Cultivating Community

As the largest professional association in the country devoted solely to social studies education, we acknowledge our responsibility and embrace the opportunity to represent and promote the interests of social studies educators. Ours is a broad community and we are uniquely positioned to influence and shape the future of social studies.

We set the tone of the conversations about social studies education, recognizing that against a complex social, economic, political, and geopolitical backdrop we must work to ensure that the voices of an increasingly diverse membership are heard and that distinct perspectives are shared, welcomed, and understood. Critical thinking and civil discourse are essential to all components of social studies and must be central for our community to flourish: our ability to connect members and to provide platforms to promote ideas, impart knowledge, share problems, suggest solutions, advocate best practices, and build personal networks are fundamental to our value and success.

Developing Pathways for Collaboration

We have established a culture and a framework which encourages professional relationships to prosper and building on that success. We will work to expand the profile of our membership, encouraging members to engage with the expertise, experience, and wider networks of colleagues from diverse backgrounds. We will:

• Increase the value of membership by embracing interstate connectivity and promoting opportunities to connect on specific issues and objectives—thereby enhancing the depth of knowledge available to the NCSS community and our outlying networks.
• Enrich members’ sense of belonging and maintain our commitment to proactively promote a culture of equity, diversity, and inclusion.
• Develop and support our volunteer network, providing opportunities for members to contribute to the ongoing success of our organization, our members, and our mission by directly supporting the development of peers and the social studies profession.
• Engage with other networks, groups and organizations who share our vision and values, providing members with access to new resources, opportunities and perspectives on social studies and other disciplines, including STEM subjects and the arts.
• Adopt a digital-first approach to service delivery, continuing to invest in our online services and maintaining our use of technology for virtual engagement with and amongst our membership.

Advocating with an Authoritative Voice

We are a powerful voice for our members, their profession, and for social studies. We are trusted and respected because, through the strength and breadth of our membership, we have a unique understanding of the challenges our world is facing. Working together, we have the knowledge and expertise to address those challenges and change the way we research and teach social studies and more broadly understand society. Our status as the leading collective and authoritative voice on social studies underpins our ability to advocate on behalf of our members, to represent the interests of the profession, to influence civil conversations, and to enhance our social fabric.

Navigating the Why, What, and How of Social Studies

We speak as the authority on social studies pedagogy because of our collective, extensive knowledge and experience of researching and teaching social studies and its associated disciplines. On behalf of our members, we will address the most crucial challenges facing our profession by the following means:

• Foster debate with relevant organizations and enabling our members’ voices to influence and shape public policy pertaining to social studies.
• Provide enhanced grassroots opportunities for our members to engage with—and influence—key decision-makers at district, state, and national levels.
• Expand our thought leadership by increasing the provision of regular research, reports, written guidance, white papers, and other digital content.
• Translate research into results by collaborating with other organizations to stimulate innovation in pedagogical approaches to learning.

Pioneering Professional Standards

We strive to unite, equip, and mobilize our community to research and educate, to influence the development of social studies education, and to inspire students for lifelong inquiry and informed civic action. To fulfill these goals, we will continue to set and raise standards for professional excellence. We will maintain our support for the development of effective, successful, and qualified professionals as together, we strive to build a culturally diverse, accepting, and democratic society in an interdependent world.

Validating Professionalism

By providing a holistic suite of opportunities for members to enhance their knowledge, develop their expertise, and progress in their careers, we will promote the professionalism of social studies educators and researchers. To recognize their endeavor and driving forward the culture of competency-based professionalism within social studies education, we will:

• Enhance existing member resources to develop—and deliver—new services that reflect emerging trends and priorities in all aspects of professional life.
• Ensure our education program is world-class, relevant, accessible, and valued by individuals and their employers alike, and respected by policy makers and school boards.
• Align our education program with our members’ career paths at early, mid, and senior levels.
• Support our affiliates through proactive work with our members in district, state, and national networks to drive the changes required to realize impactful delivery of social studies in modern classroom environments.
• Seek collaborations with strategic partners, aligning our priorities, learning from each other, and working together to define—and benchmark—common purposes, language, and professional standards

Nurturing Innovation

Artificial Intelligence. Big Data. Virtual Reality. Augmented Reality. 3D Printing. The Zoom Boom. As the age of digitization, the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is changing our world with breath-taking speed, and educators are by no means immune. Changes in how we connect and engage with our students accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, and through our experiences of remote learning during and beyond the pandemic, it has become apparent that we will never fully return to pre-pandemic practices. In response, we will support our members by enabling and encouraging innovation, embracing its benefits to help us fulfill our purpose with all the current and emerging tools available to us.

Incubating Invention

Identifying, understanding, and translating emerging trends is central to supporting our members in responding to change and so we will:

• Establish an Innovation Task Force, responsible for horizon scanning and guiding and advising our members and the NCSS leadership on sector developments.
• Extend our network of stakeholders and build relationships with new partners who can help us to identify pedagogic innovation at an early stage and assess its impact on our members.
• Help connect the right people at the right time, enabling conversations that nurture transformation and ensure that the core components of social studies discourse (observation, analysis, interpretation, reflection, evaluation, inference, explanation, problem solving, and decision making) is considered at all stages of the innovation process.
• Ensure the resources we provide reflect advances in social studies pedagogy, new research and development models, and societal demands and expectations.
• Augment our annual conference program with a focus on innovation, offering tailored events, networking opportunities and development space.

Honoring Excellence

Recognition and celebration of innovation and success as both individuals and as team members should be par for the course of being an NCSS member and is an important ingredient for galvanizing a professional community spirit amongst our association. Our Fund for the Advancement of Social Studies Education (FASSE) is central to our ability to support, recognize, and celebrate members’ pioneering spirit. Their industry and achievements in striving for a world in which social studies education inspires lifelong inquiry and informed civic action. We want to use FASSE as a vehicle for building on the NCSS legacy by investing in research and classroom application projects, as well as a means for nurturing innovation, applauding excellence, and honoring enterprise.

Leveraging FASSE to Inspire Ingenuity

Recognition and reward extend beyond the scope of plaudits and praise. Originality and inventiveness require resources and providing financial support for our members’ creativity is an inherently affirmative undertaking and a core component of our value proposition and so we will:

• Restate our commitment to FASSE by linking FASSE’s strategic priorities with those of NCSS and establishing the Fund as the umbrella under which we distribute all financial support as grants, awards, and scholarships.
• Revitalize the role of the FASSE Board by including Fund development, growth, and diversification as part of their custodian responsibilities.
• Recognize the Fund as a foundation for an internal circular knowledge economy, capitalizing on FASSE-related learning and resources to inform the development of our wider membership services and education program.
• Use the Fund as a means for underpinning and enhancing NCSS’ reputation, resources, and reach.
• Invest in specialist fund management, establishing and building a dedicated team of development and fundraising professionals.