Experiences of non-specialist Social studies teachers in teaching

This is a qualitative study that sought to explore the coping mechanisms of non-specialist Social Studies teachers. The study employed the concept of coping as advanced by Lazarus and Folkman (1984). This framework explains that non-specialist Social Studies teachers use adaptive or maladaptive coping mechanism in order to address their inadequacy in content and pedagogy. This study explored the sampled Social Studies teachers’ experiences, challenges and their coping mechanisms in teaching. The following main research question guided the study: What are coping mechanisms of non-specialist Social Studies teachers in CDDSs? To explore this question further, the study answered the following specific research questions: (i) what are the pedagogical experiences of non-specialist Social Studies teachers in CDSSs? (ii) What challenges do non-specialist Social Studies teachers experience in their teaching? (iii) How do non-specialist Social Studies teachers cope with their teaching? Four non-specialist Social Studies teachers were purposively sampled. Data was generated through face-to-face interviews, lesson observations and post-lesson observation interviews. This study found that the sampled non-specialist Social Studies teachers faced challenges in both content and pedagogy. As such, they used adaptive and maladaptive coping mechanisms to deal with their inadequacy. Adaptive coping was due to their orientation on generic issues in teaching while maladaptive coping was due their knowledge gap on the philosophical foundations, aims and goals for the teaching of Social Studies. Based on these findings, it is necessary to address maladaptive coping mechanisms and enforce adaptive coping mechanisms.