Linda Levstik

Linda Levstik, a professor of social studies and humanities education in the College of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction, received the 2007 Jean Dresden Grambs Distinguished Career Research in Social Studies award from the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS). The award, presented every other year, recognizes professionals who have made extensive contributions to knowledge concerning significant areas of social studies education through meritorious research.

“On a personal level, I am delighted that my peers feel that I have made significant contributions and have generated quality research in my field,” Levstik said. “Professionally, it is an acknowledgement that my work is worthwhile, but my hope is that my lifelong work has made a difference in the classroom and in students’ understanding of history.”

Levstik earned her bachelor’s degree from Capital University in Columbus, Ohio. She later earned both her master’s degree and Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. Her first teaching assignment was in the Worthington, Ohio, public school system, and she also has served as an instructor in the Department of Early and Middle Childhood Education at The Ohio State University. Prior to arriving at UK in 1982, Levstik served as a consultant in the Division of Teacher Education and Certification for the Ohio Department of Education.

Over the past 25 years, Levstik’s research interests have included the development of historical thinking for K-12 students, the instructional contexts for learning history, international sociocultural/intellectual contexts for teaching and learning history, and the influence of gender on history and historical thinking.

Between 2001 and 2007, Levstik and Kathi Kern, associate professor of history at UK, in collaboration with the Kentucky Historical Society, the Kentucky Heritage Council, Harlan City Schools and Letcher County Public Schools, received close to $3 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Education’s Teaching American History grant program. These grants supported programs in 14 counties in Eastern Kentucky designed to enhance teachers’ historical knowledge and improve history instruction in elementary, middle and high school classrooms in the region.

“History education has three primary functions,” Levstik said. “First, it gives students a broader sense of what it means to be human by allowing them to consider how people have lived across time and place. Second, history has a citizenship function. By understanding the roots of current issues, students may be better prepared to think about an evolving ‘common good’ in their own settings and in the larger world. And last, learning about how people lived in other places and in other times is simply fascinating.”

During the course of her career, Levstik has written many journal articles, books and book chapters, among them, a series based on her collaborative work with Keith C. Barton (University of Cincinnati): Doing History, Teaching History for the Common Good, and Researching History Teaching and Learning (Erlbaum/Routledge). She also lectures extensively, both nationally and internationally, on research on teaching and learning history and social studies.

Updated on December 10, 2007 11:57 by the Webmaster - Content by Brad Duncan