ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how and to what extent education policy unites the discipline of history to the academic subject of social studies. One of the key characteristics of the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework is that it clearly defines the roles of the disciplines in social studies. The discipline of history also provided a roadmap for inquiry, setting forth a broad outline for what inquiry looks like when applied with disciplinary rigor in K–12 settings. Education policy serves to channel educators' discourses and directions. As a social studies policy tool, the C3 Framework presses educators to construct social studies as an inquiry process, whereby the disciplines of civics, geography, economics, and history comparably allow students to uncover questions about our social world. While enactments of policy could vary, the C3 Framework's intentions are clear: to provide a fruitful union of the four social studies disciplines that honors the integrity and uniqueness of each of them.
