Silas Grant
Biographic Data
| ID | 6043740 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Silas Grant |
| GIVEN NAMES | Silas |
| FAMILY NAME | Grant |
| SIGNATURE | GRANT S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University at Buffalo, State University of New York |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4294-0853 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 63 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 14 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Gridlock
This article examines how settler legal orders in Eastern Navajo Agency produce conditions of impasse that defer investments in life sustaining infrastructures, like roads. Focusing on the conjuncture of infrastructural decay and jurisdictional friction amid an oil and gas boom, I elaborate a concept of “gridlock” as a deadly effect of settler governance. Unfolding stories about road maintenance, school access, and emergency medical transport, th…
Elementary Social Studies
Organized around four commonplaces of education—learners and learning, subject matter, teachers and teaching, and classroom environment—Elementary Social Studies provides a rich and ambitious framework to help social studies teachers achieve powerful teaching and learning results. By blending the theoretical and the practical, the authors deeply probe the basic elements of quality instruction—planning, implementation, and assessment—always with t…
The Sources Are Many
In this paper, we address the issue of how teachers select primary and secondary texts for classroom use by focusing on two New York state middle school history teachers. Our field studies show that, although they teach diverse groups of students, each teacher chooses a wide variety of sources to develop classroom units and test preparation activities. The high–stakes testing environment both teachers work under influences their decisions, but so…
Ironies Abound
When Increasing Stakes Need Not Mean Increasing Standards
In New York, state-level policymakers have invested considerable political and economic capital in new tests as both a measure of accountability and as a vehicle for increased educational standards. In this study, we look at how 9th and 10th grade global history teachers are making sense of the first administration of a new 10th grade global history exam. Building on prior work, we question the relationship between new tests and higher standards.…
It's Just the Facts, or is it? The Relationship between Teachers' Practices and Students' Understandings of History
In this paper, I use classroom observations of two high school social studies teachers' units on the civil rights movement in the United States and interviews with students in each class to explore the relationship between teachers' practices and students' understandings of history. Drawing on the literature on students' historical understanding, I focus on three dimensions of historial thinking: historical knowledge, significance, and empathy. M…
Sows' Earsand Silk Purses
A Lost Opportunity Need Not Mean a Lost Cause
Opportunities Lost
The recent spate of state and national curriculum policies promote changes in teaching and learning in social studies. Yet these policies are largely silent on the issue of how teachers will unlearn what they now know and learn to teach differently. In this student of 16 professional development opportunities around the recent New York State social studies framework, I explore three issues: the range of opportunities teachers have to learn about …
The Dubious Connection
Locating Authority over Content and Pedagogy
In this paper, I explore two questions. One asks where teachers locate authority over their content and pedagogical decisions. Here I describe and illustrate the swirl of personal, organizational, and policy factors teachers cite as influencing their instruction. The second question focuses on the nature of these factors and asks what relationships exist among them. Here I suggest that influences run as cross-currents, definable in one sense, but…
Learning to Teach Mathematics in the Context of Systemic Reform
This article looks at how teachers understand recent mathematics reforms. Case studies of three California teachers in a disadvantaged, urban elementary school are presented. Framing the study are issues of teacher learning and systemic reform. These teachers have access to multiple opportunities to learn about reforms. But access guarantees no common understandings. Teachers’ understandings are influenced by the kinds of students they have, thei…
Citizenship Education and the Persistent Nature of Classroom Teaching Dilemmas
The field of social studies has labored to define its central purpose chiefly through endorsements of citizenship education. Although scholars have provided extended conceptual accounts concerning citizenship education, few empirical studies exist to provide portraits of this education in practice. Searching for contextualized, classroom-cased images of citizenship education, the researchers mined data on the pedagogical activities of three eleme…
Surviving its Own Rhetoric
In this article, the authors construct an argument citing the need for a conversational community within the social studies profession. After noting the need for more research to aid in understanding the field of social education, they explore relevant attributes of a conversational community. Seeking to service, in part, the research need and apply the conversational community conception to the social studies profession, the authors develop thre…
It's Just the Facts, or is it? The Relationship between Teachers' Practices and Students' Understandings of History
In this paper, I use classroom observations of two high school social studies teachers' units on the civil rights movement in the United States and interviews with students in each class to explore the relationship between teachers' practices and students' understandings of history. Drawing on the literature on students' historical understanding, I focus on three dimensions of historial thinking: historical knowledge, significance, and empathy. M…
When Increasing Stakes Need Not Mean Increasing Standards
In New York, state-level policymakers have invested considerable political and economic capital in new tests as both a measure of accountability and as a vehicle for increased educational standards. In this study, we look at how 9th and 10th grade global history teachers are making sense of the first administration of a new 10th grade global history exam. Building on prior work, we question the relationship between new tests and higher standards.…
Locating Authority over Content and Pedagogy
In this paper, I explore two questions. One asks where teachers locate authority over their content and pedagogical decisions. Here I describe and illustrate the swirl of personal, organizational, and policy factors teachers cite as influencing their instruction. The second question focuses on the nature of these factors and asks what relationships exist among them. Here I suggest that influences run as cross-currents, definable in one sense, but…
Opportunities Lost
The recent spate of state and national curriculum policies promote changes in teaching and learning in social studies. Yet these policies are largely silent on the issue of how teachers will unlearn what they now know and learn to teach differently. In this student of 16 professional development opportunities around the recent New York State social studies framework, I explore three issues: the range of opportunities teachers have to learn about …
Learning to Teach Mathematics in the Context of Systemic Reform
This article looks at how teachers understand recent mathematics reforms. Case studies of three California teachers in a disadvantaged, urban elementary school are presented. Framing the study are issues of teacher learning and systemic reform. These teachers have access to multiple opportunities to learn about reforms. But access guarantees no common understandings. Teachers’ understandings are influenced by the kinds of students they have, thei…
The Dubious Connection
Surviving its Own Rhetoric
In this article, the authors construct an argument citing the need for a conversational community within the social studies profession. After noting the need for more research to aid in understanding the field of social education, they explore relevant attributes of a conversational community. Seeking to service, in part, the research need and apply the conversational community conception to the social studies profession, the authors develop thre…
The Sources Are Many
In this paper, we address the issue of how teachers select primary and secondary texts for classroom use by focusing on two New York state middle school history teachers. Our field studies show that, although they teach diverse groups of students, each teacher chooses a wide variety of sources to develop classroom units and test preparation activities. The high–stakes testing environment both teachers work under influences their decisions, but so…
Citizenship Education and the Persistent Nature of Classroom Teaching Dilemmas
The field of social studies has labored to define its central purpose chiefly through endorsements of citizenship education. Although scholars have provided extended conceptual accounts concerning citizenship education, few empirical studies exist to provide portraits of this education in practice. Searching for contextualized, classroom-cased images of citizenship education, the researchers mined data on the pedagogical activities of three eleme…
Surviving its Own Rhetoric
In this article, the authors construct an argument citing the need for a conversational community within the social studies profession. After noting the need for more research to aid in understanding the field of social education, they explore relevant attributes of a conversational community. Seeking to service, in part, the research need and apply the conversational community conception to the social studies profession, the authors develop thre…
Citizenship Education and the Persistent Nature of Classroom Teaching Dilemmas
The field of social studies has labored to define its central purpose chiefly through endorsements of citizenship education. Although scholars have provided extended conceptual accounts concerning citizenship education, few empirical studies exist to provide portraits of this education in practice. Searching for contextualized, classroom-cased images of citizenship education, the researchers mined data on the pedagogical activities of three eleme…
The Dubious Connection
Locating Authority over Content and Pedagogy
In this paper, I explore two questions. One asks where teachers locate authority over their content and pedagogical decisions. Here I describe and illustrate the swirl of personal, organizational, and policy factors teachers cite as influencing their instruction. The second question focuses on the nature of these factors and asks what relationships exist among them. Here I suggest that influences run as cross-currents, definable in one sense, but…
Learning to Teach Mathematics in the Context of Systemic Reform
This article looks at how teachers understand recent mathematics reforms. Case studies of three California teachers in a disadvantaged, urban elementary school are presented. Framing the study are issues of teacher learning and systemic reform. These teachers have access to multiple opportunities to learn about reforms. But access guarantees no common understandings. Teachers’ understandings are influenced by the kinds of students they have, thei…
A Lost Opportunity Need Not Mean a Lost Cause
Opportunities Lost
The recent spate of state and national curriculum policies promote changes in teaching and learning in social studies. Yet these policies are largely silent on the issue of how teachers will unlearn what they now know and learn to teach differently. In this student of 16 professional development opportunities around the recent New York State social studies framework, I explore three issues: the range of opportunities teachers have to learn about …
Sows' Earsand Silk Purses
It's Just the Facts, or is it? The Relationship between Teachers' Practices and Students' Understandings of History
In this paper, I use classroom observations of two high school social studies teachers' units on the civil rights movement in the United States and interviews with students in each class to explore the relationship between teachers' practices and students' understandings of history. Drawing on the literature on students' historical understanding, I focus on three dimensions of historial thinking: historical knowledge, significance, and empathy. M…
When Increasing Stakes Need Not Mean Increasing Standards
In New York, state-level policymakers have invested considerable political and economic capital in new tests as both a measure of accountability and as a vehicle for increased educational standards. In this study, we look at how 9th and 10th grade global history teachers are making sense of the first administration of a new 10th grade global history exam. Building on prior work, we question the relationship between new tests and higher standards.…
Ironies Abound
The Sources Are Many
In this paper, we address the issue of how teachers select primary and secondary texts for classroom use by focusing on two New York state middle school history teachers. Our field studies show that, although they teach diverse groups of students, each teacher chooses a wide variety of sources to develop classroom units and test preparation activities. The high–stakes testing environment both teachers work under influences their decisions, but so…
Elementary Social Studies
Organized around four commonplaces of education—learners and learning, subject matter, teachers and teaching, and classroom environment—Elementary Social Studies provides a rich and ambitious framework to help social studies teachers achieve powerful teaching and learning results. By blending the theoretical and the practical, the authors deeply probe the basic elements of quality instruction—planning, implementation, and assessment—always with t…
Gridlock
This article examines how settler legal orders in Eastern Navajo Agency produce conditions of impasse that defer investments in life sustaining infrastructures, like roads. Focusing on the conjuncture of infrastructural decay and jurisdictional friction amid an oil and gas boom, I elaborate a concept of “gridlock” as a deadly effect of settler governance. Unfolding stories about road maintenance, school access, and emergency medical transport, th…
Sociology (13 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Pedagogy (10 works) · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy (9 works) · Mathematics education (9 works) · Political science (7 works) · Social studies (7 works) · Epistemology (5 works) · Innovative Teaching Methodologies in Social Sciences (5 works) · Law (5 works)