As President of NCSS, the author urges the membership to accept the goal of social studies as education for citizenship, and to make the necessary commitment in that direction as a professional organization. (JB)

In light of the goal of the Social Studies, the development of good citizens, the author explores the character of a necessary and sufficient" social studies program and its relationship to the Social Sciences. (JB)

This paper offers three main reasons to explain why social studies lends itself so reluctantly to definition. The first reason is that there is a high degree of ambiguity regarding social studies goals within the social studies profession and among people generally. This ambiguity is characterized by the conflict between the belief that education…

Offers a conception of the K-12 social studies curriculum based upon a probing treatment of problems, ideas, and values of democracy. Maintains that democracy must be practiced in the schools if effective democratic citizenship is expected. Offers four guidelines for curriculum development, and identifies seven curriculum strands. (JDH)

Acting on the belief that existing courses in civics and government lack success because they are largely redundant and fail to capitalize on recent research in political science, the High School Curriculum Center in Government developed a two-semester program entitled "American Political Behavior" (APB). The final report of the curriculum project…

The paper analyzes the multifaceted nature of current citizenship education programs and suggests a model which would reconcile the differences between conflicting program approaches. One problem of citizenship education is lack of consensus on its goals and content. Some programs emphasize socialization to established rules of social and…