This is a descriptive study that describes the teacher educators that teach the early and middle childhood social studies methods courses in Ohio colleges and universities. The specific purpose of this study was to investigate: (1) How do we know if the teacher educators teaching the early and middle childhood social studies methods courses are grounded in the importance of social studies ?, (2) What actions in the early and middle childhood social studies methods course do the early and middle childhood social studies teacher educators in the study describe as advocacy for elementary school social studies ?, and (3) How do these teacher educators teach their students to respond to the marginalization of elementary school social studies ? The study also focused on identifying ways teacher educators are advocating for elementary social studies in early and middle childhood social studies methods courses in an era when content disciplines are competing for pedagogical time.
To collect data the researcher used a survey research design through an on-line data collection service called SurveyMonkey (http://www.surveymonkey.com/). The participant list consisted of 84 teacher educators from 45 Ohio colleges and universities offering an accredited undergraduate teacher preparation program that leads to licensure to teach