Social Studies Education and Diversity

Social studies education, broadly speaking, aims to help students become informed, active, and effective citizens in a diverse democratic society. For the purposes of this entry, diversity includes cultural, ethnic, exceptional learning needs, gender, linguistic, racial, religious, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic class diversity. This entry considers the goals of social studies education and the role of diversity in addressing these goals. It focuses primarily on examining social studies education and diversity from a curriculum and instruction perspective at the K–12 level. Specifically, this entry analyzes diversity's role in four common social studies education courses (civics/government, economics, geography, and history) across the United States. Although social studies teacher preparation for diversity is briefly addressed, this topic is more thoroughly examined elsewhere in this encyclopedia.