A Position Statement of National Council for the Social Studies
Approved April 2023

A comprehensive social studies education provides the foundation for an appreciation of democracy, an understanding of the responsibilities and rights that come with participating in a republican form of government, and the knowledge and skills to be informed, responsible, and active global citizens. NCSS advocates that all students in grades PK–12 receive a comprehensive program of study in social studies each school year, including at least 45 minutes of daily social studies instruction at the elementary level As supported by the Council for Chief State School Officers, 2018. https://ccsso.org/resource-library/marginalization-social-studies and 4 credit hours of social studies in the high school grades. As students participate in their social studies education, it is crucial that teachers implement powerful teaching and learning strategies because these are designed to best support students as they acquire the knowledge, skills, and dispositions essential to a well-educated populace in a democratic society and global system.

Our social studies classrooms must be “laboratories for democracy” where learners analyze historical and contemporary public issues that impact their lives, and engage in their local community, state, nation, and world. How one teaches is inseparable from what one teaches. Powerful and rigorous social studies teaching that is rooted in standards, supported by professional development that reflects best practices, and utilizes high-quality educational materials is crucial to realizing the NCSS vision: A world in which all students are educated and inspired for lifelong inquiry and informed civic action.

The principles of teaching and learning consider the processes through which knowledge is constructed, produced, and critiqued. Teaching social studies powerfully and authentically begins with a deep knowledge and understanding of students, the subject, and each subject’s unique goals. Teachers must pursue ongoing professional development to develop a deep understanding of their subject and best practices centered in research-based social studies pedagogies in order to effectively build on the pillars that support powerful teaching and learning in social studies classrooms. These pillars are:

• Pillar 1: Powerful social studies places learners at the center of the learning endeavor.
• Pillar 2: Powerful social studies is grounded in intellectual quality that allows learners to see the relevance and applicability of social studies topics to their daily lives.
• Pillar 3: Powerful social studies fosters civic engagement necessary for a well-functioning democratic society and global community.

Pillar 1: Powerful social studies places learners at the center of the learning endeavor.

• Learner identity: The diversity of learners’ identities and cultural assets is woven into lessons and units of study to engender personal connections to social studies content, skills, and dispositions. Thus, social studies instruction can be delivered with inclusive, culturally relevant activities to spark personal connection and motivation to learn.
• Multiple ways of learning: Social studies instruction includes a wide array of student-centered learning activities. Multiple and varied instructional experiences address the range of learning needs to reach, motivate, and engage learners in ways that build on their individual strengths, needs, and aspirations.
• Learner collaboration: Students learn through collaboration and interactions with other learners. Teachers create collaborative instructional strategies that support learning and developing social interaction and listening skills as well as positive interdependence. Collaborative learning promotes engaging and meaningful discourse to deepen learner understanding of social studies content, to navigate differing points of view and perspectives, and to develop listening and speaking skills. 
• Classroom environment: Teachers and learners create classroom environments where the exploration of ideas, opposing viewpoints, and perspective-taking expand learner agency and engender a sense of belonging and interdependence. The examination of social, cultural, political, religious, and regional values, biases, and beliefs develops an understanding of differing perspectives necessary for civic life and global citizenship. NCSS acknowledges social, economic, political, and cultural complexities found in American classrooms and challenges social studies educators to continually examine their own values and perspectives as they select and present materials that privilege multiple perspectives.
• Classroom discourse: Sustained classroom conversations structured around powerful ideas allow learners to engage in the cognitive processing and construction of social studies understandings, skills, and dispositions. Focusing on developmentally appropriate complex ideas extends learners’ thinking; constructs social studies understandings, skills, and dispositions; and develops effective speaking, listening, debate, and persuasion skills. Teachers use best practices to promote civil discourse in ways that encourage the sharing of ideas and perspectives from all students.

Pillar 2: Powerful social studies is grounded in intellectual quality that allows learners to see the relevance and applicability of social studies topics to their daily lives.

• Inquiry arc: The social studies is grounded in the Inquiry Arc of the C3 Framework. Learners construct investigations structured around enduring understandings and guided by compelling and supporting questions. The inquiry approach supports content and skill development that prepares learners to think independently and critically while exploring complex ideas and sometimes unresolved questions. It also promotes curiosity and civic engagement and invites students to address local, national, and global issues strategically and creatively.
• Inclusive and complex content: Learners identify aspects of the social studies that allow them to celebrate the achievements and accomplishments found in multiple narratives while also learning that history, government, geography, and economics are complicated and that not all people have experienced the world in the same ways as others. Social studies classrooms allow space for students to ask whose stories are told and whose are not reflected in narratives and then to investigate why. Learners build an understanding of the complexities of narratives, both past and present, and that to privilege one over the other limits inclusivity.
• Depth of learning: Social studies lessons and units of study prioritize depth over breadth to develop deep understanding, higher-order thinking, and interdisciplinary literacy skills. Planning learning opportunities that delve deeply into a topic enables learners to make deeper connections, increases their retention, and promotes their transfer of learning.
• Integrated learning: Social studies effectively integrates with a wide variety of disciplines to better understand the human experience. Social studies allows for the development of the skills developed from multiple disciplines as teachers not only expose students to historical primary sources and the skills necessary to help students learn to read, write, and think like historians, but they also leverage concepts found in psychology, geography, political science, economics, and other social sciences to help students learn to read, write, and think like social scientists. Learners leverage social science concepts and skills to build data literacy so that they can better understand statistics and motivations that impact government and economic policies and social behavior. It is through an integrated approach to learning all the social studies that students can engage in authentic applications of social studies to address and solve problems.
• Critical media literacy: Critical media literacy requires rigorous evaluation of information. Given the preponderance of information in the media and young people’s disposition toward accessing media for all kinds of information, media analysis coupled with data literacy and inquiry prepares learners to be knowledgeable and astute consumers of information necessary for a well-educated contemporary society.
• Primary and secondary sources: Powerful social studies lessons make use of primary and secondary sources to develop disciplinary literacy skills and encourage students to think critically about significant events both past and present. The effective use of primary and secondary documents allows learners to examine sources from diverse perspectives, including those from historically marginalized and minoritized communities, and sets the stage for questioning how the past is remembered, how to wrestle with contradictions, and how to compare and contrast multiple sources representing differing points of view.
• Constructing understanding: Learners are active participants in constructing their understanding of and solutions to issues and problems. Engaging in problem-solving activities develops reasoning and critical thinking, and by being actively involved with all steps of the learning process, learners are constructing their agency and civic identities with the ways they perceive and construct solutions to public issues.
• Developing literacies: Social studies builds crucial background knowledge needed for students to grow as readers and reduces opportunity gaps among students who arrive in classrooms with different levels of experiences on which to draw when making meaning of texts. Teachers teach students thinking routines and strategies that are necessary to make sense of images and other non-text sources. Students use the knowledge they learn from texts and other sources to develop claims that are supported by evidence and to communicate their ideas in written, oral, and digital presentations which build reading, writing, speaking, and technology literacies. The various literacies that students develop in social studies classrooms provide opportunities and supports needed to confidently navigate a complex and constantly changing world.  

Pillar 3: Powerful social studies fosters civic engagement necessary for a well-functioning democratic society and global community.

• Community involvement: Social studies lessons are organized to partner with families, local community entities, and beyond to foster authentic and meaningful learning and civic discourse and action. 
• Civic virtues and democratic principles: In the social studies classroom, learners are supported in developing civic virtues, including attentiveness to mutual respect, cooperation, and multiple perspectives necessary to contribute to the common good and engage in political and civil society. They analyze the democratic principles of equality, liberty, freedom, rights, and responsibilities, and critique historical events and current actions that both reflect and violate these democratic principles. 
• Civic literacy: Learners develop an understanding of the structures, functions, and responsibilities within different levels of government. Learners can use this knowledge to effectively participate in a democratic society, taking informed action.
• Civic engagement: As defined by the C3 Framework, “civic engagement is both a means of learning and applying social studies knowledge,” and “people demonstrate civic engagement when they address public problems individually and collaboratively and when they maintain, strengthen, and improve communities and societies.” The values embodied in our democratic form of government, with its commitment to justice, equality, and freedom of thought and speech, are reflected in social studies teaching and learning in preparation for civic action within and beyond the classroom.

Conclusion

At the heart of social studies education is the goal that the next generation of young people are informed, active, and responsible community members and global citizens who can appreciate the past, understand the present, and impact the future. Powerful social studies instruction, as described in this statement, promotes rigorous, research-based, hands-on pedagogy that cultivates student development of knowledge and understanding, strengthens skills for engaging in democratic processes, and embraces a vision toward creating a world for fulfilling life and career aspirations. If we, as social studies educators, aim to leave our country and world in the hands of a well-prepared next generation, then we must provide learners a place where they can meaningfully engage to develop active citizenship skills and dispositions foundational for a lifetime of civic involvement and civic action to build healthy and safe local and global communities.

This position statement was written by:

Shannon M. Pugh, EdD (NBCT)
Anne Arundel County Public Schools, Maryland
NCSS President (2022–2023)

Margit E. McGuire, PhD
Seattle University, Washington
NCSS President (1990–1991)

Jason Butler
DeKalb County Public Schools, Georgia

Jyoti Castillo, PhD
Kamehameha Schools, Hawaii

Daneel Moore, PhD
Middle Georgia State University, Georgia

Becky Ramirez
Ector Independent School District, Texas

Patricia Russac
Buckley Country Day School, New York