Historyandsocialstudiescurriculum ORE Ross2020

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History and Social Studies Curriculum

Chapter · August 2020


DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1062

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Ross, W. (2020). History and social studies curriculum. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Oxford
University Press. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1062

History and Social Studies Curriculum

Summary

Social studies education has had a turbulent history as one of the core subjects in the school

curriculum. The fundamental content of the social studies curriculum – the study of human

enterprise across space and time –however, has always been at the core of educational endeavors.

It is generally accepted that the formal introduction of social studies to the school curriculum

was instigated by the 1916 report of the National Education Association's Committee on Social

Studies, which emphasized development of citizenship values as a core aim of history and social

science education. Earlier commissions of the N.E.A. and American Historical Association

heavily influenced the Committee on Social Studies recommendations. The roots of the

contemporary social studies curriculum, therefore, can be traced to two distinct curriculum

reform efforts: the introduction of academic history into the curriculum and citizenship

education. There is widespread agreement that the aim of social studies is citizenship education,

that is the preparation of young people so that they possess the knowledge, skills, and values

necessary for active participation in society. This apparent consensus, however, has been

described as almost meaningless because social studies educators continue to be at odds over

curricular content as well as the conception of what it means to be a good citizen. Since its

formal introduction into the school, social studies curriculum been the subject of numerous

commission and blue-ribbon panel studies, ranging from the sixteen-volume report of the

American Historical Association's Commission on Social Studies in the 1930s to the more recent

movement for national curriculum standards. Separate and competing curriculum standards have
been published for no less than seven areas of that are part of the social studies curriculum:

United States and global history, economics, geography, civics, psychology, and social studies.

Social studies curriculum is defined a lack of consensus and has been an ideological battleground

with ongoing debates over its nature, purpose, and content. Historically there have been a diverse

range of curricular programs that have been a prominent within social studies education at

various times, including the life adjustment movement, progressive education, social

reconstructionism, and nationalistic history. The debate over the nature, purpose, and content of

the social studies curriculum continues today, with competing groups variously arguing for a

social issues approach, the disciplinary study of history and geography, or action for social

justice as the most appropriate framework for the social studies curriculum.

Keywords

citizenship, citizenship education, cultural transmission, curriculum controversy, curriculum

standards, critical pedagogy, decision-making, John Dewey, nationalism, social science

education, standardized testing, standards-based curriculum, textbooks

Origins of Social Studies

The fundamental content of the social studies curriculum—the study of human enterprise across

space and time—has always been at the core of the school curriculum, but social studies as a

distinctive subject in the curriculum has a relatively brief and turbulent history.

Social studies education as a field has a history marked by battles over its identity, nature,

and purpose. As a school subject, the field encompasses the teaching of history and the social

sciences, but not merely as disciplinary knowledge made appropriately accessible to children and

adolescents. Social studies has always been a vehicle for the transmission of values, social

2
mores, and worldviews. It was invented as a school subject in the second decade of the 20th

century, with the purpose of advancing social improvement and democratic citizenship by

providing young people with the knowledge, skills, and values necessary for active participation

in society. But social studies was not created out of whole cloth; rather, the stated aims of social

studies were part of schooling in North America from the colonial era. Early education laws in

the United States specified religious and moral instruction, and the curriculum of Latin grammar

schools in New England included catechism and Bible instruction along with geography and

moral philosophy. Nationalistic education was a key part of school curriculum from the late 18th

century and has persisted as a key part of the social studies curriculum.

The term “social studies” was first used by Thomas Jesse Jones in his book Social Studies in

the Hampton Curriculum (1906), in which he expressed his concern that young African

Americans and Native Americans would have difficulty becoming integral members of the

broader society unless they learned to understand that society, the social forces that operate

within it, and the ways to recognize and respond to social power. The traditional view of the

origins of the contemporary social studies curriculum is that the National Education

Association’s 1916 Committee on Social Studies introduced the term “social studies” and

created the scope and sequence of courses that define the contemporary curriculum. The origin

of the contemporary social studies curriculum has been a flash point between advocates of a

history-centered social studies curriculum and those calling for a curriculum based on the

interdisciplinary study of current social studies (Evans, 2004). Whelan (1992) points out that

contemporary social studies has roots in both the movement to include the academic study of

history in the schools (through the work of the National Education Association’s [NEA’s] 1893

Committee of Ten and the American Historical Association’s 1899 Committee of Seven) and
ideas drawn from social welfare and social improvement movements of the 19th and early 20th

centuries, which influenced the report of the NEA’s 1916 Committee on Social Studies.

Whelan suggests that both sides (e.g., Ravitch, 1989; Saxe, 1991) in the debate over the

origins of social studies have drawn somewhat extreme and misleading portraits of the roles

and differences between historians and progressive social meliorists in the development of

social studies as a school subject. In a more recent account of the origins of the field,

Jorgensen (2012) argues that John Dewey’s thought and work was a much stronger influence

on the 1916 committee than most contemporary scholars have previously recognized.

Jorgensen examines all three of the 1916 committee reports and argues the operational

philosophy for social studies resulted from

theoretical influences including humanism, social meliorism, developmentalism,

social efficiency, and social reconstructionism . . . The unique conceptual

microcosm that emanated from the work of the committee members involved with

the third report could be considered a synthesis of educational philosophy and ideas

in which John Dewey directly and indirectly wielded the single most important

influence. Due to Dewey’s influence, the 1916 committee sought to

comprehensively bring together diverse individuals to grapple with real issues

within the context of the economic, political, and social issues in place during the

beginning years of 20th century America. (Jogensen, 2012, p. 5)

The tensions and contradictions inherent in the establishment of social studies in schools does

help to explain the internal conflict that has shaped the field since its beginnings. Disagreement

over curricular issues in social studies has characterized the field since its birth, and these

4
disagreements and diversities of opinion regarding the nature, purpose, and organization of social

studies have served to energize the field.

Purposes of Social Studies

There is widespread agreement that the aim of social studies is “citizenship education,” or the

preparation of young people to be active and engaged democratic citizens. This apparent

consensus, however, has been described as “almost meaningless” (Marker & Mehlinger, 1992)

because social studies researchers continue to be at odds over the curricular content as well as the

conception of what a “good citizen” is. For example, the curriculum history of the field includes

advocates for exploration of “closed areas” or taboo social issues (Hunt & Metcalf, 1955);

decision-making (Engle, 1963); public policy (Oliver & Shaver, 1966); moral development and

values clarification (Raths, Harmin, & Simon, 1979); social roles (Superka & Hawke, 1982);

informed social criticism (Engle & Ochoa, 1988); social transformation (Hursh & Ross, 2000);

and citizenship as direct action (Ross, 2017).

Because of the diversity of viewpoints on the meaning of citizenship education—and thus

diversity in the purposes, content, and pedagogy of social studies education—social studies

educators have devoted considerable attention to identifying categories and descriptions of the

major traditions within the field (Vinson, 1998). Various schemes have been used by researchers

to make sense of the wide-ranging and often conflicting purposes. The most influential of these

was developed by Barr, Barth, and Shermis (1977), who grouped the various positions on the

social studies curriculum into three themes: cultural transmission, social science, and reflective

inquiry. Martorella’s (1996) framework extends the work of Barr, Barth, and Shermis, and
includes social studies education as (a) citizenship or cultural transmission, (b) social science, (c)

reflective inquiry, (d) informed social criticism, and (e) personal development.

Social studies as citizenship or cultural transmission is a tradition within social studies that

promotes student acquisition of certain nationalistic or “democratic” values via the teaching and

learning of discrete, factual pieces of information drawn primarily from the canon of Western

thought and culture. Content is based on the beliefs that certain factual information is important

to the practice of good citizenship; the nature of this information remains relatively constant over

time; and this information is best determined by a consensus of authorities and experts. From this

perspective, diversity of experience and multiculturalism are downplayed, ignored, or actively

challenged. Cultural and social unity are proclaimed and praised. In the curriculum, history and

literature dominate over such considerations as learner interests, the social sciences, social

criticism, and personal-subjective development. This perspective has long been dominant in the

field and has seen a resurgence in recent revisions to social studies curriculum in Texas and

Florida (Craig, 2006; Foner, 2010).

Social studies as social science is a tradition that evolved during the Cold War and directly

out of the post-Sputnik effort of social scientists to have a say in the design, development, and

implementation of the social studies curriculum. From this viewpoint, each individual social

discipline (e.g., political science, history, economics, geography) can be considered in terms of

its own distinct structure of concepts, theories, and modes of empirical inquiry. In educational

scholarship, this idea was most widely and successfully advanced by psychologist Jerome Bruner

and curriculum theorist J. J. Schwab; it formed, in part, the basis for what became known as the

“new social studies” (Fenton, 1966). In this tradition, citizenship education includes mastering

social science concepts, generalizations, and processes to build a knowledge base for later

6
learning. Social studies education provides students with the social scientific content and

procedures for successful citizenship, and for understanding and acting on the human condition

in its historical, contemporary, political, social, economic, and cultural contexts. In general,

instructional methods include those that develop within learners the characteristics of social

scientists, characteristics indicative of conceptual understandings as well as modes of strategic

inquiry (e.g., an anthropology course might focus conceptually on “culture” and

methodologically on “ethnography,” as was the case with the curriculum project Man: A Course

of Study). Social studies scholars have recently moved away from the more traditional social

studies as a social science approach to disciplinary structure and toward increasingly complex

interrogations of the importance of particular constructions of the specific social and historical

disciplines. From this newer perspective, academics, teachers, and students all have some

understanding of the structure of the various social sciences that relates to how they produce,

use, and disseminate disciplinary knowledge. These ideas of disciplinary conceptualizations

influence all individual modes of teaching and learning. Thus, it is impossible to teach social

studies according to any other approach without simultaneously maintaining some structural

comprehension of the knowledge and modes of inquiry of the various academic disciplines.

There are, however, competing and dynamic possibilities such that teachers and students may

each possess a unique orientation. Within the social studies, much of this contemporary work has

focused on history education and has emphasized multiple, complex instructional approaches,

constructivist understandings of meaning, the production and interpretation of text, historical

sense-making, and interdisciplinary conceptions of content.

Social studies as reflective inquiry is an approach to social studies developed originally out

of the work of John Dewey, particularly his socio-cognitive psychology and philosophical
pragmatism. From this position, citizenship remains the core of the social studies. But unlike

citizenship transmission, in which citizenship rests on the acquisition of preestablished values

and content, or social science, where citizenship involves the range of academic social

disciplines, citizenship here stresses relevant problem-solving, or meaningful decision-making

within a specific sociopolitical context. From this perspective, the purpose of social studies

education is nurturing within students abilities necessary for decision-making in some specified

sociopolitical context (e.g., liberal democratic capitalism), especially with respect to social and

personal problems that directly affect individual students. This presupposes a necessary

connection between democracy and problem-solving, one in which the key assumption behind

this link is that within the social-political system significant problems rarely imply a single, overt

and/or “correct” solution. Such problems frequently require decisions among several perceived

good solutions and/or several perceived bad solutions. Democracy thus necessitates a citizenry

capable of and competent in identifying problems; collecting, evaluating, and analyzing data; and

making reasoned decisions. Dewey’s work on democratic reflective thinking led to the evolution

of a powerful pragmatic theory of education, prominent during the early to middle post–World

War II era, spearheaded in social studies education by Hunt and Metcalf (1955) and Engle

(1963). By carrying forward Dewey’s legacy, these scholars offer an alternative to the social

sciences per se and to contemporary “back to basics” movements, one grounded in reflective

decision or, more precisely, problem-solving within a specific sociopolitical context.

The framework of social studies as informed social criticism is rooted in the work of social

reconstructionists (Counts, 1932) and related to the more recent work of “socialization-

countersocialization” theorists (Engle & Ochoa, 1988) and critical pedagogues. The

contemporary literature primarily addresses themes such as the hidden curriculum, sociocultural

8
transformation, and the nature and meaning of knowledge and truth. The work of Stanley and

Nelson (1986), and Hursh and Ross (2000) perhaps best represents the current status of this

tradition. From this standpoint the purpose of social studies is citizenship education aimed at

providing students opportunities for an examination, critique, and revision of past traditions,

existing social practices, and modes of problem-solving. It is a citizenship education directed

toward

social transformation [as] defined as the continuing improvement of . . . society by

applying social criticism and ethical decision making to social issues and using the

values of justice and equality as grounds for assessing the direction of social change

that should be pursued. (Stanley & Nelson, 1986, p. 530)

Social studies content in this tradition challenges the injustices of the status quo. It counters

knowledge that is generated by and supportive of society’s elites; rooted in logical positivism;

and consistent with social reproduction and the replication of a society that is classist, sexist, and

racist. Although it is specific to individual classroom settings and students, it can include, for

example, redressing the needs of the disadvantaged, increasing human rights conditions, and

stimulating environmental improvements. Moreover, teachers and students here may claim their

own knowledge—their content, their individual and cultural experiences—as legitimate.

Instruction methods in this tradition are situational but are oriented away from lecture and

information transmission and toward such processes as “reflective thinking” and the dialogical

method, socio-cultural criticism, textual analysis, deconstruction (Cherryholmes, 1982),

problem-solving, critical thinking, and social action.

Social studies as personal development reflects the belief that citizenship education should

consist of developing a positive self-concept and a strong sense of personal efficacy among
students. It is grounded in the idea that effective democratic citizenship involves understanding

one’s freedom to make choices as well as one’s obligation and responsibility to live with their

ultimate outcomes. Social studies content is selected and pursued by the students themselves so

that it is embedded in the nature, needs, and interests of the learners. Instructional methods are

shared between teachers and students, but include techniques such as Kilpatrick’s “project

method,” various forms of individualized instruction, and the Socratic method of dialogue. In

essence, this approach evolved out of the child-centered progressive education movement of the

early 20th century and within the settings of humanistic psychology and existential philosophy.

Its best-known contemporary advocates include Nel Noddings (1992) and in the social studies

scholars such as Pearl Oliner (1983).

Given the history of the field, it is not surprising that there is no consensus definition of

social studies, but the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), the largest professional

organization in the field describes social studies within the school curriculum as

the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic

competence. Within the school program, social studies provides coordinated,

systematic study drawing upon such disciplines as anthropology, archaeology,

economics, geography, history, law, philosophy, political science, psychology,

religion, and sociology, as well as appropriate content from the humanities,

mathematics, and natural sciences. The primary purpose of social studies is to help

young people make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens

of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world. (NCSS, n.d.)

Social Studies in the Classroom

10
The dominant pattern of social studies instruction is characterized by text-oriented, whole

group, teacher-centered approaches aimed at the transmission of “factual” information. Although

many social studies educators have long advocated instructional approaches that include active

learning and higher-order thinking within a curriculum that emphasizes gender equity,

multiculturalism, environmentalism, and informed social critique, the dominant pattern has

persisted. This pedagogy is primarily the result of socioeconomic and political realities that

produce conditions such as large class size, a lack of planning time for teachers, a culture of

teacher isolation, the expectation that the curriculum present the celebratory history (and myths)

of Western Civilization and the United States, and a strong emphasis on standardized test scores

as the only legitimate measure of educational achievement. The traditional pattern of social

studies instruction is, however, also sustained by the fact that it is easier for teachers to plan and

teach in accordance with a direct instruction approach that focuses on information transmission

and coverage of content and that encourages teachers’ low expectations of students.

Reinforcing these tendencies is the conservative restoration of the past two decades that has

produced the “educational excellence” and “curriculum standards” movements, which have

placed an emphasis on high-stakes testing and student recall and identification of social studies

facts, persons, and events, diverting attention away from the ways in which the conditions of

teaching and learning might be transformed to encourage critical, active, and democratic

citizenship (Vinson & Ross, 2001).

The social studies curriculum has been heavily influenced by policies of curriculum

centralization and standardized testing. The roots of the contemporary social studies curriculum

are found in the 1916 report of the NEA Committee on the Social Studies as well as the NEA

Committee of Ten (1893) and the AHA Committee of Seven (1899), which preceded it. The
current pattern of topics and courses for secondary social studies is largely the result of

recommendations of the 1916 Committee. The pattern of course offerings in social studies,

which has been consistent for most of the past century, reflects a time in which many students

completed only elementary or junior high school, thus United State history has typically been

offered in grades five, eight, and eleven. Despite the changing demographics of school

attendance the pattern of course offerings have remained relatively unchanged:

Kindergarten Self, school, community, home

Grade 1 Families

Grade 2 Neighborhoods

Grade 3 Communities

Grade 4 State history, geographic regions

Grade 5 United States history

Grade 6 World cultures, Western Hemisphere

Grade 7 World geography or world history

Grade 8 United States history

Grade 9 Civics or world cultures

Grade 10 World history

Grade 11 United States history

Grade 12 United States government

Historically, curriculum frameworks produced by states have often been accompanied by

mandated standardized tests that insure the alignment of classroom practices with state

frameworks. (Regents Examinations in New York State are one of the oldest examples of this

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approach.) These curriculum frameworks were usually intended to influence textbook publishers

and establish standards by which students, teachers, and schools will be assessed. In many cases,

state curriculum frameworks represented a major step toward state control of what knowledge is

of most worth. Although states deny that these frameworks amount to “curriculum,” their

practical effects are the equivalent. This is particularly true when frameworks, standardized tests,

and textbooks are aligned.

In most subject matter areas, there was a univocal call for and representation of curriculum

standards, in social studies there are no fewer than six sponsors of curriculum standards and 10

standards documents competing to influence the content and pedagogy of social education.

Curriculum standard sponsors, documents, and websites include:

• *NCSS: Expectations of Excellence: Curriculum Standards for Social

Studies[https://www.socialstudies.org/standards/execsummary]*

• *National Center for History in the Schools[http://www.nchs.ucla.edu/Standards/]*: (a)

Historical Thinking Standards, (b) History Standards for Grades K–4, (c) United States

History Content Standards, (d) World History Content Standards

• Center for Civic Education: *National Standards for Civics and

Government[http://new.civiced.org/resources/publications/resource-materials/national-

standards-for-civics-and-government]*

• National Council for Geographic Education: Geography for Life: *National Geography

Standards[http://ncge.org/geography-for-life]*, 2nd ed.

• Council for Economic Education: *National Content Standards in

Economics[http://www.councilforeconed.org/resource/voluntary-national-content-

standards-in-economics/]*
• American Psychological Association: *National Standards for High School Psychology

Curriculum[http://www.apa.org/education/k12/national-standards.aspx]*

The most generic curriculum standards are those created by the National Council for the

Social Studies (original released in 1994 and revised in 2010). The NCSS standards seek to

create a broad framework of themes within which local decisions can be made about specific

content. Specifically, the 10 thematic strands are the following:

• Culture

• Time, continuity, and change

• People, places, and environment

• Individual development and identity

• Individuals, groups, and institutions

• Power, authority, and governance

• Production, distribution, and society

• Science, technology, and society

• Global connections

• Civic ideals and practices

By contrast, the history standards prepared by the National Center for History in Schools,

are much more specific, especially for grades 5–12, and provide both a sense of how children

should think (historically) and about what. Both the NCSS and the national history standards are

vividly contrasted by those published by the American Psychological Association (APA) for the

teaching of high school psychology. APA standards mimic the study of psychology at the

collegiate level, including a focus on research methods and the sub-disciplines of psychology.

14
None of these standards documents accounts for the others—each is a closed system that

maintains the particular discipline intact. In addition, these multiple sets of standards, when

combined with state and provincial curriculum documents, identify too many educational

outcomes to be taught and learned in the time allocated, one of the fatal mistakes of standards-

based curriculum reform.

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in the United States are the most recent

incarnation of curriculum documents that define what will be taught and how it will be taught in

schools. CCSS reflects the same language and concerns as other standards-based reform efforts,

with an emphasis on so-called world class standards, 21st Century Skills, and a logic that sees

schools as serving the needs of corporate capitalism at the expense of educating individuals to

contribute to the commonwealth (Au, 2013).

Curriculum Controversy in Social Studies

There are many persistent dilemmas and controversies in social studies that will likely never be

resolved, for example, breadth versus depth of curricular scope, chronology versus issues-based

teaching, a focus on the dominant culture versus multiculturalism, and advocacy versus

neutrality of teachers. Although one has to be careful not to frame these issues in purely dualistic

terms, each of these cases described in this section illustrate clashes between social studies for

indoctrination (also called “citizenship transmission”) and social studies aimed at fostering

critical social thought.

The Rugg Textbook Controversy (1930s–1940s)


Textbooks have always played a key role in shaping the content and pedagogy in social studies

classrooms. As preeminent American historian Arthur Schlesinger Sr. put it in the early part of

the 20th century, “Whether we like it or not, the textbook not the teacher teaches the course.”

And although Schlesinger’s point of view vastly underestimates the role of the teacher, textbooks

are one of the most dominant forces in determining what gets taught and how.

In 1929, Harold O. Rugg, a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, published

the first commercial volume in a series of social science textbooks entitled Man and His

Changing Society. Between 1937 and 1942, Rugg experienced what has been called the greatest

censorship campaign ever to be waged against a textbook author. Rugg was affiliated with the

social reconstructionist movement, which questioned the prevailing notions of social Darwinism

and laissez-faire capitalism. Social reconstructionists did not call for the overthrow of the

government or the economic system; rather, they argued that the social and economic systems

required careful planning and execution to ensure that social justice would prevail. Rugg and the

social reconstructionists believed that schools were a key factor in the pursuit of social change

and that the individualistic self-interest promoted by the traditional curriculum and its emphasis

on rote learning of conventional subjects needed to be replaced by an innovative,

interdisciplinary curriculum emphasizing the interrelations of citizens, as well as a social action

component encouraging individuals to work cooperatively in order to have a positive influence

on society.

Rugg said, “To keep issues out of the school program is to keep thought out of it,” and

insisted that schools should prepare students for active participation in democratic decision-

making. The aim of his textbooks was to teach students to be aware and critical of injustices in

American society and to become active participants in bringing about needed social change.

16
Rugg insisted that “pupils must learn to think critically about modern problems.” In a review

of the textbooks, historian Carl Wittke wrote that Rugg “emphasizes the need for tolerance,

which he defines as ‘open-mindedness’ and ‘critical mindedness’” (Sabine, Holcombe,

Macmahon, Wittke & Lynd, 1942, p. 25). Rugg’s Teacher’s Guide advised teachers to make

constant use of phrases such as “Why do you think so?,” “Are you open-minded about the

matter?,” “What is your authority?,” and “Have you considered all sides of the case?” as part of

their pursuit of “tolerant understanding” (Nash, 1995, 40).

The Rugg textbooks intended to foster critical thinking rather than conveying received

knowledge. For example, end of the chapter questions in A History of American Government and

Culture, including the following: “In considering each period of history we shall ask: How

democratic was the government? Who had the privilege and responsibility of voting? Who were

excluded from voting or holding office?”

The textbooks as also emphasized “social action inquiry.” In An Introduction to the

Problems of American Culture, Rugg encouraged students to explore their local communities

with the hope that they would identify and take action to ameliorate social ills to

organize a survey of life in your village, town, or city. Study the history of your

town, gathering together copies of old records. Try to understand the people who

founded and developed it into what it is today. Try to understand the

neighborhoods, the family life, social organizations, the real government. Study the

needs and try to learn how to improve the community in which you live. (Rugg,

1931, p. 14)

Some of the themes addressed in the Rugg textbooks included the fragile nature of the economy,

a critique of laissez-faire capitalism, the unfair distribution of wealth and income, the causes and
consequences of high unemployment levels, class conflict, immigration, rapid cultural change,

and imperialism. In his junior high school textbook Citizenship and Civic Affairs, he indicated

that in 1929, 36 American families had more than $5 million to spend, while more than 5 million

families had less than $1,000 on which to live. He illustrated the contrasted life styles and

opportunities of a prototype “Mr. Very Poor Man,” “Mr. Average White-Collar Man,” and “Mr.

Prosperous Business Man,” the latter are “able to afford beauty as well as comfort” in his home.

Man and His Changing Society was a highly successful textbook series. According to Rugg,

5.5 million copies of the textbooks, student and teaching guides were sold to nearly 5,000

schools. Peak annual sales approached 300,000 copies. The success of the textbooks has been

credited to their innovative form, style, and extensive content—the same characteristics that

created the controversy and ultimately led to the demise of the books in the 1940s.

The Hearst newspaper corporation, the advertising and manufacturing industries, the

American Legion, and other powerful interests and patriotic societies such as the Daughters of

the American Revolution attacked the Rugg textbooks for, according to Time magazine,

“picturing the U.S. as a land of unequal opportunity, and giving a class-conscious account of the

framing of the U.S. Constitution” (Evans, 2007, p. 61)

In 1937, B. C. Forbes attempted to have the books removed from the Englewood Cliffs,

New Jersey schools, calling the books “un-American, socialistic, and subversive” (Bagenstos,

1977, p. 33). Although Forbes was initially unsuccessful, he used his column in the Hearst

newspapers and his position as founder of Forbes magazine to spark a grassroots, public

campaign against the Rugg textbooks (Boesenberg & Poland, 2001). Forbes and the Hearst

papers felt threatened by, among other things, the textbooks’ portrayal the newspaper industry as

a powerful force in society. For example, one Rugg text states,

18
The largest newspaper chain is that controlled by William Randolph Hearst . . . So

great is the combined circulation of these newspapers that it is estimated that they

enter daily one home out of four in the United States . . . Newspaper publishing is

a business, and newspapers are printed for profit. What they contain is essentially

what the publishers think the American people want. (Rugg, 1931, p. 333).

Forbes called the books “viciously un-American” and claimed that Rugg “distorts facts to

convince the oncoming generation that America’s private-enterprise system is wholly inferior

and nefarious” (Spring, 1991, p. 193)

The National Manufacturers Association produced the so-called Robey Report (written by

Ralph W. Robey, an assistant professor of banking at Columbia University), which reviewed 600

social studies textbooks and labeled a substantial portion of them as “suspicious” because they

were critical of the “free enterprise” system and the current form of American government.

Robey said

the whole emphasis (of Rugg’s materials) is placed on the one-third of the

population who are underfed rather than the two-thirds who are well-fed . . . Yet in

most instances you don’t get a leftist point of view; if you had an out-and-out leftist

slant it would be much simpler to handle. What you get is a critical attitude that is

destructive in its influence. (cited in Rippa, 1958, p. 54)

In 1939, the Advertising Federation of America and its affiliates—offended that the Rugg

textbooks contained lessons about why consumers should look out for false advertising claims—

launched an anti-Rugg propaganda campaign with a pamphlet entitled “Facts You Should Know

About Anti-Advertising Propaganda in School Textbooks” (Spring, 1991). One of the final

blows for Rugg’s textbooks came in 1940, when the American Legion demanded that his
textbooks should be banished from the schools in an American Legion Magazine article titled

“Treason in the Textbooks,” which was accompanied by a cartoon depicting Rugg as a slant-

eyed devil and innocent schoolchildren wearing pink-shaded glasses (Spring, 1991).

These national organizations fomented grassroots protests, which resulted in the removal of

the textbooks from schools across the country (and book burnings in Ohio). In defense of their

profitable series, Rugg’s publisher, Ginn and Company, financed his travel to communities

where the textbooks were under attack. Rugg was met by many protesters who admitted to never

reading the books, but caught up in anti-communist hysteria of the times nevertheless made false

and ludicrous claims about the books and their author. Ironically, Rugg was considered a

moderate among the social reconstructionist thinkers and was antipathetic to the class-conflict

approach of some of his Marxist colleagues.

Despite the continued acclaim for the textbooks by many educators and the supportive

efforts by organizations such as the School Book Publishers, The National Council for the Social

Studies, and the American Civil Liberties Union by the early 1940s school boards across the

country were ordering the removal of the Rugg series. Sales declined to 21,000 in 1945. A small

number of the texts, however, remained in use and, in 1951, an article in Reader’s Digest

branded Rugg and fellow social reconstructionist George S. Counts as “evil geniuses” (Flynn,

1951). Rugg’s books were condemned for “tricky statistics,” for being “heavily charged with

socialist propaganda” (Marsden, 1991. In the late 1950s, when the Rugg textbooks were no

longer in use, the American Legion was complaining that the seeds they had planted remained

“like hardy germs” of the new “golden staphylococcus—they’re highly resistant to all known

antibodies” (Kuhn, 1958, p. 20).

20
Although other social studies textbooks suffered similar attacks as Rugg’s, most notably the

Building America series, which was published by the Association for Supervision and

Curriculum Development in the 1940s, the Rugg episode remains the most notable because of its

lasting impact on the textbook industry, which has since adopted a highly conservative stance

toward design and content of their products.

“The New Social Studies” (1960s–1970s)

In 1963, a major federally funded, multi-pronged curriculum effort known as Project Social

Studies was born. The New Social Studies (as the project is commonly known) aimed to

transform social studies curriculum and teaching by (a) stressing concepts and generalizations

from all social sciences; and (b) encouraging active learning through discovery, inquiry, and

inductive approaches to teaching.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Man: A Course of Study (MACOS), which

is perhaps the most well known and controversial of the two-dozen New Social Studies Projects.

First made available to schools in 1969, MACOS was a cultural anthropology course designed for

fifth- and sixth-grade students and included films, booklets, records, maps, games, and other

materials, such as field notes, journals, poems, songs and stories, construction exercises, and

observation projects that allowed children to learn in varied ways. Within five years, MACOS

was in use in 1,700 schools in 47 states. MACOS examined the nature of humans as a species and

the forces that molded and continued to shape humanity. MACOS exposed students to the way

others lived, introduced them to the concept of culture, and attempted to enable students to think

about human behavior in a more general way and to appreciate cultural diversity by

comprehending the common humanity of all people. Recurrent themes included the concepts of
life cycle, learning, parental care, adaptation and selection, aggression, affection and love, social

organization, language, technology, and values and beliefs. These themes are repeatedly

examined from different perspectives throughout the course.

Three questions recurred throughout the curriculum: What is human about human beings?

How did they get that way? How can they be made more so? Students explored these questions

first by examining life cycles of salmon, herring gulls, and baboons. The second part of the

course focused on the Netsilik Eskimos (Netsilik Inuit, or Netsilingmiut) in the Pelly Bay region

of Canada. The Netsilik material emphasized the uniqueness of human beings and the basic

similarities that unite all races, ethnic groups, and cultures.

MACOS came under widespread criticism, which began with attacks by right-wing groups

such as the John Birch Society and creationists who opposed the teaching of evolution. School

districts and teachers using the MACOS were harassed, and a media campaign against MACOS

was mounted. Critics claimed that because MACOS was a secular curriculum—that is, it claimed

that human values and behavior are determined by specific environmental forces—it was

disrespectfully anti-religious; that the curriculum dehumanized people and humanized animals;

that, by introducing students to the values of another culture, the course undermined the moral

foundations of American society; and that teachers were instructed to concentrate on examples of

cannibalism, infanticide, and senilicide until these acts were understandable and acceptable to

American children.

In the mid-1970s, NSF requested funds from Congress for preparation of teachers to use the

curriculum. During what was to be a routine hearing before a subcommittee of the House

Science and Technology Committee, Congressmen John B. Conlan (R-AZ) and Robert E.

Bauman (R-MD) complained that some parents were protesting that the MACOS program

22
conveyed what they saw as disturbing and un-American values. Conlan said that the program

“brainwashes children with a dishonest view of man,” and Congress subsequently canceled

MACOS funding.

Jerome Bruner, the cognitive psychologist who was the primary developer of MACOS

attributed the demise of the program to a “storm of anti-intellectualism, primitive patriotism, and

[the] ‘back-to-basics’ [movement].” He concluded that the study of the nature of humans cannot

be address in schools without reconsidering how schools reflect society. Bruner stated

If I had it all to do over again, and if I knew how, I would put my energies into

reexamining how schools express the agenda of the society and how that agenda is

formulated and translated by schools. That it seems to me would be the properly

subversive way to proceed. (Bruner, 1983, p. 198)

The National History Standards Controversy (1990s)

Over a half-century after the height of the Rugg textbook controversy, a similar ideological clash

occurred over the federally funded national history standards project. In the 1990s, standards-

based educational reform began sweeping the nation, with the backing of political liberals and

conservatives as well the national leadership of corporate America and the teachers’ unions. The

National History Standards developed by Gary B. Nash, a renowned social historian, and his

team at the National Center for History in the Schools at University of California, Los Angeles,

became a lightning rod for criticism from cultural conservatives as well as progressive leftists.

The initial draft of the Standards for teaching United States and world history were viciously

attacked by right-wing ideologues (including Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan, George Will,

Lynne Cheney, G. Gordon Liddy, and Newt Gingrich), rejected by the U.S. Senate 99–1, and
denounced by the Clinton administration, because they judged the standards were too

compensatory of traditionally marginalized groups.

Before a gathering of the American Legion, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole said that

“The purpose of the National History Standards seems not to be to teach our children certain

essential facts about our history, but to denigrate America’s story while sanitizing and glorifying

other cultures.” Dole declared that the work of the Standards’ authors “threatens us as surely as

any foreign power ever has” (Nash, Crabtree & Dunn, 1997, p. 245-246) Clinton’s Secretary of

Education, Richard Riley, said “The President does not believe and I do not believe that these

Standards should form the basis for a history curriculum in our schools” (Vinovskis, 1999, p. 44)

The attacks on the National History Standards were, essentially, opposition to teaching and

research of social history, a history that challenged the traditional grand narrative of “great white

men.” The National History Standards (and social history in general) were subject to attack

because they were considered as not celebratory enough. Nash described critics of the Standards

as wanting “a stainless steel version of history, a consensual past” (Nash, 1995, p. 46). By

contrast, the social history that informed the Standards covered episodes of the American

experience that could not be absorbed into “happy-face history.” Key critics, like Lynne Cheney

(who was head of the National Endowment for the Humanities when it funded the National

History Standards project), described them as a “grim and gloomy” monument to political

correctness (Sullivan, 2016, para. 22). She pronounced the Standards project a disaster for giving

insufficient attention to Robert E. Lee and the Wright brothers and far too much to obscure

figures (such as Harriet Tubman) or patriotically embarrassing episodes (such as the Ku Klux

Klan and McCarthyism) and described the Standards as “the most egregious example to date of

24
encouraging students to take a benign view of—or totally overlook—the failings of other

cultures while being hypercritical of the one in which they live” (Sullivan, 2016, para. 22).

Although cultural conservatives led the charge, they were not the only critics of the

Standards project. Representing the views of many progressive social studies educators, historian

Michael Whelan (1992) argued that the U.S. Senate rejection of the National History Standards

was right, but for the wrong reasons. Whelan argued that the most pressing problem for history

education is that the subject matter is essentially limitless, but instructional time is not. Whelan

posed key curricular questions, such as: What topics will be included in or excluded from study?

On what basis should such decisions be made? Who is in the best position to make these

decisions?

Whelan (1992) argued that while the broad-based national consensus building process used

by Nash and colleagues gave the impression of thoroughness and fairness, but consensus

building is not the best way to determine the historical understandings most worth knowing and

teaching. Instead, decentralized curricular decision-making is much more consistent with the

fundamentally interpretative nature of historical study. History is not a matter of facts, but a

matter of deciding what the facts mean (Whelan, 2006). In addition, the notion of national

standards is based on the misleading assumption that the study of history is simply about the past

rather than properly understood as about the relationship between the past and the present. Leftist

critics of the National History Standards (and the myriad of standards projects that emerged in

the 1990s) also highlighted how, when coupled with the mandated high-stakes tests, the

curriculum standards quickly morphed into “official knowledge,” which narrowed the range of

content taught in schools and deskilled teachers by making it nearly impossible for individual

teachers to make specific curricular decisions.


Has Social Studies Gone Wrong? (2000s)

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, whose publications include Where Did Social Studies Go

Wrong? (WDSSGW) and Terrorists, Despots, and Democracy: What Our Children Need to

Know, has sponsored one of the most visible recent efforts at social studies reform. These

publications have sparked an aggressive and vigorous debate regarding the nature of social

studies education. The authors of WDSSGW believe, among other things, that the current social

studies curriculum “eschews substantive content and subordinates a focus on effective practice to

educational and political correctness” (Leming, Ellington & Porter-Magee, 2003, p. ii).

In his foreword to WDSSGW, Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Fordham Foundation and

former assistant secretary of education in the Reagan administration, states that an essential tenet

of any decent social studies curriculum for young Americans is that “democracy’s survival

depends on transmitting to each new generation the political vision of liberty and equality before

the law that unites us as Americans . . .” (Finn, 2003, p. VI). It is on this crucial point of

transmission, and its primary role in education for democracy, that WDSSGW contrasts with the

cases previously described.

Even before the concept of social studies was invented, schools had been indoctrinating its

youth; no other single factor has so characterized textbooks, curriculum materials, or classroom

instruction. Teaching as “transmission of content” is alive and well in the contemporary social

studies classrooms. However, indoctrination and transmission that results in an emphasis on

artificially separate subjects, rote memorization of facts, and uncritical transmission of cultural

values are not, in fact, essential tenets of teaching for democracy, but rather just the opposite.

The current debate about social studies curriculum, and its incumbent tensions, indicates the

need for social studies educators to begin a serious conversation that can help the field chart a

26
deliberative, divergent, and flexible course for its curriculum. If the field social studies is to

continue to evolve and its members ought to focus on communicating areas of agreement as well

as articulating philosophical differences.

The position of the self-described social studies “contrarians,” as presented in WDSSGW,

rejects the pluralism of the field of social studies and deliberation as the means to democracy. An

examination of the table of contents of WDSSGW is illustrative of the desire of its authors to

close off and limit the discussion: chapters with titles such as “The Training of Idiots,” Garbage

In, Garbage Out,” and “Ignorant Activists” reflect a perspective that implies an inherent

correctness and allows little room for scholarly discussion or reasoned disagreement (Ross &

Marker 2005).

As people debate the reform of social studies, they should not move rashly to adopt a

singular curricular perspective that is driven by ideology and special interests. Rather, they need

to take the time to consider conscientiously a pluralism of viewpoints on social studies reform

that could help to reinvent the social studies curriculum and make it relevant and flexible to meet

the unknown demands of the future. A way to assure that a pluralism of views on the nature and

purposes of social studies education remains beneficial, and not factionalizing or destructive, is

to embrace deliberation as the core idea of creating, maintaining, and teaching for democracy.

As these curriculum controversies and history of the field illustrate social studies is full of

contradictions. It harbors possibilities for inquiry and social criticism, liberation, and

emancipation. Social studies could be a site that enables young people to analyze and understand

social issues in a holistic way—finding and tracing relations and interconnections both present

and past in an effort to build meaningful understandings of a problem, its context, and history; to

envision a future where specific social problems are resolved; and take action to bring that vision
into existence. Social studies has the potential to be a place within the curriculum where students

learn to speak for themselves and strive toward an equal degree of participation and better future.

In practice, however, social studies has been and continues to be profoundly conversing in

nature, whose primary aim is reproduction of the existing social order.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

Further Reading

Case, R., Clark, P., & Critical Thinking Consortium. (2016). The anthology of social studies:

Issues and strategies for elementary teachers. Vancouver, BC: Pacific Educational Press.

Case, R., Clark, P., & Critical Thinking Consortium. (2016). The anthology of social studies:

Issues and strategies for secondary teachers. Vancouver, BC: Pacific Educational Press.

Chandler, P. T., & Hawley, T. S. (Eds.). (2017). Race lessons: Using inquiry to teach about

race in social studies. Charlotte, NC: Information Age.

Crocco, M. S., & Davis, O. L., Jr. (Eds.). (1999). “Bending the future to their will”: Civic

women, social education, and democracy. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

DeLeon, A. P., & Ross, E. W. (Eds.). (2010). Critical theories, radical pedagogies, and social

education: New perspectives for social studies education. Leiden, Netherlands: Sense.

Evans, R. W. (2007). This happened in America: Harold Rugg and the censure of social

studies. Charlotte, NC: Information Age.

Evans, R. W. (2015). Schooling corporate citizens: How accountability reform has damaged

civic education and undermined democracy. New York, NY: Routledge.

28
Krutka, D. G., Whitlock, A. M. M., & Helmsing, M. (Eds.). (2018). Keywords in the social

studies: Concepts & conversations. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Nash, G. B. (1995). The history standards controversy and social history. Journal of Social

History, 29, 39-49.

Nash, G. B., Crabtree, C. A., & Dunn, R. E. (2000). History on trial: Culture wars and the

teaching of the past. New York, NY: Vintage Books.

Ross, E. W. (Ed.). (2014). The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems, and possibilities

(4th ed.). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Russell, W. B., III (Ed.). (2012). Contemporary social studies: An essential reader. Charlotte,

NC: Information Age Press.

Schmidt, S. J. (2010). *Queering social studies: The role of social studies in normalizing

citizens and sexuality in the common

good[http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2010.10473429]*. Theory & Research in Social

Education, 38(3), 314–335.

Shear, S. B., Tschida, C. M., Bellows, E., Buchanan, L. B., & Saylor, E. E. (2018).

(Re)Imagining elementary social studies: A controversial issues reader. Charlotte, NC:

Information Age.

Westheimer, J. (2015). What kind of citizen? Educating our children for the common good.

New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Woyshner, C. (2015). Histories of social studies and race: 1865–2000. London, UK: Palgrave

Macmillan.

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