Americans care about how their history is taught, but they don't always agree. Since its inception, the American Historical Association has taken a keen interest in how these disagreements shape the practice of history teaching in American classrooms.

Mapping the Landscape of Secondary US History Education is the AHA’s multi-stage effort to provide a research-based grounding for ongoing civic deliberations about the teaching of US history in American classrooms.

While political caricatures of American history classrooms dominate national media, the AHA seeks to cut through the noise and pose a more direct question: what are American schoolchildren supposed to be taught about US history?

In the devolved structure of educational governance in the United States, an appraisal of state standards affords only a partial answer to this question. The AHA research team combines analysis of published content standards and curricula with interviews with state and district-level administrators and surveys of educators. The resulting report will provide a clear, unbiased, and evidence-based picture of the twenty-first century landscape in which US history teachers do their work.

The AHA welcomes insights from social studies teachers, administrators, specialists, and educators interested in the project. Inquiries can be directed to research coordinator Nick Kryczka at nkryczka@historians.org.