ABSTRACT
While most social studies student teachers come to their methods courses with some degree of understanding that the texts-print, visual, or aural-they read, and those they will invite their own students to read in their future classrooms, are constructed, promoting particular visions and versions of the world that invite readers to think in and about the world in particular ways, more oft en than not, they still hold to the belief that maps are authorless, unproblematic depictions of the world they portray. Consequently, although student teachers are oft en willing to initiate a critical exploration with their students about the assumptions, worldviews, and dispositions many of the texts encountered in the curriculum promote, maps tend to be excluded from such scrutiny. Aft er all, if maps are authorless, how might students be invited to explore the intentions of an author who does not exist?
