ABSTRACT
Third, a more specific rationale for limiting our review to cognitive studies in these two particular social studies subject areas involves our attempt to draw from the work being done to begin shedding light on a progression of thought processes reqUired to move from being a beginning leamer in a social studies domain to the development of greater expertise. If cognitive research can point in a direction of what learning looks like as growth in, say, thinking historically or geographically, it has the potential to speak to the psychology of teaching these school subjects (although some would argue that we are some distance from that accomplishment). Understanding a relationship between learning and teaching in this way has the potential of bearing fruit for constructing theories of domain-specific cognitive development (Alexander, 2000).
