researchers for clarification of/from interchangeable use of the very different meaning of the terms internment, relocation, and concentration camps.     

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An Historical Account of the International Assembly

Challenges and Prospects for Canadian Social Studies

A Current Analysis of the Treatment of Japanese Americans and Internment in United States History Textbooks

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