About 3,500 social studies teachers converge on Nashville this weekend for their annual national conference, but not without some pushback for meeting in a state with multiple laws aimed at classroom censorship and restrictions related to discussing race and gender.
“Some of our members have worried that this could be a hostile environment for them,” said Wesley Hedgepeth, a social studies teacher in Henrico County, Virginia, and this year’s president of the National Council for the Social Studies.
Even so, attendance is set to surpass last year’s convention in Philadelphia, the group’s first in-person gathering since the pandemic. The last pre-COVID conference in 2019 drew about 4,000 participants to Austin, Texas.
“There have been concerns about Tennessee’s divisive-concepts law and perceived censorship by the government, as well as the suppression of certain identities,” Hedgepeth said Thursday, the eve of the three-day conference.
Definition of social studies
Social studies is the study of individuals, communities, systems and their interactions across time and place that prepares students for local, national and global civic life.