Thesis
Do teachers matter? An examination of the impact of teachers on students’ ideas about United States history
University of Iowa
Master of Arts (MA), University of Iowa
Summer 2025
DOI: 10.25820/etd.008060
Abstract
History is more than just the past—it is a narrative. A national historical narrative can influence how a country sees itself. In the United States, political debates surrounding history education continue. Legislators and educators debate what history should be taught in schools and what the narrative should say. What is missing from these debates is evidence about the impact of teachers. Given the pervasiveness of a national narrative of freedom and progress in the United States, if a teacher taught a different narrative, would it impact his students’ internalized narratives of the country? Or are outside sources of the narrative so strong the teacher’s impact is minimal?
To examine this, I interviewed two teachers who teach high school United States history in similar communities, fifty miles apart. Mr. Grant communicated a narrative of United States history that involved progress and regression, in fairly equal measure. Mr. Harrison communicated a more traditional narrative that focused on progress, with the negative parts of United States history as almost incidental. At the end of their United States history courses, I interviewed five or six of their students, asking students to share the history of the country, as they understood it. I used a semi-structured interview process for the student interviews. Within the interview, I asked students to make a chronological list of what they thought were the top ten keys—events, people, topics, etc.—to United States history. Then, I asked students to explain their choices, which provided data on the criteria they used to determine historical significance and insight into their internalized historical narratives. I analyzed their responses to see if the students told a narrative that matched that of their respective teacher.
I found students used similar criteria when determining which parts of history were significant, regardless of their teacher, with the exception of negative affective significance, which was used more commonly by the students in Mr. Grant’s class. To examine the historical narratives, I used Wertsch’s understanding of specific narratives as the events, people, and topics used to tell the story and schematic narrative templates as the overall arc of the narrative. I found the teachers had an impact on both the specific narratives and the narrative templates of their students, though the impact on the narrative templates was more complex. These findings have implications in the debates surrounding history education in schools because they show the teachers play an important role in the development of students’ internalized historical narratives.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Do teachers matter? An examination of the impact of teachers on students’ ideas about United States history
- Creators
- Erica J Nelson
- Contributors
- Eric B Freedman (Advisor)Kate Lechtenberg (Committee Member)Anne Estapa (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Thesis
- Degree Awarded
- Master of Arts (MA), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- Teaching and Learning (Social Studies Education)
- Date degree season
- Summer 2025
- DOI
- 10.25820/etd.008060
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- Number of pages
- vi, 67 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2025 Erica J Nelson
- Language
- English
- Date submitted
- 07/29/2025
- Description illustrations
- illustrations, graphs, tables
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 47-52).
- Public Abstract (ETD)
In the United States, public debates about history education continue. What parts of history should be taught in schools? What does that history say about the country? However, students do not learn history only in schools. They also learn it from their families, their communities, and the media. Given the many sources of historical information, do teachers really matter? Or are the other sources of history more influential in the narrative students internalize about the country?
To investigate this, I interviewed two teachers who taught the narrative of United States history differently. I also interviewed five or six of their students about what parts of United States history they think are important and how they understand the whole history of the country. When I compared the history the students shared to that of their specific teacher, I found teachers do have an impact. Teachers can influence the events and people students choose to use when explaining the history of the United States. They can also influence students understanding of the arc of history, though that influence is more complicated. History information comes from many different sources, but this research shows that what a teacher teaches does matter.
- Academic Unit
- Teaching and Learning
- Record Identifier
- 9984948340802771
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