In 1992, the Board of Directors of National Council for the Social Studies, the primary membership
organization for social studies educators, adopted the following definition: Social studies is 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 develop the ability to make informed and
reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world.
Social studies is taught in kindergarten through grade 12 in schools across the nation. As a field of
study, social studies may be more difficult to define than is a single discipline such as history or geography,
precisely because it is multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary and because it is sometimes taught in one
class (perhaps called “social studies”) and sometimes in separate discipline-based classes within a
department of social studies. Two main characteristics, however, distinguish social studies as a field of
study: it is designed to promote civic competence; and it is integrative, incorporating many fields of
endeavor. In specific and more detailed terms, these distinctions mean the following:
1. Social studies programs have as a major purpose the promotion of civic competence-which is the
knowledge, skills, and attitudes required of students to be able to assume “the office of citizen” (as Thomas
Jefferson called it) in our democratic republic. Although civic competence is not the only responsibility of
social studies nor is it exclusive to the field, it is more central to social studies than any other subject
area in the schools