Although many adults perceive young "digital natives" as savvy about our new media landscape, youth are regularly fooled by inaccurate stories and online scams. Furthermore, beyond the threat of outright false information, young people encounter confusing half-truths, misleading arguments, and disguised efforts to collect their personal…

Planning a world history course presents a nearly impossible task. One cannot complete a world history course, or even a European history course, without casting a huge amount of historical information onto the curriculum planning scrapheap. An emphasis on the twentieth century means leaving out significant information from earlier times. "But how…

National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) first published national curriculum standards in 1994. Since then, the social studies standards have been widely and successfully used as a framework for teachers, schools, districts, states, and other nations as a tool for curriculum alignment and development. However, much has changed in the world…

Sources of objectives in curriculum, descriptions, uses, and kinds of behavioral objectives are reviewed. Unique resolutions in each field of instruction are necessary with both cognitive and affective behaviors included in the design of a behavioral system in curriculum. (VW)

Presents objectives of an ideal social studies program in these areas--knowledge, abilities, valuing, and social participation. Also offers guidelines to help teachers set standards for social studies programs. (DB)

Offers suggestions to help content-centered social studies teachers on the secondary level achieve their objectives in the area of values. The approach is based on development of values-related situations and problems from within the subject-matter content. A study is described in which this approach was tested in 18 11th-grade American history…

Recommends that junior high school social studies classroom teachers incorporate information about the imminent and continuing shortages of energy into the curriculum. One way of organizing this information is as an inverted isosceles triangle in which energy, environment, and social studies education serve as sides of the triangle. Sample lessons…

Examines eight reasons diffusion efforts fail to produce instructional change. Recommends a model for change which focuses on teachers, the instructional program, and the school system and uses a team of an internal change agent, external change agent, and a consultant or diffuser. (CK)

Discusses different goal orientations of educationists and social scientists as a means of stimulating thinking and action in the realm of social studies curriculum and instruction. (Author/DB)

Maintains that, in spite of many problems, American history is still a viable subject. Recommends that recent emphasis on special social studies skills and inquiry techniques should not allow Americans to lose sight of their collective past. (DB)

In 1981, the Boston Public Schools embarked on a program to develop new, city-wide curriculum objectives and tests in all subject areas. This article examines the state of K-8 social studies as they found it and discusses the philosophy and goals of the new curriculum. (RM)

Describes study which focused on the economic vocabulary used in national and international news magazines and papers. Compares findings with definitions of economic literacy proposed by economists and suggests that economics courses include economic news literacy. (KC)

Describes the establishment of the Ad Hoc Committee on Scope and Sequence by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS). Outlines the responsibilities of the Committee, the process used to formulate curriculum criteria and the resultant criteria for social studies education curriculum design. (SLM)

These guidelines were developed to serve two curriculum development needs: a guide for schools, communities, departments, and school districts interested in updating their programs; and, a baseline from which to move in creative directions beyond what most regard as modern and innovative (Author/VW)

Five social studies leaders react to the social roles proposal of Project SPAN. Seven key, interrelated social roles are delineated as an approach to teaching social studies. Engle states that SPAN ignores the problem of definition; Patrick and Ratliff find the conclusions challenging; Shaver sees the proposals as regressive; and Helburn discusses…