Primary-Grade Students’ Knowledge and Thinking about Families

Abstract

K-3 students were interviewed to elicit their knowledge and thinking (including misconceptions) about families, a major topic in primary social studies. Along with valid knowledge, the students displayed significant knowledge gaps and misconceptions about marriage, kinship relations, and family life in the past, in other cultures, and in urban vs. rural communities within the contemporary United States. These findings are discussed with reference to implications for teaching about families in primary social studies, emphasizing commonalities rooted in the shared human condition as a way to counteract children’s orientation toward presentism and chauvinism.