Q&A: Researcher Examines How the Gulf War Was Taught in Schools

When American troops were sent to the Persian Gulf in 1991, a spate of news reports provided anecdotal evidence that the war had become a major focus of classroom discussions nationwide.

To take a closer look at the educational quality of those discussions, researchers from the University of Maine and Illinois State University surveyed 350 secondary school teachers in the two states. The survey asked the teachers to describe how they approached the topic and queried them on their own pedagogical orientations toward social-studies teaching. The findings were compiled in a report, which was presented this fall at the annual convention of the National Council for the Social Studies in Detroit.

Assistant Editor Debra Viadero talked about some of those findings with Lynn R. Nelson, an assistant professor of social-studies education at the University of Maine and a...