The Purpose Of Social Studies Education In The Elementary School

Today public schools are faced with the great challenge of developing outstanding programs of instruction in social studies. Responsibilities of citizenship continue to increase as human problems become more complex both at home and abroad. The rapid growth of man\u27s knowledge is basic disciplines and swiftly-moving changes in human affairs offer opportunities heretofore not possible in selecting content, activities, and materials for inclusion in the program. Many educators agree that we can no longer think of social studies as the study of history, geography, economics, or civics. These subjects may be looked upon as the parent disciplines of social studies. John Jaralimek stated that social studies education concerns itself with man himself: man the culture maker, man being shaped by his culture; man in historical perspective, man in the contemporary world; man that most fascinating of all creatures who can make his home anywhere on this planent or even beyond this planet and who in a variety of ingenious ways can devise means of meeting his basic needs and developing a social system. (13) . STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM An investigation of the effectiveness of social studies education in the elementary school. THE PURPOSE OF THE STUDY The purpose of this study is to review the available literature that pertains to several authors views on teaching social studies education in elementary schools. J. Michaelis (15), stated that social studies education is an important objective for the elementary school. A social science education is intended to make the power of mature scholarship available to children. An obvious corellary is that the teacher himself must deepen his own educational background in the social sciences and in fact, become both a social scientist and an educator if he is to teach proficiently in this new period of rethinking and revising the social studies