Page 29 - 2018_Jour_85-1_Societal-Issues

Schools and Societal Issues 29

Literature Overview
America seems to have forgotten about Appalachia—or maybe Appalachia was the
future that much of rural America has become. The beautiful land beckons to a tourist
industry and contrasts with the externally owned industries that extract resources from
the land and leave a legacy of poverty, environmental degradation, lack of autonomy, and
low educational attainment. Surprisingly little recent scholarship exists about teaching
and learning about Appalachia. The largest contributions, made by Owens (2002, 2001A,
2001B, 2000), described using picture books to combat stereotypes when describing the
diverse people of the region and the economic realities present there. Owens described both
the urban and rural culture of Appalachia and offered problems and solutions to teaching
about Appalachia. In a similar way, Sheffield (2014) offered fifth grade students a model of
what Mary Brekinridge could do to help the mountain people of eastern Kentucky provide
medical services to their neighbors through the creation of the Frontier Nursing Service.
In contrast, rather than teaching about Appalachia, Elasky (1990) described two groups
of sixth grade students who both learned to take ownership and served as leaders in the
identification of community problems and in finding solutions to those problems. These
examples illustrate that resources do exist for studying the local culture, models of how
people improved their community, and examples of how students improved the quality of
life in their region.
Although little research is available to assist education about Appalachia, more
information is available about cross-cultural professional development for teachers
of social studies. Such professional development tends to involve a group of secondary
teachers getting together at an international place to study the culture of the location.
Teachers experience the host country, learn more about global education, and consider
how to change classroom practices (Choi & Shin, 2016; Patterson, 2014). In some cases,
participants may be surprised by non-western cultures and need help in getting the most
from their experiences. Although the experience is unique, change of classroom practices
is not guaranteed. Moreover, just because a group of teachers travels for professional
development does not mean that they will have a quality or positive experience. For
example, Hammad (2016) reported on a group of Egyptian teachers who traveled to
England for 9 months. They were disappointed by the lack of social opportunities for non-
English speakers, lack of university contact outside the program, and the content of the
course work. Perhaps the expectations for what was possible to accomplish in the 9-month
duration were too high. Also, the sponsors’ data-gathering occurred in the last week of the
visit when it was too late to make corrections to the program.
A variety of people have attempted to create cross-cultural in-service experiences for
secondary social studies teachers. Some professional development includes providing
cross-cultural experiences through technology, meeting people in participants’ own state
or area, and engaging in international travel. For example, one in-service program did not
require travel but did require 126 teachers from 30 countries to engage in international
conversation through online discussion forums. The teachers reported new insights and
perspectives, as well as enhanced affective bonds with the group (Harshman & Augustine,
2013). In another case, teachers in Georgia needed to respond to the influx of Hispanic
students. To respond to this need, they created a program that allowed them to have
contact with Hispanic families. Although there were difficulties with the logistics, the
participants learned from the process (Daniel, Duncan, Navarro, & Fuhrman, 2014).
Another group of multicultural teachers went to a summer in-service program to learn
about social justice and how such issues related to the students in their classrooms. The