ABSTRACT
In most American elementary schools, the primary-grade social studies curriculum addresses three major goals: (1) socializing students concerning prosocial attitudes and behavior as members of the classroom community, (2) introducing them to map concepts and skills, and (3) introducing them to basic social knowledge drawn mostly from history, geography, and the social sciences. All three of these instructional goals and related content emphases are featured in state and district curriculum guides for elementary social studies, but they are not equally well addressed in the resource materials commonly made available to elementary teachers.
