| This study explores the political economy of the social studies curriculum with special emphasis on the linkage between curriculum development and the evolution of American society from an agrarian based structure, to an industrial, corporate based structure, and finally to a current post-industrial transitional system. The study analyzes four models of citizenship education, including (1) citizenship transmission, (2) social science, (3) reflective thinking and (4) critical inquiry.; Since its inception, public schooling in the United States has sought to prepare its students to be good citizens. Initially, school curricula were locally determined, and uniformity of pedagogy was minimal. Beginning with the Public School Movement (1830-60), attempts were made to design instruction around a core of citizenship values, both political and economic in nature. This has been well documented in the work of Kaestle, Tyack, and Karier. This core of values eventually became the heart of the social studies curriculum. In time, this core was transformed by those working in the emerging social sciences and by those heir to the progressive tradition.; The study found that even though changes in the agenda for teaching values embedded in the social studies curricula in the United States, specifically citizenship education, were affected periodically by changing liberal/conservative shifts, these paled in importance to long term value shifts in response to the changing economy. |
