Social Studies: It’s Time to ReInvest

With digital citizenship on our minds and a presidential election on the horizon, we believe it’s time to take a closer look at social studies instruction. A fixture of our national curriculum for a century, its changing emphases reveal the evolving priorities of American society.

Increasingly, the dynamics of power and identity shape both our national conversations and our 21st-century perspective on the past. As students engage in these complex discussions, they must learn to analyze and understand current events as well as historical context. Teachers, district leaders and policymakers can help by making sure that students have access to trustworthy, age-appropriate resources that both reflect students’ own experiences and spark curiosity about other people and places.

With that in mind, and to further explore what it means to teach social studies today, we’ve put together this collection of articles and images—and asked a few crucial questions.