---
title: "Social studies"
chunk: 3/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_studies"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:58:44.656804+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

==== Individuals, groups, and institutions ====
Learners will understand how groups and institutions influence people's everyday lives. They will be able to understand how groups and institutions are formed, maintained, and changed.

==== Power, authority, and governance ====
Learners will understand the forms of power, authority, and governance from historical to contemporary times. They will become familiar with the purpose of power, and with the limits that power has on society.

==== Production, distribution, and consumption ====
Learners will understand the organization of goods and services, ultimately preparing the learner for the study of greater economic issues. The study of economic issues, and with it, financial literacy, is intended to increase students' knowledge and skills when it comes to participating in the economy as workers, producers, and consumers.

==== Science, technology, and society ====
Learners will understand the relationship between science, technology, and society, understanding the advancement through the years and the impacts they have had.

==== Global connections ====
Learners will understand the interactive environment of global interdependence and will understand the global connections that shape the everyday world.

==== Civic ideals and practices ====
Learners will understand the rights and responsibilities of citizens and learn to grow in their appreciation of active citizenship. Ultimately, this helps their growth as full participants in society. Some of the values that civics courses strive to teach are an understanding of the right to privacy, an appreciation for diversity in American society, and a disposition to work through democratic procedures. One of the curricular tools used in the field of civics education is a simulated congressional hearing. Social studies educators and scholars distinguish between different levels of civic engagement, from the minimal engagement or non-engagement of the legal citizen to the most active and responsible level of the transformative citizen. Within social studies, the field of civics aims to educate and develop learners into transformative citizens who not only participate in a democracy, but challenge the status quo in the interest of social justice.

== References ==

Giddens, A., & Sutton, P. W. (2021). Sociology (9th ed.). Polity Press.

== External links ==
The Social Studies in Secondary Education
National Council for the Social Studies
Changes in Social Studies
History in Social Studies
Social Civics, published in New York by The MacMillan Company, 1922.