Executive Summary
Why this Update?
The NCSS curriculum standards were first published in 1994. Since then, the standards have been used widely and successfully as a framework for teachers, schools, districts, states, and other nations as a curriculum alignment and development tool. However, much has changed in education and the world in the years since these curriculum standards were published. This revision aims at greater articulation and consistency in sections of the document, incorporating current research and suggestions for improvement from many dedicated practitioners. It is the result of a re-examination of educational thinking, as well as maintaining continuity of curriculum expectations that focus on the essentials that an effective social studies program Pre-K - 12.
It is important to re-articulate that these curriculum standards, in themselves, do not dictate a specific body of subject matter, nor sequence of content, or any one preferred teaching method. Rather, the social studies curriculum standards provide a principled framework for the selection of actual content to teach and offer guidelines for how to organize content and processes for instruction. The standards serve as a starting point for local and state design and development of social studies curriculum.
The approach originally taken in these curriculum standards has been well received in the United States and internationally; therefore, the document has been updated while retaining the same organization around major themes basic to social studies learning. As in the original document, the framework moves beyond the transmission of knowledge alone or any single approach to teaching and learning. This updated framework retains emphasis on inviting students to become active participants in the learning process.
What Are the NCSS Curriculum Standards?
The NCSS curriculum standards provide a framework for professional thinking and discussion about what should occur in a social studies program, by which we mean curriculum and instruction across pre-K through grade 12. The curriculum standards contain the following components:
Ten themes are seen as vital to a comprehensive social studies program.
These themes can be adapted to content in discipline-based courses, such as those primarily focused on U.S. history or economics, but likely to draw on other disciplines as well, or to more highly integrated courses that cut across disciplinary boundaries such as Problems of Democracy or World Cultures.
Learning Expectations illustrate the kinds of knowledge, processes, and dispositions that students at early, middle, and high school grades should develop as the result of effective social studies programs.
Snapshots of Classroom Practice provide examples of classroom instruction and assessment to illustrate learning expectations in action.
How Do Content Standards Differ from Curriculum Standards?
Content standards (e.g., standards for civics, history, economics, geography, psychology), provide a detailed description of content and methodology considered central to a specific discipline by experts, including educators, in that discipline. NCSS provides here curriculum standards that articulate a set of principles by which content can be selected and organized to build a defensible social studies curriculum. This is a broader question than identifying content currently specific to a particular discipline. Thus, if one wished to teach about the theme of Civic Ideals and Practices how would one go about selecting suitable historical, political, geographic, etc. content to reach this goal? Or if one were teaching the Civil War how would decisions be made about what historical, geographic, etc. content is appropriate at specific grade levels to accomplish social studies purposes? NCSS deliberately chose to articulate principles as a basis for reflection, dialogue and creativity about professional practice and curriculum development at the state and local levels.
What is the Relationship between Curriculum Standards and Content Standards?
Because standards have been developed both in social studies and in many of the individual disciplines that are integral to social studies, one might ask: what is the relationship among these various sets of standards? The answer is that the social studies standards address overall curriculum design and comprehensive student learning expectations, while the individual discipline standards (civics and government, economics, geography, history, and psychology) provide a range of specific content through which student learning expectations can be accomplished. The social studies curriculum standards should remind curriculum developers and others of the overarching purposes of social studies: to help young people make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse democratic society in an interdependent world.
Meeting the Challenge of Educating for Civic Competence
Consideration of civic competence refers does not refer exclusively to those who are legally recognized members of a nation, but more broadly to the responsibilities and relationships everyone has as a member of a complex network of groups and communities. Realizing social studies’ mission of promoting civic competence requires students (who are learning the real meaning of citizenship) to learn both a body of knowledge and how to think flexibly and act responsibly to address civic issues in a diverse and interdependent world. The national curriculum standards for social studies represent educators’ best thinking about the framework needed to educate young people for the challenges of citizenship.
Introduction
What Is Social Studies and Why Is It Important?
The National Council for the Social Studies, the largest professional association for social studies educators in the world, defines social studies as:
… the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence. Within the school program, social studies provides coordinated, systematic study drawing upon such disciplines as anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, law, philosophy, political science, psychology, religion, and sociology, as well as appropriate content from the humanities, mathematics, and natural sciences. The primary purpose of social studies is to help young people make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world.
Social studies programs have as a major purpose the promotion of civic competence—the knowledge, intellectual processes, and dispositions required of students to be active and engaged participants in group and public life. Although civic competence is not the only responsibility of social studies nor is it exclusive to the field, it is more central to social studies than any other subject area in the schools. The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) has long supported civic competence as the goal of social studies. By making civic competence a central aim, NCSS has recognized the importance of educating students who are committed to the ideas and values of democracy and who are able to use knowledge about their community, nation, and world, along with skills of data collection and analysis, collaboration, decision-making, and problem-solving. Students who are knowledgeable, skillful, and committed to democracy will be the most capable of shaping our future, sustaining and improving our democratic way of life, and participating as members of a global community.
The civic mission of social studies demands that it be inclusive of all students and address cultural, linguistic and learning diversity including differences based on race, ethnicity, language, religion, gender, sexual orientation, the needs of students with exceptional learning needs, and other educationally and personally significant characteristics of learners. This diversity among learners embodies the democratic goal of appreciating pluralism, making social studies classrooms laboratories of democracy.
In democratic classrooms and nations, understanding civic issues--such as health care, immigration, and foreign policy—involves several disciplines. How social studies marshals the disciplines to this civic task takes various forms. It can be taught in one class, often designated “social studies,” that integrates two or more disciplines. On the other hand, it can be taught as separate discipline-based classes (e.g., history, geography) within a school department of social studies. In general, social studies courses tend to become more discipline-based in the higher grades. These standards are intended to be useful whatever the organization or instructional approach (for example a problem-solving approach, an approach centered on controversial issues, a discipline- based approach, or some combination of these approaches). Those decisions are best made at the local level. To this end, the standards provide a framework for effective social studies within various curricular perspectives.
What is the Purpose of the NCSS Curriculum Standards?
The NCSS Curriculum Standards provide a framework for professional deliberation and planning about what should occur in a social studies program, pre-K through grade 12. The framework provides ten themes that represent a way of organizing knowledge about the human experience in the world. The learning expectations, at early, middle, and high school levels, describe democratic dispositions/ purposes, knowledge, and intellectual processes, that students should exhibit in forms/ student products as the result of the social studies curriculum. The curriculum standards represent a holistic lens through which to view disciplinary content standards and state standards: what is truly essential from the content standards for social studies programs.
The NCSS Social Studies Curriculum Framework outlines a set of themes which include purposes/ dispositions, knowledge, intellectual processes, forms/student products that can guide local or state planning for a comprehensive social studies program.
The Ten Themes are organizing strands for the social studies program. The ten themes are:
I Culture
II Time, Continuity, and Change
III People, Places, and Environments
IV Individual Development and Identity
V Individuals, Groups, and Institutions
VI Power, Authority, and Governance
VII Production, Distribution, and Consumption
VIII Science, Technology, and Society
IX Global Connections
X Civic Ideals and Practices
The themes represent strands that should thread through a social studies program, pre-K through grade 12 as appropriate at each level. The themes are highly interrelated. To understand culture, for example, students need to understand time, continuity, and change; the relationship among people, places, and environments; and civic ideals and practices. To understand power, authority, and governance, students need to understand the relationship among culture; people, places, and environments; and individuals, groups, and institutions.
The thematic strands draw from all of the social science disciplines and other related disciplines and fields of study to provide a framework for social studies curriculum design. The themes provide a basis from which social studies educators will more fully develop their program by consulting detailed content in the standards developed for history, geography, civics, economics, psychology, and other fields. Thus, the NCSS social studies curriculum standards serve as the organizing basis for the social studies program and content and other standards provide additional detail for the curriculum design.
The Learning Expectations provide recommendations of what students will learn at each level in the social studies program. The language of the learning expectations is aimed at teachers and seeks to capture the expectations of over-arching, long-range outcomes. At each level, Pre-K through early years, middle, and high school, the learning expectations provide illustrations of the types of democratic dispositions/ purposes, knowledge, intellectual processes that students should exhibit in forms of student work as the result of the social studies curriculum. The basic purposes for social studies learning represent the values and attitudes involved in civic engagement. Learners build knowledge as they work to integrate new information into existing cognitive constructs. Intellectual processes represent the abilities involved in the thinking, reasoning, researching, and understanding that learners engage in as they encounter new concepts, principles and issues. Students represent what they learn in various forms or products.
Snapshots of Practice provide educators with images of how the standards would look when enacted in classrooms. Typically a Snapshot illustrates a particular Theme and one or more Learning Expectations; however, the Snapshot may also touch on other related Themes and Learning Expectations. For example, a lesson focused on the Theme of Time, Continuity and Change in a World History lesson focused on early river valley civilizations would certainly suggest attention to the theme of People, Places and Environments. These Snapshots also suggest ways in which Learning Expectations may not only shape practice, but also provide examples of both ongoing and culminating assessment.
Who Can Use the Social Studies Standards and How?
The social studies curriculum standards offer educators, parents, and policymakers the essential conceptual framework for curriculum development to prepare informed and active citizens. The standards represent the framework for professional deliberation and planning of the PK-12 social studies curriculum. They address overall curriculum development and design while the content standards serve as guides for specific content that fits within this framework. Classroom teachers, scholars, and state, district, and school administrators should use this document as a starting point for the systematic development of a effective Pre-K–12 social studies curriculum.
State governments and departments of education can use the standards to:
- guide standards-based education by clarifying long-range goals and expectations;
- review and evaluate current state curriculum guidelines or frameworks; and
- develop a state curriculum framework which focuses both on short range content goals and long range social studies goals.
School districts and schools can use the standards to:
- provide a framework for Pre-K-12 curriculum development;
- review and evaluate current social studies curriculum with a view toward long-range goals;
- provide ideas for instruction and assessment; and
serve as the basis for professional development experiences.
Individual teachers can use the standards to:
- provide learning expectations for units and courses that are consistent with long-range social studies goals within and across grade levels;
- evaluate current curriculum, instruction and assessment practices; and
- glean ideas for the alignment of learning expectations, instruction and assessment.
Teacher educators can use the standards to:
- introduce pre-service and in-service teachers to the nature and purpose of social studies;
enable pre-service and in-service teachers to plan instruction consistent with long range purposes of social studies;
assess the instructional planning and supervise the teaching of pre-service and in-service teachers; and - guide the development of pre-service and in-service teacher education programs and courses.
Parents and community members can use the standards to:
- understand how social studies develops civic competence for the benefit of both the individual and society;
advocate for social studies teaching and learning PreK-12. - assess the quality of social studies education in local school districts; and
- assess children’s development as social studies learners.
The civic mission of social studies requires taking into account more than the content taught. Since social studies has as its primary goal the development of a democratic citizenry, the experiences students have in their social studies classrooms should enable learners to engage in civic discourse and problem-solving, and to take informed civic action. These standards taken together present purposes worth caring about, knowledge worth learning, and processes to engage and inform positive civic thought and action.