ABSTRACT
Productive policy directions begin by acknowledging common fundamental purposes of history and social studies education: those of engaged and critical citizenship. The "problems of democracy" course suggested by the Committee on Social Studies was an early example of this, and the current approach to social studies in the Alberta provincial curriculum is a contemporary instance. Alberta defines social studies as: the study of people in relation to each other and to their world. It is an issues-focused and inquiry-based interdisciplinary subject that draws upon history, geography, ecology, economics, law, philosophy, political science, and other social science disciplines. Social studies foster students' understanding of and involvement in practical and ethical issues that face their communities and humankind. Curricular organization across the Canadian provinces illustrates a range of ways in which history and social studies are linked, or not, in policy. As the above quote indicates, Alberta holds the most thorough commitment to social studies as a synthetic subject.
