This study is a qualitative case study that investigates how middle school Social Studies teachers who majored in Social Science Education (SSE) perceive and implement the Geography curriculum, a non-major area, and explores the conflicts, difficultie...
This study is a qualitative case study that investigates how middle school Social Studies teachers who majored in Social Science Education (SSE) perceive and implement the Geography curriculum, a non-major area, and explores the conflicts, difficulties, and coping strategies encountered during this out-of-field teaching. Social Studies aims to develop citizenship in students and consists of various content areas. While the national curriculum for Social Studies includes such areas, either by attempting to integrate the different fields for high schools (i.e., Integrated Social Studies) or by simply juxtaposing them for middle schools, the secondary teacher training and employment systems are divided into different majors, such as SSE, Geography Education (GE), and History Education. As a result of this structural contradiction between the national curriculum and the teacher training system for Social Studies, SSE-major teachers in middle schools are compelled to teach Geography for certain periods, and vice versa for GE-major teachers. The situation of having to teach a non-major area raised concerns about the psychological intimidation of teachers and the potential decline in class quality, such that urgent structural understanding and the development of supportive measures were required.
Based on field data analysis, in-depth interviews, and participant observations, the key findings are as follows.
First, SSE-major teachers attempted to learn and imitate the Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) of GE-major teachers through video lectures and published instructional materials, such as PowerPoint presentations and teaching guides from textbook publishers. They perceived the goal of their Geography classes as a "safe delivery" of textbook content, ensuring that the materials created by the experts were taught without omission—an omission they believed was inevitable if non-experts like themselves attempted to reconstruct the curriculum.
Second, SSE-major teachers were deeply aware of their professional distress stemming from psychological burden, low teaching efficacy, and potential declines in instructional quality when teaching non-major classes. However, they sublimated these challenges into a catalyst for professional growth. Motivated by a sense of ethical accountability toward students who trusted them as subject experts, they made persistent efforts to enhance their expertise and embody the pedagogical depth of GE-major specialists.
Third, this study suggests an effective requirement for administrative and policy support, as individual teachers’ efforts to overcome the insufficiency in out-of-field teaching are inherently limited. The proposed actions include activating exchanges between SSE-major and GE-major teachers within the same or neighboring schools, and expanding training opportunities on non-major class teaching by removing eligibility barriers that often restrict sessions to subject majors. Furthermore, it emphasizes providing immediately applicable instructional materials developed by field experts and optimizing the volume of content to ensure it is manageable for non-major instructors, considering the allocated credit hours.
Fourth, SSE-major teachers linked and integrated Geography and their major subjects in their classes to not only mitigate their psychological anxiety in teaching non-major areas, but also as a result of an educational decision to teach social phenomena from a holistic perspective, which could lead to democratic citizenship education.
The findings of this study offer in-depth insights into the experiences of middle school Social Studies teachers who major in SSE teaching a non-major area, with a particular focus on the geography domain, and provide the following practical implications.
First, this study suggests substantial supportive measures that align with the actual demands of teachers in the field to tackle the difficulties they face. Key recommendations include optimizing the volume of curriculum content to ensure it is manageable for non-major instructors relative to credit hours and expanding high-quality training opportunities by breaking down eligibility barriers for non-major fields. Furthermore, it emphasizes the need to establish a systematic teacher placement system to ensure a balanced supply of specialists across majors in each school. It also suggests expanding opportunities for professional exchange among teachers of different majors, both within the same school and across neighboring schools in the local area, to facilitate practical collaborations. Additionally, it calls for increasing the sharing of immediately applicable instructional materials developed by field experts that can be utilized directly in the classroom.
Second, this study emphasizes the need to reform the teacher training and recruitment system, which currently remains disconnected from on-site needs. This suggests the need to improve teacher policies to foster collaborative competencies among teachers of different majors, thereby enhancing their professional expertise in teaching non-major areas or integrated subjects.
Third, it emphasizes the urgent need for discussions at the national and academic levels regarding the identity and curriculum of middle school Social Studies, to reduce the pressure individual teachers face and enhance the quality of middle school Social Studies education.
Through such discussions, this study hopes to provide a meaningful policy and academic foundation for improving the middle school Social Studies curriculum and enhancing teacher education.