Social StudieS Education, History of

The reports of the National Education Association's (NEA) Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Schools (CRSE) called for the social studies as an integrated area of study in secondary schools in 1916. As part of that commission, the NEA had created a separate Committee on the Social Studies whose members defined the area as comprising subjects with content related to the development of human society. Examples of such subjects included history, geography, economics, and political science. According to this report, the aim of the social studies was to cultivate good citizenship. Although the members of the committee wanted students to develop loyalty to their cities, their states, and to their nation, they hoped the students would temper such narrow patriotism with a sense of membership ...