Program Foundations

Summaries of Current Research and Literature

Program Foundations

Citizenship and Identity

The literature emphasizes the following:

Social studies content should reflect an appropriate balance between an emphasis on national citizenship and on global citizenship.
Social studies should acknowledge that children need to develop positive self esteem and a strong sense of identity.
Care needs to be taken to reflect the diverse nature of Canadian society and to hear the previously silenced voices of many of its citizens.
The appropriate knowledge, skills, and dispositions that will encourage an active, participatory, and engaged citizenry should be articulated.
Choice and opportunities for engagement in citizenship should be part of the classroom environment.
Citizenship education needs to include decent, caring responsible behavior in personal and family relationships with a view of citizenship that prepares children for being neighbours, mates, siblings, friends, parents and pet owners.
Concepts such as identity tend to be defined in very narrow, static terms that do not resonate for many students in social studies classes.
Girls are often deprived of role models and the knowledge of their own culture that is needed to raise their self esteem and help shape their identity.
It is important to recognize that for many individual members of ethnic groups, ethnic group membership is not as important a part of their personal identity as other group affiliations such as religion, gender, social class, etc. Also other individuals may identify with more than one ethnic group.
All students need to be able to find a place in our pluralistic world.

Diversity and Cohesion

The literature emphasizes the following:

Caution is needed with a social studies program that does little more than celebrate diversity and promote an unproblematic national tradition.
Respect for diversity requires a move beyond establishing a national identity of one people different from other people to thinking about new ways of seeing ourselves.
Social studies content needs to reflect careful attention to the diverse nature of Canadian society and to the previously silenced voices of many of its citizens.
The struggles of minority cultures and women have traditionally been rendered invisible in textbooks.
Native studies have tended to be presented from a solely European perspective, which does little to develop students' understanding or appreciation of aboriginal cultures.
Students are most often encouraged to look at culture through lens and categories that are familiar to them assuming that needs and wants are basically the same, however, this does little to help learners move beyond their own cultural frames of reference in order to better understand themselves and others.
Students need to become conscious of their culture and be able to step outside of themselves and look at the habitual norms, values, and practices that make up that culture in order to see that their way of doing things is not the only or the right way and to understand that others have their own ways.
Attitudes toward culturally different others are formed at an early age.
Elementary age children are more accepting of diversity than in later years.
The primary goal of a pluralistic curriculum process is to present a truthful and meaningful rendition of human experience.
All students need to be able to view things and understand concepts and events through the multiple perspectives of different racial, ethnic, cultural and gender groups.
Social studies resources need to be carefully examined for the inclusion of diverse viewpoints.
Problems of prejudice and inequality in the classroom and in society need to be confronted by advocating students' listening to each other and respecting the knowledge that each student brings to school.
Multiculturalism is not an entitlement program for marginalized groups. It is about empowering all students to become knowledgeable, caring, active citizens in an ethnically and racially diverse nation and world.

Learners and Learning

The literature emphasizes the following:

In order to encourage active learner engagement rather than more passive views of learning, alternative ways of thinking about teaching need to be encouraged.
Current views of the brain as a complex, whole and interconnected system imply a view of curriculum as complex, interconnected and embedded in the experiences of the student.
The brain learns fastest and easiest during the early school years, and perhaps the early adolescent years.
The brain seeks meaning through looking for relevance and patterns. Relevance can be created through linking with prior learning and experiences and context and pattern making may result from the use of universal concepts and core organizing principles.
A low threat environment and complex experiences and interactions are essential types of experiences.
Enriched environments enhance brain growth.
Challenge can be accomplished through varying materials and instructional strategies i.e. use of computers, drama, music, art, group and individual work, field trips, guest speakers, games, journals.
Group interaction, building models, checking against personal goals or posted criteria for performance, using a computer all provide interactive feedback when learning.
Enriched environments include reading and language, motor stimulation, a wide variety of approaches to thinking and problem solving, a focus on the arts.
Every brain is uniquely organized, so student choice is essential to the learning process.
Emotions cannot be separated from learning; music, games, drama, storytelling, celebration, controversy, ritual, introspection and seeing others demonstrate emotion all engage emotions.
Constructivism is a theory about the nature of knowledge that focuses on the individual as an active constructor of meaning rather than a passive recipient of knowledge. Learning is viewed as a complex social process involving the interaction of past experience, personal intentions and new experiences.
Five principles of constructivist pedagogy are: posing problems of emerging relevance to learners, structuring learning around primary concepts, seeking and valuing students' point of view, adapting curriculum to address student suppositions, and assessing student learning in the context of teaching.
Curriculum and resources must reflect individual learning diversity by the addition of modes such as music, art, drama.

Issues-focused Approach to Teaching Social Studies

The literature emphasizes the following:

Understanding social studies and the issues inherent in it is recognized as being a socially constructed as well as highly reflective process that is unique to each individual.
Meaning is constructed as the individual attempts to make sense of a perplexing situation through reflective thinking and inquiry.
The application of constructivist theory to social studies would result in the development of deep understandings of social studies problems and procedures and rigorously defensible beliefs about important issues in the disciplines.
In social constructivism, the teacher's role as collaborator is to participate with the students in constructing reality by engaging in open-ended inquiry.
Citizenship is envisioned as decision making in a socio-political context in which students learn to analyze choices, envision consequences and make better decisions on issues they view as having an effect on the quality of their lives.
Engaging students in real-life decision making situations allows students to better understand how all levels of society interconnect.
Issues centred education guides students to think of the public welfare rather than their own self interest.
Exploring social issues that shape the quality of life, such as concern about families, reproduction, housework, health, sexuality, marriage and divorce, the environment, needs of elderly and needs of children would be more inclusive of all citizens' experiences and help to shape female identity.
Students need to connect with problems of a global nature in order to help evoke sensitivities to important global issues and to counter feelings of global hopelessness.

Current Affairs

The literature emphasizes the following:

Social studies needs to provide clear connections between school life, home life and students' future lives as citizens.
Drawing on issues from current events has been found to be a successful way of generating student questions and drawing them into the inquiry.
Computers can provide opportunities to produce informed citizens and able decision makers by accessing multiple perspectives on an issue and by providing access to current local, national and international information on important issues i.e. news websites.

Controversial Issues

The literature emphasizes the following:

Students confront controversial situations every day that are difficult for them to understand.
Topics that were once thought to be beyond young children such as global issues, terrorism, war and pollution are now recognized as being part of the young child's world.
Downplaying and ignoring controversial topics in the curriculum is unwise and contrary to the purpose of social studies, thus controversial content should be part of the content and pedagogy of the social studies.
Addressing controversial issues can increase students' positive feelings toward social studies, improve their attitudes toward the rights of all to express their ideas, increase their interest in the political arena and promote the development of participatory political attitudes and behaviours.
Giving all students opportunities to practice addressing topics that are considered taboo and unsettling views promotes a more equitable view of citizenship.
Teaching about issues that are controversial is a good way to learn about values such as peace, justice and dignity of the individual and to study value conflicts and peaceful resolution.
An emotionally safe classroom is necessary for addressing controversial issues even in the earliest of grades.
Controversial topics and issues can be dealt with through the arts.

Strands of Social Studies

Time, Continuity and Change

The literature emphasizes the following:

Chronology alone appears to be necessary but insufficient for depth study. The addition of sociocultural, economic, and political dimensions to chronology, in a way that emphasizes the interconnections, is a promising alternative for creating depth of historical understanding.
It is now generally accepted that school history has excluded women, the working class, and various races and ethnic groups, while focusing too much on "dead white males".
Inclusive history that incorporates the full range of voices is intrinsically more interesting and more useful in illuminating the present as well as the future.
Elementary students have an interest in history and possess bits and pieces of historical information, including misconceptions.
A major finding of recent research is that students know more about some historical topics than others.
The research indicates that children's knowledge of social history, changes in everyday life and the way people treated each other, is much more well-developed than their knowledge of political and diplomatic history.
History in the elementary grades should begin with social history as a basis for developing understandings of societal institutions and their role in history.
Recent research and thinking on the use of historical narratives in the teaching of history has suggested that while "story" certainly engages students, students must be taught to approach narratives with a critical eye, recognizing that they are an author's interpretation of history.
Students must be taught that narratives are interpretations of history, open to question and scrutiny.
Multiple sources must be used, including a full array of non-narrative genres.
Practices that actively involve students are necessary to stimulate their historical imaginations.
Children involved in music, drama, dance or fine arts activities remembered historic details involved in these activities.
Drama and simulations as important ways to connect children to history.
Historical images can have great potency in helping to understand the historical consciousness of an era.
The top five strategies for teaching history listed by teachers in order of frequency were simulations, projects that involve creating a product, games, relating history to current events or students' lives, and historical novels. Students identified simulations and group discussions as the best single strategies used by their teachers and said that if they were the teacher the strategies they would use would include acting in dramatic presentations, watching films and videos, and playing games for review.
The portrayal of women in history textbooks is problematic because textbooks foster negative images through sex stereotyping, and relegate women to secondary roles by omission.
All students need to be taught how to recognize bias and how to counteract it.
More emphasis needs to be placed on curricular materials that feature girls and women so that all students learn to appreciate and value the accomplishments of women and leave behind assumptions and stereotypes.
Both male and female experiences across time, cultures, institutions and contexts must be included in order to adequately understand human history.

The Land, Places and People

The literature emphasizes the following:

There is general agreement in the literature that geography can contribute to the citizenship goals in the social studies curriculum.
The five fundamental themes of geography, location, place, relationships within and between places, and regions.
Geography education must connect to the life contexts of students rather than be a disconnected collection of information with little or no relevance to their lives.
An emphasis on field trips and projects can connect geography to life skills.
Geography instruction in the curriculum could be organized including site-specific studies, the study of problems and issues with significant geographic dimensions, and regional and global studies.
Student attention must be deliberately focused in ways that helps students make connections between themselves, their studies, geography matters and the real world.
There is support for the inclusion of geographic education beginning in the early school years.
Regardless of when geographic skills and concepts are introduced, presentation of the materials and preparation of the teacher seem to be crucial elements in developing geographic concepts and skills in students.
Collaborative learning activities that enable parents to support and enhance geographic learning in the home and personal world of the child are effective.
The incorporation of children's literature appears frequently as a successful way to encourage geographic thinking, build geographic skills and develop lasting mental maps of places and regions.
Field trips and other active learning strategies such as creating models and involvement in simulations are recommended.
Technology offers many teaching and learning alternatives for geography education

Power, Authority and Decision Making

The literature emphasizes the following:

Understanding democracy comes from doing democracy.
Students need to explore their community, identify problems, examine public policy, explore their opinions, and take action.
Early community service experience is a strong predictor of volunteering for both teens and adults.
Community service projects are a means of reinvigorating social studies and making it more relevant by making the vital school to life connection.
Service learning can assist in developing positive student attitudes toward their community by helping them recognize their roles in the community, by increasing their self confidence through providing a way for students to believe in themselves, by creating positive attitudes toward cooperation and responsible behavior, and by positively enhancing students' future involvement in the social and political life of their communities.
Service learning projects should emphasize critical thinking, connect activities to appropriate stages of cognitive development and employ cooperative learning.
Involving children in trying to prevent conflict results in fewer feelings of anxiety and helplessness.
The essence of peace education is to involve students in expectations about possible changes in the direction of a cooperative and caring planet, to create attitudes through involving the young in caring and protecting activities, and to make it possible to turn some of the caring and protecting into habits.
The overall goal of peace education is to increase knowledge of possible ways to help children to deal constructively with issues of peace and conflict.
Issues of peace education need to be addressed through an environment in which the values of caring, cooperation and community are daily lived experiences.

Economics and Resources

The literature emphasizes the following:

Children develop notions of economics from their experiences and these tend to follow a developmental sequence.
K-12 social studies economics education should begin with student interest and prior knowledge and progress through inquiry and investigation to reconstruction and representation of new information and perspectives.
Economic education is an integral component of social studies and citizenship education and must acknowledge multiple interpretations.
Economics instruction must be interdisciplinary, interpretive and issues-oriented.

Global Connections

The literature emphasizes the following:

Future citizens will be required to understand and interact with people, cultures and ideas throughout the world.
Students need knowledge of world cultural and political systems in order to navigate in a global environment.
The purpose of global education is to develop in students the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to be effective global citizens who deal thoughtfully with rapid global changes, recognize the impact of those changes on their own lives, and who participate actively in making this world a more peaceful and just place for all.
Simply providing students with information about the world does not develop a global perspective.
Global education should emphasize the shared interests and relationships embedded in interconnectedness of all peoples of the world as well as awareness that one's view of the world is not necessarily shared universally.
Social studies needs to reflect the importance of perspective consciousness to help students to recognize and counter bias, assumptions and stereotypes and to promote understanding and appreciation of and caring and concern for others.
Students need to learn to view the world as a planet-wide society, to understand the interdependence of humans and to learn global responsibility.
Emphasizing world mindedness teaches children both to understand and interact with people, cultures and ideas and to respect, appreciate and protect the environment.
Students of all ages are more aware of global issues today as a result of the media and advanced technological communications.
The key to preparing children to function in a technology driven society is to facilitate their ability to master sophisticated globally generated knowledge.
Computers can provide support for collaborative learning and can be used to enrich students' interactions both in the classroom and globally i.e. online collaborative projects.

Culture and Community

The literature emphasizes the following:

Inclusion of anthropology, sociology and psychology in the social studies provides conceptual foundations in relation to culture, group and self that promote pluralism. This inclusion should be interdisciplinary and issues oriented.
Students' rankings of social studies with other areas tend to rise when content from anthropology and sociology are included; they seem to make the social studies curriculum more exciting, motivating and appear to promote positive attitudes to social studies.
Engagement with literature and development of a classroom creed can actively engage students in more social and communitarian aspects of democratic citizenship.
Elementary social studies can be the core of the curriculum and be used as a vehicle for the promotion of caring, inclusion and social learning.
Research on the relationships between the climate in social studies classes and various desired civic outcomes suggests that teachers may have a substantial impact on the socialization of their students; classrooms where there is public talk, collective deliberation over shared problems and prospects in the public sphere, are recommended as a way to accomplish civics outcomes in the classroom.

Dimensions of Thinking

Historical Thinking

The literature emphasizes the following:

School history curriculum must engage students in constructing historical understanding.
Ethnic and cultural backgrounds and understandings can be an effective means for teaching young people to think historically.
Begin teaching students in the early elementary years to question all accounts of history that they encounter and to recognize them as interpretations in time and space.
It is not enough for students to be exposed to different versions of what happened; they also must be able to account for the reasons that accounts may differ.
There are six elements of historical thinking that must be taught and are not subsumed under the more generic category of critical thinking. These include: historical significance, evidence, continuity and change, progress and decline, empathy and moral judgement, and historical agency.
There is a need for explicit instruction to develop historical understandings related to concepts of evidence and explanation, the "why" of history.
It is valuable to explicitly raise with children what historical explanations are, how they differ from statements of fact, and how they differ depending on what is being explained.
Through online collections including those of museums, students are able to engage in authentic tasks and in the processes that historians use such as analyzing primary documents.
Children need experiences that help them to understand the role that cultural perspective has to play in the recording of history.
The arts can increase literacy and create historical empathy.
A performance based view of historical understanding illuminates the concepts of active and authentic learning and provides an alternative means of assessment more related to students' abilities to use what they know in novel contexts.

Geographical Thinking

The literature emphasizes the following:

Geography education must take an active inquiry approach to teaching and learning.
A geographic perspective should be used to enrich historical study within the social studies by helping students to grasp the significance of location, the inevitability of change, and the importance of human perceptions at given times in the past.
Multiple resources and resource-based learning are suggested as important to promote thinking and active learning in geography.
Geography can be taught at the primary level, using an interdisciplinary approach, where instruction is consistent with children's development and experiences.
By placing the problem/question under study in a story context with personal reference points, children can identify landscape features and solve simple problems.

Critical Thinking, Creative Thinking and Metacognition

The literature emphasizes the following:

The various theories of multiple intelligences and learning styles seem to support recognition of the unique learning differences of students and the implication that curriculum and resources must reflect and celebrate such diversity.
The literature generally favors the infusion approach to teaching critical and creative thinking skills, where thinking skills are taught linked to the content, rather than separate from content.
The literature generally seems to support more in-depth coverage as necessary for promoting critical and creative thinking.
Critical thinking skills are considered essential for achieving citizenship goals and include: acquiring, organizing, interpreting and communicating information; processing data to investigate questions, develop knowledge and draw conclusions; generating and assessing alternative approaches to problems and making decisions that are both informed and justifiable; and, interacting with others in empathetic and responsible ways.
Cross-disciplinary projects can fulfill content objectives and encourage critical and creative thinking.
Questioning and discussion strategies are particularly important to actively involve students in critical thinking.
Literature for children and young people can develop critical thinking in social studies.
Databases can also be used to stimulate higher level thinking as students are challenged to make predictions, do comparisons, observe trends, generate hypotheses, formulate generalizations, draw conclusions and create alternative solutions to problems, and decide what actions to take based on certain conditions.
Metacognition, or being able to monitor and evaluate one's own thinking, is recognized as an important thinking skill for students to develop.

Decision Making and Problem Solving

The literature emphasizes the following:

It is recognized that problems rarely have a single correct solution, but rather that citizens are required to make decisions between several possible solutions.
Students need to develop problem solving skills for dealing with global issues.
The most effective uses of computer technologies in schools occur when computers are integrated into teaching and learning in ways that promote problem solving, collaborative inquiry, creative and higher level thinking, decision making, and both the constructing of and the representing of knowledge for an audience.
There is a need to recognize the emphasis on citizens as thoughtful and ethical decision makers that permeates the social studies literature on citizenship education.

Social Participation as a Democratic Practice

The literature emphasizes the following:

Students need to learn the skills of social participation including how to exchange ideas in a mutually beneficial way.
Cooperative learning, student research activities, integration of literature, writing and the arts, and the use of educational technology should be an integral part of curriculum design in K-12 social studies.
Active learning can be achieved through the use of cooperative learning, attention to learning styles, and hands-on strategies.
Interested and motivated students take more responsibility for their learning.
Meaningful learning takes place when students are involved in real-life experiences in the classroom and out of the classroom.
Students need to actively participate as citizens in classrooms and schools to develop life-long citizenship skills and attitudes.

Research for Deliberative Inquiry

The literature emphasizes the following:

Important research skills need to be carefully taught and monitored to ensure students are developing proficiency in the use of such critical skills.
Productivity software, which encourages students to organize and analyze the information collected, can assist with the development of research skills.
Democracy necessitates a citizenry capable of identifying problems, collecting, evaluating and analyzing information and making reasoned decisions.

Infusion of Technology

The literature emphasizes the following:

When technology tools such as databases, spreadsheets, multimedia, email, software and the Internet are used to complete "authentic projects" requiring students to use information to solve problems, there is greater potential to promote cognitive and social development as well as a positive attitude toward learning.
Database software can be an excellent tool for integrating information from a variety of sources and for allowing manipulation and analysis of that information to better understand concepts.
Through the use of electronic participation opportunities such as email, chat groups and computer mediated conferencing children are able to speak for themselves.
Online chat allows more than one student to "talk" at the same time.
A web opportunity like e-mates allows students to interact with a real audience without the inhibiting factor of peer pressure.
Students with disabilities benefit from electronic communication.
Technology-enhanced communication opportunities have been found to be more gender equitable and to heighten girls' interest in computing.
Students can access the collections of a number of museums that have been put on the Web.
Computer technologies can make abstract content and complex ideas more accessible, particularly through things like simulations and online demonstrations.
Computer technologies can promote students learning to manage information rather than memorize it.

Communication

Oral, Written and Visual Literacy and Media Literacy Skills

The literature emphasizes the following:

Activities such as writing and small group discussions foster the consolidation and internalization of new information and procedures.
Students from different cultural or linguistic backgrounds with limited English proficiency can benefit particularly from the visual aspect of the information available on computers as well as from the opportunity to use computers as a tool for improving their written and spoken abilities.
Assistive and adaptive technologies for students with disabilities are more user friendly and provide visual, aural and tactile support, allowing the user to have more control over the learning experience.
Integration of language arts and social studies is particularly powerful.
Curriculum integration is more prevalent in the early grades and middle schools.
Interdisciplinary curriculum is motivating to students.
Attitudes, literacy and academic performance, and teaching strategies are all positively affected by curriculum integration in secondary social studies.
The arts are essential symbol systems in which to create and express meaning; they have been under-utilized as valid ways of constructing and representing knowledge in the school curriculum.
Combining various symbol systems through the use of language, drama, art, movement, music enhances understanding.
The arts provide opportunities for active involvement, enhancing meaning and relevance, critical thinking and increasing cultural literacy.
The arts heighten student interest in social studies through emotional learning.
The arts enhance presentation of content and provide multiple paths to learning.
Research on intelligence, brain function, technology and learning, learning styles, critical thinking, the arts and education, and child development all support the utilization of the arts in social studies as powerful paths to understanding.
Students find story meaningful and engaging.
Through story, social studies concepts can be taught.
Literature for children and young people provides personal perspectives and evokes aesthetic response to help examine essential social studies concepts and generalizations.
Literature for children and young people can generate discussion, provide multiple perspectives, and contribute to a more personalized approach to social studies.
Critical information viewing skills and inquiry skills including accessing, processing and presenting information can be developed and enhanced through the use of computers as research tools.
Examining ethical use of computer technologies and their impact on society is an important issue that should be studied as a part of the social studies curriculum.

Last updated: February 15, 2007 | (Revision History)
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