Rooted in reasoning Teaching students to reason about social problems

This dissertation addressed the gap between the intended social science curriculum, which emphasizes social scientific reasoning about societal issues, and actual classroom practices in teaching and assessment. Chapter 1 introduced why reasoning about social problems is both relevant and challenging for students, and why it is important to gain deeper insights into how this reasoning is taught. Chapter 2 focused on conceptualizing social scientific reasoning and identifying flaws in students’ reasoning, contributing to research on cognitive biases and reasoning difficulties. Chapter 3 described the development and validation of curriculum materials, including instructional videos and teaching materials based on six design principles aimed at enhancing students’ social scientific reasoning skills. Chapter 4 explored how these materials supported teacher professionalization. Findings indicated that the subject-specific curriculum materials functioned as catalysts for a deeper understanding of the relevance, complexity, and discipline-specific nature of students’ reasoning, thus functioning as educative curriculum materials. Chapter 5 detailed the development of formative assessment items to measure students’ reasoning subskills. Results showed that these items effectively distinguished between three performance levels, as operationalized in the conceptual framework introduced in Chapter 2, thereby revalidating the framework. Finally, Chapter 6 discussed how the theoretical and practical insights gained through this research can contribute to the development of students’ social scientific reasoning skills, equipping them to make meaningful contributions to a vital democracy.