ABSTRACT
Although critics have sometimes argued that schools should teach separate disciplines such as history rather than integrated fields such as social studies, there are sound cognitive and disciplinary reasons for teaching history in the larger context of social studies. First of all, disciplinary boundaries are increasingly permeable. Instead of being neatly defined as historians, anthropologists, political scientists, or the like, modern scholars often tend to identify themselves with the problems or issues they address. Because so many of these issues cross traditional disciplinary boundaries, an integrated social studies approach is often a more authentic context for historical study. As we noted in Chapter 1, such contexts support students’ sense-making in history. More authentic contexts provide examples of history-in-action rather than of history separated from action; students can see how historical thinking grows from and contributes to problem solving in the real world.
