Four Futures for Social Studies [microform] / Irving Morrissett.
The current status of social studies education provides information for assessing and predicting future trends in social studies education. A 3-year study, "Social Studies Priorities and Needs," found that: social studies/social science educators are concerned with constructing a rationale...
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| Format: | Microfilm Book |
| Language: | English |
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[S.l.] :
Distributed by ERIC Clearinghouse,
1982.
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| Summary: | The current status of social studies education provides information for assessing and predicting future trends in social studies education. A 3-year study, "Social Studies Priorities and Needs," found that: social studies/social science educators are concerned with constructing a rationale and definition of social studies; the dominant approach to teaching social studies is "conservative cultural continuity"; the dominant pattern of social studies programs remains virtually unchanged from 60 years ago; the individual teacher is the key to the learning process although little is known about how to use this proposition to improve education; teachers of elementary and secondary social studies are too preoccupied with administration and management to contemplate the goals of their activities; and teachers are most concerned about their students' poor reading ability and their apathy toward school. Based on these findings, four possible alternative views of the future of social studies education are suggested. One, that the inertia of the past will prevail, derives from the fact that despite the great changes which have occurred in social knowledge, the current pattern for social studies education has changed little since 1916. View 2, that education will move toward agreed-upon ideal states, is based on other changes in education, e.g. racial and sexual equity. View 3 proposes that the legacy of new ideas developed by the "New Social Studies" will be rediscovered during more favorable times. Finally, view 4 suggests that computers have the capacity to revolutionize the entire educational organization. (KC) |
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| Item Description: | ERIC Note: Presented to Rethinking Social Education: A National Conference on Future Directions for Social Studies Education, Wingspread Conference Center (Racine, WI, August 16, 1982). ERIC Document Number: ED221420. |
| Physical Description: | 10 p. |