The State of Social Studies Education: Collaboratively Moving Forward

National Council for Social Studies (NCSS) and Thinking Nation will host a special webinar that reviews a recent white paper published in Education Week and commissioned by Thinking Nation. The survey data gave statistics behind the anecdotes many of us know: 1. While Social Studies is deemed as critical for democracy, it is not viewed as a priority in most school districts; 2. Professional Development does not currently effectively support social studies teachers; 3. Social Studies as a discipline is not effectively vertically aligned in most contexts.

In this program, NCSS and Thinking Nation will discuss these findings, along with other NCSS-supported research on K-12 student and educator experiences in social studies classrooms. We also are happy to have Dr. Bill Daggett of the Successful Practices Network join us for part of the webinar to provide a broader perspective about how social studies education can contribute to a broader goal of education reform. Our goal is to share how we can collaboratively work to better prioritize and resource social studies in all education contexts. This program will bring awareness of key solutions to strengthening social studies education to a diverse set of stakeholders in education. With 2024 being an election year and America’s 250th anniversary quickly approaching, we must work together to utilize our discipline in order to preserve our constitutional democracy.
We hope that our conversation will kick off Civic Learning Week with exciting prospects about what the wider education community can do collectively.

This program makes an excellent “lunch and learn” for Central and Eastern Time participants, and a great “mid-morning coffee break” for Pacific and Mountain Time participants!