MSSTA Spring 2026 Journal Call!
You are invited to submit to the Spring 2026 Issue of the Manitoba Social Science Teachers’ Association (MSSTA) Journal:
You are invited to submit to the Spring 2026 Issue of the Manitoba Social Science Teachers’ Association (MSSTA) Journal:
The Weight We Carry: Exploring the Emotions of Teaching Social Studies in Divisive Times
A good teacher must stand where personal and public meet, dealing with the thundering flow of traffic at an intersection where ‘weaving a web of connectedness’ feels more like crossing a freeway on foot. As we try to connect ourselves and our subjects with our students, we make ourselves, as well as our subjects, vulnerable to indifference, judgment, ridicule.
- Palmer, 2007
A good teacher must stand where personal and public meet, dealing with the thundering flow of traffic at an intersection where ‘weaving a web of connectedness’ feels more like crossing a freeway on foot. As we try to connect ourselves and our subjects with our students, we make ourselves, as well as our subjects, vulnerable to indifference, judgment, ridicule.
- Palmer, 2007
While teaching has long been recognized as a demanding profession, educators today are increasingly overwhelmed by the emotional pressures of their work (Phelan & Janzen, 2024; Santoro, 2018; Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2017). These demands are increasingly shaped by neoliberal and neoconservative reforms that promote public scrutiny, enforce audit culture, and impose systems of surveillance and rigid accountability. At the same time, the parental rights movement fuels neoconservative efforts to censor and control classroom content. Together, these forces are creating a chilling effect (Geller, 2020) and making the profession increasingly untenable.
On top of these ever more prevalent challenges, social studies teachers must also engage with difficult knowledge (Britzman, 1998) - topics such as war, genocide, human suffering, the climate crisis, and threats to democracy that lie at the heart of their discipline. Navigating this difficult knowledge during a period shaped by neoliberal and neoconservative reforms complicates teachers’ capacity and willingness to confront these subjects, intensifying the emotional demands of their work. This convergence makes teaching social studies especially weighty, as they navigate a profession under siege while grappling with the intense emotional demands woven into their curriculum. The resulting burden is complex and demanding, sometimes experienced through stress, burnout, or demoralization, yet often anchored in a strong and persistent obligation to their students.
MB Speaks invites you to share your experiences: How are you carrying the emotional weight of teaching social studies in these times? What strategies, stories, or reflections do you have to offer?
Submissions can engage the following themes:
The journal team will evaluate your submission on the following criteria:
Submissions should be sent to [email protected] no later than February 1st, 2026 We hope to publish this issue March/April 2026. Please send your submissions as word documents.
For immediate response to any journal inquiries, please reach out to Kevin Lopuck: [email protected]
If you are interested in advertising in our journal, please contact us directly; we are in the process of developing protocols and policies around advertising.
On top of these ever more prevalent challenges, social studies teachers must also engage with difficult knowledge (Britzman, 1998) - topics such as war, genocide, human suffering, the climate crisis, and threats to democracy that lie at the heart of their discipline. Navigating this difficult knowledge during a period shaped by neoliberal and neoconservative reforms complicates teachers’ capacity and willingness to confront these subjects, intensifying the emotional demands of their work. This convergence makes teaching social studies especially weighty, as they navigate a profession under siege while grappling with the intense emotional demands woven into their curriculum. The resulting burden is complex and demanding, sometimes experienced through stress, burnout, or demoralization, yet often anchored in a strong and persistent obligation to their students.
MB Speaks invites you to share your experiences: How are you carrying the emotional weight of teaching social studies in these times? What strategies, stories, or reflections do you have to offer?
Submissions can engage the following themes:
- Navigating neoliberal and neoconservative reforms in social studies
- Teacher resistance to reforms that deprofessionalize, prioritize accountability measures, undermine human rights, and/or restrict marginalized perspectives
- Confronting and experiencing anti-teacher rhetoric and blame: the impacts on our teaching and/or our teacher identities
- Teaching against the myth of teacher neutrality
- Unpacking the emotional weight of teaching the social studies curriculum
- Carrying classroom controversies
- Engaging difficult knowledge and topics in the classroom
- Pedagogical challenges and opportunities amid emotional weight
- Pedagogy: scholarly writing connected to the issue theme. Writers should aim for 5-7 double-spaced pages.
- Practice: class activities, lessons and/or unit plans.
- Professional Development: events, organizations, learning resources, books, podcasts, or book/podcast/resource reviews.
- Photos: If you have any photographs of Manitoba that you would like featured in the issue, we would love to include them.
The journal team will evaluate your submission on the following criteria:
- Relevance to the journal call (as outlined above)
- Suitability for our target audience: Social studies teachers in Manitoba
- Written structure: Writing is of publishable quality. Due to the specific theme of this issue we invite varied written styles and structures (poetry, music, photo essay)
Submissions should be sent to [email protected] no later than February 1st, 2026 We hope to publish this issue March/April 2026. Please send your submissions as word documents.
For immediate response to any journal inquiries, please reach out to Kevin Lopuck: [email protected]
If you are interested in advertising in our journal, please contact us directly; we are in the process of developing protocols and policies around advertising.
MB Speaks is the official journal of the Manitoba Social Sciences Teachers’ Association. It is published twice a year, in the spring and fall. Each issue centres around a particular theme and educators are encouraged to submit contributions that are connected to any of the following areas:
Pedagogy: scholarly writing connected to the issue theme. Writers should aim for 5-7 double-spaced pages.
Practice: class activities, lessons and/or unit plans.
Professional Development: events, organizations, learning resources, books, podcasts, or book/podcast/resource reviews.
Photos: If you have any photographs of Manitoba that you would like featured in the issue, we would love to include them.
If you have any questions about MB Speaks, please direct them to our Managing Editor, Dr. Shannon D.M. Moore at [email protected]
Pedagogy: scholarly writing connected to the issue theme. Writers should aim for 5-7 double-spaced pages.
Practice: class activities, lessons and/or unit plans.
Professional Development: events, organizations, learning resources, books, podcasts, or book/podcast/resource reviews.
Photos: If you have any photographs of Manitoba that you would like featured in the issue, we would love to include them.
If you have any questions about MB Speaks, please direct them to our Managing Editor, Dr. Shannon D.M. Moore at [email protected]
