Abstract
Welcome to the winter issue of The Journal of Social Studies Research (JSSR). As you may recall from the previous editor's note in the fall issue, JSSR is now printing four issues per year. In addition to this expansion, I am very pleased to announce that JSSR is now partnering with Elsevier Publishing, which will greatly expand our visibility and readership throughout the world. I hope all of our readers, both new and returning; will enjoy reading the interesting research studies that compose the Winter 2013 edition of JSSR.
This issue begins with two studies focusing on the teaching and learning of historical content. The first article, by Gabriel A. Reich, examines data from an exploratory study of 10th grade world history students’ responses to multiple choice questions from a state regents exam and poses some interesting questions about what tests measure, their effectiveness, and what constitutes social-studies knowledge. The next article, by Christopher C. Martell, presents a longitudinal case study of four beginning secondary social studies teachers and the barriers they faced to teaching history as interpretation.
The next article takes an in-depth look at the narrative of history textbooks. Written by Mimi Lee, this research study presents a new model for textbook narrative called Explicit Reasoning Text (ERT) and interviews with 12 high school students are examined to better understand the effectiveness of the ERT to engage students in historical investigation. The next article in this issue, by Arlene Barry, examines the potential of Newbery-Award winning books as a resource for infusing character education into the social studies classroom. Finally, this issue closes with a thoughtful and concise review of the book, Why won't you just tell us the answer?: Teaching historical thinking in grades 7–12, examined and written by Rory P. Tannebaum and Anna H. Hall.
As always, I would like to thank all of the authors and reviewers for their hard work and continued dedication to quality research. I also would like to encourage all readers to continue their individual scholarly interests and to consider submitting future manuscripts to JSSR for possible publication.